“You can live a healthy life with management of NPD.”

My most prominent NPD symptom is the excessive need for admiration. It takes up a lot of my thoughts throughout the days, and determines a lot of my actions. My other symptoms sort of come secondary to that one. That was probably the first symptom to develop, too, with it starting all the way back when I was maybe 13 or 14 years old.

My need for admiration will have me putting off eating, sleeping, cleaning my house, doing laundry, going out etc, just so I can post on IG to get a few likes. It also has me striving to overachieve at work so that I’ll get recognition, like maybe an Employee of the Month badge. The overachieving leaves me exhausted and burnt out.

I think I realized it was a problem the third time I got extremely burnt out from my work habits. I was probably 20 or so. It took me a long time to realize it was a problem.

The only trait I definitely don’t have at this point in my life would be interpersonal exploitation. Honestly never really related to this trait at all. Even before my ego death, I wasn’t really more interpersonally exploitative than a non-narc. Ego death is a complete narcissistic collapse; a collapse of identity, sense of self, beliefs, etc. It is enlightenment for narcissists, but it is extremely distressing and can take a long time to recover from.

My psychiatrist actually said to me, “So how do your partners handle you being a narcissist?” And I was like, “What?!” We had never before discussed this possibility. I was taken aback. The next day I called the office and told them I’d like an assessment. We set up an appointment and I sat down with my psychiatrist and we did the assessment. At my next appointment she told me I was diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

I’m currently in a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy program. It seems to be helping me discover what I really need from life, more than just admiration and recognition. I’m only a couple of weeks into it, so I have yet to see how it improves my symptoms long-term.

My partners have never noticed the NPD until I tell them. When I tell them, the reaction is more often, “What?!” than, “Oh yeah, that makes sense.” The only way it’s impacted my relationships is that I tend to get jealous of my partner’s success and social standing. This then sort of pushes me away from the partner that I’m jealous of.

I wish people knew that someone having NPD doesn’t make them an abuser. We can live healthy lives with NPD. Like, yes it’s a lot of work, but just as you can live a healthy life with management of schizophrenia or bipolar, you can live a healthy life with management of NPD. Personality disorders are absolutely treatable and manageable. People often associate PD’s with the inability to look at oneself critically and the inability to change, but that’s just factually incorrect.

My NPD has made me a great person. Because I always have to be ‘the best’, so I strive really hard to heal and be ‘better’ than I used to be. I’m conflicted on if I would even WANT to live without it. There are so many negatives of having this PD, but I also like who it’s made me into.

I think if you would have asked me if I’d want to live a life without NPD when I was first diagnosed, I would have said yes in a heartbeat. Now, I’m not so sure. I guess I’d have to say no, because in my striving to always be ‘the best’ I have actually become The Best (version of myself). I’m proud to have NPD because of the motivation that it gives me to be better.