“I am the result of a strive for utter perfection.”

I was diagnosed with a Cluster B personality disorder in December 2020. The only category I scored in that was high enough to qualify for a diagnosis (I maxed it out), was NPD.

Now let me tell you this. I have always known that I was different. I had a far from normal childhood. I don’t even like to talk about or think about my past, so much so, that I refer to “my past self” as having those memories (not me).

Since I can remember, even around four years old, my past self was not happy. For a while they regressed into fantasy, dreaming of life in which they were actually paid attention to, recognized, adored and loved.

But one day they got so tired of being invisible that they decided to make themselves the main character. To turn themselves into something nobody could look away from, even if it meant editing every single thing about themselves, from the way they walked and talked, down to their personality and looks. From that moment on began a long journey of hidden inauthenticity.

My past is ridden with trying to become perfect. A childhood spent only surviving. Years upon years of nonexistence, of a desperate starvation to be noticed even for a second. Admired, even for a moment. I am the result of a strive for utter perfection. I believed I had succeeded in achieving perfection. But when I had a psychedelic ego death in January 2021, I realized I was endlessly yearning. My entire self concept was shattered by drugs one fateful night without my consent. That’s when I truly became self aware, and took a second look at my diagnosis.

I realized how much pain I was secretly in. I had to reshape my entire worldview, as I had developed PTSD from what I considered a near death experience. I was so traumatized I entered therapy willingly.

I was in the midst of a co-dependent/narcissistic relationship with my empath partner, who I am still with to this day. He accepts me for what I am. Hell, he was even calling me a narcissist before I was even diagnosed. I just thought he was insulting me. I didn’t realize there was a whole entire meaning to this pathology. When I joined Instagram around 7-8 months after my ego death I found a community that helped me understand myself and my diagnosis for the first time, with non-judgmental eyes. I had found a safe space where I wouldn’t be demonized.

My relationship has changed from something extremely toxic into something healing for both me and my partner, through self-awareness on both our ends. My empath was there when I had my life shattered to smithereens and he loved me through it all. PTSD had me feeling things I could no longer hide. Tears. Repressed anxiety. He only admired me more for going through them. He thought I was 10 times stronger, when I fully expected him to think something was “weak”. He taught me it wasn’t  pathetic to cry or feel. I fell in love with him truly for the first time, because I allowed myself to work through feelings I dreaded but had to face, or collapse.

I didn’t ask for what I went through, but I believe it was meant to happen, and my ego is back and stronger than ever! Just a little more….tame. I was forced to see reality for what it really was, and now I no longer shut myself inside the walls of this fortress of delusions I had built.

I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life and I have substantially healed and do consider myself a recovering narcissist. If I’m being honest, I feel even more incredible and special than I did before, now that I consider myself one of the few in this world who is truly enlightened.

I realize how rare it is for a narcissist to be in recovery now, and believe me, that only fuels me to heal even more, to shock and stun, but also to learn to let true love in from my partner, and to love my cute little empath who I consider my other half, fully and completely, because I am addicted to the taste of it now. He is the only one I consider my equal.

I want to show the world narcissists truly can care for others and do want love and acceptance. The moment I truly accepted my diagnosis is when I realized that narcissists are only .01% of the population. I felt so special and like I had a purpose, and no longer felt insulted by the idea of it.

If I could get anyone to understand anything about narcissists, it would be letting them know that I too have gone through mountains of trauma, that it disappoints me the way people misunderstand the behaviors we do, and think we are intentionally evil. We are way too lazy for that (seriously, we are not thinking about you that much).

Not everyone who acts narcissistically is a true narcissist. It’s wrong to label anyone narcissistic as a narcissist, because psychopaths, sociopaths, bipolar people, people with ADHD, hell even co-dependents can act selfishly. To hell with it, even regular people can act abusively and/or narcissistically. NPD is a complex state that deserves understanding and includes severe and particular trauma. The internet is just on a gossip wave and very misunderstood about narcs.

I want people to understand I truly do suffer, because I am haunted by a million memories. I want people to know that I will never stop speaking out against the stigma.