When I was 20 I was diagnosed by a psychologist with having Narcissistic Personality Disorder. At first I was in denial about but over time I come to terms with my narcissism and the diagnosis started to make sense to me. A lot of my problems can be traced back to my unrealistic self image and lack of ability to relate with others.
There’s a lot of stigma towards NPD. I hope by making this thread I can help others understand that having NPD doesn’t inherently make you a bad person and NPD hurts the person with it as well.
“Has being diagnosed helped you?”
Yes, definitely. It gives me a lot more insight into myself and I now understand myself better.
“If you don’t mind sharing, what lead to the diagnosis?”
Good question. That’s for the therapist to decide. With that said it’s never just one thing. It could have been a whole series of factors that let to the diagnosis. If I meet that psychologist again I’ll ask him.
“For a small background: psychologists who have worked with my stepdaughter have expressed that her bio-dad (my wife’s ex-husband) has displayed some traits that could indicate NPD, but of course he would have to be formally evaluated for a diagnosis and that’s difficult to get someone with the disorder to do. The last time they were in court the judge was flabbergasted by his behavior and during the judgment expressed that he was close to ordering a mental evaluation, which I think is the only way we would ever know for sure. It’s pretty obvious that if he has the disorder then it has caused many negative impacts for him, but it is also hard to feel any sympathy towards him when I see how much harm he has done to two of the people I care about the most. It might be hard to accept if he ever was diagnosed and some treatment actually helped to counter the destructive behaviors simply because of how much damage was already done.”
What an awful story. It goes without saying that not everyone with NPD is like that. If you don’t mind me asking why was he in court?