this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2024
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Neurodivergence
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Hey, um, you're all over this thread and you seem like you've really got an axe to grind here. What's your story?
My parents were abusive, and I never developed the part of my brain that feels inherent self love and worth. I got a personality disorder. And I had the right genetics and environment to get NPD out of that abuse instead of another personality disorder like BPD or ASPD. That means my fake self-esteem comes from grandiose self ideas instead of defining myself by another person or by rejecting society utterly like those other disorders.
This wasn't a problem until I entered young adulthood. Over a period of about a year, I came to terms with my NPD. And then I proceeded to suffer many years of abuse for my disorder. It started before I ever knew the disorder, when society told me narc****sts were evil abusers. My exploration of my disorder started as a fear. I thought it was paranoia at first. But no, my worst fears were true, I had childhood trauma and genetic bad luck, and that combination made me what society considers the worst thing a person can be. According to someone in this thread, we're basically the same as pedophiles.
I never abused anyone. Never manipulated anyone. I know it says exploitative behaviour is a criterion in the DSM, but first off the DSM is full of bad information on personality disorders, and second you don't have to have any of the "bad" criteria to quality for the disorder. I'm haughty, pompous. I dream of greatness. I'm easily hurt when I fail or when I'm threatened. Quick to anger, but only in self defence. I can turn my empathy off at will. According to hundreds of people I have met, that makes me a born abuser. A monster.
Someone doesn't even have to know I have NPD to sense it. For some reason, a lot of people take someone else's big ego, even if it's a private affair, as a personal attack. I'm not even allowed to think highly of myself, because according to some people that's inequality and fascism. And yet if I don't, then I don't fundamentally feel that I'm worthy of love. I don't think I deserve to live. It's trauma. It's a disorder.
I'm the only person I've ever hurt with my NPD. But the vilification by others has done far worse to me. They demand humility. If I'm not humble, they say I deserve to die. If I am humble, I think I deserve to die.
And here comes OP, saying my pain is right. That I do deserve to feel upset by how many people don't believe in support for "monsters" like me. And yet with such an inoffensive, kind post, everyone has to change the subject to supposed abuses I am responsible for, just for having my brain the way it is.
I respond with the anger borne of the trauma of a lifetime of abuse from society. And that anger is justified. I do not speak with violence, I do not attack, but I am, privately, angry.
Disclaimer: English isn't my first language + adhd so I apologize if I end up repeating myself or if the thoughts aren't well organized
I am glad someone asked your story and I am glad that you took the time to write this. Like I stated previously, my experience with people from my family with NPD creates a certain bias. I don't want to make this about myself but I want to give you some context: Like the other reply to you, I have an NPD parent and instead of also developing NPD, I am a very empathetic person that have a lot of difficulty being kind to myself, which isn't the case to one of my siblings (all of us have some kind of disorder though).
My first contact with the concept of NPD was while attempting to understand said parent which got me to a few communities for people with toxic parents. These were not positive communities, people were suffering a lot with these toxic relationships so it was pretty much a lot of frustrated people attempting to find comfort and to understand why their parents had to be toxic like that. It is really rare to have someone opening up as NPD like you are so we really don't have a lot of perspective from an NPD person.
I see you and I empathize with you and I don't want you to think that everyone believes that NPD people were evil or anything like that. Unfortunately because it appears to be difficult to convince people with NPD that they are harming people around them, the ones that suffer harm are usually more vocal. I think everyone here agrees that just because you have NPD you aren't evil or an abuser (and yes the pedophile example by the other user was out of touch).
You don't need to be humble, you just need to understand that there are people that suffered with abusive parents like you did and some of them were NPD parents.
I love my NDP parent and I have a lot of empathy for them. I believe deeply that they deserve support, I don't believe they are evil but they do act evil sometimes. I had to move to another country to have a better relationship with them, but I am glad I am now in a place where I understand everything that they went through and why they ended up the way they are. I think I might be one of the few people in our family that has patience to deal with them and that actually puts effort into trying to make them see different perspectives.
I think this thread would have developed better if it was a discussion on how NDPs are perceived and how NPDs can be better assisted to make things better for everyone instead of just a vent, but people get frustrated and that's okay. I don't want to marginalize anyone, I want you to feel understood but we all need to put a bit of effort when trying to understand each other. There's no need to feel personally attacked with how people view/deal with NDPs.
I don't know your story and I don't know if your parent has a diagnosis. But those "victims of NPD" support groups? 90% of the people in them do not have a parent with a diagnosis. 90% of those people heard that narc*****st is a synonym for abuser, have judged correctly that their parents are abusive, and have concluded incorrectly that their parents have NPD. American pop psychology has a decades long tradition of publishing self help books that say we are all surrounded by narc*****sts, every abusive person in our lives is a narc*****st, and that the root of all evil is people with a mental disorder.
You know why that is? Because telling people their problems are caused by a vulnerable minority that can't defend itself is a great way to get money and influence. That's how Hitler took over Germany. He said "I know you're all upset by our nation's poverty, and you know whose fault it is? The Jews!" That's the playbook modern politicians are using with the idea of abusive trans people. There is such a thing as abusive trans people, I've met plenty of them. But there's no link between those two traits, there's just abusers in every demographic. Same with NPD. The fact that Zuckerberg is evil and Jewish doesn't mean Jews are evil. Same with NPD.
The issue here is propaganda. People have been propagandized, and those 90% who are clinging onto a myth because it makes their trauma make sense, are dangerous. We need to use the same tactics to defend pwNPD that we use to defend trans people and Jewish people.