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>Trump is not a narcissist. Read up on Riso & Hudson’s Enneagram psychological spiritual personality types.

You're mixing and matching different ways to understand the world improperly. You can't do that in the way that you are doing it.

It's like saying: "Apples aren't green and red, read up about shapes, they are round."

Yes. Apples are round. But they are also green and red.

So while you could say "Trump is a narcisssist and a type 8 on blablabla", you can't say "Trump isn't a narcissist, because he's a type 8."

I suggest you buy and read this: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Thinking-Clearly-Rolf-Dobelli/dp/0062219693

You'll get a lot out of that, guaranteed.

If you really can't get any ground penetrating radar, then you next best option by far is to buy four (4) seismographs, put one in each corner of your basement and then going forward, sleep in your basement.

Set an alarm for every four hours (he's probably going to come in at night, narcissists always come at night), and then check the seismographs. By looking at the difference in amplitude between them, you can pin point from what angle the tunnel is coming in from.

>Gaslighting isn't something narcissists are known to do.

This absolutely false. Any psychologists out there will tell you that gaslighting is literally one of the telling signs of narcissism (or sociopaths and psychopaths).

I mean I understand narcissists would process things more self-referentially but the manipulation harms others too, not just your own life, and most people who have been impacted by this kind of manipulation would not agree it’s low stakes

Hah. So I didn't know about this difference at all. I simply assumed I was manipulating people.

Turns out that by your definition (which I verified is generally accepted) I'm mostly persuading and influencing (though I have no problem going over that line, I just mostly don't, because it's just not needed and I have a habit of using the minimum required amount of effort, because I've noticed that opening hard and heavy triggers boundary defenses, whereas slowly ramping up doesn't trigger them).

As a consequence of your statement I ended up buying a copy of this:

https://www.amazon.com/Adversaries-into-Allies-Ultimate-Influence/dp/1591848164

There are cheap used ones, bought one for $6. Maybe you're interested in it as well.

here

I also recommend Patricks Teahan channel on YouTube. He has so much good stuff on toxic families, narcissism….

>I am new to the job world, and it seems or it at least feels as if I am not not living up to my greatness and it's causing narcissistic injury. Does anyone else feel this way? Should I not worry since I'm simply just new to work? Perhaps I'm just a perfectionist with too high of expectations, aren't I?

You just go with the flow?

Look, it all comes down to what you call adults and work. But I never really had much of an issue with it myself. You just do your best (I mean, you put in a decent amount of effort) and beyond that it's a matter of doing it for long enough that you stand a chance at getting good at it.

>Perhaps I'm just a perfectionist with too high of expectations, aren't I?

I've got a book about it, "The gift of imperfection", it's not very thick

https://www.amazon.com/Gifts-Imperfection-Anniversary-Features-brand-new/dp/1616499605

Maybe give that a try?

>Quite the book tho, did your Adderall kick in?

Haha! No Adderall is needed when this is my hyper-focus topic of choice and I have actual work to do. :p

​

>With all that covered, what do you think makes one either fawn or immediately go into fight-or-flight, in terms of coping mechanisms?

In my case, it was my rank in the family and who was the most persistently abusive. Pete Walker has a similar theory.

Fawning wouldn't save my sister from all the abuse from my dad. She was accident birth that tied my mom to him. She became the scapegoat for everything that went wrong in his life. As the second-born daughter, I didn't get that hate and became his favorite child. My mom was extra abusive toward me, because I wasn't as useful as my sister and because she was jealous of anyone taking my dad's attention, so I fawned even more with my dad and told on my mom when she hits me. Family snitch, hell yeah! No need to gaslight when telling the truth worked just as well. Hahaha. Fuuuuck. I suck. :D

this book on boundaries is extremely informative, useful and easy to understand. There's also a workbook out now that goes along with it. Do the work.

You can find books and other resources here: /r/narcissism/wiki/resources

The book closest to what you want, by someone that really understands these issues would be "Borderline, Narcissistic, and Schizoid Adaptations: The Pursuit of Love, Admiration, and Safety" by Elinor Greenberg. It's not a cheap book, but she really does know what she is talking about.

https://www.amazon.com/Borderline-Narcissistic-Schizoid-Adaptations-Admiration/dp/1537334220/

so it is the ibogaine that made you worse? I read some books on LSD psychotherapy and I also tried it myself a couple of times. These things can serve as potential psychological catalysts, that can bring unconscious stuff from the subconsciousness, and if your problems are too severe, it can overwhelm you and make you worse. Grof (the author of the book) recommended multiple psychedelic sessions to resolve some problems. You need to work through the stuff and that is hard and painful. It seems like you got stuck within a psychospiritual crisis, when the issues have been brought up from the unconscious, but you did not yet manage to work through them. Also, I experienced the "death of the ego" on LSD several times. Such as experience can be really liberating, because it can show you that there is a way out of the prison.

and as far as killing yourself goes. You will most certainly die anyway, so why hurry?

Thank you!
Have you read https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-the-Narcissist-s-Nightmare-How-to-Devalue-and-Discard-the-Narcissist-While-Supplying-Yourself/dp/152370246X/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8 ?

What if I send him this under the assumption I may be a narcissist or the like that ?

>When you score high for NPD test, then you definitely have genes, but defence mechanism is not fight/agression because of trauma on very early age when you are biologically not able to behave agressive.

In the book, "Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving," the writer gave examples of how different kids in the same abusive household could grow up with different survival responses:

Kid 1 = "Fight" - Narcissist

Kid 2 = "Flight" - Obsessive/Compulsive

Kid 3 = "Freeze" - Dissociative

Kid 4 = "Fawn" - Codependent

I would think in many families, each kid is going to receive slightly different treatment based on birth order and M/F (I'm also assuming this applies even with twins, one might get slightly more favored treatment).

>genetics + child abuse.

In my family, my dad shows strong grandiose malignant traits and my mom has strong covert malignant traits. So we have the genetics for 3 abused kids. I'm the middle child (F) - the codependent fixer/mediator. The eldest (F) is the severely abused child - strong grandiose NPD traits. The youngest (M) is the golden child - grandiose NPD traits (I used to think he exhibits fewer harmful NPD traits, but no, this golden child's harmful NPD traits will backhand you when you least expect it).

A fourth kid (M), who was not abused because he came much later + parents divorced shortly after birth and my mom hired a full-time live-in nanny to take care of him, turned out relatively "normal."

https://www.amazon.com/Schema-Therapy-Practitioners-Jeffrey-Young/dp/1593853726

This book on Schema therapy describes how a narcissist can experience empathy. I'm not sure that you can do everything on your own (and part of Schema therapy *requires* that you have a therapist), but I've gotten further with this.

Also, EMDR/Brainspotting.

Lol.

>Which it is. I use this sub and the long winded rants as a means for supply without actually tackling my problems. No insults to bronze, I admire his ability to self reflect.

I don't know man... I think you just beat him. I don't think I've ever been able to get him to fully admit to that.

But I understand what you mean.

You know we got some sources on dealing with victim mentality, right? /r/narcissism/wiki/victimmentality

You already managed to complete phase 1: Self awareness and that's by far the hardest part.

Beyond that it's just a matter of starting really small and using phone alarms and other tricks to hold yourself accountable. Exercise and definitely read 12 rules for life if you haven't yet. That was basically written with you in mind.

> But it's extremely common for all people to do this.

thanks for the detailed explanation of the projection. I am not so sure if it is that common in normal people. The defenses are generally categorized into patological, immature, neurotic, mature etc

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/conquer-fear-flying/202108/primer-psychological-defenses

in fact, you can asses the maturity of a personality/mental health by the defenses that it mostly uses. I read an interesting book about it

https://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Ego-George-Vaillant/dp/0674953738

and the whole narcissism is likely caused by a complex of some severe early trauma defense mechanisms. These defense mechanisms operate unconsciously.

PUAs can easily do that in a big city. Once you've got a couple of methods that work, it's just rinse repeat. And there's an incentive, he's keeping his self esteem afloat.

It's a 4 year old account. I checked his youtube, he's got 1,3M. I checked the history, he's red pill, 4 years ago he claimed 100+. It's consistent. I read this book years ago, so to me it makes sense.

These are Brazilians. I've been to Brazil. I did have a lot of sex while there and it was ridiculously easy. Absurdly so. It doesn't take a whole lot of effort.

Also 300 here is just "lots". It's not 300. It's like my IQ, somewhere between 80 and 200.

You know that I like you? I do. You're a good guy, you know that?

>I don't know. I think it depends on the problem. Not even the scale of the problem, just what the problem is. I guess sometimes that's classified as mental illness, but that's just a label. (And there are situations in which a victim mentality is viewed as natural and acceptable; they're selected kind of arbitrarily though)

Hmmmmmmmm Are you not a follower of JBP? Because that sounds like you haven't read the 12 rules. There's pretty much a whole chapter on it (it's pretty much a must read).

>All this time, victim mentality has been painted as a really scary thing. Even the term, "victim mentality," makes it hard to defend. But what actually makes it bad? No one has offered a good answer, and I think that's because it's not bad, not for the one with the victim mentality

Reality is self fulfilling up to a certain degree, that can not be denied. Only a blind man would deny that. As long as it's humans on both ends it works (can't do it human vs machine or earth or whatever, but human to human interactions has self fulfilling aspects).

You're denying yourself access to that. It's as simple as that. We're simply trying to grant you access to that. It's a gift, you deserve it, take it.

• The Shyness and Social Anxiety Workbook for Teens: CBT and ACT Skills to Help You Build Social Confidence

Phone apps that will help you:

• FearTools - Anxiety Aid
• Calm - Meditate, Sleep, Relax

If you currently consume a lot of caffeine (in coffee or soft drinks), stop that. Caffeine is known to cause anxiety.

r/socialanxiety

/r/anxiety also has [a good wiki](/r/Anxiety/wiki/onlineresources).

> After getting your advice on telling myself I exist as the approach to fixing weak sense of self, I realize I constantly break myself apart and put myself together again

I think that's actually what's happening when you dive into how our mind functions. It's close to accepted by neurologists that we have multiple agents that are all taking turns and competing for "brain time".

And the whole self construct is needed so that the individual agents (the sub sections in our brain) know how they're expected to respond.

That's also why it can be partially fiction. As long as it's good enough for the different parts of us to deduce who we ourselves are, we can use it.

Most people don't even notice it, for them the illusion works. For us it doesn't work as well.

This is a book that goes into details:

https://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Explained-audiobook/dp/B00HZ3FT7E

It's 30 years old and it's a bit dry. Daniel Dennett's theories are widely regarded as accurate. He's one of the predominant experts on consciousness. There probably are better books these days, I just haven't been keeping up to date with the science behind it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett

Was reading about this exactly today. This sense of estrangement is a symptom of npd. In that book it's said it's linked to our difficulty to recognize internal states and to decentralize the situations we live.

It was a phrase from the resume of the whole chapter but if you're interested this is the bookthis is the book

I recommend Dr Daniel Fox's books. Here's one. And the Narcissistic personality disorder toolbox.

I also recommend Ryan Holiday's books, The Ego is the Enemy, The Obstacle is the Way are good ones to start with, or his podcast "the daily stoic."

Edit: I realize the NPD toolbox book is for others to deal with us better but I still find it helpful because Dr Fox comes from an empathic place, doesn't make us out to be hopeless demons etc.

I think you'll have to find a book with a clinical focus to figure that out.

this one might have the answer

There are a couple of books in the wiki: /r/narcissism/wiki/resources

Then I also have Borderline, Narcissistic, and Schizoid Adaptations: The Pursuit of Love, Admiration, and Safety on my list to read. Her articles are really good and more positive than Vaknin, but it is a bit pricey (not that Vaknin is cheap).