- 2 hours ago
Jacob Skidmore was diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, or NPD, in 2022. He's known online as the Nameless Narcissist.
Skidmore uses his platform to explain how narcissism actually feels from the inside: the constant calibration of admiration, shame, control, and image. He speaks to Business Insider about what drives narcissistic behavior, the difference between confidence and pathology, and what recovery, or responsibility, looks like for someone who knows they hurt others and still wants to change.
Awareness of NPD is at an unprecedented level. Increasingly, individuals who identify with NPD are sharing their experiences through social media and public interviews.
For more:
https://www.youtube.com/@Thenamelessnarcissist/videos
https://www.tiktok.com/@thenamelessnarcissist
If you or someone you know is dealing with substance misuse or mental illness, call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's National Helpline (1-800-662-4357) for 24/7, free, confidential treatment referral and information.
Skidmore uses his platform to explain how narcissism actually feels from the inside: the constant calibration of admiration, shame, control, and image. He speaks to Business Insider about what drives narcissistic behavior, the difference between confidence and pathology, and what recovery, or responsibility, looks like for someone who knows they hurt others and still wants to change.
Awareness of NPD is at an unprecedented level. Increasingly, individuals who identify with NPD are sharing their experiences through social media and public interviews.
For more:
https://www.youtube.com/@Thenamelessnarcissist/videos
https://www.tiktok.com/@thenamelessnarcissist
If you or someone you know is dealing with substance misuse or mental illness, call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's National Helpline (1-800-662-4357) for 24/7, free, confidential treatment referral and information.
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FunTranscript
00:00My name is Jacob Skidmore. I am known online as the nameless narcissist and I have been
00:05professionally diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. This is everything
00:09that I'm authorized to tell you. Everybody thinks that they know a narcissist. I personally have
00:15never met somebody diagnosed in real life other than myself and I've never met somebody that I
00:20even suspected was one. The issue with how people use the term narcissist is that it's always to
00:26pathologize somebody's behavior because their behavior has hurt me in some way.
00:30I don't like hurting people for hurting's sake.
00:38Narcissistic personality disorder specifically is characterized by a grandiosity, a lack of
00:44reciprocal relationships, lack of empathy. Grandiosity, by the way, meaning basically I think
00:52I'm better than everybody else in short. It's like imposter syndrome on steroids.
00:56Since everything I do does go through this lens of what is this going to make people think about me?
01:02How can I kind of modify how I'm presenting in order to get that reaction that I need?
01:07We have a flawed way of viewing and interacting with the world. It comes with like a lot of
01:12cognitive distortions and defense mechanisms of varying kind of presentations. In the DSM-5,
01:19there's nine criteria for narcissistic personality disorder, but you only need five to actually be
01:24diagnosed. The issue with that is kind of that you have like, I think it's like 200 types of
01:30narcissists in quotes that you can encounter due to how the diagnostic criteria kind of present. But
01:35that's mainly because the current diagnostic criteria is very focused on external behaviors
01:39that clinicians can identify in a office. I think the biggest difference between self-confidence and
01:44narcissism is where self-love comes into it. Because like a lot of people want to view narcissism
01:49through this lens of too much self-love. You love yourself too much. You can only have empathy
01:54for yourself. There is no self-love. There's no empathy for yourself when it comes to pathological
02:00narcissism. It's just grandiosity. I hate myself, but I'm better than everybody else. Could be like
02:05the tagline of it. Genuine self-confidence comes from a place of self-compassion. So self-love,
02:10I can say very confidently, there's never been a time in my life that I felt like an ounce of love
02:16for myself. If anything, it's just this constant need to be better than what I am right now and then
02:24better than the people around me. And this anxiety that I'm kind of like falling behind in that race.
02:34By the way, I can't speak for everybody when we talk about narcissistic personality disorder.
02:38I'm not a clinician or anything. I just live with the disorder. And this is everything I say here
02:43is just based off of the research that I've done and me living with it basically. It's hard to say
02:48for me like when narcissism first kind of presented because it's like this disorder is egosyntonic,
02:55which means that like I view it as normal. I view my behaviors, thoughts, and actions as normal.
03:01And then it gets really hard to kind of distinguish, especially in my early years. But the first thing
03:07that I remember that was like kind of more tangible was when I was like, I don't know,
03:11eight or nine, I was at this funeral for a family member of mine. And I just remember being really
03:16frustrated and very like annoyed at everyone there because everyone was, you know, grieving.
03:22They're like crying and stuff. And I was just like thinking like, oh, these people are being so
03:27dramatic and performative because they feel like that's what they have to do or they want the
03:31attention for themselves. They're like trying to cry and make this funeral about them. That's rude.
03:36I'm a very polite person. I don't like that kind of stuff. We were on the car ride home
03:40and I remember what my mom said, but she said something that kind of made me be like,
03:46maybe there's a little bit more genuine. Maybe I might be the odd one out here in terms of
03:53like not really feeling that grief and being, I wasn't being performative, but I was, you know,
03:58obviously this is why I hate funerals. I'm worried that people are going to notice I'm not feeling crap.
04:03But like, obviously I was to some degree appearing sad so that, because that was the thing that
04:09you do at funerals. But when I got into high school, roughly a little bit before high school,
04:15I picked up on like people who were a lot more outgoing or saying funny things. People were
04:20paying attention to them. I knew I wanted that. I wanted to be the person that could like
04:25run a room and be charming and everything. And I remember I was like sitting at a lunch table
04:31and like the entire period, like I was a center of attention, making everybody laugh. I could not
04:37tell you a single thing that was said during that period, but I remember walking away feeling elated.
04:43I felt high because of just the amount of attention and crap that I was getting. It kind of stuck with
04:48me in that moment of this is what makes me feel good. And I want to do anything I can to maintain
04:55that. The first time it was ever mentioned to me though, was I was like 16 years old. And because
05:01of my home life wasn't great, the psychologist during that time mentioned narcissistic personality
05:06disorder, and you can get diagnosed that young, but most don't go that route. I remember he just
05:12kind of, he said something about the me matching the criteria to a T or something like that. And
05:18I just didn't really care at the time because I was, I was 16 and whatever. Um, and, but it was
05:23always kind of in the back of my head after that, where I was just kind of like, maybe that's something
05:26I have, but even if I do, who cares? And if I do have it, that just makes me better than people.
05:31Yeah. I'm good at manipulating people. Yeah. I don't have emotions like the rest of you idiots. Yeah.
05:35Um, at one point I called it, it was so dumb. Uh, it's like, I cringe like thinking about it,
05:41but at one point I, uh, I was like, well, you know, narcissistic personality disorder is basically
05:46the logical conclusion of human social evolution. Because in my mind, I was like,
05:51oh, this is how you have to operate to get ahead.
05:58All of my life feels like an act. Everything feels like performative to some degree. Even when I'm alone,
06:04I'm just very acutely aware of how I would be perceived in any given moment, whether it be what
06:09I say or how I'm moving, how my head's positioned sometimes. Whenever I'm thinking about something,
06:15it's like, I'm imagining me describing it to somebody else and what their reactions would be
06:19to me describing it to them, how I would say it in a way that would elicit admiration. It makes
06:24everything feel very disingenuous. And like an issue that I've had, like since I started therapy
06:29is like trying to be genuinely vulnerable with people, trying to emotionally connect with people.
06:34I'm sober now, but I used to like get really wasted just so I could try to broach that
06:39vulnerability. And even when I would do that, it didn't feel real. Like there was always parts of it
06:46that I was modifying in order to get those self-esteem needs met. Because at the end of the day,
06:50those self-esteem needs trump everything else. I literally can't be genuine because being admired
06:56is too important. The only thing that feels real beyond a benefit of a doubt is when I like
07:01completely lose control in like anger or something, when I'm just like screaming my head
07:07off at somebody because I'm so just pissed off. It's like I view the world through second person.
07:13I view the world only through how I might be being perceived at any given time and how to kind of
07:18maximize admiration through that. For example, if somebody's envious of me, I often view that as
07:26admiration in a way. And I become a little bit insulted if somebody's not envious of me.
07:37The biggest myth that I kind of get frustrated by is that there's this attribution of malice to a lot
07:44of my behaviors. I'm not saying I haven't hurt people. I've hurt a lot of people in my life.
07:47And I try to own those things the best that I can. But when a lot of people that you see
07:53discussing it online are like, they describe the sadism that like, oh, they enjoy hurting you and
07:59stuff like that. I'm like, I'm not motivated by that. This sounds callous, but you're not
08:04important enough for me to feel like I would enjoy hurting. At the end of the day, it's not that we're
08:09out here to like cause damage and hurt people for no reason. It's just that we don't have those tools
08:15that are accessible to kind of alleviate not only our own suffering, but suffering the people around
08:19us. It's just an objective lie that narcissists can't change. People with narcissistic personality
08:24disorder in treatment, it was over 50% of them went into remission. Don't get me wrong, that's low
08:30for a, you know, for any mental disorder. And remission doesn't necessarily mean cured. These
08:35people probably still think like narcissists, but through treatment, they're better with vulnerability
08:39and connecting. And like, they don't meet the symptom criteria anymore. They're more
08:45functional and, and everything, but it's like, okay, does that mean that they're not narcissists?
08:50Probably not. It just means that they can, you know, they see the error of their ways to a degree
08:55and now they, and through treatment, they have been able to adjust accordingly. This is a treatable
09:00condition. Now I want to clarify, because I feel like a lot of people, when they hear me say that
09:05their immediate thought is, oh, that means this person that I'm close to can change. Can doesn't
09:12mean will. It's like, I always tell people, you can't have expectations of people that they're
09:16going to change for you or for anybody, unless they have a vested interest in it. You have to
09:22take people for who they are. Are you comfortable with this person in your life, with the boundaries
09:26that you have and how they treat you in that moment? If so, then fine, keep them in their life.
09:31If not, then don't. Why do I think the word narcissist has been weaponized? Maybe it's just a cool
09:37word, honestly, narcissist. Some people started talking about the impact that somebody with
09:43narcissistic personality disorder had because so many people online are constantly talking about
09:48how I was with this person and he was a narcissist and that has weight and that gives people an
09:53appreciation for how much they went through. But it feels like we got to kind of this tipping point
09:59where a lot of people feel like their trauma or negative experiences have to be almost validated by
10:05the fact that this person is a caricature of evil. How could I actually seek real treatment for that
10:13when that's the idea around it? And that kind of stigma has gone deep. The diagnostic criteria for
10:18NPD can be twisted so easily to just fit any arrogant person. There's a lot of things like online that
10:25you read about, they'll never admit that they're wrong. That's not a diagnostic criteria. That can apply
10:30to anybody. Don't get me wrong. I get defensive and I am always right, but no, I'm joking.
10:35But, like, that's not part of the diagnostic criteria. This applies to a lot of abusive people. So it's just become a
10:41convenient catch-all because of the definition that's taken up nowadays because of this need for people to feel like their trauma is valid.
10:49My disorder plays out in romantic and platonic relationships very differently, actually. Like, in romantic relationships, there's a different expectation because, oh, I'm with this person. They're my partner. They inherently have to be my equal.
11:07So they're actually held to, like, a lot higher standards in regards to how I expect them to be performing because that's like, oh, you can't make me look bad. If you're below average and I'm below average, why would I be with somebody who is lesser than me?
11:21And, like, a lot of people talk about, oh, like, narcissists are very controlling. In relationships, I'm just not at all. Like, in my platonic friendships, I can be. But that's because it's like, this person inherently has to be my equal in order for me to even view the relationship as worth it.
11:36I am criminally distant in my relationships because showing that I have this affection for them is humiliating and hard and that implies a degree of dependency on them.
11:48Yeah, it is shameful when somebody hugs you and you can tell they think they have this deep emotional connection with you and you're just not there. There's shame in that.
11:58You know, some self-disgust. If people know that you care about them, they are going to use that. They are going to take it, either take it for granted, best case scenario or whatever.
12:08If they don't know that you care, they'll always be chasing after you. And that gives you much more of an upper hand.
12:13What I would always say when I was younger, especially, is like, love is like a carrot on a stick, right?
12:17They hold it in front of you and tell you to behave. And if you don't, then they'll take it away.
12:21So a common pattern in romantic relationships I typically have is it usually starts out the same way, right?
12:27I meet somebody who I'm like, oh, this person's perfect. This is somebody that can actually understand me.
12:32This person is on my level, so to speak. This person is superior like I am.
12:36But what happens unconsciously when you kind of put somebody up like that and you're like, oh, this is an ideal person who I admire.
12:43And then by association, I am also special is that it's very easy for that kind of illusion to break.
12:49It'll be like the most minor thing. I remember once there was this girl I was like, I was very, you know,
12:56that I cared a lot about in the moment. I was very excited about this person.
12:59And like I showed pictures of her to some of my friends.
13:03And I remember one of my friends just kind of said, oh, she's not my type or something like that.
13:07And it was like a light switch. Like, and I knew it was happening.
13:10I didn't want it to, but it was like at that moment, because it wasn't this perfect idealized image of somebody,
13:16because somebody else had an opinion that different, it like changed my opinion in terms of like,
13:20oh, this isn't my soulmate. This isn't the perfect person.
13:22This is somebody that's beneath me. I can't stay in this relationship.
13:25Then, you know, started pushing them away and like being a dick, like I do.
13:32And then that eventually ended.
13:35Or alternatively, what happens is they'll see a moment in me that's too real.
13:40But I remember once, like I was in this relationship with somebody.
13:43The beginning of the end was we went to this party and like I was pretty wasted.
13:48And we got back to her apartment and like I started vomiting in the toilet and just sobbing about how I was broken and defective, etc.
13:58And I was like yelling at her, but then like secretly wanted her to like comfort me.
14:01It was like a whole thing.
14:02I hated that she saw me that weak, empathetic.
14:07And like I never brought it up after that.
14:11We never, we literally never talked about it.
14:13I was like, like she's judging me.
14:15She thinks she can take advantage of me now because she realizes that I'm weak.
14:18She probably thinks that she can do better now.
14:21So I blew that relationship up.
14:25Those are typically the two ways the romantic relationships go.
14:28My platonic relationships, as long as I keep you at a distance, like it can go on indefinitely typically.
14:35I can manage those because there's a less of a demand for emotional intimacy a lot better.
14:40I have one friend who, it was funny, where they were, I asked them once if they ever had watched any of my videos.
14:46I don't like it when people I know in real life do that.
14:48And they were like, no.
14:49And they had kind of like a very strong reaction to it.
14:51And I was like, okay, I'm glad, but like why?
14:54And they said, you know, I know you well enough to know there's a lot of things that go inside, go on inside your head that I'm better off not knowing.
15:02If somebody can look at me and my behaviors through the lens of me and not through the lens of my disorder, I know that that's somebody that's good to have in my life.
15:09If I'm going to get into a relationship with you, no matter how recovered I am, you deserve to know what you're getting into to some degree.
15:15When I am withdrawing from admiration, so to speak, it's falling back into those vulnerable narcissistic patterns, I would say.
15:21I get really paranoid.
15:23I get really neurotic, very distressed.
15:26Sometimes it's like I'm being reminded of everything that I hate about myself and it's all more real.
15:32It looks like psychosis if somebody on the outside were to see it like that just because of how paranoid and angry and distraught I become.
15:41I also tend to withdraw socially a lot more, like I'll isolate.
15:44It sucks because it's like I'll isolate myself because I'm not getting the attention I think I deserve and I desire and need.
15:50But then, you know, isolating myself makes it so I literally can't get those things.
16:01People with narcissistic personality disorder struggle vocationally when it comes to having a job.
16:06As for my previous jobs, I, you know, I was in the army.
16:09I, my first job ever, I worked at a nursing home actually as a dietary aid.
16:14I wash dishes.
16:15But I always say dietary aid.
16:16It sounds better.
16:18Did that for two years.
16:19Went to college for a little bit.
16:21Then went into the army.
16:22I was a MP in the army.
16:24So, but that was the Ohio National Guard.
16:26So I came back, went back to college for a semester.
16:28But after basic training, I was like, I don't, I don't have the head space right now to do college.
16:35So I was a corrections officer for two years.
16:39I worked at a prison.
16:39I can't actually talk about my current day job because it's actually a stipulation of my employment.
16:44So I'll just say I work in tech.
16:46A lot of the times it's like it causes dysfunction in your work.
16:49I think a good example of this is when I was in the army.
16:52I couldn't handle it being at the bottom of the totem pole all the time.
16:55There's like this objective hierarchy.
16:57And I'm always, and like, I was always so resentful and bitter and just like paranoid and insecure
17:03because it's like objectively I am lowest tier that there is.
17:08That conflict when you have this drive to be at the top causes problems in basically any work environment.
17:14It makes it kind of impossible for you to work as a team unless you're in charge.
17:19If my experience does match a job, but I view it as beneath me as like menial work,
17:24as something that people wouldn't respect, I won't take it because I view it as beneath me.
17:28There was a time in my life actually where like it got really bad because I was having a hard time finding work.
17:33I was behind on my mortgage.
17:35I'm going to lose my house and I would rather die than be humiliated with a job that is pathetic and beneath me
17:42and or be homeless and stuff like that.
17:44I do my best not to tell anybody around me like in my professional life my diagnosis
17:52just because it causes more problems than it's worth.
17:56I mean, people close to me obviously know at this point.
17:58And it's also just kind of embarrassing to admit that like I have like this condition that like makes me sound like an edgy teenager trying to articulate it.
18:08You know what I mean?
18:09I would say society rewards narcissistic traits.
18:12And I'm emphasizing traits because I don't think it rewards pathological narcissism.
18:17If you're a little arrogant, half the battle is, you know, taking chances, right?
18:21Is putting yourself out there.
18:24That kind of grandiosity and arrogance that this thinking that, oh, this thing is going to go well
18:28and putting yourself in a position like where you're actually willing to take that chance,
18:34that's a very objectively a good trait to have.
18:39Extroversion can be very good for the grandiose narcissism.
18:43The superficial charm can be very useful.
18:45That being said, the things that get you to the place that you want to be at aren't the same traits
18:50that are going to be able to maintain where you're at, if that makes sense.
18:54If we're talking about healthy narcissism, 100% it does.
18:58If we're talking about pathological, there's just too much dysfunction that comes with it for it to possibly be rewarded.
19:03I went into therapy to impress the girl that I had this on and off thing with.
19:14It's like, look how healthy and mature I am.
19:16I go to therapy.
19:18I'm great.
19:19That obviously didn't last.
19:21And while I was still in therapy, but not in either of those relationships,
19:26I just started thinking, why did I sabotage a relationship that was, relatively speaking, actually good for me?
19:34And around that time, I started thinking more about my childhood stuff.
19:37And I was like, I should probably get some of it.
19:38I should probably get to the bottom of some of this stuff.
19:41And so I ended up staying in therapy.
19:43Two years go by.
19:44And the entire time, it's like, there's defense against vulnerability.
19:48It's like the shame catches the words in your throat and you just lie through your teeth the entire time.
19:52Until one day, I was just like, I was like complaining about somebody in my life.
19:56I was frustrated because it's that feeling like you can only be understood by other special people.
20:02They could never understand me.
20:04And like, I sit back and I think for a second.
20:07And I just like start chuckling and just kind of blurt out, well, I can't blame them though.
20:12I mean, they're all so stupid.
20:14And my therapist kind of was taken off guard because I had presented as rather mild-mannered and polite up until that point.
20:21And she was just like, what?
20:23And I was like, I mean, look at them.
20:25They all complain that I'm, that I think I'm better than them, but I'm smarter.
20:29I'm more attractive.
20:30I'm more charismatic.
20:32I mean, I am better.
20:34How could they possibly understand me?
20:36And she's like, and these are your friends?
20:38And I'm like, yeah, just because they're, yeah, like, what's that supposed to mean?
20:43And I stand up to go and I'm like, oh, that felt good to finally get off my chest.
20:48Then she was like, well, I'm humbled.
20:50And I said, are you mocking me?
20:52And then diagnosed shortly after that whole thing.
20:55Because after that kind of, after the dam broke in that regard, it became a lot easier to kind of be genuine.
21:02I mean, it's still hard.
21:03I'm a lot more truthful nowadays, but it's still not something that I'm good at, even in a therapeutic setting.
21:10The current DSM criteria kind of neglects the fluctuation in self-esteem.
21:15A lot of people know that narcissists, despite their grandiosity, have a very chronic need for attention, specifically admiration.
21:23Because basically our entire self-esteem is regulated externally.
21:27Either I feel like I'm better than everybody else, or I feel like I'm worse than everybody else.
21:32And I need constant feedback to kind of prevent myself from slipping into this cycle of self-hate, where I can get rather bad.
21:41Self-destructive usually is the word that I would use.
21:44I do actually recommend instead the DSM-5 alternative criteria in the section three.
21:50It's less of categorical, and it's like a spectrum model, where it's like, okay, they recognize varying severities and presentations, aside from your kind of classic, oh, this guy is full of himself and manipulative and kind of a dick.
22:04Don't get me wrong, I'm all of those things.
22:06But the disorder in itself, it has to focus more on some of the interpersonal dysfunctions.
22:13The DSM-5 criteria for narcissistic personality disorder is, the first one is grandiosity.
22:18There's arrogant and haughty behaviors, interpersonal exploitation, which I do want to touch on, because a lot of people hear that and they're thinking, oh, exploiting somebody for money or something like that, which is probably where my mind would go as well.
22:30But this is associated more with, again, the self-esteem regulation that I mentioned earlier.
22:35For example, let's say dating somebody because they make you appear higher status or gives you connections to people that make you seem higher status.
22:43There is also chronic envy of others or believing others are envious of them.
22:49I fall more in that second category of believing everyone's envious of me.
22:53That one sucks.
22:54Then there's entitlement.
22:55This one, I, this one's probably my weakest trait, personally.
22:59How it usually would present for me, though, is expectations of extreme loyalty to people.
23:06And it would be rationalized with me where it's like, oh, I deserve better friends who will be loyal and fight my battles for me because I'm such a loyal person.
23:15That's not really true if I'm being honest with myself.
23:17But that is something I believed at the time and how it was really rationalized.
23:20Grandiose fantasies of unlimited success, wealth, power, brilliance.
23:25There's a lot of maladaptive daydreaming, actually, that occurs in this disorder.
23:28And a lot of our personal goals are based around these grandiose fantasies.
23:33Like you might, like a very common example is you see somebody who maybe they're in middle management of a company and they're dreaming that, oh, I'm going to like own this company one day.
23:43I'm going to have this conglomerate that has all this wealth and power.
23:45Or, I guess, with me and my social media, it's like, oh, I want to be famous and stuff.
23:51Unrealistic kind of goals for themselves kind of arise from this.
23:54And, yeah, lack of empathy.
23:56So this one's kind of weird because it's one of the people, a lot of people consider it more of a hallmark of the disorder.
24:02But recently that's come under a lot of scrutiny.
24:06We have a good awareness of what other people are thinking and feeling, but we can't emotionally connect with that.
24:12Like, if you're sad and your mom died or something, like, I can recognize, obviously, oh, yeah, that's a sad thing to happen to somebody.
24:19I can't feel anything now.
24:25I have spent years explaining my disorder inside and out, trying to make sense of it.
24:31But when I started kind of telling my story online, people were finding help on this, and that wasn't even my intent.
24:36My intent going online was being like, hey, you guys are dumb.
24:39This isn't what my disorder is like.
24:41Fix it.
24:43But then people were like, you know, hearing your lived experience, actually, you know, this makes a lot of sense for, you know, this thing I experienced with XYZ.
24:51It did let me look at a lot of my behaviors from a third-party perspective, right?
24:56This wasn't, I wouldn't get defensive because this wasn't about me, but it's like, oh, I can relate to that, and I can see exactly how that could have impacted this person, so I can see how my actions impacted other people around me.
25:08I will say, at first, at first it definitely did embolden my grandiosity a bit.
25:12But there's also the hypersensitivity to criticism that comes with this disorder.
25:17It also would, like, turn me into those vulnerable states a lot where I would just get so pissed off and just ruin my day because I got one bad comment or whatever.
25:25I had a tendency that in sharing my vulnerability online, that was a way for me to kind of regain control over it and make it not vulnerable anymore.
25:34Going online and being reduced to a caricature of myself in order to disseminate information, that reinforces and rewards some of the things about my disorder that are the most distressing to me.
25:46Social media, because of, like, you know, it's a numbers game, it really plays on some of the worst tendencies of mine.
25:55It's, like, obsessing over why am I not at this number yet, why is my watch time lower in this video, oh, did I stutter in this, whatever.
26:04I can't even, like, I can't re-watch any video I make.
26:06I literally cannot.
26:08I'm at a point in my life where I'm like, I don't really want to spend all of my life talking about the worst thing about me.
26:15And so, and I think that, like, earnestly, my experience online would have been largely more of a net positive if I wasn't so young.
26:26Like, I think I started YouTube when I was 23 or something like that.
26:30I mean, and I'm only 26 now, and I was diagnosed for maybe a year before I made that YouTube channel.
26:36I do not think I was ready in the slightest to become, to have a public presence like that.
26:42I never really viewed doing social media through that lens of social responsibility.
26:46Not at first.
26:47I was just, like, I'm just a dude on the internet putting my voice out there.
26:50And, like, I kind of maintained that kind of headspace for a long time where I was, like, I can say whatever I want.
26:55This is my YouTube channel.
26:56This is my TikTok.
26:57This is my whatever.
26:58But then there gets to a point where it's, like, oh, I know the things that I post, you know, hundreds of thousands of people.
27:06People might see it.
27:08And there is a degree of responsibility there in terms of, like, the messaging and the real impact that it does have.
27:15And it's something that I do shy away.
27:18Like, I'm very careful not to give advice because I don't feel comfortable giving advice because my life is a wreck.
27:23How can I tell you how to live your life?
27:25When people are like, oh, there's a narcissist in my life, X, Y, Z, what do I do here?
27:29I'm like, I don't know.
27:31I don't know enough about your situation.
27:32I don't even know how to handle myself, let alone another narcissist that I've never met.
27:37And then there's also the fact of, like, I feel a degree of responsibility to the people who also have narcissistic personality disorder because I know that growing up I would have given anything to have somebody that I felt like I could actually relate to, especially at some of the dark times in my life, right?
27:50I've had a lot of people, like, say, DM me and be like, you know, you helped me get diagnosed or, like, it's so refreshing hearing somebody else that, like, I can actually relate to, stuff like that.
27:58And that's something that honestly does keep me going in a little bit more earnest nowadays just because I'm like, you know, that feels like something that I can feel good about doing that's not purely tied to my own grandiosity.
28:11I want it to be understood through the lens of that I am a sick person and that I don't want to be like this.
28:18I don't want to be demonized for it, but I don't want it to be something that is viewed as acceptable.
28:23All those things, it does get very difficult to balance.
28:28And it's not something that I ever think I'm going to master balancing, but whatever.
28:33I need to be able to recognize that, like, you know, I can be in recovery from this and still maintain a public presence and be able to speak very well on the disorder without, like, that making me fraudulent.
28:47And honestly, now that I've worked on them a lot, it's made me really not value the presence as much as I once did.
28:55It's something that, like, once I get to a place in my life where I'm ready to, I do just kind of want to walk away from.
29:05Treatment for NPD takes a lot of forms, and therapy is only one piece of that, right?
29:11If you go to your appointments and, you know, do what I was doing and lie through your teeth and do nothing else, you know, you're not going to get very far.
29:18Treatment typically does look like classic, like, there's classic psychoanalysis and just counseling in general.
29:25I know that there's various forms of therapy for it.
29:30I hear schema therapy is very effective.
29:33Mentalization-based treatment is actually one of my favorites.
29:35Sometimes it'll put you on a mood stabilizer.
29:37That's where I was.
29:38They also put me on an atypical antipsychotic for the same reasons, just to act as a mood stabilizer.
29:45Depression can be very common with narcissistic personality disorder, so that has to be treated most of the time.
29:50And also substance abuse.
29:53It's a very high percentage of people with narcissistic personality disorder have a comorbid substance abuse disorder, usually alcohol followed by cocaine use.
30:02I've always had a weakness for alcohol.
30:04I'm sober now, but, like, I had a really bad problem with it because it enables you to kind of, a lot of the anxiety that I mentioned earlier around social interaction, and it gives you a little bit more social boldness.
30:16And I was also using it because I was like, this is a way to be able to get vulnerable with people.
30:21Not sustainable, obviously.
30:23It's going to be different for everybody just because there are, when it's a personality disorder, there's so many aspects to work on and so many things that you have to address that there, unfortunately, there's not just one thing that's going to work for everybody with the condition.
30:37And especially since comorbidities, borderline personality disorder, histrionic and antisocial personality disorder specifically, are very, very common.
30:44It's like, if you have one personality disorder, you more than, like, most people, I don't know if it's most, but it's like a very high amount to have a second comorbid personality disorder.
30:54Now, it's treatable.
30:56It can be managed.
30:57It can go into remission.
30:58There's some clinicians that seem more optimistic with how far that can go.
31:03There's some that are just like, you just have to manage symptoms, and that's basically the most that you can do.
31:09I don't think it can be cured.
31:10I don't like using that term because I do think there's a lot about how my, just how my brain functions that, yeah, it's not going away.
31:18Progress is slow.
31:20You have to look at it over a very long period of time because it's like, you're going to feel like a lot of times that you're not making progress until you, like, look at yourself a year ago and you're like, whoa, that was a different person.
31:31That was, that's crazy, actually.
31:34When I first got diagnosed, it was like, all right, how many, how many times have I yelled at people this month just when that started going down?
31:44It's gradual is the thing.
31:45It's a lonely disorder.
31:47It really is.
31:48I've always been acutely aware of my loneliness, and like, that's always been my, and that was always my goal.
31:53I didn't want to be lonely anymore.
31:54If I'm being honest, it doesn't bother me as much nowadays just because it's, as I've grown older, it's like the repeated failures to, like, really connect to people really started to just, like, grind on me.
32:07But that made me realize that I, like, for so long I was trying to force it.
32:11And in the wake of that, it allowed some more, some friendships that I didn't expect to be as meaningful as they are to slowly gain importance over time.
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