On Envy

Unlike the unrealistic resolutions people make every year to get to the gym or to stop drinking, for 2017, I have set myself a manageable task to stop using the word, "jealous," when I actually mean, "envious." It is a common mistake in our society, a product of the ever-changing English language, but I can be very literal at times, and this is one of those circumstances. Perhaps the most highly defined reason for this is my own personal obsession with envy. I am envious of the world while simultaneously believing the world is envious of myself, despite there being no logical reasoning behind either instance.

I must confess, I loathe happiness. Not the concept, mind you, but I do have a hit out on the joy of others around me. I am so paranoid of my own happiness being a precursor to something equally terrible happening in my life that I am no longer comfortable with a smile on my face. The semi-stability I see in people's lives blinds me like the sun, leaving me agitated and eager to reenter the darkness from which I was forced. I see a couple laughing with each other, biting each other's lips, tussling each other's hair, and I enter a frenzy. That comfortable level of happiness infuriates me purely because I am not sure I will ever experience that same level of pleasure.

There is a hungering void at my core, screaming out for sustenance, but no matter how it may get fed, there is no sating its rampage on my soul. I stuff the infinitely expanding darkness with every vice known to man, all to no avail. Though other people compliment me, telling me how great I look, I cannot help but notice the all too real fact that the void is turning on me, stealing the light from my skin, leaving a husk that cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Worse still, when this black hole is fed true accomplishment, the kind that comes from hard work and determination, there is still no reaction.

It is not simply a matter of me trying to fill this hole with sex, drugs, and material possessions, but rather that nothing seems to stimulate my existence anymore. I can spend weeks, even months, busting my ass towards self-betterment and progression towards self-sustainment, and when that end is achieved, I feel nothing. My hairs do not stand on end, I do not crack a smile, my heart rate does not increase. There is nothing. I am numb to it. Mountains have been crossed only to arrive back at ground zero.

What I despise about the happiness of others is that they can comfortably feel it. I fail to know whether I can actually feel genuine bliss at all. Things come incredibly easy for me: jobs, crushes, friends, educational opportunities. It is feeling good about these gifts that I struggle with, and as a result, my self-destructive tendencies ruin each and every one like sand castles caught under a wave. Meanwhile, others with healthier brains than my own would kill for the opportunities I have squandered. Combined with my fear of failure, abandonment issues, and the looming risk of retribution from the universe for my enjoyment, my displeasure with life has been amplified over the years to a point that I no longer yearn for partaking in new experiences.

This is why I hold such disdain for the delight expressed by those in my life. I want to feel that same pleasure in having such commonplace experiences without the constant dread. To combat these feelings, I have taken to cutting happy people out of my life entirely. If someone so much as smiles in my presence, they have to go. I cannot have anyone more content than myself in my line of sight, and if they so choose to be, then it is one less envious thought I have that day. Happy couples, successful entrepreneurs, or a schmuck who is just overjoyed to have found a ten-dollar bill; they are all in line to be erased from the annals of my being.

I have cut myself off from everyone in recent years, not out of some fear of socialization. I am as extroverted as they come. If I am not around others, then I have no motivation to so much as take care of myself as a human being. What I need are the distraught, the downtrodden, and the depressed to shepherd and to guide in order to make myself feel better about myself. The snarling vacuum in my head feeds off of their sadness, converting it into a fuel source for my own twisted ego which needs to be admired and loved for being so powerful and benevolent as to look out for others, but if someone is already powerful and not in need of guidance, then it feels as though they do not need me, and my interest in them starts to flee.

My own voice echos in my mind, screaming in a hoarse, almost demonic tone, to cut the people out of my life, to make them feel bad for losing me, and to have them come crawling and groveling back to me to be let back into my life. That same voice claws at the edges of my brain, chastising me, and blaming me for following those same whims and causing myself to lose those close to me, "That is why you lost the only friend you had growing up. That is why the former love of your life will never take you back. That is why the only person to truly know you is gone forever. Who are you going to destroy next, asshole? What incomprehensible sin will you commit against them and cause them to flee from your life forever?"

Silencing that voice and numbing the pain it has raught has become a full-time job to the point that I cannot even function properly. Alcohol is too expensive and so is adrenaline (if you plan on going to an amusement park), so I have settled for abusing my body through exercise. It is astounding how easy it is to silence a single voice in your mind if the rest of your body is screeching out for merciful death. Despite this indirect pursuit of a healthier, fitter body, it is still not enough. If I see someone with a body better toned than my own, my ego sinks once more, yelling at me for not doing enough to look like them. No matter what, it is never enough to please that darkness crawling underneath my skin.

Do not mistake this for some displeasure with my current state. I already am more beautiful, talented, intelligent, and entertaining than most people on this planet, but there is always a yearning deep down for a harsher regiment to raise the standards of perfection. If there is one tiny aspect to a person that makes them stand out over myself, then that person must be outdone ten times over just to make up for the attention that I lost for a brief two seconds of existence. I begin internally screaming when someone else becomes the object of everyone's adoration, and a grudge is born, an undying vendetta against the world for taking its gaze off of me for even a moment.

At the same time, I demand to feel needed, to be the target of everyone's envy, rather than the archer. Stemming from my own youth, I have always felt the incessant need to have the world adore me like a god. Rather than feel sorry for myself and give up after years of neglect, I inverted those feelings, and began to tell myself, you are worth more. Without anyone or anything to keep that mindset in check, it began to warp into a feeling that I was worth everything, that I deserved everything, and that if I could not have something, then I would change everything about myself in order to achieve it.

When you spend your childhood having half of your family put you on a pedestal telling you that you are special and the other half criticizing you and making you feel less than you are, it is not hard to tell which voices you will gravitate to. Those thoughts shape you, planting seeds in your head about who you will become. Then, as you age and you are not receiving that same admiration from other adults, reality can seem far less appealing. I bore witness to these experiences first hand and so, to reclaim those seldom happy moments from adolescence, I began to craft who I was based on what others would deem pleasing enough to want to be me.

In my own mind, if others wanted to be like me, then maybe it was a sign I was not all broken. This failed to be as simple as it sounds, though. I would change my speech patterns, likes and dislikes, fashion, and mannerisms; all for progress to becoming someone that others would deem superior and something to aspire to. Still, since the attention of humans can waver from one subject to the next, I would lash out and spite anyone who stole my spotlight while, at the same time, trying to shed my previous skin so I might morph into theirs.

People would sense it was not my genuine self coming out and try to convince me to be myself, but this was a foreign concept to me. Not once in my life was I concerned with being genuine, when I could be worshiped instead. To no one's surprise except for my own, I was actually pushing people away with my over the top antics and attempts to constantly outshine every star in the heavens. Naturally, my next course of action would be to only further change who I was on the outside in the hopes of finally meeting that glorious finish line of deity-like status with open arms.

It is not a far stretch to say that this sea of green washing over me has made me feel like a monster, perhaps rightfully so. I take, and I take, and I take, and have rarely felt concerned how my actions have hurt those in my life until it was too late. Even still, as more and more people have fled from my life, I have not made much progress in changing, try though I might. While some changes have stuck, I have found myself still falling back into the same patterns of my early life. The path to recovery is not an easy one, and while things may seem impossible, I like to believe they are not.

The key to changing the emerald demons polluting your soul is all in forcing yourself to partake in the uncomfortable situations. It does not have to be a constant bombardment, but to dip your feet in the waters of socialization with those you find yourself clamoring to mirror is the first step. Catching yourself before you enter a situation and scripting what to say and do to avoid misspeaking or making a general ass of yourself is also a powerful tool. You have to be on constant alert to the point that every other thought is about mindfulness and not about how to one-up the rest of humanity.

Envy is not merely some fleeting emotion that makes you feel uncomfortable. To some of us with personality disorders, it can be a siren luring us in only to rip out our hearts once we get too close. The trick is all in recognizing its bag of tricks and being ready to counter each vial of poison it pulls forth. You must remain vigilant and as you practice these mindful techniques, they start to become second nature and slowly but surely, it does become easier to not have to try and constantly be better than everyone. This is not to say the monster will give up or that the void will become sated, but from that day forth, you will be armed for every fight ahead. 

On the "Goldwater Rule"

The trouble with personality disorders is lack of representation, and this comes from a deep-seeded problem in their sufferers, a lack of introspection. This comes, as we have discussed before, from the disorders being ego-syntonic, or rather, the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors exhibited by their sufferers are in tune with the wants and needs of their ego. This is a stark contrast to disorders like Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder which are ego-dystonic, where the sufferer recognizes they have a problem, are troubled by it, and want help coping with it. When there is lack of introspection to one's own problems, this can lead to lack of representation for that community, leaving the only figureheads for their plight to be the worst case scenarios which bubble to the top. As much as I would like to avoid this discussion all together, it is time for us to talk about Donald Trump.

Love him or hate him, one cannot ignore that his fitness for holding public office has become a subject of scrutiny, with some in the media having discussions over whether or not he has an underlying mental illness which is not being discussed. Recently, on a Sirius XM broadcast of the program, Radio Times, there was debate over what is referred to as the Goldwater Rule of psychology. Before we dive any deeper into the debate over President Trump's mental state, it is important to understand what the Goldwater Rule is, and that brings us back in time to the presidential election bid of one Barry Goldwater, a man whom Fact magazine ran a headline about, in 1964, stating, "fact: 1,189 Psychiatrists Say Goldwater Is Psychologically Unfit To Be President!"

Now, that is an alarming headline, even if the man in question did look like the antagonist from Dr. Strangelove. What is alarming about the headline is not necessarily the number of people involved, but rather the idea of whether or not psychologists should be able to diagnose people from afar, specifically people in the public sphere. The affectionately dubbed "Goldwater Rule" was set in place by the APA (American Psychiatric Association) to dissuade their members from doing just that since the practice could have mixed results. The purpose of meeting with a person in a private setting is to properly gauge someone from an intimate perspective so as to help them from the root causes of their problems. When diagnosing someone from afar, there is none of that.

The purpose, instead, becomes a position of moral imperative, such as to warn the public of someone's fitness for public office. This was the case with Barry Goldwater and continues to be the case with Donald Trump. Through the election cycle, I was bombarded with news commentators bringing psychologists onto their shows and asking them very specific questions about Trump's mental state. Now, at full disclosure, I am not a fan of Donald Trump, and were it not for accident of birth, I would have happily lived my life never once setting foot in the same time zone as the man, but here we are. More disclosure, I am, as we have discussed, professionally diagnosed with two personality disorders and traits of a third, one of the three being the subject of discussion around the president; that one being Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).

That being said, let us move on to the Radio Times broadcast. One of the guests on the program, psychologist John Gartner, made the case against the Goldwater Rule, discussing how moral imperative was key when it came to Donald Trump, and for that, I cannot necessarily fault him entirely. Our president, in my own opinion, is the human embodiment of menstruation with a personality which can best be described as the awkward meeting between a person who wants to shake hands and another who wants to fist bump, resulting in an unpleasant orgy of fingers.

That, however, is where my agreements with Gartner cease and where our disagreements begin. He makes the argument that if only psychologists had been able to warn the public about Trump's mental state and how it would only get worse, then we would not be in the situation we are now. I do not see the viability of that strategy given that this pertains to a man who claimed he could shoot a man in broad daylight without losing any support, and then, did everything short of shooting a man in broad daylight without losing any support. If recorded statements about sexual assault do not make people second guess a candidate for office, then saying he is mentally unfit is probably not going to do much either.

Offering a differing opinion from Gartner was science writer Christie Aschwanden, who posed the question, what is the point in even giving Trump the diagnosis of NPD, which Gartner showed support for? Gartner argues that had he been given a diagnosis, Trump would have been less appealing to voters, but as I just mentioned, I do not entirely view that as true. People who already supported him would have more than likely written off the diagnosis as "fake news," while people who were already against him would have probably just spammed the link to his diagnosis on Facebook with the caption, "IMPORTANT!!! PLS READ!!1!"

At this point, giving Donald Trump a diagnosis is far less about making sure he finds some sort of help for a condition and more about losing him support among the voting public, which brings us back to the beginning. Where there is lack of representation, the worst case examples of a group will become the figureheads of a community. Take Schizophrenia for example. Before there was better representation for the disorder, it was demonized (and still is to a large degree), and its sufferers were thought to be dangerous, blood-thirsty monsters. As time has passed, we learned that mathematicians like John Nash, writers like Jack Kerouac, and musicians like Syd Barrett all spent their lives combating this demon, and while there is a lot of room to go in public consciousness about Schizophrenia, as well as getting treatment to those who need it and do not have access, things have undoubtedly gotten better.

When discussing NPD and Trump, he has become a boogeyman for the disorder. Even the man who wrote the criteria for NPD in the DSM-V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition), psychiatrist Allen Frances, disagrees with giving Trump the diagnosis, because, as Frances puts it, Trump lacks the distress and impairment which qualify him as having a mental disorder. This is a point which must be understood, because distress and impairment are the key difference between a person diagnosed with OCD who washes their hands until they bleed and a person who thinks it is fun to say they are "OCD" because they do their laundry at 1 in the morning. Just because you experience something out of the norm or just because you experience something unpleasant on the same level as everyone else in the human race does not mean you have a disorder, and it certainly does not mean psychology is turning any quirk into a disorder.

Everyone may feel depressed at times, but they do not all have depression. Likewise, you may feel great about yourself at times, you may forget to tend to the needs of others, and you may even feel entitled at times. None of this means you are a textbook example of NPD. Living with NPD means constantly avoiding any endeavor that you are not already excelling at out of an intense fear that others will mock you or laugh at you when you mess up, which you perceive will inevitably happen. It means if you are not the best at everything, then you view life as meaningless, and it would be better if you were dead. It means that you have to be perfect, and if you are not perfect, then you have to change whatever about yourself is imperfect, even if it means starving yourself, clawing at your skin to remove a blemish, or working out until you are so weak that you cannot even stand up under your own weight.

Call Trump a narcissist, by all means. He has proven time and again that self-interest is big on his list, but do not use my disorder to demonize someone whose actions do that for him already. The man's sub-headers on his Wikipedia page are far more ammunition against him than a diagnosis of NPD ever could be. Gartner goes on to say that people with this type of illness, either Narcissistic Personality Disorder or a personality disorder in general (he did not specify), would never admit they have a disorder, later saying, "These types of people are severely dangerous," which is, in itself, a dangerous statement.

To say "these types of people," meaning those with personality disorders, or more specifically NPD, are "severely dangerous," is, in itself, dangerous because within the larger falsehood is a grain of truth. Ignoring Garnter's other idea that we can look back at history and assess these disorders in world leaders who are long dead, there have in fact been recorded cases where persons with personality disorders have committed horrible crimes, Anders Breivik and Aileen Wuornos just to name a few. These were people who carried out premeditated attacks on innocent people, but to label an entire disorder or category of disorders as being dangerous puts a target on the back of anyone with those disorders. It dehumanizes the people with personality disorders to a degree that makes it seem that if anything unfortunate were to befall them, then...they were probably asking for it.

I cannot speak for all people with personality disorders out there. Many of them would probably rather speak for themselves, but I do my best in dispelling the myths surrounding this community, and what does not help that crusade is being labelled dangerous. This is hardly the only argument posed against those with personality disorders, and it is not entirely without reason. You look at the criteria of any given personality disorder, and it does not paint a pretty picture, especially those in Cluster B, but as I have discussed before, a diagnosis of this sort does not make you a bad person. As I have said before, when you are born, you are given a toolbox: your brain.

In the average toolbox, you are given a hammer, some nails, a measure, and other helpful tools at your disposal. With a personality disorder, your toolbox is a bit darker, featuring duct tape, zip ties, and a hacksaw, but these are just tools. You can see what you are given and follow some cookie cutter pattern laid out before you, or your can get creative. Life is not the sum of the tools which you are given; it is how you use them that determines what kind of person you are. Life is not a pool of good and evil people. It is a pool of right and wrong decisions, which you and you alone have to make, and surprise, no one is all of one or the other. Everyone is a mixture of both. Everyone.

No matter what someone says, your diagnosis does not make you a bad person. That is for you to determine. I, myself, am a self-absorbed, greedy, sinful, emotionally unstable, impulsive, angry, unempathetic, self-destructive human being. Despite all of that, I am alive, I have friends, I go on dates, I have a steady job, and live life to the fullest each and every day. I may need help from those in my life, both professional and intimate, but I am still alive. I am trying to get by, and while I may need more help than the average person, I am still trying.

I have a fight going on in my head, between doing what is right and doing what is easy, doing what is self-serving, doing what feeds my own delusions. This fight is difficult, this fight is real, and this fight is now a part of the public discourse but not in anyway that benefits those with personality disorders. The scary part about the whole situation is that the only way we can combat these perceptions of persons with these disorders as being dangerous is to step out of the shadows and tell the world otherwise.

I have often lived with the fear of being open about my mental illness, knowing the connotations those diagnoses carry, especially having seen those with better understood disorders than my own be ostracized by society. It is a taint on my soul which tears at my already fragile sense of perfection. Donald Trump is not and should not be the face of a disorder which he has not even been diagnosed to have. The diagnosis of a psychological disorder is not a label you should use to tear down those you disagree with. It is the tool which many of us use to begin the long journey to self discovery. 

On Attention

It is like an injection directly into my brain. It swims around in my head like a fish too big for its tank, and bolts down the highways and byways of my body to every square inch of my skin. An explosion of glitter and confetti ignites in my chest cavity, but no destruction ensues. Instead, my veins reverberate with ecstasy, and the drug takes hold over my conscience. It is a drug, at least to me. It can be taken many different ways: a question, a compliment, a comparison, but the effect is always the same.

Attention, admiration, compliments. They all sustain my soul, like bathing in the blood of virgins or drinking from the fountain of youth. I am Tinkerbell in Calvin Klein, and I am on the verge of death. Clap for me, and I spring back to life. With them, I am unstoppable, but without them, I am unable to move, act, or even think clearly. When presented with them, I act with all the apathy usually reserved for reading stereo instructions, but in truth, they are my only reason for continuing to live.

Naturally, that may sound melodramatic. When it comes to Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD), there is a sense of playing up the smallest obstacles and accomplishments in order to receive attention. Attention whores of the world unite under this banner, but again, as we have discussed in the past, what makes a pattern of behavior a true disorder is the havoc it can wreak on a person's life, and HPD is no different. My life is constructed around meticulously assured attention from the clothes I wear, to the car I drive, to the food I eat, to the way my body is sculpted. I sacrifice external comfort for the mental comfort I receive each and every time I hear my name called. A small orgasmic sound plays on repeat in my mind like a siren each time I am made the center of attention.

Even still, this sensation is much like an adolescent boy with breasts, I would be left speechless and clueless when I am presented with the attention I so badly crave, and then, my hollowness shows. What do I do? The visage I have presented to the world is all a lie, so how do I carry forward with the charade when there is no substance to back it up with? At that point, all I wish is for the swift release of death, but when it comes, I can only hope it comes in explosive fashion while I stand under the spotlight. Let my blood sparkle in that warm glow and pour out of me, providing myself with a red carpet of my own making so spectacular that the Oscars will have to change colors out of respect.

This, however, demonstrates a vital difference between my two main sources of fuel as well as their corresponding disorders, fore if attention is my gasoline, then admiration is my oil. Attention can be good or bad, envious or sympathetic. When I had an accident on a construction site and nearly bled out but stopped before going to the hospital so I could take a selfie, I was given attention. When I made my way to the top of the sales charts at each of my jobs, that brought me admiration. While HPD is more synonymous with attention, Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is all about the admiration.

Admiration, unlike attention, is a one-way street and can be a roller coaster in and of itself. While attention relies on the mere act of being noticed, admiration comes from the audience's sense of pride or envy in yourself. It is approving and reinforcing of your actions while offering respect, whether they truly merit it or not. People can admire your social status, your ownership of certain luxuries, your ideas and input to a project; your very words and actions hold sway with those around you. As discussed before, a person with narcissistic personality disorder has a need for admiration to feed their own grandiosity and avoid heading into a pit of self-loathing.

It is an addiction, each time requiring more and more to achieve that same desired effect, but whereas coke or heroin may not feel like they are working when a person becomes more resistant to its effects, admiration feels less and less true over time, producing the need for more frequent and intimate compliments. In my own childhood, self-esteem was far more of a concept than something which could be put into practice. Growing up in a household where little time is spent encouraging you to follow your dreams while other members of your family praise you for every little thing may just send you mixed messages. It certainly did with me.

At home, I received the prior, which left me emotionally void and eager to seek out places to garner approval, but really any form of attention would do. I would seek out pity from people by faking illnesses and injuries, perfecting this forgery of pain into an art form. As time passed, I grew to hate constant pity, concealing pain both acted and actual, believing them to be signs of weakness. My tactics morphed into an intense hunger for admiration, but still attention sated me. I changed my style to more outlandish looks which were neither in vogue nor comfortable with the life I was leading. I altered every aspect of my life down to my tone of voice in order to maximize the amount of regard I would surely collect from those around me.

Still, this only brought me attention, intense passing glaces which did not offer me that approval which I so desperately sought. In order to make this final change, I began adopting a perfectionist streak in order to be the best at everything which I endeavored. If there was no chance for me to immediately become the best at, I dropped it like a block of lead, fearing criticism and judgement of others. I needed thing to be the best at, to have the most knowledge on, in order to gain the pleasurable notice of those around me. That mental high of being appreciated and admired for skills and knowledge which others did not possess was, and still is to a large extent, one of the few pleasures I find in life.

It consumes me. Still, in this years of my adulthood, I find myself being eaten alive by a ravenous black hole at the core of my chest, and it needs to be fed. I fill it with all of life's poisons, trying to kill it before it absolutely destroys me. Less poisonous than alcohol or frivolous spending is this attention I so badly crave. It soothes the beast within me, tranquilizing it long enough for me to breath, but I cannot handle the words of others with a pleasing acceptance, fore I know the beast is suspicious of these words, believing them to be nothing but means to an end.

Are they true? Are these words just a ruse? What would be the point in telling me such kind things only for them to be a jest? Perhaps they are just things said out of pity for my miserable existence. Maybe there is something which the person using these enticing words hopes to gain from me once my defenses are down. These thoughts race through my mind each time I intercept a compliment, pondering on what is the true message behind it, ever suspicious of the messenger's intent. This is the true paradox, that while I constantly crave the stares and love of others, I cannot handle them.

My body has become inoculated against their positive effects by a barrier of disbelief built up by years of mixed messages which have altered my vision of my own self worth. How do I know who is being sincere and who is just trying to get on my good side long enough to use me? The thought that I am just a monster being pacified with pretty music crosses my mind each time I hear a flattering remark passed in my general direction. I attempt to deflect it, avoiding any chance for disappointment. I wonder if people ever see myself as I see me; an abomination locked away from humanity in his ivory tower, hurting anyone who gets close enough to see past the gilded gates.

I reject the commendations of others, because I know my own secret. I have spent the better part of my life constructing an image of who I am that does not match reality. Sure, I may genuinely be good at my passions and may know everything there is to know on a variety of subjects, but often I did not arrive at those points out of pure love for those subjects, but rather, in the hopes that I would be appreciated for that mastery. It is oftentimes even hard to determine who I am, because hardly any of my life has been genuine. It has been a front to protect me against the dangers of the world, both real and perceived.

In all that danger, one of the few solaces I have found has been in companionship, though I lack an understanding of what it truly means to be friends with someone else, constantly relying on them to boost my ego while rarely offering much in return. That flamboyance about myself draws in others like the green stone you spot on the beach, but once they get in close, they realize it was just a piece of broken glass. There is little substance to my glowing visage to keep people entranced, and they grow bored quickly. I am a blank slate which can adapt to any situation or relationship, even if I find that person deplorable deep down.

With a histrionic personality, there can be a shallowness about yourself both emotionally and physically. Exclaiming and proclaiming over the most minute occurrences in your life while showing little concern over serious situations as they come into your line of sight. A reliance on fantastical dramatics can turn off those in your life after a short while of enduring it, as can sucking up all the attention in the room for yourself, silencing anyone who dares to try and step within the space where that spotlight touches.

You can be inappropriate in a variety of situations, usually using your looks and provocative behavior to draw the gaze of others to yourself, and this trickery can even fool your own mind. You begin to think of relationships as meaning more than they actually do, further pushing people away as you try to cling on. Much like a star, the more you shine, the harder it is for people to maintain eye contact, making long-lasting relationships all the more difficult to achieve when you rely so hard on achieving the strongest gaze and not the longest. The behavior then becomes reinforced as you double your efforts next time to attempt and throw everything you have at a person, hoping it sticks, when all it does is scare them away.

While to an outside observer, it may appear that the person drawing in a crowd has more connections than any other, it is often a false belief. Still, all is not lost. Drawing back your ornate style of speaking while still keeping the flashy clothes allows a compromise with your hungry mind. One must make a conscious effort to notice how they are speaking, what words they choose to use, such as using "a problem," over "a crime against humanity," when you encounter the slightest obstacle in your path. Relying less on gossip and more on substantive conversation of pressing social issues can drawn in more people, and this knowledge can gain you far more recognition in the eyes of your peers than putting down others ever could.

Beating this addiction for the eyes and ears of others is never an easy one, and my own journey is still very much in progress. It all begins with recognizing when you are exaggerating. Even still, in my own life, I find myself battling my therapist over words, questioning what parts of my story are real and which I have built up over time. My own mental biography has missing pages and words which conflict facts with fiction. I fight for truth in my own mind, and I fight for peace in my life. I know a life of peace will be one where I am not always fighting for the microphone to shout down others while making my own presence known, and that is what frightens me most of all.

On Narcissism

From the moment many of us are born into this world, we are told we can be anything. Parents have the highest aspirations for their offspring, constantly driving them to do better than each previous attempt. A good parent wants their child to be successful, pushing them forward and catching them when they fall. A good parent knows when to take off the training wheels and stand back so their child can ride on the will of their own potential alone. For others of us, however, there is no choice. There are only two options: success or failure.

When examining the etiology of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, there are two common theories on where these traits start to develop. Either a child was constantly piled on with praise and acclaim even more the for insignificant of accomplishments throughout their lives, or their ego was mutated as a defense mechanism against consistent berating and criticizing from their parental figures. Either way, when the child grows up, they are left unprepared for the harsh and unforgiving realities of life. Despite the common misconception being that narcissists are cocky and full of themselves, in reality, it is all a front for a damaged sense of self worth.

The imagery of the inflated ego, while being accurate, is incomplete. The ego is a balloon which we carry around with ourselves throughout life. For a child who grows up to display narcissistic traits, that balloon has been damaged, poked and prodded until it is deflated and full of holes. As they grow up, that damaged balloon is replaced with another balloon, and, much like a frilled lizard, is puffed up to intimidate others and ward off attackers. Unfortunately, that balloon is inflated to the point that the material holding in all the hot air is stretched so thin that the slightest flick will cause it to pop in magnificent fashion, erupting with great force, startling everyone in the immediate vicinity.

Despite the dramatics and violent effects taking so long to build up, the entire event feels as though it only took a few seconds, even though this has been a lifetime in the making. The explosion leaves one feeling exhausted beyond comprehension as their attempt to pick up the pieces of themselves that have gone flying around them in a colorful display. They retreat back to their dens to repair the damage, but when they return days or even weeks later, there is no scarring or signs of repair on their balloon. It is, in truth, an entirely new balloon, even bigger than before, and if you try to bring up the prior events, they will deny that the balloon ever popped, making the events out to be a product of your own delusion.

I do not enjoy reality. Reality is existence, and existence is pain. Nothing can be wrong. Ever. I have come too far in life and endured too much suffering to have to experience such discomfort or ANY discomfort ever again. I have earned my red badge and with it should come a better life, better than anyone else's. I have endured more, experienced more, and healed from more than any human should ever have to. I do not have scars, I do not scream in constant and unrelenting anguish, and I do not have any sins to atone for. These are the lies I tell myself, building up a fantasy world in my head that is far more appealing than the reality which lies stretched out before me.

As mentioned before, through either constant praise or constant criticism, the mind warps the ego into an intimidating visage that will not back down, despite the eternal child hiding behind it being far more frightened. In my own life, I have experienced the worst of both worlds. How can praise be bad, though? It is instant gratification multiplied, and that has made me all the more susceptible to the future's unrelenting burn. Paired with the constant criticism, the sensation of praise acts as a false cure to a much more daunting problem, and makes in worse in the long term.

When I was a child, I was often sent mixed messages. I was made to feel that nothing I ever did was good enough despite being one of the few children at my school to not only be in the Gifted and Talented program but also to take part in the Odyssey of the Mind team which represented my state at the world championships. I was yelled at for every little thing that I did not do perfectly, and the criticism I received was hardly constructive, tearing away at what little self esteem I was developing in adolescence. When this emotional torture grew too painful, I would run away to my grandparents' house.

In their eyes, I was the most heavenly angel in all of creation, a being of pure light who could do no wrong. They made me feel safe, as if my life at home never existed, and for this, I would spend as much time with them as possible. If ever my mother came into my room at night, telling me we needed to get out of the house immediately to get away from my father, we would flee to my grandparents' home, which lay just two streets over. It was my safe haven where I could do what I wanted, when I wanted, and for however long I wanted.

They went out of their way to offer me gifts every time I came to visit, and deny I had done anything wrong if the subject ever came up. They put me on a pedestal of adoration and held me in regards that I knew I had not earned, but I was not about to question it. Time spend with my grandparents and away from my father was a better high than any drug I have tried since. I was given everything. I had to work for nothing. Best of all, I never once had a voice raised at me or had to hear the sounds of furniture breaking. All of that changed when they died.

When my grandparents passed away, I was left to fend for myself, an experience I widely regard as worse than a root canal. Between the perfectionism I developed as a result of my home life and the lack of experience with failure I had grown accustomed to from my grandparents, it hit me: I had never prepared for any of this. Now entering the world populated by adults who were not about to give me a free ride, I took it upon myself to avoid responsibility at every turn.

Me? Get a job? Drive myself? Get a degree? No, thank you. These were steps I was not ready to make...probably ever. I had never had a chance to get used to stress, as my only options in childhood were either pure hedonism or unadulterated fear. Anything that my ego perceived as an attack was cut from my life entirely. A boss raised their voice at me and criticized my work? Time to quit. College courses causing me a moderate amount of stress? Better drop out entirely. There is a chance that I might get rejected by that girl I have a crush on? Either talk to her in the most disinterested tone imaginable or just not speak to her at all.

I was, and still am to a large extent, a human disaster. Avoiding rejection and criticism at every opportunity has cost me several chances at happiness, and I cannot help but wonder if I am justified in blaming those around me. I cannot help but think that if not for my family, would I be successful? Would I be content with life? Even still, it is up to me and no one else to achieve the success I hope to see in my life, but every modicum of anxiety lights up my ego with red, warning my body's fight or flight response to activate or be annihilated. Worse still, I retreat to memories of the days when I was handed everything I wanted, but with slightly more destructive results.

I drain my bank accounts almost without fear of consequences just to satisfy my own desires. The clothes, the food, the alcohol, the cosmetics, and each with an inflated price to match my ego. I crave the best of everything to build up the image that I am great, despite my struggles to maintain the illusion that I am an adult. I crave the admiration of others, fishing for compliments pertaining to what I own, since what I am inside is far less pleasant, in my own eyes. The image I have of myself in my mind often takes a front seat to what I presently am, whether it lines up with my finances or not. My own body is often a target of this perfectionist mindset, becoming subject to torturous routines and actions in order to keep it as I see fit.

I work out each morning, pushing myself for this vision of fitness that is not achievable in reality, but in that moment, reality is not an acceptable option. The only option is perfection. I deny myself even slightly unhealthy foods, sometimes starving myself entirely to meet that mentally sculpted ideal of what my body should be, and only caving into those carnal desires when my ego tanks and leaves me feeling monstrous. I pick at scabs and other imperfections on my skin, horrified by their presence on my skin, once even going so far as to spend an hour prying a skin tag from my flesh.

I first noticed the imperfection while on vacation to Williamsburg, while laying in a king-sized bed all to myself. Stroking my neck, I felt it there. I covered it up with a high-collar shirt and tried to ignore its presence. All through the day, it vexed me; I would run into bathrooms at any given chance just to claw at it. I tugged on it, squeezed it between my nails, all to no avail. Once back at the condo, I ran straight to my room, frantically rummaging through my drawers until I found a sewing kit, removed the small pair of scissors, and clipped through my flesh repeatedly until the bond was severed. As I sat there on the bathroom floor, blood dripping from the hole in my neck, I ran my fingers down that same patch of flesh with excitement to no longer feel that horrid bump.

Now, you might, rightfully, be disgusted and, more so, confused by the actions taken to make myself "perfect" when, in actually, it does more damage to myself. The key in all of this, which you must understand, is perception. What makes personality disorders so particularly tricky is that oftentimes, this destructive behavior is just what our egos perceive as necessary. That is what makes them disorders and not some quirk that "everybody experiences." They are problematic, and we cannot just quit them. Oftentimes, we will never recover from these disorders, only ever learning to cope with them as best we can.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder is not just some cute term that you can interchangeably subscribe to the behavior of a politician you loathe or a partner who treated you poorly. This is a damaging disorder that ruins the lives of the people with it. While masking itself as confidence amplified, it is a front, a con directed at both the sufferer and those around them, born out of self-hatred and bathed in dreams of what could be. We tell ourselves these lies to make life seem less shit than it really is, but truly there is nothing little about these lies, because they add up, and eventually, we start to believe them with hazardous results on our own bodies.

Some with NPD turn to drugs like cocaine to mimic that same heightened sense of grandiosity they so desperately yearn for, but it never lasts. Others develop eating disorders, because they are consumed by that desire for unachievable perfection in their own bodies. I, myself, smear myself in organic cosmetics from head-to-toe, eagerly trying to fight off my own mortality, the second greatest fear of all, only surpassed by the creeping fear of being forgotten. Though we may be mortal specs in the darkest corner of the coldest room in the house of the universe, I feel driven by a necessity to make my mark, but how I cannot say, and that alone eats away at my soul.

The god complex is so enticing, for that reason; to feel that you are superior to all, that you are nothing more than an observer in this reality, unaffected by your mortal woes. When you visit that part of your brain, it is scary, at first, but it grows comforting to think that all others are just specs of dust compared to yourself, illusions that your eternal mind has constructed to provide you with entertainment until you get bored and fade back to a comforting existence of being nothing and everything, nowhere and everywhere. You can be anyone you want, because nothing is real, and this solipsist paradise is all just a dream, or perhaps a nightmare, depending on how you choose to play it out.

Still, it feels all too real, because it is real, and that is the greatest pain of all. When you lapse back into being, you are faced with a world that does not regard you in any high degree, in which you are not entitled to anything, and have to work as hard as anyone else to get what you want. You. Are. Someone. But you are not the only one, and to a narcissist, that is truly the harshest reality to face. It takes steps to ground yourself, to take your mind out of the clouds, and to start repairing the damage of your past. It will not be easy, but it has to be done lest you forever find yourself wasting a life over regrets of things that could have been.

I have found, in my own journey, the hardest thing to do is to put yourself out there. The possibilities of criticism and rejection will always be there, so you might as well take the dive. It does not have to be right now, but it has to happen sooner rather than later, lest you get too comfortable in locking yourself in the ivory tower of your own creation. I test the waters, little at a time, then go a little further each time. I have to push myself to get the job, then the pay raise, then the promotion. Take it slow, take small steps, grow comfortable in each step before moving forward, but it has to be done. They may have ruined your chance at a happy beginning, but the greatest comeback is in not found within angry words or self-destructive actions. Revenge is found in success, and you cannot succeed if you are not willing to take that plunge into the unknown.

On Relationships

Stop. Do not let those words pass your lips. Lock your lips, hold them in, and swallow them. Stop. Stop apologizing for every little thing which you cannot control, and save the apologies for when they really count. There are some of us who emerge from terrifying circumstances and feel the need to apologize for everything and anything, even if we had nothing to do with those events. Others of us grow so tired of apologizing that we deny all responsibility for anything, projecting blame on others who just happen to be standing next to the switch. We are hot, we are cold, but we are never dull. Any relationship with a person of a disordered personality can be intense, but it is important to understand why there is such friction between two people who care about each other so much.

As discussed before, childhood trauma can have profound effects on how a person develops into an adult. That adulthood fore which these persons are completely unprepared can be an enveloping darkness which makes them feel confused, lost, and scared. There was no guiding hand to teach us how to handle the most basic tasks of any functioning human, and none of these are quite as basic as socialization. When you are left to fend for yourself, you do not develop much trust towards others or altruism towards them. Instead, you are wary of others, thinking that every person is looking out for themselves first and everyone else when convenient. This is only natural when you have had to look out for yourself all throughout your adolescence.

To an outside observer, a person such as this can come across as cold, empty, mechanical, and selfish. While there is some truth to each of those points, the overarching reality is that we are, oftentimes, lonely. How does one make friends? How does one express love without seeming overbearing or without expressing it all at once as opposed to gradually overtime? How does one maintain a relationship with regular contact as opposed to dropping a friendship and picking it back up months later like a book? The impulse from outside observers is usually a frustrated response of "Just stop doing [A] and just [B] instead."

This shows the work which still lies ahead in demystifying personality disorders. Believe me, if we could make long-lasting relationships which blossom and flower into true connections as opposed to passing fancies, do you not think that we would? In my own experience, making connections is harder done than said. I hold little fancy in asking you about the weather or whether or not you caught the ball game the night before. I want personal details and I want them now. Tell me if you have ever had a threesome. Regale me with the telling of the first time you saw a dead person. Introduce me to those dark thoughts which you keep locked at the back of your mind and let me bath in your own darkness.

If I seem disinterested in you, I am probably assessing you from afar, bored by you, or completely unsure how to approach you without completely coming across as a maniac. Life has always been a carefully calculated series of interactions for me, because like with some personality disorders, there is a crippling and intense fear of abandonment. As a child I was constantly teased with the simultaneously tantalizing and horrifying possibility that one of my parents would leave and never come back. Through years of that painful conditioning, I have adopted this delightful need to stay with people forever, and when they leave (for whatever the reason), I am crushed and sent into a spiral. These anxieties soon gave way to the next domino: a fear of rejection.

I am confident in any endeavor which I know how to accomplish, but unlike with cooking or video games, there are too many variables in relationships. These variables make chances of success a crap shoot, and as a result, I am unwilling to put myself out there and attempt to make it work. Crippling loneliness works as a motivating force for only so long before it ruptures in my stomach and that darkness bleeds out of me through my eyes and mouth, drowning my pillow in a pool of what-if's and could-have-been's. Much of this self-fulfilling prophecy comes about as a result of something in the psychology field, commonly referred to as splitting.

Splitting is in reference to the "borderline" in BPD, a thin line between black and white which a person is able to leap across with the greatest of ease. I can hold you in the highest graces one moment and grow disdainful of your very breathing the next, breaking off all contact with you with no more hesitation than it takes to pop a zit. Every connection to the person in question is dropped. Numbers are erased, social media connections are deleted, and as you can expect, this makes it very hard for that connection to ever be regained, especially when the person orchestrating the erasure is vain and prideful, such as myself.

These broken friendships are not even under normal circumstances such as removing someone from your life who turned out to be a misogynist or a racist. Oftentimes, one argument or one quarrel will drive the disordered individual to develop intense hatred of the other individual in a matter of minutes or seconds. It can be over losing a video game to a less than gracious winner, the friend breaking plans with you at the last minute, or even an argument over semantics. All of this amplifies itself tenfold when the relationship is romantic.

Particularly with BPD, of which I share traits, there is almost an idolization of the other person(s) in the relationship. More so, you are given the opportunity to share more of yourself with a romantic partner. They see what you hide from the rest of the world, and these darker hues can make dating a living nightmare for the person with the disorder. We conceal our maddest edges out of fear of hurting the person we care most about. Slowly, comfort around this person takes hold and we let out the demons to see if this other person will accept them or run away in fear of the darkness we spew. If the person does not run, but rather, loves us more in return, then the first trial has been met and the next comes forth for them to face.

The frantic thoughts, radioactive emotions, and callous attitudes seep out overtime, and for some, this can all be too much, and they want out. This is when the fear of abandonment from before comes back with a vengeance. The disordered personality within our minds will do anything and everything to protect this relationship ranging from powerful and admittedly frightening displays of emotion to keep the person around to outright threats of suicide to scare the person into staying. If it was not apparent to you before, it should be now; Cluster B personality disorders are often associated with frequent hospitalization. There are desperate mental acrobatics involved to protect the ego at all costs, and this is a code red. When the person remains unswayed to stay, the psyche collapses in on itself, and the truly frightening and desperate displays are left behind for our friends to contain and clean up.

Inversely, if we were to initiate the break-up, it would most assuredly be quick, handled with the icy precision of a sniper, and done at a point in time when the other party would be unable to respond, make much plea, or hinder our exit from happening. This duality between feeling everything and nothing at all is varying solely on the desires of our egos. For most of our lives, we have been without dominion over our own lives, so to be in control is a new sensation which hold little regard for the emotional needs of others, which can make relationships all the more hazardous a minefield to cross. Despite all of the affectual foreplay and potential for self-destruction, I would not trade the potential for happiness away, despite how I might often fantasize for a life without need for love.

My last relationship was short, but oh so sweet. Before I was given my diagnoses, I dated an enchantress who had been diagnosed with BPD. Our lips were locked by the end of our first date; we knew it was fast, but we did not care. There was most certainly a spark. Our mindsets meshed perfectly with the grooves of the other, moving in unison, and each one's skyrocketing emotions syncing up with those of the other. We understood each other like no one else ever had understood us before. She pushed my boundaries in all the right ways, and I teased her mind until she would take control and do the same in turn.

We exuded passion to the point that others saw us as the dream couple. She could see through my anger and disgust and tell me exactly why they were not productive. I could walk through her barriers and talk to her on a level that only we could understand and respect. Her pain was my pain, and we knew what it took to heal those wounds and make each other better. She made me seek out therapy and learn more about myself than I had even thought possible. She is the reason I gained a deeper understanding into the reasons for why I am the way I am. We were perfect.

Then, it ended. One day, when I had dropped her off at her place, she said outright, "I don't think we should date anymore." I very calmly replied, "Okay." We said our goodbyes, and I drove away. I could not contain the storm for long, and fumes of untapped emotion flooded the car as I swerved down the highway, blasting music so loud that I had trouble hearing shortly after. Once home, I locked myself in my room for two weeks, picked up my bed and threw it across the room, knocked over cabinets and dressers, building a wall around myself which no one could penetrate, and though many tried to snap me out of it, I could not.

I sprayed venom at those who cared for me and tried to make me better, screaming at them for daring to show me one ounce of compassion. I did not feel worth it. "Is that all you can say? You really are a worthless friend," I screamed at one who tried to tell me that she missed out on someone special. "I don't need cliches from someone who cannot keep a girl for more than a week," I shouted at another. I was toxic. I was acidic. I was a nightmare to be around, but despite all of my dramatics, they did not give up on me, eventually pinning me down to my mattress and demanding I leave the house. My friends forced me to leave my den of despair and rejoin humanity against my will.

As time has passed I have come to terms with that departure from my life, but given the chance, I would absolutely do it all over again. I worked hard to control my emotions, even as I continue to struggle with developing relationships with others. Still, when things go south, I do my best to regain control over my mind. There is still intense emotion. There is still despair. There is still crippling loneliness, a fear of rejection, and that fear of abandonment. Now, however, I have the capacity to fight some of them more effectively. Rather than lock myself away from the human race, I run away. I run, I bike, I walk. I remain active in order to channel that pain into something positive. I work the anger and fear out of my body, crushing them in my fists and stomping them out with every step I take.

I will probably always have these demons inside of me. Personality disorders are not something you just take pills for or lose after some epiphany. They are a part of you, and for all the pain they bring us, it is important to channel them into something beautiful for those in our lives. No one will love you as intensely as we do, build you up and back up you as we do, or sing your graces as we do. All it takes on our part is knowledge of these demons within us so we might start to battle them on our own, and all it takes on the part of those in our lives is the compassion to try and understand why we are the way we are and the no-nonsense attitude to call us out when we are wrong and to tell us how we can better ourselves so we might better them in return.