Anti-Narcissism

[CFC]

FWIW narcissism has likely only existed since about 10,000BC in most parts of the world. Small communities/tribes/hunter-gatherer groups appear to raise children collectively. Your unvalidating parents and siblings would likely only participate in about 50% (or less) of your upbringing in those situations, giving your little developing baby/toddler/infant brain plenty of opportunities to connect and develop secure relationships with more nourishing and validating surrounding humans, and be saved from the psychotic break with reality that leads to the delusion underlying narcissistic behavior.

Blame the triad of crapitalism, population increase and the absurdity of the 'nuclear family' for the apparent rise in numbers of toxic, broken and delusional people.

 

[Foreigner]

FWIW narcissism has likely only existed since about 10,000BC in most parts of the world. Small communities/tribes/hunter-gatherer groups appear to raise children collectively. Your unvalidating parents and siblings would likely only participate in about 50% (or less) of your upbringing in those situations, giving your little developing baby/toddler/infant brain plenty of opportunities to connect and develop secure relationships with more nourishing and validating surrounding humans, and be saved from the psychotic break with reality that leads to the delusion underlying narcissistic behavior.

Blame the triad of crapitalism, population increase and the absurdity of the 'nuclear family' for the apparent rise in numbers of toxic, broken and delusional people.

Interesting observation. It seems like a lot of incredibly dysfunctional and abusive shit got hidden behind closed doors due to the isolated nuclear family model. There was so much shit in my family growing up that I didn't realize was abnormal until I got access to the outside world as a young adult. I feel that in tribal communities, there would be more balanced parenting and rooting out of bad behaviour.

 

[dosesfromcinco]

FWIW narcissism has likely only existed since about 10,000BC in most parts of the world. Small communities/tribes/hunter-gatherer groups appear to raise children collectively. Your unvalidating parents and siblings would likely only participate in about 50% (or less) of your upbringing in those situations, giving your little developing baby/toddler/infant brain plenty of opportunities to connect and develop secure relationships with more nourishing and validating surrounding humans, and be saved from the psychotic break with reality that leads to the delusion underlying narcissistic behavior.

Blame the triad of crapitalism, population increase and the absurdity of the 'nuclear family' for the apparent rise in numbers of toxic, broken and delusional people.

Interesting observation.

Very Interesting observation indeed...

Interesting observation. It seems like a lot of incredibly dysfunctional and abusive shit got hidden behind closed doors due to the isolated nuclear family model. There was so much shit in my family growing up that I didn't realize was abnormal until I got access to the outside world as a young adult. I feel that in tribal communities, there would be more balanced parenting and rooting out of bad behaviour.

I grew up in a family that shows almost no love or affection, at least I've never seen it in my conscious life. My parents divorced when I was like 5, so I don't remember ever seeing my mother or father hug or kiss a single time, and my mom didn't bring boyfriends around me often and if she did she was never affectionate to them. So when my parents split, my mom and I went to my grandparents, who I've also never seen kiss, hug, hold hands, say I love you, or show that they even really like each other much if I really boil it down.. They always showed affection through material possessions. Which was cool at the time, I felt like a pretty lucky kid at times, I was an only child and only maternal grandchild so I was spoiled with possessions, went snowboarding all around the united states + BC. But fuck man... I would have much rather had an emotionally connected, loving family and grown up poor. Definitely fucked me up a lil bit and it took me a while to realize it's impact on my relationships and even friendships etc.. one of the most disappointing things in the world is having to come to the realization that your family is too stuck in their own way to try and do anything to fix it. I had to pretty much learn normal human interaction through my friends or randoms. Don't get me wrong, they're not bad people for the most part. My dad definitely has some pretty severe anger issues but we thankfully haven't gotten physical (in his younger days we'd have gone at it for sure.) My mom almost certainly is undiagnosed Borderline Personality disorder as well as highly anxious and ADHD, Some of the things my mother has said and done to manipulate and punish me would make the wrong type of person crash out and go to prison. She has told me to hurry up and **** myself already countless times (mind you i've had like a collective 2-3 years in active opiate addiction spread out over the course of the last 10) Grandmother is one of the most generous and caring people in the world with an amazing heart, honestly if it wasn't for her I'd probably be dead somewhere by now. My grandfather is also a very respectable man, he's old school though, he's not confrontational at all and keeps his opinion to himself unless its asked for.

I am sort of curious what your upbringing was like if you care to share more here or through DM.
I'll show you mine if you show me yours! *ba dum tss.*

Psychedelics actually sort of helped me download the love and affection software update.

 

[emkee_reinvented]

What makes no sense is that the 3 mentioned personality disorder's are indeed being seen as the worst.
While Borderline ain't no piece of cake either, as example.

And conduct disorder's, which can go hand in hand with an personality disorder, can be just as bad. Like a person with an Passive-Agressive conduct disorder. But these where taken out of the DSM. Don't know why?

 

[Foreigner]

What makes no sense is that the 3 mentioned personality disorder's are indeed being seen as the worst.
While Borderline ain't no piece of cake either, as example.

And conduct disorder's, which can go hand in hand with an personality disorder, can be just as bad. Like a person with an Passive-Agressive conduct disorder. But these where taken out of the DSM. Don't know why?

I think anything from the cluster B list is rough, especially when it's untreated.

It seems like borderline gets clinically recognized a lot more than narcissism though. Narcs are charming and warm so they seem normal. It's only when you have private relationships with them that the torture starts. Borderline folks have such extreme reactions to things that it gets noticed by everybody. I think narcs and psychos are a lot more stealthy.

One of the red flags of psychos, I find, is that they imitate emotions very poorly. They'll mimic someone as a joke but it rings hollow and you're like wtf. Or they will laugh when everybody else laughs but their eyes are open and they're watching everybody's laughing to make sure they are in sync with them. It's weird. Or when everyone is freaked out about something they are emotionless.

 

[Foreigner]

Very Interesting observation indeed...


I grew up in a family that shows almost no love or affection, at least I've never seen it in my conscious life. My parents divorced when I was like 5, so I don't remember ever seeing my mother or father hug or kiss a single time, and my mom didn't bring boyfriends around me often and if she did she was never affectionate to them. So when my parents split, my mom and I went to my grandparents, who I've also never seen kiss, hug, hold hands, say I love you, or show that they even really like each other much if I really boil it down.. They always showed affection through material possessions. Which was cool at the time, I felt like a pretty lucky kid at times, I was an only child and only maternal grandchild so I was spoiled with possessions, went snowboarding all around the united states + BC. But fuck man... I would have much rather had an emotionally connected, loving family and grown up poor. Definitely fucked me up a lil bit and it took me a while to realize it's impact on my relationships and even friendships etc.. one of the most disappointing things in the world is having to come to the realization that your family is too stuck in their own way to try and do anything to fix it. I had to pretty much learn normal human interaction through my friends or randoms. Don't get me wrong, they're not bad people for the most part. My dad definitely has some pretty severe anger issues but we thankfully haven't gotten physical (in his younger days we'd have gone at it for sure.) My mom almost certainly is undiagnosed Borderline Personality disorder as well as highly anxious and ADHD, Some of the things my mother has said and done to manipulate and punish me would make the wrong type of person crash out and go to prison. She has told me to hurry up and **** myself already countless times (mind you i've had like a collective 2-3 years in active opiate addiction spread out over the course of the last 10) Grandmother is one of the most generous and caring people in the world with an amazing heart, honestly if it wasn't for her I'd probably be dead somewhere by now. My grandfather is also a very respectable man, he's old school though, he's not confrontational at all and keeps his opinion to himself unless its asked for.

I am sort of curious what your upbringing was like if you care to share more here or through DM.
I'll show you mine if you show me yours! *ba dum tss.*

Psychedelics actually sort of helped me download the love and affection software update.

Ketamine helped me a lot with the physiological fallout of PTSD, which was really just brain damage. LSD helped me feel cosmic oneness. But they got old.

 

[dosesfromcinco]

Ketamine helped me a lot with the physiological fallout of PTSD, which was really just brain damage. LSD helped me feel cosmic oneness. But they got old.

yeah, I've done more than any horses fair share of both as well, K at least has mostly lost its magic for me thru perma tolerance but I'm sure I could still find some therapeutic benefits, I just aint holing for less than a few hundred dollars lol, LSD I actually never abused unless you consider trips over 2500mcg to be abuse, and that was only two or 3 times max to get a truly introspective experience. Had the opportunity to do a thumbprint once but didn't feel it was the right time or place. Plus I probably would have lost my mind with the low tolerance I had at the time.

 

[Opi_Kid_Rock]

This has been lingering in my brain for years.

It seems like society only approves of hatred towards a handful of mental illnesses: narcissism / sociopathy / psycopathy.

People openly (socially) criticize narcissists. They also diagnose them.

(It tends to mostly be women calling men narcissists. This is weird because women tend to be much more narcissistic than men, IMO, but YMMV... and that is entirely besides the point of this thread anyway.)

What I don't understand is: why the hatred?

It's not like severely autistic people are pleasant to be around. I'd much rather hang out with a narcissist.

Bi-polar people can be really difficult too, but I've never heard anyone criticize people for being bi-polar.

Why are there certain labels we are not sympathetic towards?

I’m going to go along with some of Chomsky’s ideas around the history of human civilizations. When certain actions which hurt/have the potential to hurt the group/collective, it was always necessary in some way to banish, isolate, punish that particular individual in order to maintain the overall harmony of the group against the selfish and destructive behaviours of one or the few.

 

[Foreigner]

yeah, I've done more than any horses fair share of both as well, K at least has mostly lost its magic for me thru perma tolerance but I'm sure I could still find some therapeutic benefits, I just aint holing for less than a few hundred dollars lol, LSD I actually never abused unless you consider trips over 2500mcg to be abuse, and that was only two or 3 times max to get a truly introspective experience. Had the opportunity to do a thumbprint once but didn't feel it was the right time or place. Plus I probably would have lost my mind with the low tolerance I had at the time.

2.5mg of LSD? And I thought I took a lot back in the day. That sounds pretty nutty.

 

[dosesfromcinco]

2.5mg of LSD? And I thought I took a lot back in the day. That sounds pretty nutty.

Yeah I did a couple deep dives, one of which I spent most of the time in public and it was pretty overwhelming. Ended up at the food court of the local mall because my buddy I was tripping with was the type of guy who could eat forever when he tripped, I was usually the opposite. I just remember being so overwhelmed with paranoia as it seemed like everyone in this packed 250+ people was staring directly into my soul, whether they were facing me or not they had big googlie eyes like the ones you glue on paper just stuck to me. As my paranoia grew, all of a sudden I started to experience all kinds of shit that wasn’t actually happening, I started hearing sirens and then everyone’s eyes got crossed out like someone who dies in cartoons, oh yeah, everyone at this point looked more like a cartoon than a real person. Once I got over the peak of that trip though I remember it being one of the most enjoyable afterglows I’ve ever had on LSD.

 

[deficiT]

Yeah I did a couple deep dives, one of which I spent most of the time in public and it was pretty overwhelming. Ended up at the food court of the local mall because my buddy I was tripping with was the type of guy who could eat forever when he tripped, I was usually the opposite. I just remember being so overwhelmed with paranoia as it seemed like everyone in this packed 250+ people was staring directly into my soul, whether they were facing me or not they had big googlie eyes like the ones you glue on paper just stuck to me. As my paranoia grew, all of a sudden I started to experience all kinds of shit that wasn’t actually happening, I started hearing sirens and then everyone’s eyes got crossed out like someone who dies in cartoons, oh yeah, everyone at this point looked more like a cartoon than a real person. Once I got over the peak of that trip though I remember it being one of the most enjoyable afterglows I’ve ever had on LSD.

Had a similar experience on a bunch of mushrooms at Bonnaroo in 2010. Big ass crowd of people, everyone was focused on me for some reason. Hate those experiences.

 

[dosesfromcinco]

Bonnaroo in 2010.

That line-up though man, fuck. I already know I'd be punching air at all the overlapping sets and ones I missed.

 

[deficiT]

That line-up though man, fuck. I already know I'd be punching air at all the overlapping sets and ones I missed.

I missed like everyone I wanted to see because I got so fucked up. It was my first really big festival. Still managed to see Tenacious D, Weezer, Stevie Wonder, Jay Z, and some others.

 

[elgoucho9]

This has been lingering in my brain for years.

It seems like society only approves of hatred towards a handful of mental illnesses: narcissism / sociopathy / psycopathy.

People openly (socially) criticize narcissists. They also diagnose them.

(It tends to mostly be women calling men narcissists. This is weird because women tend to be much more narcissistic than men, IMO, but YMMV... and that is entirely besides the point of this thread anyway.)

What I don't understand is: why the hatred?

It's not like severely autistic people are pleasant to be around. I'd much rather hang out with a narcissist.

Bi-polar people can be really difficult too, but I've never heard anyone criticize people for being bi-polar.

Why are there certain labels we are not sympathetic towards?

Generally people are not sympathetic towards sociopaths and psychopaths because these conditions make the person not very nice to be around.

Hard to be sympathetic towards someone who has no empathy themselves towards anyone else.

 

[Madness]

^ right

And that's part of my view if I can get personal for a moment, empathy shouldn't be taken for granted. I dislike how people hide it in the corporate world.

 

[deficiT]

Generally people are not sympathetic towards sociopaths and psychopaths because these conditions make the person not very nice to be around.

Hard to be sympathetic towards someone who has no empathy themselves towards anyone else.

A lot of sociopaths and psychopaths fly under the radar. You might not even know someone was one. They're not all inherently malevolent. They are just more motivated by self interest than others, and kind of coldly unemotional and neutral. But they can blend in easily enough, although yeah it's hard for them to form social bonds like other people. Their personality is much more fluid. They still have the capacity to be friendly and helpful towards others, it's just it feels forced to them. If they are working on themselves in therapy or other ways, the manipulation of others is something they're generally trying to unlearn.

They still experience emotions, especially when it's something related to someone close to them. It's just hard or impossible for them to feel the same emotions for other people. They very much work logically instead of emotionally. A lot of them develop substance abuse issues, as using substances is one of the few ways they can feel anything.

 

[Madness]

I agree with basically everything in this thread, just to say: there are reasons for all of these perspectives and feelings.

See how convoluted society has made these terms?

How polarized?

 

[deficiT]

I agree with basically everything in this thread, just to say: there are reasons for all of these perspectives and feelings.

See how convoluted society has made these terms?

How polarized?

It seems to me like the terms psychopath and sociopath are basically just used as descriptors by layman's at this point as a descriptor of certain traits. Don't believe they're in the DSM anymore.

 

[dosesfromcinco]

A lot of sociopaths and psychopaths fly under the radar. You might not even know someone was one. They're not all inherently malevolent. They are just more motivated by self interest than others, and kind of coldly unemotional and neutral. But they can blend in easily enough, although yeah it's hard for them to form social bonds like other people. Their personality is much more fluid. They still have the capacity to be friendly and helpful towards others, it's just it feels forced to them. If they are working on themselves in therapy or other ways, the manipulation of others is something they're generally trying to unlearn.

They still experience emotions, especially when it's something related to someone close to them. It's just hard or impossible for them to feel the same emotions for other people. They very much work logically instead of emotionally. A lot of them develop substance abuse issues, as using substances is one of the few ways they can feel anything.

I've never been diagnosed or talked to a doctor about it but I feel this at least somewhat represents how I feel a lot of times. I really do have intentions to be a good person, nobody with sociopathic tendencies really wants to be that way I would think. It's just the way your brain is wired. I just feel emotionally disconnected from a lot of things that most other people aren't. I grieve in super weird ways, like when someone I know passes away, it certainly bothers me but never like it bothers others. I grew up in a very very manipulative household so it has certainly been embedded to me as a response to defiance, and I hate it about myself. It's the first thing that pops into my head and I have to fight the thought.

 

[dosesfromcinco]

psychopath and sociopath are basically just used as descriptors by layman's at this point as a descriptor of certain traits.

So much truth to this, at this point when speaking on the two I usually follow with tendencies for that exact reason.