I found Sam Vaknin’s work helpful for the most part, if a little overly dark at times: https://www.healthyplace.com/personality-disorders/malignant...
Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
71–80 of 404 posts
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#72The anatomy of peace helped me focus on others instead of myself, I can highly recommend it!
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#73I'm not surprised that the literature on narcissism isn't helping you, because looking for books to help overcome your narcissism is the last thing a real narcissist would do. In their world view, the problem is always everyone else. It sounds more like you're growing, and learning something about how your ego operates, which is a good sign. The question is how to grow further in this direction. In my life, the thing…
I went to my therapist once and said "I have terrible news, according to this book on narcissism, 8 of the 13 symptoms apply. I'm totally one. How can I fix it? Is it fixable?"
And she smiled and said..."a real narcissist would never ask that."
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#74Or you might find people you do want to listen to. Sometimes you really are the only sane person or THE most interesting person in the room. It isn't you who is the problem but the room you occupy.
Think about this, if you were in a room with Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerburg, and Bernie Madoff, how much talking would you be doing?
Not that much.
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#75Seeing a therapist might be infinitely better than reading a book, and not just for narcissism. We're all broken in our own wonderful and unique ways. I've been seeing a therapist for 5 years now, and the positive impact this has had in my life and on my general self-awareness can't be overstated. As engineers and tech people we have one tool that has proven incredible useful in our careers: our brilliant rational mi…
What are examples of problems you couldn't solve with your mind?
-Job loss
-Romantic losses
-Self compassion
-Self care
Conceptually, think about how many times your friends have an issue that seems trivial for you (on the outside) to fix. Surely the same applies to you. Especially if you're high functioning, by definition anything left to work on is relatively outside your awareness and can't be solved from the "inside".
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#76My former partner behaved in narcisstic ways from time to time.
I didn’t even know what narcissism was until after we broke up after 8 years.
But dealing with narcissistic behavior was absolutely awful. It left me mystified about all sorts of things to do with us, as well as hurt and feeling abused.
She’d never ever acknowledge her narcissistic behavior so even recognizing it puts you in the right path to addressing it.
And for those people who suspect they have close relationships with narcissistic behavior, run if you can.
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#77Or you might find people you do want to listen to. Sometimes you really are the only sane person or THE most interesting person in the room. It isn't you who is the problem but the room you occupy. Think about this, if you were in a room with Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerburg, and Bernie Madoff, how much talking would you be doing? Not that much.
Not a helpful comment when this person has suggested it has negatively affected their life and is looking to change.
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#78Faith born from the most the completely antagonistic, virulent form of atheism you can imagine worked for me. Also, reading Ralph Waldo Emerson (the essays, not poems) and SOLITUDE.
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#79I don't know if I would say I'm a narcissist, but I have realized that I'm very prone to interrupting people mid-conversation, because it's just what my family does. When I'm with them (or other interrupters), it's totally normal and not rude at all to interject when you have something to say and someone takes a breath, but obviously it's problematic elsewhere. Doubly so when I'm dealing with someone from the South or Midwest who tends to speak more slowly with pauses.
I don't have any brilliant thoughts, I just focus very hard on not interrupting. If I'm on a call, I'll jot down the things I want to say, which helps, but in real life it's just constantly reminding myself that just because someone is taking a breath doesn't mean I should start going.
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#80In Germany a book about narcissism[1] rose to popularity after there has been a documentary[2] on national television in which the books author was featured prominently. I cannot comment on the book because I haven't read it but the documentary was interesting[2]. Unfortunately it seems to be available in German only.
One funny thing for me was that the author runs a self-help group for narcissists. On Facebook. I thought this must be as if the anonymous alcoholics would meet at the local pub.
[1] https://www.amazon.de/Ein-Narzisst-packt-aus-gesellschaftlic...