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Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?

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Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?

#141

Post by keanzu »

In order for a person to be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) they must meet five or more of the following symptoms:

  Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
  Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
  Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
  Requires excessive admiration
  Has a very strong sense of entitlement, e.g., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
  Is exploitative of others, e.g., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
  Lacks empathy, e.g., is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
  Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
  Regularly shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
https://psychcentral.com/disorders/narcissistic-personality-...

Please refrain from self diagnosis.

Drinking alcohol doesn't make you an alcoholic. Talking about yourself "too much" doesn't make you a narcissist.

Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?

#142

Post by rconti »

Learn something new.

Do things you're bad at.

Stick with it.

I've found that learning new things, being accepting and open about how little I know, helps me turn down the ego a bit, and be more compassionate about others being bad at things I'm good at. And to define myself less by my abilities.

Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?

#143

Post by halbritt »

gonehome wrote: post #117
ggambetta wrote: post #15

Seeing 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…

People say this a lot, but it never seems very actionable. How do you do find someone good that you trust? How do you find someone worth the time? The couple of times I've tried to find someone you end up making a lot of unreturned phone calls. Maybe I have an unfairly negative impression of therapists - I both think that it's incredibly valuable to introspect and have someone smart and thoughtful to work things out…

I've had a fair number of terrible therapists and a couple of good ones. The only real solution that I can think of is to try several. Generally, you know early on. To me, it's a worthwhile endeavor.

Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?

#144

Post by mox001 »

Naturally, we tend to talk about whatever we happen to be paying attention to or thinking about. So excessive talking about oneself is a symptom of excessive thinking about oneself. Why would someone do that? I think that it’s a logical consequence of having “getting people to like you” as your highest value. If that’s the case it’s only natural to model other people’s view of you in your own mind and try to make it as pleasing as possible. I think that if you made a few important decisions that indicate to yourself that you have some other guiding purpose in your life (it could be as simple as openly disagreeing with someone about an issue you care about, or devoting your attention to a project that interests you in and of itself). Paradoxically, I think that MORE selfishness might be the answer (just like how attending to your heart rate can sometimes serve to slow it down).

Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?

#146

Post by rconti »

adityathakkar wrote: post #116

I'm not entirely convinced narcissism is something that has to be fixed. There are some aspects to it that are of course destructive as you mentioned (not enjoying listening to other people, and taking things to personally). Fixing these things I think comes down to enjoying the people you spend time with, and a radical belief that things will work out no matter what happens. But there are other aspects of narcissism…

An inflated ego is also a great way to never try anything you might fail at.

Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?

#147

Post by newbie789 »

I don't mean to sound flippant, because I'm being entirely serious here.

It's interesting that you talk about only seeing things from your own perspective and in the same breath lament the fact that you can't find a book written specifically for your perspective.

Perhaps read some of those books about what it's like to experience interactions with a narcissist from another's perspective, and see if you can identify behaviors or patterns that you exhibit. Then, once you've become more aware, work on those behaviors.

The label of "narcissist" as something that you are sounds like a copout, when in reality it's quite possible that you simply have a set of bad habits that you willfully engage in. It's not necessarily what you are but something that you do.

Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?

#149

Post by sounds »

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #113
JonathanMerklin wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question, really trying hard not to word it in a standoffish way: what do you get out of a therapist that can't be obtained from thought or general conversation outside of therapy? I don't think a "brilliant rational mind" is a prerequisite for coming to the conclusion that you're spending money to lock someone in conversation with you - someone that would not associate with you otherwise. To me, the relations…

A therapist is trained to spot things you miss. It's like asking, "what does a junior engineer get out of being mentored by a senior engineer that they couldn't just figure out by coding or reading blogs?" A therapist brings things like context, breadth of knowledge, and honesty. I felt like the therapist wasn't incentivized to sugar coat things to spare my feelings, something close friends and family might do. I am…

I agree that seeing a therapist for 5 years may indicate they're not actually helping you progress.

I could offer a different data point, but since it's all subjective experience anyway, just make your own call. I've enjoyed long-term therapy because I found more things I wanted to work on. Ironically, it is my therapist who reviews things on a regular schedule and asks, "why are you coming to therapy now?"

(If your therapist isn't doing that, maybe that's a red flag that you are being taken advantage of?)

Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?

#150

Post by Dragonai »

msaltz wrote: post #67

Despite the goofy name of the site, I found this article to be really eye-opening and helpful for me a few years ago when I had a similar realization: https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/the-art-of-conversat... It has tips for changing conversation patterns to avoid conversational narcissism.

Thanks so much for linking this - for a long time, I've been observing all of these various types of responses in the conversations I've had over the years, but never consciously named/categorized them to this extent. I've only ever mentally filed away bits and pieces about correlations between someone's responses and their personality. I really like how this article breaks it down.
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