This will take a bit to explain. But I was diagnosed in April of this year by a psychiatrist, which sent me on a long, obsessive journey of self-discovery.
I'm very dysfunctional in real life. I was totally unaware of myself and my behaviors until this year.

My diagnosis didn't seem to cover everything, and based upon someone's suggestion to me, and after a lot of research, it seemed I am a covert narcissist. In fact it fit me perfectly. It described everything.

This realization happened in late october. Literally three days after this realization, I had an experience in which my True self came out through a fantasy. I experienced "him" for about 15 min before fading.
I have felt similiar before, like during rages. A complete, utter lack of empathy for others, and extreme haughtiness.

It was an amazing experience and changed me dramatically. I kept researching, and I started delving deep into my childhood. Most of my childhood has been blocked, and it was very difficult but I started piecing my entire life together.

It occured to me, I wondered if perhaps it is possible to be in so much self-denial, that you are in delusion. Completely unaware of certain thoughts/feelings, because they get censored in the subconscious before reaching the conscious level. Literature I have read about covert narcissists states this fact. (are we allowed to post links?)

So I started looking back in my life, deep into my childhood, and it started coming together. The veil started falling off. I felt exactly like I did in the bathroom. Complete lack of empathy, no care for others, extreme, such fantastic haughtiness.

Then repressed memories came. Very painful memories of being bullied, teased, abused all throughout middle school.
There was an incident, in which I was deeply humiliated at one school, and three different times had a loaded gun in my mouth and nearly killed myself.

I then realized the truth. I made the conscious decision to change. That I had to deny myself, so hard, and pretend to be anything but me to find acceptance.

Reality hit hard, and I realized the person I've been living as for the last 24 years was just a sock puppet. The "False self". That he never really had existence, it was all just a facade. I literally felt his existence ripped from him, and I suddenly felt like me, my True self, had no existence.

Then finally my harsh conscience came into full view. My incredibly harsh, unforgiving, critical conscience. It is extremely critical, of myself and others. Always calculating, pondering, categorizing, finding solutions. It is extreme black and white thinking, and it is a work of art. Perfection. I absolutely loved my mind while in this state.

I literally felt like I couldn't be anything but the center of my universe.

Major self doubt started, and I had this growing need for my existence to be validated. I felt like I couldn't exist in any reality where I couldn't be accepted. I started getting desperate, and getting very dissociative.

I went to the hospital three times before I was finally admitted into the psych ward. I became so desperate for validation, I turned very aggressive and dangerous, and was in lock down for the first two days. I was there a total of five days.

Official diagnosis was acute mania with psychosis. I do have bipolar, and I was delusional just a day before. I am prone to paranoid delusions.

But it still makes me wonder, if this was a real experience that triggered a psychotic episode because I couldn't handle reality, or if it was all just a delusion. I don't know.

Thanks for listening, and sorry for any trouble. I was honestly desperate and felt so much pain. Not having my existence in this reality validated was extremely painful. Also, noted by the social worker that did my original intake, that the lack of validation caused me "excruciating emotional pain, aggression, and regression". I was highly dissociative in that state.

So I don't know what to make of all of this. Thanks for listening.