Social Anxiety or Covert Narcissism

I know I have been posting about this in the forums a lot lately but I have been really introspective and finally figured out how to word what's going on with me. This is my last post about it, I promise. I'm just hoping someone can relate and maybe offer some advice on how to be a better person and move on from here...I cannot see a therapist right now and spend hours each day feeling devastated and like I will never change/get out of this personality that I'm stuck with.
I am severely socially anxious and deeply insecure. I have no friends, just family and a boyfriend. I have control issues with my boyfriend, basically revolving around me trying to control his drinking to the point where I only feel like I can "allow" him to have a couple drinks at the end of the day, rather than 6 drinks. I think I may be abusive, because I get passive aggressive when he drinks too much and I try to manipulate him all the time to drink less. I have a deep hatred for alcohol in general as well, and I'm not sure why...I'm afraid it has to do with lack of control.
Also, in high school I believed I was less than everyone and very inferior. I began pathologically lying to compensate, and some of that habit has still stuck with me (I'm now 22). I hate that I do it so much, but I get so nervous in social situations that at this point it almost seems unconscious and unintentional. However, up until 3-ish weeks ago, I've also intentionally lied to avoid blame/rejection and I realized I have never held myself accountable publicly for almost anything, ever. I have never been honest about my mistakes and taking the blame has been unbearable for me. When I do get blamed for mistakes, I am extremely defensive. However, I've realized this and want to stop.
Looking back, I've never really been good with having friends and in high school it seemed like I always wanted to be friends with people who were "at the same level" as me popularity wise, and then I would tell them a bunch of lies to make myself seem more popular. I was completely terrified of the people I felt were "superior" to me. To this day I'm constantly comparing myself to others and had originally accepted that I was socially inept because of my lack of desire for friends, feelings of insecurity and awkwardness around others, my boring life, etc. But lately, it seems as though I have gone back to a coping mechanism of thinking I am "better" than some people or more intellectual than them or "deeper" than them or not able to be understood by them and that's why I have no friends. It feels like I believe I'm both better AND worse than other people. I don't understand it.
Most of the people I know in this town are my boyfriend's friends, who all drink heavily, and I think partially the feeling of "being better" comes with my hatred of drinking. I do believe that people who don't drink are better to be around. I do not want to feel superior for not drinking though, and yet I do. I think that since I don't want to hang out with people who drink, I make the excuse that I need to find a group of friends who also doesn't like to drink and can have fun doing other activities. But wouldn't this be like the narcissistic belief of believing you should only hang out with other "special" people?
To make matters worse, I have really bad OCD and spend hours ruminating about this and other things, so that I am largely only focused on myself. I always feel like my condition is "the worst" and that therapists I have seen in the past couldn't possibly understand what I'm going through because my condition is somehow too bad. I also realize now that this is untrue and would like to change my deep-seated beliefs about this. My constant worrying about myself and different situations leads me to be very selfish, and feel the need to exert a lot of control over my environment, myself, and others.
I have read that narcissists don't feel a lot of empathy, but I do feel like I can be empathetic. The thing is, I often feel completely overwhelmed with my own anxieties and insecurities to the point where I feel like I can't handle worrying about the problems of other people as well, or I will break completely. I do enjoy to help others though, but only when I'm not feeling totally overwhelmed. I also feel that liking to help others comes from the feeling of pride I get of knowing that I helped someone else (which would also be selfish).
Basically I'm at the point where I know that if I do have covert narcissism, it has come about as the result of being a perfectionist and having severe anxiety and low self esteem for many years. I don't want to be mean to others, but I feel as though secretly in my mind I am always referring to myself as having great potential, and I imagine myself growing up to make a difference in the world and be recognized. I have read that narcissists expect to be recognized as being great without having the commensurate achievements, and that's how I've felt on occasion. Like I expect to get a good job someday, even though I am lazy, scared, and often less than perfect at my current job (and those are things I would never admit to anyone before, btw). I want my family to tell me I'm doing a good job where I'm at, even if I'm secretly falling short of both mine and their standards.
Sometimes I feel "different", or even special. Sometimes, I do feel entitled. But at the same time I also feel like the worst person in the world, deserving of nothing. Deep down I feel a lot of shame.
Is this just "growing up"? Or is this mindset more difficult to grow out of. Am I a horrible person?
I guess, where does social anxiety cross the line into covert narcissism? And what can I do about it?

I am not in the business of diagnosing others, but if I were to take a guess I would say the low self-esteem which goes hand-in-hand with social anxiety has likely caused somewhat narcissistic behaviors to emerge as sort of a defense mechanism. Then again, having features similar to a certain disorder doesn't necessarily mean you are suffering from said disorder and the fact that you are so self-aware leads me to believe you most likely aren't exhibiting narcissistic personality disorder. From my understanding, narcissists wouldn't dare admit their faults to anyone-especially not themselves. Do you perhaps think your worries are simply caused by your OCD? I recall reading those with OCD-some, not all of course-tend to fret over whether or not they have serious diseases or disorders and the like. Whatever the cause may be, it is good you've taken the time to assess yourself, identified where improvement is needed, and desire to work towards a solution. The fact that you are so worried about this indicates you are not a horrible person. A horrible person would not care whether they hurt others or whether they were too self-centered. The obvious solution is to work on your self-esteem, as doing so would erase the reason for these coping mechanisms. Unfortunately, I am not really certain how one does that. I always feel better when I learn new things, so perhaps you could go that route.

Thank you so much. I honestly appreciate that a lot. You made a good point about the OCD, and I am a major hypochondriac about different physical and psychological conditions. I do definitely think I am pretty narcissistic deep down, but my OCD definitely makes it worse because it makes me feel like I am ONLY narcissistic. For example, when I read various attributes of covert narcissism, I feel as though I can say "yes, I can relate to that" to every single thing, but all the times I did not exhibit those behaviors are forgotten in the midst of a bad OCD cycle.
OCD definitely does not help this process, because now I'm even worrying that posting on here is just all a ploy for attention and I feel evil deep down.
But alot of covert narcissism rings true for me in my heart of hearts, OCD aside, and I agree that it would be good to raise my self-esteem. But I don't want to over inflate my ego even more.

The question is not only "do I exhibit these symptoms?" but "what are the causes of these symptoms?" Once you find the reason for your flaws, you can tailor a way to eradicate them. I still believe it is likely they are caused by low self-esteem, so my suggestion that you raise your self-esteem still stands. I don't think you have any need to worry over "inflating your ego". Your extremely self-criticizing nature will see to it that doesn't happen. Remember: High self-esteem and a huge ego are two different things. Raising your self-esteem wouldn't mean getting to the point where you never have any doubts in your abilities, rather, it would mean you have the courage to move forward despite your doubts. High self-esteem is a difficult goal, however, so how about we aim for "higher-than-its-current-point esteem"?

On a personal note, one which I hope will serve as a point of relation, I have experienced that nagging, doubting voice. "You don't really have any troubles. You're just looking for an excuse to be lazy and dreadful. You just want attention-why are you such an attention *****? Stop making excuses. Everyone knows you're a liar-did you notice the look on his/her face when you tried telling him/her your feelings? (S)he looked completely fed up because (s)he knows you're a liar and you do too!"
Makes it rather difficult to communicate your "issues", which I'm sure you can relate to. I must ask you preemptively not to regret writing this post-if you are anything like myself, you will later see it as a pathetic cry for attention. It's not. It takes a lot of strength to be able to admit what your problems are and then share it with people, anonymous though we may be.
This was a lot of rambling nothing, wasn't it?

No, it wasn't rambling! I found your points to be very helpful, thank you!
The only thing is, at the same time as I am very self-defeating, there is also this other defensive, selfish side of me that tries to make me feel superior to compensate, leaving me feeling simultaneously better AND worse than others and leaving me alone with no friends.
I agree it would be good to raise my self esteem, but I don't want to over inflate my ego even more in doing so and how does one going about doing that?

Im a female and have also been wondering if I have covert narsisist or social anxiety disorder. That is how I found your write up, I'm amazed as I kept reading that you almost had the same problems I did. I too have ocd but it has calmed down some. i don't get anxiety from bad thoughts anymore it's like somthing just switched of and the bad thoughts have become part of my personality? I also have very low self esteem and am very sensitive to what other people think. In front of most people I just keep my mouth shut for fear of sounding stupid. I'm also narsistic. If I say somthing stupid I beat myself up mentally or if I say something clever I have such pride. And I love compliments, they give me a sort of high. But one thing I am not very controlling, which is usually true for a narsistic. I to wish I could change.
There must be some link between ocd and narsissm or self centred ness

I am so glad you responded! However, I do feel that compliments should make one feel good and that while beating yourself mentally for saying something stupid isn't okay, Im not sure that's narcissistic! The main narcissistic symptoms I'm experiencing are the need for control, defensiveness when I'm blamed with something, and constant comparing myself to other people with jealousy. But I'm not totally sure if I'm narcissistic either. A lot of what you posted about sounds like social anxiety but I'm not qualified to say that for sure!! Have you seen a therapist? Hang in there

Ah, a very good question...I will help as best as I can.
It is OK not to know things and it is OK not to be good at things. It doesn't make you inferior and no one will think less of you for not being superb at every little thing. I find most people who hide their insecurities behind a veil of faux superiority have never been told this. I would say working on accepting your flaws is a part of building self-esteem.
Do you think perhaps the feelings of self-defeat occur because you are aware these feelings of superiority are unfounded? And do you think you have these feelings of superiority because you are afraid of being thought of as a failure? I don't mean to seem as though I am assuming things about you.

Yes I feel like the feelings of superiority cause me self defeat because I know they are somewhat unfounded. And yes, I would say that I am terrified of rejection as well.
Another thing I just realized tonight is that I may isolate myself not due to social anxiety, but rather due to the stress that comes from the constant comparisons I make between myself and potential friends. In order to feel 100% secure in a friendship, I'm afraid that I would have to feel "better than"the other person in at least one way. Idk wtf is wrong with me and why I'm first realizing this now, but this is absolutely terrible and I want to fix it.

I have similar symptoms and have asked myself the same question.

Basically the conclusion I reached is that it's not a narcissistic orientation because, covert or not, narcissists have a defensive belief which states that "I am unique, special, supremely talented and capable and just better." therefore I do not need other people.

An overt narcissist selectively focuses on the evidence that s/he IS special. Whereas a covert narcissist, lacking any evidence of their specialness, subsequently decides to at least avoid any situation that would produce evidence that s/he is not special, and thus needs people.

By avoiding those situations, the underlying belief is maintained.

Which means covert narcissists are still narcissists... fundamentally they still believe that they are special and do not need other people. They're just avoiding examining that belief too much because their intuition is telling them it could be false.

It's unthinkable for a covert narc to say "I only want to be around people who are worse than me" because that implies that they recognize there are people that are better. They do not (consciously) recognize that. If they are a narcissist then they wouldn't tolerate the thought.

In that case, the fundamental split is good self vs bad other.

Look at the borderline continuum instead... where the underlying belief is "I need people but I cannot trust them to be willing to meet my needs."

Other people are recognized as being fundamentally "like" the self, as in, on the same playing field.... so empathy is possible. However there is a split (in both self and others) between good person behaviors and bad person behaviors.

It all comes down to "under which conditions do others meet my needs?" If others meet my needs when I am sick and needy, then being sick and needy is a good person behavior. If others meet my needs when I am pretty, then being pretty is a good person behavior.

Aaaand if others meet my needs when I am better, then being better is a good person behavior (and being not better will lead to abandonment)

So you have two very different psychological profiles creating avoidance of situations in which I am not better. But the difference in the latter is that the crucial belief is not "I just AM better." Maybe the person sometimes believes they are better, but only in situations where there is actual evidence of being better (because it's not a magical, defensive belief.) Maybe the person sometimes likes being better, because who doesn't? And because being better gets my needs met. The point is they can tolerate and acknowledge the possibility of not being better.

The avoidance of people is not avoidance of not being better, but avoidance of abandonment (...if I'm not better.) And telling yourself you're better when you feel alone is a way of telling yourself "if people saw the ways that I'm better, then they would love me." It's kind of like a rescuer fantasy.

I think this comes from being the recipient of narcissistic abuse (usually from a parent) rather than being the narcissist yourself. "If I was just good enough for them (aka perfect) they would have loved me. So once I am perfect then I'll be worthy of love."

Don't know if that makes sense or if it feels like it fits for you but, that's how I figured it out for myself. Also I could be totally wrong so.

This is so brilliant. Wow. I don't know if my true underlying fear is abandonment though. I'm feeling lately like it's just a fear of being a failure/which goes along with fear of not being the best which I feel points to perfectionism. I feel like a lot of my self worth comes from making comparisons to others and being "better" in some way, and I'm really scared aboUT that. Thanks for your response.

Why are you afraid of being a failure? If you can honestly look at the root of the fear then you can overcome it.

Making comparisons to other people is human nature, and it's a part of human nature that I frankly think is out of control because of the current "system" as it were. Our society breeds this kind of thinking, you're not worthy unless you can measure up to what the system defines as "success".

Why does the comparing thing frighten you?

I think it frightens me because if I'm constantly comparing, that leads to the "better than" thoughts at times. I am worried I can't tolerate being friends with someone unless I am "better than" them in at least some way so I don't feel insecure and jealous. I realize that people are more than my judgements, and I just wish I wouldn't do it.

What is so frightening about having "better than" thoughts at times? Comparing is a part of human nature.

Judging people is yet again human nature. The key is not letting it dominate your actions. Thinking something is not inherently harmful, it's how you choose to act in response to those thoughts that matters.

Thanks for that