[defyinggravity65]

Hey everybody.
I have severe OCD and anxiety, so it's hard for me to know whether all these traits I hate about myself come from that or just from a deeply rooted selfishness. I fear that selfishness is at the root of all my problems... I'm going to list some off and tell me what you think please based on what you know either from having NPD or knowing someone who has it.

-I have severely low self esteem
-I am an extreme perfectionist and hold myself to unrealistic standards (and sometimes others)
-I often obsess about my failures, and become depressed when I realize the deep extent of my flaws (I always thought this was just OCD but now I'm not sure)
-I spend a lot of time in life and on this site worrying about different problems that I have. When others confront me with their problems though, I always am eager to help, but part of me wonders if it's just because I feel special that they are coming to me with their problem and want to "impress" them with a potential solution to it.
-I have a weird obsession with drinking alcohol...I can't stand it. I can't stand when my boyfriend does it and I have called him disgusting when he's drunk before. I also am known for giving silent treatments passive aggressively when he drinks too much. I come from a family of alcoholics that traumatized me growing up and I do not like the feeling alcohol gives me, so I refrain from it. I don't really understand the fear of my boyfriend doing it..maybe I'm worried he will become an alcoholic? Idk. But when he or his friends sit around and drink all night I think that I am "better" than them for not doing that and I will get a really bad attitude. I know that this is not necessarily true though and it bothers me
-I daydream a lot...sometimes about me being a famous singer or that my day to day activities is actually the plot of a movie. I have daydreamed about really dramatic things too, like me getting sick and my boyfriend caring for me (think "A Walk to Remember") and me being a hero in certain situations or being in the ultimate romance. These daydreams feel unconscious, and I don't know why I do them.
-I am a compulsive liar in situations where I feel I'll lose the appreciation of others or when I've made a bad mistake and feel the need to cover it up. I also exaggerate a lot of things, including my successes. It is truly hard for me to own up to my mistakes to others, but deep inside I feel horrible and stupid and just the worst about them.
-I am hypersensitive to criticism
-I have been manipulative at times. For example, my boyfriend does not understand my anxiety and sometimes it gets really bad. When I was in a breakdown last year, he was being pretty mean to me and saying I use my anxiety and OCD as an excuse to get out of real life (I truly don't), and was very confused about why I couldn't just get over it or why I was too scared to go out in public. I was feeling very hurt by what he said, so I told him that I told my therapist about the things he was saying to me and that my therapist said what he was doing was making me worse. That never actually happened, I just wanted him to stop saying those things.
-I am extremely introverted, but I also am quick to inwardly judge other people as excuses to why I don't hang out with them. I also feel I am different than others, not special, just different. I feel like others don't really understand me.
-I also feel like my nervousness and low self esteem is to blame for all the mistakes I've made in my life, but what if the root of it all is just plain selfishness.

Do you think based off what I mentioned that I could have a problem with covert narcissism? I have been obsessing about this all day and I just feel terrible.

[here today]

Hi there,

As many others here may tell you, we can't diagnose anybody here on PC. I, for one, am not a mental health professional and those who may be can't do it for ethical reasons. And although there is a lot written in the popular press about covert narcissism, it isn't a diagnosis in the DSM, as you probably know.

However, I have been diagnosed with PDNOS (Personality Disorder Not Otherwise Specified) and I had a lot of characteristics of OCPD in the past and I wonder if that might not be something you would like to look into? In some ways it's like the opposite of NPD -- both tend to be perfectionists but OCPD'ers tend to want to try to BECOME perfect while NPD'ers tend to want to consider themselves perfect already and be around people who reflect that back to them, too. I have been covertly narcissistic, I think, and co-dependent -- both of them kind of the flip side of overt NPD. But that's just my own speculation, helped by some feedback I've gotten from this forum.

I'm self-absorbed and at this point, after much therapy, I don't think my obsession with going to therapy has helped a lot with that. But it started before I went to therapy, and it seems to me there can be a lot of reasons for a person to be self-absorbed. If you want to try to untangle some of those reasons, then therapy might be something you want to try -- but in my experience there aren't many therapists who can help a lot with the personality disorder itself. Being aware of yourself helps. And these forums have helped me. In person support groups for the depression and trauma, not personality disorder per se, also have helped.

Hope this helps you some? I don't have OCD, just the remnants of OCPD, but maybe some of your worries are because of that rather that a PD? Just a thought.

[defyinggravity65]

Originally Posted by here today

Hi there,

As many others here may tell you, we can't diagnose anybody here on PC. I, for one, am not a mental health professional and those who may be can't do it for ethical reasons. And although there is a lot written in the popular press about covert narcissism, it isn't a diagnosis in the DSM, as you probably know.

However, I have been diagnosed with PDNOS (Personality Disorder Not Otherwise Specified) and I had a lot of characteristics of OCPD in the past and I wonder if that might not be something you would like to look into? In some ways it's like the opposite of NPD -- both tend to be perfectionists but OCPD'ers tend to want to try to BECOME perfect while NPD'ers tend to want to consider themselves perfect already and be around people who reflect that back to them, too. I have been covertly narcissistic, I think, and co-dependent -- both of them kind of the flip side of overt NPD. But that's just my own speculation, helped by some feedback I've gotten from this forum.

I'm self-absorbed and at this point, after much therapy, I don't think my obsession with going to therapy has helped a lot with that. But it started before I went to therapy, and it seems to me there can be a lot of reasons for a person to be self-absorbed. If you want to try to untangle some of those reasons, then therapy might be something you want to try -- but in my experience there aren't many therapists who can help a lot with the personality disorder itself. Being aware of yourself helps. And these forums have helped me. In person support groups for the depression and trauma, not personality disorder per se, also have helped.

Hope this helps you some? I don't have OCD, just the remnants of OCPD, but maybe some of your worries are because of that rather that a PD? Just a thought.

Thanks so much. That was awesome