How did you fix your narcissism?

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 minds. So we tend to think that we can solve any problem in life with this tool. Turns out we can't; thinking that therapy is somehow beneath us is pure hubris.

I also resisted therapy for a long time as a matter of principle. In high school I learned about the id, ego and super-ego, and in my 17 year old wisdom I thought "This is all bullshit! Did the guy open someone's head and see three parts? No! This is all made up!" Being unquestionable older and hopefully wiser now, I've understood that "all models are wrong, but some are useful"[0]. And therapy happens to have some useful models to offer.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong

Perhaps the closest opposite to narcissism is humility. One way to really experience humility is to inject yourself into something truly foreign where money is an insufficient remedy.

I don't know what that humbling experience will be for you. For me it was living in Afghanistan for 2 years, of which one of those years I traveled frequently and spoke with many people there. It doesn't matter how much money you make as travel there is rough with great inconvenience and your housing is tiny and drafty. In this circumstance any self-serving attention would not improve the situation. You learn patience and comfort in the face of minor imperfections.

I can promise you this: its the experience, whatever that is for you, that will fix your narcissism. A book won't do it. You have to live it without escape.

I just created an account to post a comment. I was raised by a narcissist, and over the years I've, like you, come to realize how narcissistic I am too.

Narcissism has a terrible negative taboo associated with it, and rightfully so, because it can drain the living shit out of the people close to the narcissist. But you have to be careful not to be even harder on yourself about it. Because that's how a narcissist would understand a character defect (i.e. "oh I'm a terrible person worth scum"). For me I've found the very first thing I had to understand was yes, I'm a narcissist, and that's terrible, and I need to fix that ASAP, but, forgiveness is not only possible, it's necessary.

With that out of the way, I cannot recommend Alexander Lowen enough. After years of research and self-exploration I've now landed on this guy and his thoughts. Check out his book Narcissism: Denial of the True Self.

https://www.amazon.com/Narcissism-Denial-True-Alexander-Lowe...

One of the reviews on that page summarizes it very well: "Narcissism develops when children are made to feel rejected, humiliated, and powerless, at the same time seduced to feel special"

Edit: If that specific book doesn't appeal to you, see if any of Lowen's other books resonate with you more

I'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 that has helped the most with this so far is the practice of self-observation as taught by certain spiritual traditions. Here's a brief summary: when you observe how you react to things internally, especially if you can observe it neutrally and without judgment, you begin to see a lot about how you've been treating other people and why. The magic is that it then changes on its own, without you having to do anything extra. Self-awareness and self-honesty are the only ingredients you have to add. That's fortunate, because self-honesty is already a lot. We have a strong tendency to lie to ourselves, rationalize, and excuse nearly everything. On the plus side, the more that dissolves, the easier it gets to be with yourself. Self-observation is the solvent.

If this approach interests you, one thing you might take a look at is the books of Vernon Howard. (Don't be put off by their titles. The contents are serious.) If you're sincere about self-work, they provide the clearest explanation that I've run across. Self-observation is, of course, a classical spiritual teaching, but Howard distilled it into modern language in a way that is extremely direct and does not ask you to take on any belief (e.g. any religious belief). The main thing that makes his writing different from so much other self-help material is that he does not flatter or coddle the reader. He gives it to you straight.

I also agree with the commenters who suggest working with a therapist, because the ego behaviors you're asking about are typically rooted in past painful experiences that created a need in us to armor ourselves against future pain. Self-work seems to require journeying back into those realms in order to heal. Then you can let go of your selfish behaviors because you just don't need them anymore, just like you wouldn't wear a heavy suit of armor once you no longer feel it's necessary. What doesn't work, in my experience, is trying to be less selfish only in a rational or ethical way. That approach amounts to imposing a censorship layer on top of what you actually feel, which is a form of self-deception which only puts more weight on you and eventually collapses.

The thing to watch out for in finding a therapist is the personal connection between you and them. The method matters less than the personal connection.

More generally, there are so many good suggestions in this thread that you should probably pick the ones that have the most energy for you and give them a try. Your sincerity is really the thing that will change this for you, so do what feels most inspiring.

I wonder if improv classes might help? I've been taking improv recently and I've found it to be extremely interesting from the POV of learning to pay more attention to other people.

The core to learning improv is learning how NOT to be the center of attention. Everything is about supporting your team-mates: you have to pay extremely close attention to what they are doing and look for ways to give them further opportunities and make them look great.

Our improv instructor keeps on giving us exercises where if we take the lead, we're losing. I can already feel myself becoming better at paying attention to what other people are doing. One of the books we are reading for the class even makes the case that improv can help people become better at remembering each other's names.

I have no idea if improv classes are a useful way of combating narcissism, but maybe they could help?

I loved this line from Eric Weinstein's conversation with Garrett Lisi: "A good scientist is engaged in a dialectic between arrogance and humility." A dash of narcissism can be good, when contextually appropriate, and kept in balance.

To that end, cultivate micro-habits, and pay attention to your emotional responses. Whenever I feel a sting to my ego, publicly or privately, I now try to embrace it, "take it on the chin", to be grateful for the lesson, to explicitly choose to let someone else (or the Universe) win. It's difficult at first, but it gets easier.

It's taken a long time to truly appreciate the line from Desiderata: "Listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story". Think of it as a matter of interpersonal respect first, and "correctness" second. The human always has their reasons, right or wrong; when they feel respected and heard, they're much more likely to be receptive to new information or another point of view.

My secret meta-hack? Using narcissism to curb narcissism. From the Tao Te Ching: "All streams flow to the sea because it is lower than they are. Humility gives it its power. If you want to govern the people, you must place yourself below them. If you want to lead the people, you must learn how to follow them."

I went down this rabbit hole a long time ago and saw a therapist about it. I would suggest you do the same.

That said, they basically told me that if you're worried about being a narcissist or trying to change it then you probably aren't a candidate for NPD diagnosis. Simply put people with NPD don't even consider that they might be wrong or flawed.

That doesn't mean you don't have something to fix, but it's worth seeing a professional.

Meditation + psychedelics? If you have a strong intention to change, it's pretty left field but I'd consider taking that intention to peru and drinking ayahuasca at a retreat. The effort poured into meditation will help you become aware of your behaviours and why they are there, which is the starting point - accepting that you have the problem rather than pushing it out onto people around you. I believe that's a great place to start and that from there you can make some progress.

There is often anxiety or fear underlying many pathological traits, and there is lots of new research showing lasting changes from a single moderate to high dose psilocyn administration for example https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5367557/

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.

Actively listen to the people in your personal and professional life as if you were a scientist. Think about what they are trying to say to you beneath the words. Do they want praise, recognition are they feeling stressed, happy? People will tell you these things almost unwittingly.

When its time to respond try to frame what you say in the context of their needs and what they have communicated. If you can't think of anything immediately rephrase and confirm what they said and you can think about the meaning of it later when you are post processing the interaction, again like a scientist. You aren't going to be good at it at first. Experiment. Even if the interaction turned out negative don't take it personal it's still another data point to help you learn how to do it better.

By doing this procedure you can learn about how your emotional system works and how human dynamics work and when its appropriate to talk about yourself in conversation. It takes time and it has a lumpy reward curve, but it is very satisfying.

I'm not sure if using the word "narcissism" is helpful in this context. We are all self-absorbed to some extent and it's good to maintain a practice that keeps this at bay.

I found these two things particularly helpful:

1) Developing a practice of meditation

This helps to notice the self-absorbed thoughts and recognize them for what they are. I'd recommend in particular attending a silent retreat in Vipassana tradition https://www.dhamma.org/

These retreats are organized all over the world and are donation-based, so you can afford them regardless of your financial means. It only takes time and dedication.

2) Developing interest in other people

I was surprised that this can be learned, but it certainly can. I've often heard things like "assume everybody knows something you don't know" or "everybody can teach you something". I've found this advice to not be particularly helpful. It didn't offer a process for developing this interest.

The advice here offers a more practical approach: https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-become-genuinely-interested-i... (tdlr; it's an exercise of writing down things that you appreciated about the people you've encountered).

My personal experience with this practice: a) I notice what I appreciate and find interesting about the person I am speaking to more frequently and sooner into the conversation. b) I notice afterwards that I derived far more satisfaction from conversations in which I was interested in the other person rather than when others were interested in me. However, during the conversation I still crave attention. I am starting to notice these cravings as they happen. It's a little like eating a healthy meal vs. eating a cookie.

There's a few psychotherapy podcasts with episodes on narcissism. It's rare for malignant narcissists themselves to seek out therapy to help themselves so most resources are organized with how to deal with the narcissists in your life. But you should read them because if you can empathize with the other side and reflect on yourself, that would bring down your narcissistic tendencies. In general you should practice empathy, perspective taking and develop genuine curiosity in other people.

A true narcissist is by definition someone who wouldn't care or think anything is wrong or want to change, so you may have strong narcissist traits that you can work at reducing them.

Narcissists are people who are addicted to or are dependent on feeling special. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqV_QIvDeqA

Also the book, "Rethinking Narcissism" is probably worth reading.

I don't think something like that is fixable; maybe another way of saying it is, most basic animals are built like this by design - it's a feature, not a bug. We evolved to become the biggest and strongest, and a very effective part of that is "fake it until you make it"; be bold and have confidence! Developing a more global and rational perspective is super expensive and our ape brains already consumed way too much energy until we (just recently) learnt to cook food to save our stomachs the digestive energy. (At the risk of being [rightly] accused of scraping the bottom of the optimism barrel: I actually think we're doing alright given the tools / monkeybrains to hand. Unfortunately you see what happens with populist rule / mob mentality, but on the other hand, Euler, Gauss, Newton, Riemann, von Neumann, Noether, Ramanujan etc suggest that we apes can approach basically godhood with our normal metabolic system.)

Transcending this self-centred existence requires logical and relative consideration. It is ~certain that YOU, the very person reading this right now, are not the smartest or strongest or richest or in the world. So, as a vaguely smart functioning person, you are aware of others who are better than you at various things, and you need to intelligently deal with it.

In any case, we're all going to be a bit nacissistic until we join some kind of posthuman Borg, probably in some Gaussian distribution about a mean same as our heights.

The good news is that you are more selfish than narcissistic. A selfish but honest person would say "I do not't care about other people getting hurt until it affected me." A narcissist says "It is all their fault that I got hurt and they deserve their suffering!". Call mere selfish narcissistic and "true" narcissism capital N narcissism if you like rather than fight a losing battle as a pedant vs a colloquial tide but keep in mind the personality disorder is a different animal in spite of resemblances.

As others advised empathy is likely a better area of focus. The approach there varies from person to person and for a variety of reasons even unpacking the types of "empathy" cobflated together. Higher functioning sociopaths are good at reading people's emotions but don't necessarily care about them. A well socialized one does the right thing for "wrong" reasons. Someone autistic may not be in sync with sending or receiving emotions and signs but they will be upset to learn they inadvertently hurt someone. Anyway that tangent aside from someone on the spectrum here are some techniques.

I tend to try to "universalize" my perspective as a view from outside. It has its own frustrations (knowing that even if you are right there is no way to outright prove that will trust) admittedly and I am not an expert in human interaction. My coping methods are more "sociological" than personal interaction level. Pitfalls include probably not being very good for your confidence - I say probably because of being uncertain what is preexisting and sample size of 1.

For book suggestions I would suggest the old classic: “How to Win Friends and Influence People”

Talks about active listening, and remembering things about others.

As for generally not being as narcissistic, I think you’re already on the right track. 90% of being aware of other people, is being aware that you’re sucking up the airtime. Conversations are dances, both parties need to be engaged

Considering the core symptom involves thinking your own problems are either nonexistent or caused by someone else, it makes sense why the shelves aren't overflowing with self help book for narcissists.

Things that did not help: -Books about people who were affected by narcissistic people. -All reddit groups about narcissism. -Writings of Vaknin and other famous narcissists.

Things that did help: -Reinventing Your Life by Young (general audience). -Schema Therapy by Young (professional audience). -Borderline, Narcissistic, and Schizoid Adaptations by Greenberg (professional audience). -Learning how to be aware when I'm splitting others or myself into black and white. (Much harder than it sounds. It's like trying to stop time.) -Regular appointments with a therapist. (Don't go expecting an 'atta boy'--expect to be pushed outside your comfort zone of false invulnerability and expect to resent your therapist with every cell in your body while this is happening. If you find them just giving you 'atta boys' you should get a different therapist). -Daily exercise. -Cutting ties with family of origin.

I used to be narcissistic but now I'm perfect.

Are you sure - there's levels of narcissism, some is healthy. Someone with full on Narcissistic Personality Disorder doesn't see a problem with it from my readings and sees no need to change, and would never ask this question. As @kstenerud a bit of empathy training could help, good on you for trying to change. Listen to people, learn to see the good in everyone etc.

IMO, you're looking at the wrong symptoms.

What you're describing is just being inconsiderate and I'd imagine that you're probably young. Simply paying attention to those bad behaviors is a good start on addressing them. Attempting to be kind, curious, and attentive is a strong strategy. I mean, on some level, that behavior selfish and "narcissistic", but it's not a personality disorder. IME it's not what people are talking about when they are talking about "narcissism".

As to NPD...

You might look at how well you respond to criticism, and what kinds of criticisms cause you to become upset.

The reason that you "couldn't find any book for people who are narcissistic themselves and want to fix that" is that NPD is an issue where people have a fragile sense of who they are so they develop a lot of strategies for not having to encounter personal criticisms; by definition they aren't looking for those kinds of books. Any suggestion that change is necessary is something that feels harmful.

Get yourself diagnosed by a mental health professional if you don't just mean "egotistical" or "self-absorbed". You might be able to fix egotism and self-absorption. You won't be able to fix actual narcissism for yourself.

Good luck!

I’ve been listening to Fierce Intimacy by Terry Real and he calls what you have grandiosity. He also says some people go the other way and feel shame and inferiority. Both are on the same spectrum and both destroy interpersonal relationships. Your self worth should be from a place of I’m worth the same as tHe person next to me, not better or worse. He recommends taking a journal about what your triggers are every time you start thinking others are worth less or more than you. I have both which balances me out somewhat but I agree with the author - feeling totally at peace with yourself and your place as “good enough” will improve your life and relationships in a profound way. Mostly your relationship with how you treat yourself, not needing the aggrandisement will take a huge burden off you and lead to the things you want. Acknowledging it’s become a problem is something people find incredibly hard to do so I’d say you’re probably not as narcissistic as you think. Good luck!

https://www.audible.co.uk/pd?asin=B07FXXH91T&source_code=ASS...

I would like to urge you to consider that maybe there is nothing to fix and maybe people are actually not interesting around you. I realized that I had the same"symptoms" as you did, but only sometimes. I started being worried just like you, but then I looked closer into how I communicate and with whom.

There are people who have a very different life, which I deliberately choose to avoid. Talking to these people diverges into talking about myself as there is always something exciting happening somehow, and they do ask about it (maybe out of politeness, but I'm a bad judge for that). These people sadly form a majority of people around me.

However, there is a much smaller number of people who I can listen to for hours and I genuinely care about what they have to say, so I ask a lot too. These people are really excited about their lives and have stories to tell. In my experience, not a lot of people have that. Also, they tend to care about things that I can say least imagine someone caring about.

So overall, maybe there is nothing to fix on your side here. At least, I think, there is a possibility of this.

For books I've always recommended in a broad scope of character building: How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie.

But that's just a book and its like just reading a book for programming. You have to find a way to put it in practise.

I firmly believe that every society needs to embody some type of short term service for youth to strip away the idea of individualism, and allow them to rebuild only after experiencing working and helping out others. Doesn't need to be the armed forces, just something to hammer into them that you need to work together and look after buddy.

For me I think joining the reserves at a young age (16) cured me of a lot of selfishness. That might be unrealistic to you but sports teams, volunteer groups (Rotary, Lions Club, heck even Toastmasters) help garner this dynamic.

Have you lived in a small community before? You might think you don't like people, but you might realize you don't like people in big cities/companies/stressful environments.

All the best

Honestly, having kids fixed my personality in a thousand significant ways. I was never a raging cerebral narcissist, but I had patterns of responses to situations which were incredibly self-centered. My children didn't change my perspective, that would be too convenient and easy. Having children just gave me more outlets to be the caring, nurturing person that I wanted to be deep down. I enjoy expressing my personality as a dad more than any other persona I've ever tried on.

In 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...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPUBuFqo9dU

I 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.

It sounds like you've _had_ the epiphany.

The important thing now is to remember it, and apply it to your daily life.

This is much less fun, and much harder work. But basically, whenever you're about to do something, ask yourself if you're doing it for the right reasons.

After a while you'll have internalised this to the point where you're not having to correct course hardly at all, and it will be near-zero effort.

And then you can move on to the next thing ;-)

As stupid as it sounds, yoga, surfing, working out and writting helped me.

Narcism is a defense, a self preservation strategy. I have it when I am not feeling well. So I do things that make me feel good (yoga, surfing, workout). As an introvert with narcistic tendencies it helps when I write my thoughts, so I can shelf them instead of thinking the same things over and over again.

Oh yeah, a good therapist is also a fine thing.

"All the books on Amazon are about other people, I want to read a book about me."

That is not at all how you phrased it but in spirit of self-awareness and improvement I reworded it as crass as possible to make the following point- maybe books focused on people dealing with narcissistic people is a great place to start.

*I have zero qualifications in mental health/psychology.

When I show this kind of behavior it’s usually because of a lack self confidence or depression. My Buddhist teacher told me that depression is literally a selfish thing because you are so busy worrying about yourself and don’t have capacity to think about others or to be generous.

Besides seeking professional help I think it helps to review the day in the evening and see if you did any of the behaviors you want to improve on. That way you slowly develop awareness and can start catching yourself from time to time when you do it. And be kind to yourself. Changing deeply ingrained behaviors is very hard.

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.

If I had that feeling, I'd probably look for a professional to help me figure out whether narcissism is a correct diagnosis, and if so, what would be the right way for me to deal with it.

First, really cool that you are trying to work on you. I am sure that path will lead you to something good.

Concerning your disinterest in people... approach everyone as if they were a teacher. Not only contentwise, but in any regard. Even people at the bottom of society can teach you something about their life by merely looking at them or by exactly analyzing how they talk. See human interaction as a way to learn and not primarily as some humility. Learning makes YOU better, which, in some way, caters to a narcissist trait.

Narcissism is a popular armchair diagnosis these days but you haven't really listed anything that makes you abnormal. I don't know who you are but chances are you're not really in need of treatment.

So, if you feel that there are areas where you just want to improve how you interact with people, try ordinary coaching. You can learn how to become interested in what other people do. You can develop habits that demonstrate that you honestly care.

Find a good life coach, counselor or therapist :)

What helped me the most was reading the book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" and following the instructions. It's cheesy, it's old school, it's a classic, it's outdated but darn it the (outdated) advice in that book really does work, and it really did help me turn my personality around and even improved my outlook on life/humanity. I didn't really take an interest in others that much beforehand, but once I started being more extroverted and chatting with others, more people became my friend and I feel more engrossed in my community- I even know my bank teller and sandwich guys names now and realized I'm downright cheerful at times. I take more of an interest in others and keep getting promoted at work due to what seems solely on my personality... I mean, my quality of work is good, too. For example, a recent award I won cited, "your positive energy is contagious and especially welcome tackling tough projects."

But yeah... that book brought me from a depressed cynic to someone who takes an interest in others and basically the whole world is my friend- even people I haven't met yet, they are just friends I don't know yet.

There are other good tips here. The tip I'm about to give should be used supplementary:

Buy Search Inside Yourself (it's a book about meditation written by an early Google software engineer that invited scientific and Buddhist experts to help him out).

Train your compassion by doing the exercises that lead up to Tonglen. Tonglen itself might be too extreme, but he has a milder version of that, that I think is a very good exercise.

I think it was something along the lines of: visualize someone's love flowing into you, then feel that you're multiplying that love by 10 and then give it all back to the person you just got it from.

The second exercise is to look at random people (or known people) and wish them the very best, but be specific about it, make it as personal and specific as possible.

What these 2 exercises do is that they create habits, habits to think about others. When you go about your daily life, you'll notice yourself doing this automatically at a subconscious level at some point.

There's a reason I named my username after this.

Disclaimer: I'm a lazy meditator :( but it does work! And it did have lasting changes.

> I tend to talk too much about myself, I don't enjoy listening to other people, I tend to judge situations only from my perspective, I have an inflated ego and take things too personal.

Isn't that 95% of us?

Well known narcissism-obsessed psychiatry blogger "The Last Psychiatrist" has discussed this a lot, most relevantly in https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/01/can_narcissism_be_cu... and https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/02/the_other_ego_epidem....

Here's (his version of) the tl;dr answer:

> "Help me, please, I think I'm a narcissist. What do I do?"

> There are a hundred correct answers, yet all of them useless, all of them will fail precisely because you want to hear them.

> There's only one that's universally effective, I've said it before and no one liked it. This is step 1: fake it.

> You'll say: but this isn't a treatment, this doesn't make a real change in me, this isn't going to make me less of a narcissist if I'm faking!

> All of those answers are the narcissism talking. All of those answers miss the point: your treatment isn't for you, it's for everyone else.

> If you do not understand this, repeat step 1.

"Laws of Human Nature" by Robert Greene (ironically, also the author of 48 laws of power, which is often criticized for advocating machiavellianism) is an extremely powerful book.

It has two chapters that are especially relevant for you: "Chapter 2: Transform self-love into empathy: The law of narcissism", which might be self-evident in its value from the title, and "Chapter 4: Determine the strength of people's character: The law of compulsive behavior", which discusses toxic personality types, how to avoid them, and what to do in case you notice those patterns in your own behavior. I think you'll find both of those chapters extremely illuminating.

The whole book is worth checking out too. And a relationship with a good executive coach or therapist works wonders too!

Lots & LOTS of reading. LOTS of writing (look up journaling CBT). Distancing myself form people who actively engage in those behaviors & enable me to do so. Distance myself from social media (I haven't posted a selfie or personal life update in six months).

Focus on people close to you that engage you on an intellectually or emotionally inspiring way. Find projects that bring you joy (or at least pass the time fairly well).

Make jokes about yourself, to yourself. Take moments to pause & internally acknowledge when you feel you've done something you regret. Force yourself to apologize if it is necessary (but be wary that you may be trying to apologize to facilitate someone else coddling you: ask yourself if your apologizing improves THEIR life, not if it will assuage your guilt).

Good luck!

That's indeed true. A massive amount of writings (noise) are about victims. And rarely good at explaining how to evolve if you are on the other side of things.

As a semi narcissist, I have two things to say:

- you are your nature, take a deep look into it, try to balance it to avoid damaging pitfalls for you and others; after that let yourself be. Trying to distort yourself can be ultra-damaging.

- depending on the case (and you seem, if at all, a soft one since you publicly admit questionning and willing to change) even a deep bred narcissist can change and love other deeply, but beware, love is an emotional exchange and when your brain start to live on mutual affection, you're now subject to the pain that goes with it when bonds fail. Another ultra-damaging scenario.

Best of luck

Introspection is the most important first step. You can get a psychological evaluation to determine if you actually have a clinical disorder or you are high on the narcissistic spectrum.

In the meantime, do you recognize yourself in any of the listed traits on the following website? https://outofthefog.website/personality-disorders-1/2015/12/...

I found it enlightening to learn about the term 'narcissistic supply' (search for Sam Vaknin, he has a website and a youtube channel).

I wouldn't use the word narcissism to describe this. I'm worried about suggesting too many things, so maybe just consider these two:

1. Your traits and actions, both good and bad, what are they? Can you describe them, in other words, can you describe yourself through them? Try to do it, and do not use the word "am." Try to write down as many as you can.

(In other words, never "I am a fisherman", only "I fish.")

2. Spend time trying to consciously improve other peoples lives. Work through the barriers you have to doing this and your life will improve, too.

Practice these. If it's not immediately obvious why both of these are necessary, give it time.

It seems to me that life in most forms are self-centered by nature and necessity, and it takes conscious effort to develop empathy for others.

Human society might be the worst (and best perhaps!) in terms of sacrificing the whole world to glorify the self, or vice versa.

Motherhood (or parenthood) is a clear exception, dedicating oneself for another - but it could be argued that is also in "self" interest, a larger sense of self over generations.

Altruism might be the antidote to narcissism. Paying attention and caring for others as one would for the self. I think it's also about having a larger sense of self, encompassing the whole of creation.

This question seems like a trap... asking people who have overcome narcissism to talk about how much better they are now. Wouldn't that be narcissistic?

With that said, I'll agree that talking to a mental health professional might be the best thing, if you can afford it. Autistic spectrum disorder, for example, sometimes looks like narcissism... if you can't sense other's emotional states, it makes listening to them instead of talking about yourself more difficult, mimicking narcissism. And I'm sure there are other diagnoses that might also have the same effect.

It might not be full-blown psychiatry-diagnosed narcissism. It just might be inflamed ego. I really resonated with a book called Ego Is the Enemy. It's fast to read, and I've read it a couple times. It's improved my vigilance against my own ego gaining too much control over me.

I'm certainly not ego-less, but I definitely improved my happiness significantly by making an attempt to weaken the impact of my own ego.

Also, understanding how ego tries to work is a great reference frame for interpreting my own and others' behaviors. That's first step to dealing smartly with them.

If you were a narcissist, you probably wouldn't notice or didn't want to fix it. I think this is part of the definition.

But being egocentric is probably normal for some parts of the population.

I fixed this by only hanging out with people who interest me. So I would genuinely hear what they have to say. This also led to most men disappearing out of my life. Somehow I don't find men interesting.

Also, I started being an interesting person myself, so people would be actually interested if I would speak about me. I mean, it one thing to bore everyone around you, but if they want you to talk, why not do it?

The biggest and most important step is realising you have a problem and wanting to change. I was a bit like what you describe during high school and late teens, but I saw it not only affects my personal relationships - it doesn't align with my moral code. It's very hard to recognise narcissism in yourself, but you have done it. I'm pretty sure from here the way to overcome it is straightforward. And don't beat yourself up too much, everyone has a bit of narcissism in them, you just have a bit too much. You will work through this - I'm sure.

Finding a critical thinking best friend from the gender you are attracted to really helps here. Not being offended to harsh criticism will be the hardest part but it is definitely worth it. As you can imagine, this requires blind trust towards that friend, which is fine. Such friends will be responsible for your sanity check, especially if they are not afraid of telling you "Dude, WTF?" when you are at your worst. Making yourself lovable to others (not artificially) is a good motivator to accept the fact that you can love yourself less and still survive.

Be careful about self-diagnosis. Everyone has narcissistic traits, and everyone has personality glitches. You're probably not a narcissist because you worry you are one -- actual narcissists just think they're great all the time.

But yes, learning to be more considerate and focused on others is worthwhile. The easiest and most immediate solution to what you're dealing with is to put more energy into focusing on others -- approach conversations as an attempt to understand where other people are coming from.

Just that simple fix will make you less focused on yourself.

In a Taekwondo dojang I used to attend, the instructor had a sign on the wall that listed four rules one of which was to accept humility, the opposite of narcissism. And that is what you need to learn, accept humility. Perhaps join a martial art gym and get your butt kicked a few times.

I also did some boxing and it was incredibly intimidating stepping into the ring with some seriously scary dudes who knocked me around like a rag doll. But you take the lumps and learn from them. I took a lighthearted approach when boxing. Most of the dudes going there really wanted to be prize fight winning boxers whereas I wanted the exercise and fighting experience. So I'd spar with some welterweights and do my own commentary as I had my ass kicked. "And Ramirez comes in with a quick right... thwomp... followed by a jab... thunk..." I had fun. I didn't get mad, upset or take it personally. After a while I got better and could land shots as my focus and speed improved. Then the gym closed and I didn't bother to go somewhere else.

And I practice similar at work. I've learned to point out and laugh at my mistakes to coworkers which eases the frustration. I accept that I'm not perfect yet I have confidence in my skills and I always tell myself there is more to learn. Bragging is just hot air. Brag through your work. And I have had a lot of excellent compliments through my career and that keeps me being the best person I can.

First and most important learn to be sincerely grateful for this experience to yourself and the others that make it possible.

This is difficult for at least 2 reasons. First, many (most?) are familiar with gratitude only as a concept but not that much as a feeling. Second, your attention is focused on frustration caused by your awareness of your narcissism as it makes you suffer.

In order to get that genuine feeling of gratitude the focus on your suffering must be dismissed first. Once you caught yourself in this state, notice what your body feels. Pay attention to your eyes, tongue and throat. Relax these while exhaling. You may notice that slight tension behind your forehead caused by keeping focused goes away. Now you're unfocused.

Next, it is necessary to train yourself to be grateful in such situations. As you're suffering from narcissism that is a form of attachment, sort of greed in other words, which naturally blocks gratitude, this will most likely require some effort. Finding your personal trigger for that may be a good way. For instance, some situation in the past where you were truly grateful to someone or something. Once you find that you got the antidote.

This way you may learn that your narcissism isn't something that needs to be fixed but rather your way to learn something about the world and yourself. And maybe it's not even narcissism anymore? It just needs some gratitude. And maybe someday it will be exhausted as there's nothing more to learn, but that won't matter anymore. I personally haven't gone that far yet with mine :)

IANAD/P.

It seems like narcissism requires the subject to be unaware of their self-absorption and/or antisocially putting their needs always above those of others, especially with a lack of guilt and/or remorse. Furthermore, there is an opposite extreme: considering the needs of others always above self, e.g., giving everything away and not taking care of oneself before taking care of others.

Perhaps there are several general potential sources of dysfunction in this realm:

0. Mood/physiological disorders like depression and anxiety, which can be managed and occasionally cured.

1. Personality disorders including clinically-relevant psychopathy which cannot be cured but only managed and coped-with.

2. A desire to seek-out victimhood or conditions by self-diagnosing symptoms that don't rise to the level of clinical/life impairment.

3. Realization (or lack thereof) that there is almost always a non-zero sum game to life, e.g., living is predicated on, and necessitates, hoarding scarce energy and resources.

I don't think it's a good idea to self-diagnose or offer unsolicited advice on the internet to others. Ask a professional in the real world who is a) not you and b) has a more objective/dispassionate perspective. Also, there are many existential questions and dilemmas that are good to ponder, but ultimately have few perfect answers or resolvable conclusions.

Narcissism can be driven by a lot of factors, so it depends on why you are narcissistic.

If you feel that your life is not going right, that you aren't taking care of yourself and your responsibilities properly, this can drive you to focus your attention on yourself and be less curious about others.

If you feel that other people do not care about you, that you are entirely on your own, this can drive you to focus on yourself and be less curious about others.

Of course ideally you would use a temporary state of self-focus to put yourself back on a positive track and achieve a greater level of security that then allows you to broaden your concern to embrace others. If you do that, you are not a narcissist; you just took some time to get yourself straight. You put on your own oxygen mask before helping others.

If, on the other hand, you get stuck in the mode of focusing exclusively on yourself, without making progress on the factors that drive your self-focus, possibly even making the negative factors worse and making your isolation self-reinforcing, then it becomes pathological. You might need therapy to help you focus more on others and solve the underlying problems another way.

The issues driving your narcissism might be different, but no matter what they are, I recommend a double-pronged approach: actively practice caring for others in defiance of whatever dynamic is causing your narcissism, and at the same time investigate the underlying problems in psychotherapy, because the better you address those issues, the less unnatural it will feel to care for others.

Stress, especially without robust coping mechanisms, can make you withdrawn.

That can show up as lack of empathy and selfishness. You can be selfish and not be a narcissist.

The oxygen mask rule applies here. You can’t take care of anyone else while you’re floundering. Counterintuively, making a conscious effort to take care of yourself may free up energy for helping others. Right now you might be choosing you by default. And since it’s undirected, the costs are higher and the benefits lower.

My 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.

Learn about and practice meditation. There are scientific studies proving that the practice increases empathy. Narcissism is also related to a low level of empathy.

I ran into a couple people who are just hands down better than me in every aspect that I can think of. And that made me realize that I'm just a normal person.

The narcissistic dynamics is a bit different: a narcissist pretends he is perfect and everything that is wrong is in or caused by the outside world and other people. (Deep down he is not sure of that, but is terrified to even consider that it might be possible to think to have a real look.) Now, if you're not satisfied with yourself this is very non-narcissistic. Selfish and/or autistic perhaps, but it's different. (Plus, all these are words that try to delineate rather vague concepts anyway; it's not that important to find the "right" label here, it would actually obscure the real picture.)

I cannot suggest a specific approach, but I'd recommend to trust your guts on this and watch out for serendipity moments. Like picking a book that "looks at you" even if it is doesn't fit your idea of how it must be done (e.g. picking a religious book if you're not religious). Or bypassing a book store and going to a dance studio instead. I'd say it's not that common to want to change yourself like this and if you have come to this, then you have something in you that might guide you.

Frankly, I've thought a lot about narcissism and I'm beginning to think it's a bit nonsensical, as in some ways I think it can be used as a term to demonize others to justify the cognitive dissonance of treating them poorly. Similar to any kind of generalization... you assign a label to dehumanize them.

For example, some commonly associated traits ascribed to narcissism are a desire of power, status, or admiration from others; the the self-perception of being unique, and a lack of empathy for others. Now why would someone psychologically end up fixated on these traits? Well perhaps, they've been treated poorly and are dejected from others. They are on the receiving end of lack of empathy, are downtrodden, and abused. If they had power, status, admiration, or generally were treated well they wouldn't feel like their ego's were so fragile. So they exaggerate their importance to try to gain what they're lacking, and lash out if they feel they are wronged.

So, to me, people with these traits seem to be concerned about what others think of them. Sure the "them", at the end of that last sentence makes it seem they're being self-centered. But read it again; the words "concerned about others" co-exist in that sentence - words that describe altruism. Why would someone be concerned with their appearance? Perhaps they've been treated poorly by others... and are worried they're unacceptable to society... So they focus on themselves.

I'd say don't worry about it much, it's easy to beat yourself up. I know that's not much help, but for me thinking this way helps me realize I'm not perfect nor no-one is and that there are many grey areas in life that are subjective. In all, you might not actually be narcissistic...

There are various forms of subconscious emotional healing work that can vastly improve the way you interact with others, as well as your own emotional balance and self-regard.

I've been undertaking this kind of work for about 7-8 years and counting.

Some examples are Holotropic Breathwork, Ericksonian Hypnosis, and kinesiology-based practices like Psych-K.

There are many, and it's worth trying different ones until you find one that you connect with.

You are already making progress or you are not a narcissist after all. Narcissists never accept that they are narcissists or come to that realization.

Here is the thing, you shouldn't feel guilty about feeling this way and rush out to see a therapist. This epiphany is part of the natural cycle of emotional maturity.

Now it's just a matter of applying thought to action. For example, make an effort to listen to and understand other people. It get's easier because it will lead to more meaningful relationships. It becomes a positive feedback loop.

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 that really lend themselves well to success. Overconfidence/inflated egos are some of the only ways that you can take on really big challenges ahead of you. (See Sam Altman's blog post on this - https://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-be-successful, and PG's tweet - https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1217724728644861953)

I'd love to hear what other people think :)

You could read "Conversation with God" by Neale Donald Walsch. This book had a profound disrupting effect, bringing up the best of me. Especially since this is not about religion or moral values. Cool fact: served as an inspirational base for The Matrix movie (first one mainly), and many other contemporary works. No source on that, I just know it.

Get kids. Or do voluntary work at your local orphanage if you're not ready to have your own. That will cure your arrogance, your narcissism and your self-importance way faster then any book, video or shrink/therapist you might wanna read/see. The fact that your actions have a direct consequence on another life is an eye opener.

Reading fiction might help, well, certain fiction. My first thoughts are to Tolstoy's War and Peace. It seems like it would be hard to come out of a sincere reading of this book and still be entirely self-centered.

If not War and Peace I'd avoid genre fiction here and go for literary greats with real depth honestly trying to plumb the human experience. You'll understand why I'd tend to suggest books in the third person with multiple protagonists, full and round characters.

By the way if you choose War and Peace, avoid the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation (wooden) and choose instead either Briggs (more modern and flexible) or the Maude translation (precision at the risk of being overly-grammatical).

An interesting point about Tolstoy is that all of his characters are unique, even the most minor ones, and at the same time they are all branched in to human, cultural and historical experience and moment.

The Last Psychiatrist says, paraphrased, "narcissists always come asking how to fix themselves, what they can do to improve themselves, focusing on how awful they are and how much better they want to be. They never come worried about how much they are affecting or hurting other people, or what they can do to help others".

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).

Humility is always a good characteristic in people but its something that in order to be genuine it has to be learnt and practiced. My advice is go do some volunteer work for people who are seriously under-privileged in some way, especially ways you cannot fix. Sit with them, hear their stories, feel the frustration you cannot do a damn thing to 'solve their problem', and just try and 'be present' for them in that moment. Do it over a long period of time - this is not a one-hit wonder - and regularly. Helping out in an old-folks home, working with quadraplegics, UNHCR immigrants are all things available to most of us close to home. Even helping at a pet shelter will help somewhat. Do it for a year or two. The most important is to do it regularly and without ego or opinion. And usually the only cost is your time and transport.

I have at least one close relative that I believe qualifies as a narcissist. My personal conclusion is that it's sort of a trait that you're born with. I think it relates to a lacking ability to pick up on the subtle social cues that other people send out. Most people can read those signals pretty well, while others cannot. I think, if you cannot read the subtle signals that people are sending out, and if you cannot intuitively pick up on how other people feel, then neither can you respond or react to it in an adequate manner. These are my thoughts after dealing with the said type of personality for quite some years now.

If it's at all treatable, I'd suggest training yourself in picking up on the subtler types of social cues and signals that other people send out. Like Sheldon does in Big Bang Theory, even if that's a bit of a parody.

So here's the thing: if you're correct, or even if you're not and you've simply picked up on personality traits you don't like, you've already shown great progress in recognizing this and having the self awareness and introspection to have this insight.

I don't have the silver bullet, but I imagine that fixing a good amount of it can be done simply by maintaining this awareness and habitually thinking outside of the instinctual responses you might have.

I'm not sure there's a quick fix to make you enjoy listening to other people, but the rest is readily done by consciously seeking a wider perspective on any given situation, keeping your own ego in perspective, etc. I know, much easier said than done. But if you're looking for something more formal to help you on your way, one possible option is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Congratulations on realizing this! It really is a big deal to see it. Most people don't even do this, they just live it out without even realizing. You might check out the book which is considered the introductory text to the "4th Way" work,"In Search of the Miraculous" by PD Ouspensky.

Not real, clinical, narcicissim. But more like an understanding I can be a real A-hole at times.

This: https://fs.blog/2012/04/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/

One easy experiment could be to stop talking about yourself.

Try it for a day.

> I don't enjoy listening to other people

And why is that? Don't you like other people? If so, that's the problem to fix!

Humans are the most fantastic things in existence. Getting to know them can be very interesting, if you have a curious mindset.

Do you mean narcissism in the sense of the personality disorder?

If so, the symptoms you describe could be due to a number of causes. For example, they're also consistent with Asperger's.

You probably want to be very sure of the root issue before you go down a rabbit hole of trying to fix things.

Neither narcissism nor Asperger's can be "fixed". That's why you can't find any books about treating narcissism. You can manage the symptoms of Asperger's, but I think narcissism is much more resistant.

Maybe take some online quizzes and then talk to a therapist. They don't have to be an amazing therapist, but it makes sense to get some feedback from a third party who has met many narcissists. They'll be able to tell you very quickly if you fit the type.

There’s a guy on youtube, Sam Vankin. He is the author of Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited and has been studying this for a long time. He claims to be or have been a narcisist himself due to some early childhood trauma. Look him up, he claims he developed a therapy for this and he lives in eastern europe, you can even pay him a visit if you’re interested in aleviating or improving your condition. Whats worse about this condition is, that if left untreated and despite any acomplishments you’ll have ever made you’d always be deeply unhappy within, basically a shell of your true self and this will probably spill in your life and around you and make a lot of victims: family, friends, basically everyone around you.

I was lucky, I figured it out over time and before losing all my friends. In my case I think I was not uniformly a jerk and it was my wife (who had no patience for "jerk mode") who helped me see the problems.

I have another very good friend who in his mid 40s had to reboot his entire set of relationships except for three of us; at one point he told me, "you know, when everybody tells you you're an asshole, eventually you have to consider the possibility that they may be right". His "recovery" has been imperfect, for his own internal reasons, but the really good news is that not everybody whom he drove away gave up on him.

Understanding that being narcissistic doesn’t actually work really helps. People (by and large) don’t respect you more or think any differently of you as a result of you tooting your own horn and singing praises to yourself. In fact, it has the opposite effect. Once you realize and internalize that the large part of incentive of being narcissistic goes away.

What also helps is understanding the underlying reason that prompts you to be narcissistic. There’s typically one or more insecurity that manifests itself as a desire to seek for approval or look for praise. Once you figure out where it’s coming from it suddenly becomes so much easier to deal with.

The characteristics you describe probably apply to way too many people than you think. Even people who think they are otherwise.

For people really looking to go further than themselves there is no self-improvement script but books that look at the condition of the self.Maybe Seneca and Eastern Philosophy. The problem however is that just reading book/s are not going to get us anywhere far. Applying them and thinking over them helps. It doesn't however help 'improve' any of our day to day tasks, but frees our mind. However I believe these have the first principles of the self every person ought to know to get beyond the self.

Read this

https://www.amazon.com/Analysis-Self-Psychoanalytic-Narcissi...

I'm not sure a true narcissist would ask this question. You should be encouraged you are maturing and growing in the understanding that the world does not revolve around you.

Keep listening to others and asking them questions and you will be good.

Can someone provide a definition of "narcissism" as it's being used here? Is there a list of core attributes or traits that comprise it? Etiology?

I've seen many discussions of this across the internet, and while there are many people who seem to know what it is, or know people who are "narcissists" or have a personality disorder, I've never seen it exhaustively described. Most comments take a form like "A narcissist will/does/does not ...", or "my narcissist dad/mom constantly ...", or "if you know a narcissist you must ...".

Chances are that if you are a truly narcisitic (I would check with a therapist before self-diagnosing a pathology) you might have a relationship with someone co-dependent on you, either work, friend or sentimental relationship, you could look into interpesonal conflicts, are you steping constanly into some else boundaries, for your own benefit?

Search on youtube about this pattern there are a couple of pshychologist talking about it.

If you are not hurting anyone, maybe your are not involed in co-dependet pattern with anyone, and all you need it's some mindfulness and social skills.

I dont think its really a bad thing to think highly of yourself. I think a lot of people agree given that trump managed to win an election. so its ok as long as you understand your personality is polarizing and not everyone will like it. If you tend to take things personally, thats often because they are, even if you are not supposed to take it that way. You just have to learn to hide your reaction sometimes because you cant always afford to get angry. You cant change who you are. Those who petend otherwise are hopeless, so you just have to accept it.

To help develop your capacity for empathy (which is a skill you can work on) I suggest actively envisioning situations from other peoples' perspectives.

For example, say you have some delicate news you need to deliver to a coworker. Follow these steps: A) Close your eyes, B) construct the situation in your head, C) take the role of your coworker, and D) imagine delivering the news to yourself. It's impossible to do this 100% correctly because you are not your coworker but you'll get more than you'd think from exercise.

This is especially true if you practice step C).

I'm wrapping up my first close reading -- and attempts to incorporate the guidance of -- "7 Habits of Highly Effective People", and it's been a profound experience. It outlines a linear progression of maturity (dependent -> independent -> interdependent) and provides a framework for changing how you relate to the rest of the world. It begins with deep examination of your character and values. Your self-awareness ("I'm narcissistic") and desire to change make me think you might benefit from 7H like I have.

Try mediation and awareness practice. This may take you farther than explicit overt efforts to "fix" yourself.

Primarily because part/s of the brain that "logically" identifies your narcissism is likely the same part/s of the brain that exhibit the compulsive behavior.

Through awareness practice you'll be strengthening the 'other' part/s of your brain; I think this is the path to having more (behavioral) options in the future. This will also strengthen your empathy, again something you seem to be missing.

Reading the last psychatrist.

https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/narcissism/

Why do you want to change? Regret anything?

I don't know the first thing about you, so it's hard to say what is going to help. If you truly are a narcissist all bets are off, but perhaps you are just a bit self-centered which might mean there is still hope after all.

I'd look for books on being a "building lasting relations", "how to deal with emotions", "how to be a good mother/father". That kind of stuff. Bring out the wounded inner child and see if some CPR is still an option.

2 years of psychoanalysis, tons of books. But for real, everyone can benefit from psychoterapy, just be aware that there are a ton of different schools of thought.

Narcissistic behavior in general can be viewed as a defense mechanism to avoid feeling the opposite...small and inadequate. Often we have shame from various childhood experiences of feeling inadequate - failing in various ways in which we felt others judged us for. Feeling humiliated and ashamed etc.

Imho, one great approach is to examine your past for such experiences. Then sort of bring them to mind and reexamine the meaning we assigned at the time.

Participate in an activity that you objectively suck at, or are at least around a lot of other people who are relatively and objectively better than you.

As they say, the first step is recognizing that you have a problem. It's wonderfully adult of you to consider it. The cool thing is that you're going to find out that not only do you have this problem, you likely have more than just these issues. Because you've opened up with yourself, you have the awesome opportunity to be a lot better person.

Personally, I have issue with being myopic (focus to easily on a singular task) and somewhat asperger/autistic (hard time recognizing emotional cues). Like you, I've had trouble with interacting with people.

The first thing I can suggest is finding a few people with whom you can confide your position, are supportive with wanting to see you be a better person, and willing to give you guidance. THEN TRUST THEM when they say you've done something not so well. If you're in a relationship, hopefully your SO will be willing to help. At work, maybe your boss or colleague will be willing to observe you and help you on your journey.

There are four stages of dealing with things:

  * unconscious incompetent - You have a problem and don't know you have one.
  * conscious incompetent - You recognize you have a problem, but don't know how to solve it.
  * unconscious competent - You make an effort and happen to do better, but you're uncertain what it was that made a difference.
  * conscious competent - You consistently do better because you know what to do in situations.

Notice that in the last one, I didn't say that you _understand_ why what you did makes a difference. If you truly are a narcissist, it means that the social aspects of your mind are weakly wired. I am that way, so even today I have trouble recognizing cues. But, I'm honest with people about it. My friends and colleagues know this about me. I tell them, "Just FYI, I have a hard time picking up cues. Please, just be very direct with me because I really want to help and see people are happy." My myopic natural can also be a feature: I'm willing to dig down into problems and really understand why something isn't working right. It doesn't bother me to laser focus on a difficult problem. Long ago I was taught that every personality trait can be positive or negative depending on how it is used. Learn how to be better and use what you can do for better things.

Finally, find a _good_ therapist. A good one will be interested in you and want to help you find out who you are and what you can be. A good one will ask a questions of you, but they will be questions you likely have never asked about yourself and should have answers.

You're on the right track.

Volunteer at an animal shelter for a couple hours a week. The cats at pet stores always need volunteers.

Animals can't communicate so you are forced to empathize.

Take a few minutes to skim the Wikikedia page summarizing "The No Asshole Rule:" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Asshole_Rule

You probably don't fit the author's definition of "certified asshole."

No one's perfect. Learn from your mistakes and grow into a wise old person.

What Life Should Mean To You by Alfred Adler. Originally published in 1931, the book’s style of writing is refreshingly straightforward and lucid. Modern publications changed the word “should” to “could” because apparently you aren’t allowed to talk like that anymore. But it’s a transformative book on narcissistic behaviour, a real foundation for psychology.

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...

See recommended Reddit Thread:

r/RaisedbyNarcissists - "Help! I think I am a narcissist!" https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/comments/1p1uag...

What's the scientific consensus on therapies. Are there any evidence that they "work" If so, for what issues, and which therapy to choose?

I'm somewhat interest in therapies (not for narcissism, but more for issues of self-confidence, anxiety), but I will not spend my time and money without strong scientific evidence.

Don't fix it, own it. It's human to think the world revolves around you because in your life it does. Try to change and you'll wind up like all these fake people whose words project humility but whose actions show they only care about themselves. I'm ok with it, I assume everyone thinks that way.

I'm too good to have narcissism!

Honestly, I think the best way to deal with that is knowing you're not prefect, you're not the opinions of others and you don't need to be the best. You just need to be a better version of you. Learn to love yourself and this all becomes a lot easier.

That's just my personal opinion.

You might be giving yourself the wrong diagnosis.

If you're a great storyteller, talking too much wouldn't be a problem.

If you're gifted and spending all your time perfecting your craft, others will notice your dedication and appreciate it.

If you're intelligent, having your own perspective is interesting and unique.

Do you notice the pattern? You have to be really, really good, at something that brings yourself and other people, value. Lots of accomplished and beloved individuals have had inflated egos and took things personally, just look at Michael Jordan. The difference is, they achieved something.

You can achieve too, because just about everything people do can be vastly improved upon. Find your niche, find what you can help society improve upon. It'll take 10-15 years to get there, so if you want to, you better get going :)

The magic pill everyone wants is 'how do other people like me more' or 'how do I get them to act in ways that I prefer'. The solution is you rise so far above, that they can't help but feel like 'holy shit' around you. That takes 10-15 years of dedicated work, unless you were born beautiful, in which case this problem never arises :)

Try this: go on a dating website, and say that you are looking for someone to help you listen to and connect to other people. Maybe someone out there will be willing to mentor you. Much more useful than reading is an actual face to face critique by someone who is there to watch how you interact.

Years of hardcore individual and group therapy in my 20s, 30s and 40s helped to dispel any lofty perceptions I had of my self. It was very painful at the time but necessary. I continue that program to this day with a loving wife who calls me out on my shit as needed.

Learning how to be truly empathetic to another person was transformational for me. Studying meditation, mindfulness and generally seeking to truly understand other humans with an open heart and mind has been a long, ongoing journey but well worth the effort to date.

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.

What you've described is normal human behavior that some of us are able to outgrow thru practice. While therapy can be helpful to many it seems to miss the mark here.

The books of Dale Carnegie are fun to read, can help develop better habits, and are widely available.

Memento mori + try to like other people and view the world with their eyes, try to have shared experiences together where you move yourself consciously out of the center, experience they give you something you can't acquire on your own.

Would hanging around more impressive/intimidating people help? Just guessing they might have more interesting stories than you that help you take a backseat more often? Whether they want to suffer your acquaintance is another story!

Assess your weaknesses. Ask other people about your weaknesses. Do not blame others for your own weaknesses and mistakes.

Assess your strengths. Ask other people about your strengths. Do not take credit for others' strengths and achievements.

An important question: How old are you?

If you are in your teens, 20s or 30s then I'd say don't get too upset about being self focused. A lot of us are.

Having kids changes you too :-)

Not saying you should get old or have kids, but it's a factor :-)

Enjoy being you whilst you can :-)

I think you should start donating some amount to helping others. Maybe that might help combine with what others have said here, regarding seeing a therapist, picking up a book. Try doing community service or volunteer work.

I'd check out "How to Win Friends and Influence People". Learning how to genuinely take an interest in others can be a learned trait. You'll also make mistakes, just be ok with your growth.

Look for empathy training. Usually, 80% of the problem is lack of empathy.

Keep a journal, create a feedback loop that works for you (meditation, running, whatever - try a few and keep what produces good output) and keep aiming to conquer your ego.

"Ego is the enemy"

At its core, narcissism is a defence mechanism [1] against a state of mind of which you are afraid.

To get over your narcissism, you can grow your emotional strength until you are ready to face your biggest, unknown-to-you fear, until you are ready to be in the state of mind that you avoid. Right now, your mind does everything to hide that state of mind from your awareness.

There are plenty of ways to grow your emotional strength. Meditation, being compassionate, express yourself e.g. with singing or dancing, ...

Trust yourself. Deep down you know what you have to do.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanism

Faith 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.

Stoic philosophy, while not about narcissism per se, can help put things in perspective because it forces humility and detachment. So book- wise: meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Have a few kids. That’ll fix any sense of narcissism or self-centeredness real quick.

I have near-zero time to dwell or introspect and that’s not really a bad thing. Time is precious.

A single LSD trip will show your ego just how volatile it is.

Sam Vaknin is a self-confessed Narcissist and maybe psychopath. His oeuvre is invaluable. He served time in an Israeli prison for financial crimes.

Know that you are not the body, understand that you will die sooner than you think and therefore you are very minisucul in the grand scheme

Not giving a shit about near everything. I installed Slackware after lots of years (since Debian Woody), but never stayed with it because I had no internet at home.

I have no shit to being "hip" or updated, I installed Fluxbox/Rox and stopped bragging over a setup and I just wanted to get my shit done.

I just did what I loved (learning to code TCL/TK and console/PC emulators in 6502 ASM) instead of accomplishing not my ego, but my distorted view of myself as being enforced by the rest. It worked.

Keep telling yourself that you are a normal person, just like everyone else. Don't judge others too harshly, we all have a tendency to see others misdeeds as driven by character flaws, but they might just be having a bad day. Meditate on mortality, it's great to be alive and healthy, this will not always be the case.

For me this sort of thinking blunts both the highs and lows of existence, and gives me more empathy for others.

Good luck with your possible narcissism, knowing (yourself) is half the battle!

sign up for brazillian jiu jutsu, that would teach you some humility. jokes aside, getting a therapy would be the best option, if it is available for you. "the problems" we observe may had roots and/or just an outcome of the root problem that we have no idea of.

Don't you have any friends? That's what friends are for - to tell you when you're steering the wrong way. Here, all by yourself, you are analyzing your behavior and concluding that you're a narcissist, of all things. Maybe you're a psychotic, a sociopath, an alcoholic, an obsessive-compulsive, a father-raper or a mother-stabber or one other of the thousands of possibilities, but you are making your own (likely unprofessional) diagnosis. Bad idea!

If you have no friends and don't have lots of spare change, then join a group (any type of group, not group therapy): find others with common cause or interest and work from there. Try a bunch: feel free to join and leave until you find something comfortable.

If you have money to throw away, feel free to hire a friend (a "therapist", counselor or psychiatrist). There are plenty willing to take your money. As one psychologist told me, his is a really easy profession: he listens to people, gives them advice if they want it but need not necessarily do so. Nor need he solve any problems (that's up to the patient). It's an easy way to become quite well-off, if only somewhat respected.

I wish I had back all the money and time I gave for psychological counseling when I was young, even w/o interest. I'd be much wealthier and better off.

There is some advice in meditation books to practice gratitude and empathy that is supposed to help.

The anatomy of peace helped me focus on others instead of myself, I can highly recommend it!

Just be nice.

And realize you can be nice without being a pushover. They're separable.

Those two will get you pretty far.

If you were a real Narcissist, you are not be the problem, everyone else is the problem.

Kids have a way of resetting your sense of focus. Not recommended for all, of course.

Or 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.

“Rethinking Narcissism” is the best book on the topic that I’ve read so far.

Can't say I was a narcissist, but I had an epiphany at one point about "being too full of myself" as well as taking over conversations too often. I really dug into certain philosophies to help course correct.

The most useful philosophies (for me) were/are Secular Humanism and Utilitarianism PLUS all of the sub-philosophies inside of each. There are definitely some problematic ideas in each, but I think you'll gain some new perspectives.

There are other areas to look at, but what I listed is a good start. Stoicism can also help with emotional control and being more aware of your thinking. It's kind of like a "practice".

You can buy books or browse the web for this stuff, of course.

NOTE: I have ZERO credentials in philosophy... it's just my hobby. However, I don't think my recommendations here are out-of-line as they are pretty high level. Would love to have more seasoned folks comment/point out other areas of philosophy that are useful in gaining insights for the OP's issues.

Acid.

How To Make Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie

There's an audiobook, too.

One path to humility is realising just how astoundingly skilled some people are at skills you would like to have, but don’t have (and may never be good at).

You already realise you are missing some interpersonal skills, so you are hopefully above the “Dunning-Kruger” unskilled and unaware point for some interpersonal skills (excellent!).

Start by asking others what they see as your weakest skills are. Don’t defend or argue back, be humble and accept the criticism. They need to be someone you respect and preferably someone highly skilled in areas you are not (even though that is obviously extremely difficult for one to judge correctly - maybe use consensus judgement of others?).

Work on learning those skills from others, or just admiring them.

If you are a guy then learning some traditionally “female” skills is probably a good start (or vice versa if you are a woman).

This has worked somewhat for me as someone with a reasonably high IQ and a very well developed ego!

Find a therapist. This will be much more help than reading a book.

Magic mushrooms , a few strong trips separated over few years.

By reading a lot about Buddhism

The art of happiness is a good starting point

youtube eckhart tolle

Stop looking at your reflection - in the mirror, in panes of glass... anywhere. Seriously. Obviously, if you have to for some reason, do it but minimally. Has other benefits as well.

If you suspect that you're a narcissist, then you probably aren't one.

True narcissists won't even have the thought cross their mind or see it as something to fix. They think they are perfect in every way. To admit to imperfection would shatter their sense of self and that is something they must protect at all costs. They can't see how their behavior affects others. They are God's gift to us in their minds.

You're probably just self-centered. Not quite the same as NPD.

Try these things:

* Don't like listening to people? Get over it, practice listening

* Judge situations from just your perspective? Just try to see it from another angle.

* Inflated ego? We all came screaming head first out of a vagina or yanked out of a cut womb. You're not special. We're all going to die.

* Take things too personally? Try meditating.

EDIT:

Been reading through the comments and most of you are uneducated about the true nature of narcissists or have never crossed paths with one in any meaningful way (luckily for you).

Here are the spark notes about narcissists:

The DSM-V defines narcissism as:

`A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:`

To be categorized as a narcissist you have to meet 5 of 9 traits defined here :

https://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/materials/Narc.P...

* Narcissists aren't born, they are created and there is a strong link that shows it is a heritable characteristic learned in early adolescence.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3973692/

* Generally, it's either learned from a parent in the home or traumatic emotional abuse.

* Narcissists have a very fragile ego and are constantly protecting it, they simultaneously want your approval and despise you for their need for your approval.

* Narcissists cannot self reflect as part of a defense mechanism to their ego, they believe they are perfect in every way, and therefore do not need to change their behavior.

* They have their own world view and if you show them differently they will simply ignore it and subsequently you.

* Narcissists thrive on the attention and adoration of others, this can come from their children, co-workers, friends, family, lovers, really anyone. They thrive on both negative and positive attention. This is called narcissistic supply. Narcs need a constant supply to keep their egos inflated. It's like oxygen to them.

* They will utilize a variety of tactics to entangle new forms of supply and keep them confused and entrapped. These tactics include:

- Love bombing (Constant praise, stroking your ego, constant attention)

- Mirroring (You like snowboarding? I like snowboarding! you like video games? I like video games!)

- Projection (You're going to cheat/ steal/ lie, meanwhile they are doing exactly those things to you. They will accuse you of these things first to muddy the waters when you eventually catch on to their behavior)

- Word salads (complete nonsense, logical fallacies out of their mouths to confuse you when talking or arguing)

- Extreme mischaracterization or exaggeration of what you've said

- Moving goalposts (I'll start helping with chores when my minor injury heals when I'm less stressed when it's spring etc)

- Conditioning (Like pavlovian training: if you're in a good mood doing a certain activity they will start an argument to soil your association with that activity)

- Gaslighting (I didn't say I liked video games, you must have misunderstood me)

- Name calling and aggressive criticism (Usually disguised as a joke or with a "Just kidding!")

- Triangulation or Flying Monkeys (using a third party to torment you further)

- Discard /devaluation (Once you've caught onto them, or they've found a better source of supply you will be ignored or spoken about in condescending terms)

* Narcissists cannot truly generate happiness of their own, so they try to leech it from others and hate them for their ability to generate happiness

* Extended contact with a narcissist can lead to CPTSD

* Narcissists cannot change because they do not want to change since they see nothing wrong with their behavior.

In short, all of this advice to read a book, join a club, start a family, etc is useless for a narcissist. Also, narcissists are highly resistant to therapy. They rarely check themselves in and they only time they end up in front of a therapist is for something unrelated to their narcissism.

If you meet one run.

Just by asking the question you've already done half of the work. It's like AA, you first need awareness and that's a big step in the right way.

assume you are mostly wrong and ignorant. Treat every conversation as an opportunity to remedy it.

By being better than everyone else.

I went to church.

Don't take yourself too seriously.

Meditate.

Before I write out my tips, I'd like to say this: there is a big difference between being 'narcissitic' the way you have described it, and having Narcissitic Personality Disorder. There is a lot of confusion on that subject.

Having said that, there are a lot of things someone can do, and no single one of them will be a panacea. There are three things I would suggest, and third one, while very effective, is probably too "out there" for people. I will offer it here and let you decide.

The first is the practice of mindfulness meditation. That you are aware enough of your pattern is a great start. Although the point of mindfulness meditation is to awaken to one's true nature of being, there are fringe benefits when it comes to realizing how sensations and feelings arise within us. It is this fringe benefit that lets us be aware and make changes to our core being. Without mindfulness meditation, it is difficult to make any lasting changes to ourselves.

The second, is that you might want to consider seeking a therapist who can work with you on this. There are many modalities. Not every one will work. But issues such as taking things too personally actually has a lot to do with being insecure and overcompensating for that. This can be combined with the mindfulness practice. I understand that there is a perceived stigma to going to therapy ... it might help to view this as going to a coach, who can help you be the best you while having healthy, functioning relationships with others.

The third, and most "out there" is something that really requires the first two suggestion. This having an acupuncturist needle some specific points. But it can't just be any acupuncturist. Not all acupuncturists are sensitive to subtle energy, and for this to work, you'll need to find one who is. Not only that, someone with the knowledge to work on what are called the "extraordinary meridians". Working with those are not covered under the accredited acupuncture schooling needed to receive a license to practice acupuncture. It most definitely falls outside of evidence-based medicine.

But if you do manage to find such a person, they can work on these meridians, some of which are directly regulating one's self-esteem, being overly critical of other people, being able to take feedback, listening to others, etc. The pair that is most directly related to that are what are called the "yin qiao" and "yang qiao" meridians.

The thing is, to get the most out of it, you may need therapeutic help as well. Successfully triggering this will shift things, bring up memories, change how you feel. You might not feel like yourself.

Thing is, when I used this method for myself, it was the thing that finally improved the relationship I have with my wife.

Therapy

I don't want to jump to conclusions here but it's possible, nay probable, that you're a software engineer.

You seem like a fairly well adjusted fellow, if you've caught yourself being a jerk and want to make positive changes. Maybe you're more of a minor league egotist rather than an actual DSM narcissist. If you like keeping fit, it's difficult to be that kind of a jerk if someone's beating the shit out of you on a regular basis in a dojo. Sports in general are good for people living a life of the mind (aka HN nerds); it chips away at common character defects that come from being a disembodied brain waddling around. You'll expose yourself to people from all walks of life who will give you immediate feedback if you display bad character, and it will get you moving around and make you humble.

If you enjoy history and literature, maybe Plutarch's parallel lives of Alcibiades and Coriolanus; or Christopher Lasch's "Culture of Narcissism" could provide some perspective. And as someone said below, Dale Carnegie's book on winning friends and influencing people, 100 years later, is a really useful, life changing book.

Religion could help you here, especially Christianity, since a fundamental insight is, as GK Chesterton puts it: "What's wrong with the world? I am."

Without realizing there is something fundamentally wrong with me, i.e. the narcissism aka pride, it is impossible to break free. This is the insight that allowed Dante to leave Hell in the Divine Comedy.

Perhaps the best route is acceptance. How can you route your narcissism to a public good?

Leaving social media.

Get married and have kids.

Nothing will cure narcissism more effectively than holding a quivering, helpless newborn in your arms and realizing that you must keep this miracle alive.

If you are narcissistic then your desire to change is also narcissistic, this means its completely useless. If it's not then you are not narcissistic. It seems to me that you are just playing around and the only thing which needs to be done is to accept what it is.