I've been coming to grips with the reality that I have narcissistic personality disorder. It's been absolutely soul crushing. I'm not sure how much anyone here knows about this disorder but it's quite horrible to deal with. My self awareness only started 1 year ago, a year before that I was diagnosed with psychotic depression when I went into a psych unit for 8 days. They did not really have the resources to help me nor would I accept any help other than my own but I had started researching psychology on my own at some point. I knew nothing about psychology like most people but I learned a lot. You have to be careful not to listen to misinformed self styled experts or con artists. When I started researching narcissistic personality disorder though it hit me in a weird place. I had always saw myself in my mind as different from other people, a misunderstood victim of the world, a God who hadn't realized his amazing destiny yet. All I ever had was myself growing up and so I built my entire world around myself despite barely having a sense of self. Despite having this grand vision of who I was and going to be, there had always been a gap between a reality and my fantasies. This gap has always hurt immensely, not being the all loved superstar I've always felt the need and desire to be. However researching narcissism has lead me to realize that my entire sense of self was just a personality disorder. I wanted to reject it at first but I can't deceive myself anymore, I wish I could and I was able to most of my life but I can't anymore. A part of me has wanted to get rid of it but it's frightening me how impossible that may just be. Everything lines up though. My obsessions, my paranoia, my existential dread, anxiety, depression are all mostly to due with this disorder. My need for narcissistic supply is very real. I see people as objects of supply. I see people as objects in general. My number one goal is being rich and famous. My greatest most worrying fears are not being good enough. I see myself as a movie character. I have to be perfect in every way for the imaginary cameras. I realize that this is insane. I realize the ridiculousness and falsity of my ideal, imaginary self, God like entity...but I can't stop. No amount of self awareness takes away the desire to be God. All I ever had was my narcissism and it's still all I have. I just keep sliding back and forth between the grandiosity and a collapsed state. I can't just be. I can't just be a person. I have a need to be a movie character, a God. I know all of this is a complex coping mechanism. I was a very neglected, lonely, and abused child growing up. Looking back at it now I was only ever an extension of my parents, who are also deeply mentally ill. I would be severely beaten, told I was a mistake, told I should kill myself, was very neglected and I couldn't take it. I went insane as a little kid to save myself from death. At that age being this way is okay, forgivable, or cute but I am a grown man now with the emotional age of 2. I may look like a man, sound like a man, but inside I am an severely emotionally damaged toddler. I can't accept life as it is. I hate other people, I hate the world, and I hate myself except when I'm drunk in which I love the world, other people, and myself. I get drunk and high all the time. When people are a source of supply I also like them but as a source of supply, not as an individual person I care for. I completely lack empathy. I lack any normalcy whatsoever. Everything I do revolves around the grand narrative of my life. It drains me and is all consuming. I engage in risky life threatening behaviors, and self trash because a part of me doesn't want to exist anymore. I have been depressed since the age of 6 and now I know why, part of why. My life has sucked but my mind has been broken and fried this entire time. The only motivations I have are to get attention, and my basic desires (food, sex, drink, sleep). My ultimate goal in life is to become the cartoon character I've always envisioned myself as. The idea of doing anything else or living a normal life depresses me into a dark abyss so much so that I cannot function. I didn't choose to be this way I just am and I'll be dealing with this for the rest of my life.