Wondering if my ex is a narcissist

[cailin2222]

I decided to join because I just discovered that my ex is a narcissist. I had no idea what this word even meant until 3 days ago. For some reason I looked up the term and lo and below, things started to sink in. For 3 and a half years I have emotionally invested into trying to make this realtionship work, with alot of the problems being blamed by me. I did nothing but try and love this man and at the end of the day, he was more concerned with himself, not me, and definitely not my son. There were alot of red flags early on but I chose to ignore them, thinking that it was me. My struggle right now is trying to make myself realize that it WASN'T me......I guess when a person takes blame for so long, they start to perceieve that to be true. I'm also angry at myself for not seeing this early on and for putting up with so much bad behaviour. Some advice on how to move forward would be helpful. And I would also like to be able to run some of his behaviours across some people so that I can identify whether or not these traits are NPD or not. At the moment I'm questioning everything....even if he even has NPD....maybe I'm seeing things that are not even there!

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Re: Just discovered that my ex is a narcissist......support needed.

Or... maybe he is neither a narcissist nor NPD. We at Psychlinks have warned repeatedly about the dangers of self-diagnosis, amateur diagnosis, and internet diagnosis. It is a fool's game at best and it is dangerous.

Please try to focus on behaviors or traits when seeking support or venting about family or friends. That's much more productive for everyone.

 

[cailin2222]

Re: Just discovered that my ex is a narcissist......support needed.

Not quite the welcoming support I was expecting....isn't diagnosis of a narcissist a hard thing to determine given the fact that they don't think that they are doing anything wrong and don't willingly go for help?
The information that I am basing this on is from info that I have found HERE and on other credible (or what I thought) were credible sites.
I also WAS seeking support, not 'venting' as you put it.

I will delete my profile now. Clearly no help or advice is given here.

 

[Mari]

H! Cailin and welcome to the forum. I think you can find a lot of help and advice here and if you re-read your posts I think you actually supported what Dr. Baxter said regarding amateur diagnosis ie "....isn't diagnosis of a narcissist a hard thing to determine"

 

[Daniel E.]

My struggle right now is trying to make myself realize that it WASN'T me......I guess when a person takes blame for so long, they start to perceieve that to be true. I'm also angry at myself for not seeing this early on and for putting up with so much bad behaviour

Some advice on how to move forward would be helpful

Trying to realize that "it wasn't me" (or recognizing patterns in your relationships) is a process goal towards some desired outcome. So what does moving forward mean to you? In other words, what outcome(s) are you seeking that you have not reached already?