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How I Got Diagnosed With Narcissistic Personality Disorder · The Mental Healness Podcast

• 0:00
  So how did I get diagnosed with narcissistic personality
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  disorder? Like how did it get to the point
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  where I actually got diagnosed and went to therapy And what
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  test did I take to get diagnosed?
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  That's what we're covering today.
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  Y'all, of course, if you knew here, my name is Lee Hammond.
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  I'm a clinically diagnosed narcissist and here to give you
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  an inside look at the mind of a narcissist.
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  And y'all literally I got this question from from one of my
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  gold members. They said, Lee, can you do a
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  video about how you got diagnosed, like why you went in
• 0:30
  for diagnosis and stuff like that?
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  I'm like, yeah, it's Monday. Let's start the week off with a
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  bang. Like so in order to, I'm going
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  to first of all, I'm going to go over like the test that I took
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  to get diagnosed with narcissistic personality
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  disorder. I took the MMPI 2 and the PDQ 4.
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  If you don't know what the MMPI 2 is, it is the Minnesota Multi
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  Phasic Personality Inventory to the second version of it.
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  It consists of over 500 questions, 567 on.
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  It has online 500 questions, true and false questions, a few
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  different things or what not y'all, it is 567 true or false
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  questions. They go into detail and they
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  have a lot of different mechanisms built into it to
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  detect deception and lies and stuff like that.
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  Is a very in depth test. It is not one of those tests.
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  You can go in there and BS and get away with it just it's,
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  yeah, it's so deeply entailed, right?
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  And it's kind of crazy. It takes a long time to take as
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  well. It took me what, about an hour
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  and a half to finish that one. But I also took the PDQ 4 as
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  well. And the PDQ 4 is the personality
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  diagnostic questionnaire, the 4th edition PDQ 4.
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  And that was, it says online 99 questions, right.
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  And that screens for personality disorders.
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  So I peeked on narcissistic personality disorder, general
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  anxiety and depression and spiked kind of high on like
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  spiked a little bit on schizoid traits, right?
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  Little schizoid traits, not schizophrenia but schizoid
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  traits like the I guess the underlying is there for some
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  schizophrenic traits and what not.
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  That's why those are the tests that I took.
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  So you, you can take some tests online, but those tests online
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  are not very accurate. Y'all, you can Google
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  narcissistic personality disorder test and take a test
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  and they can kind of give you a just a baseline general.
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  You can lie on those. Those are very easy to lie on.
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  You can't lie on or you can go in and try to lie on these tests
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  in the therapist's office and it won't work out very well for
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  you, right? It very typically does not work
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  out very well for you. But how did I get to the point
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  of wanting to get diagnosed in the 1st place?
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  Because most narcissists never go get diagnosed, am I right?
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  Most narcissists never see that. They're never think that there's
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  a big enough issue to go get diagnosed, right?
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  So, and that's what happened to me.
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  So throughout my life, y'all, throughout the entirety of my
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  life, since I can remember, I'm 40 years old right now.
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  So since I can remember when I was what, 789 years old, I've
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  always known that I was different.
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  I've always known that there was something going on inside of my
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  mind that made me different. I always did.
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  I don't know, it's just for, for most of my life, it's always
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  been a feeling. I've always felt like I was
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  different. So it because I just, I didn't
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  know what it was. I didn't know what there was a
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  name for it, right? And I have a twin brother as
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  well. So I have a baseline on what I
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  thought normalcy looks like. What does a normal person act
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  like? My twin brother who is not a
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  narcissist. I know that when I say I have a
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  twin brother, people like, is he a nurse?
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  No, he's not a narcissist. No, but I have a baseline.
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  So I always knew I was different.
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  I always felt different. I always felt like I stood out
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  in the crowd. I always felt like no matter
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  what I did, all eyes were on me. Like I always felt like I was an
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  alien in a room. No matter how big the room was,
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  I always felt like nobody in the room was like me.
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  No matter what classroom I was in, auditorium, no matter what I
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  was doing, I always thought that I stood out to people.
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  And that's literally that's how my mind went.
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  I always thought that people were watching me and I got until
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  I got older, right? I went through life feeling that
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  way for the entirety of my youth, right?
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  I made it through. How do you make it through life
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  as a youth feeling different? I learned how to blend in.
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  I learned how to mask again, y'all?
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  I have a twin brother whose traits I could mirror.
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  I have family, family members and friends.
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  I have people that are throughout my entire life whose
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  traits I, whose traits I can emulate and whatnot.
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  I knew how to blend in and how to fit in.
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  Narcissist know how to mask, right?
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  I know how to mask. I know how to be who I needed to
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  be to get what I wanted. So throughout my entire life, I
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  knew I was different, but I also knew how to fit in without
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  drawing too much attention to myself.
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  Now I like the attention, but not too much attention, right?
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  Not bad attention. I hate bad attention.
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  That's for another story though. But when I was growing up, y'all
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  literally as I was growing up and I started dating and getting
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  into relationships, I noticed that all my relationships would
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  end the same way. All of them.
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  I'll be madly in love with somebody.
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  I feel like this person was my person.
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  I will always feel like, damn, this is my person.
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  This is this is going to this is right here is going to make it
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  to the very end. Me and this person isn't going
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  to be together forever. And then one day I will wake up
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  and didn't I would not feel that way about that person anymore at
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  all. I would not feel that way about
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  that person anymore. And that sucked right?
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  That sucks. And I never knew what it was.
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  I never knew what it was. So when I got the 2526 years
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  old, I met the person I'm married to right now.
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  I was just like, you know what, this one, I'm gonna make it
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  work. This one, I'm gonna make it
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  work. Like the lights are not the
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  lights are not going to go off in this relationship, but I'd be
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  damned if they didn't. The lights went off in my mind
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  and my relation in that relationship.
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  But she told me something about her past and I just held it
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  against I like you just you're just like everybody else.
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  You're imperfect. You're this, you're that in my
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  mind. But I told y'all, I wanted to
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  keep this going. So I was like, I'm I'm not going
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  to leave this person. This is going to keep going.
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  I'm going to keep fighting for this to keep going.
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  And that's what I did for a very long time.
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  I kept fighting for this relationship, right, But it
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  still kept going downhill because of my mind.
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  I was logged out, but my like my mind was logged out, but my
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  heart, I'm staying with it. I'm stay with it and I'm getting
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  married, having my having my second son, right, my second son
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  in Kingston and we my oldest son in the name is Raya.
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  So get to the point. Well we have Kingston and
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  Kingston's like 5 or 6 months old if y'all know my story.
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  Y'all know I get to the point where my wife like one of my
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  friends had lost his son right? See, it took my took my friend's
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  son and that rattled my life. My friend losing his infant son
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  like really rattled my life. I like my life get in at any
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  moment. I haven't left the legacy.
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  I'm pathetic. So I need to get home right now
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  and change my life. But soon as I get home, wanting
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  to change my life, my wife wanted to go out and do
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  something right. She wanted to go out and do
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  something and just not I just I have now I had to sit here with
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  my 4-5 six month old son. I'm just like, I can't get
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  anything done. I'm starting to blame my wife.
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  I'm starting to blame my kids. Everybody.
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  It's everybody's fault that I haven't left the legacy, right?
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  It's everybody's fault. Then I'm overweight.
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  It's everybody's fault, then I'm broke.
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  It's everybody's fault that I'm uneducated.
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  It's everybody's fault. My teeth are messed up.
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  It's everything. It's everybody's fault.
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  And it's all culminated in this moment where now I'm just
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  screaming at the top of my lungs throughout the house.
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  I'm yelling at my son. I'm yelling out loud.
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  My wife, who had left, comes back into the house, right?
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  She comes back into the house and me and her getting arguing
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  out me and her arguing out because I'm yelling at my son.
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  So now I'm arguing at her and during this argument y'all
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  during this argument she said it's so damn hard living with a
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  narcissist. I was like narcissist you're a
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  damn narcissist. You take forever to get ready.
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  It takes me 5 minutes to get ready.
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  You got to put on makeup. You worried about what everybody
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  think? I thought narcissist it was just
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  a buzzword y'all? I literally thought narcissist
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  was just a buzzword. I thought narcissist was just
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  the word that people used to throw it around.
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  I thought it was just meant cocky conceited.
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  I didn't have no idea it was anything, anything above an
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  insult. So I call her a narcissist.
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  She packed her stuff up and she left right and I was like OK I'm
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  sitting in the house angry. I was angry Googling.
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  I was angry Googling. Y'all googled angrily don't do
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  that. I was like, my wife called me a
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  narcissist. I typed in the word narcissist
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  or some form of it right? And I got on Google.
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  Google said, did you mean narcissistic personality
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  disorder? And I was like, what the hell is
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  that? I was like, I didn't mean that.
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  But let's let's dive deeper. Let's see what the hell this
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  actually is. So I go on Google, I look it up,
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  it says it says I look up the signs, traits and symptoms of
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  narcissistic personality disorder.
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  I look it all up. It's right there.
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  The literally the traits of narcissistic personality
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  disorder. Seeing that, like seeing the
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  traits help me understand what I've been going through my whole
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  life. I was like the traits, the
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  signs, the symptoms of NPD made sense to me.
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  It started answering the questions about how my
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  relationships kept ending on a whim, how I fall out of love
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  with somebody overnight, how I thought I was better than
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  everybody else, how I was so entitled, how I thought I needed
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  to leave a legacy, all that stuff right there while I
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  thought everybody was watching me, while I was so worried about
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  feeling shame and like shame and it just so I hated how people
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  thought about me. I always had a negative
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  self-image. Hated it.
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  I was like, damn, narcissism makes sense.
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  NPDI like I have narcissistic personality disorder, I have
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  NPD. Wow.
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  So I texted my wife, I was like, damn you right, I am a
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  narcissist. I just looked it up.
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  You 100% right. I saw I saw going online taking
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  those tests I told you about they don't they're not very
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  accurate. But the tests, I'm going to be
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  honest with these tests, Bing Bing, Bing Bing Bing narcissist
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  38 points. The NPI things are the NPI, the
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  narcissist personality inventory.
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  You can take that test online. Being super high.
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  I was like that. I'm a narcissist so guess what?
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  Guess what? Guess what y'all I got on Google
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  again. I have narcissistic personality
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  disorder. Or what's the cure for NPD?
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  No cure. Take your ass to therapy.
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  I'm like what? I got to go to therapy.
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  There's no cure. So I told my wife Layla, I'm
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  going to go to therapy and work on this.
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  I'm going to be better. Watch this, right?
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  Watch what I do. I'm going to go be better and I
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  instead of going to therapy, I joined some self aware
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  narcissist Facebook groups, right?
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  There's those Facebook groups are still active and I in those
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  groups, I they told me how to go to therapy.
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  There's like, hey, go on this site right here, search for it.
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  So I got on those sites I searched for.
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  I got on psychologyoftheday.com, Psychology Today.
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  Y'all need to sponsor me now and mention y'all so much.
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  I got on psychologytoday.com I sorted by Narcissistic
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  Personality Disorder therapist who specialized in it and now
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  who who who is not only their specialty it was their expertise
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  and few names came up and I sent the e-mail to Elise Pate in
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  Greensboro NC. I said hey I'm 99% certain I
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  have narcissistic personality disorder and since becoming
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  aware of it these thoughts are just turn my life apart.
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  I need help. Yeah, I know what people say.
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  They say, well, if you think you're a narcissist, you're
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  probably not a narcissist. Instead of saying that, she's
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  like, hey, come into the office, let's work.
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  So I go to Sante. Everybody.
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  Will you go to therapy? I go to Sante Counseling in
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  Greensboro, NC. SANTE Counseling in Greensboro,
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  NC I've been going there since for eight years, since 2017,
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  like a little bit in therapy since 2017.
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  So I went in there, start crying.
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  My very first therapy woman, she was like, what are you doing
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  here at 32 years old? I was like, I'm destroying my
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  life. I have a, I'm a narcissist.
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  So why? Why you think you're a
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  narcissist? They're like, what in the detail
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  Later on down the road got diagnosed, right?
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  Got diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder and it
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  wasn't shocking to me. A lot of people ask me like,
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  were you shocked when you had when you got diagnosed?
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  No, I knew I was a narcissist before I walked into the office.
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  I knew I was a narcissist before I sent that e-mail.
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  I said I'm 99.5% certain I have this.
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  So it wasn't shocking to me. I already knew I had it right,
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  so it wasn't shocking to me. It was anything.
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  I was like, damn, well I do. It's like, well damn, what do I
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  do? How do I work?
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  So I've been in therapy, working hard.
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  I go to talk therapy. We talk, you know, I talk about
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  my problems, I talk about my issues, right?
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  I work on being a better human being overall.
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  So I it was y'all notice how none of my story until my wife
• 12:48
  doing anything for me. She did not tell me to go to
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  therapy. She was not a recommendation of
• 12:52
  hers. She didn't demand it that my
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  wife literally I think it was either last year or the year
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  before. She literally just found out who
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  my therapist was. She didn't know who my therapist
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  was. So This is why people tell
• 13:04
  people what did your wife do differently?
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  She didn't, she left. But how do you make, how do you
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  make somebody go to you can't make somebody go to therapy.
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  You can't make them do it. If you make them go to therapy,
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  chances are more than likely they're not going to go get
• 13:17
  help. They're just doing it to appease
• 13:19
  you and to get you to shut the hell up, right?
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  They want you to be quiet. They want you to get off their
• 13:23
  back. So some of them will go to
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  therapy just to get you to shut up, just to get you to be quiet
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  because you being quiet benefits them.
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  So I go in there, I get diagnosed with narcissistic
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  personality disorder. I'm quiet about it online for a
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  while. But in those same self aware
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  narcissist Facebook groups, people are in there complaining.
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  They're like, I got to hide this.
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  I got to hide it. Like why don't you?
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  Why do you have to hide A personality disorder?
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  So that's when I started my social media platform based on
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  that, based on me getting tired of hiding my who I was.
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  I'm going to therapy. I was telling people I was going
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  to therapy but it was nothing like hey guys I've been
• 13:57
  diagnosed as a narcissist. I came out to my friends online
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  about it first right? But then when I got when it was
• 14:04
  received well I literally got back online again and get my
• 14:09
  TikTok started going viral. Then I got on Facebook, then I
• 14:11
  got on Instagram then I got my podcast.
• 14:13
  Did y'all tell me I might be listening to this on Spotify or
• 14:15
  Apple Music? Right?
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  Like that's how I got diagnosed? Like because I knew what was
• 14:20
  going on and for me, it's better to know and to deal with it and
• 14:24
  know what I'm dealing with as opposed to just keep guessing or
• 14:26
  just trying to bury it. There's nothing wrong with me.
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  You're the problem. That's the difference between me
• 14:30
  and most narcissists. I didn't say all narcissists
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  because there's a few other stuff for narcissists out there.
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  They're putting the work in. You got the bat Wolf.
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  You got Lynn Walker. Who else out there?
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  I put in work in Jake. Me and Jake.
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  Let's get more to the nameless narcissist.
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  We cool, Ben Taylor, All motivations.
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  There's a few other ones right there.
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  Now, I know you mentioned a lot of men.
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  This is sexist. Yeah.
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  The female narcissist that I've dealt with, I haven't found one
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  that I can really, truly trust. They've all turned their back on
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  me. They always done some shady ass
• 14:59
  stuff, right. This just.
• 15:02
  I just. There's like, it's a tough,
• 15:04
  dynamic crowd. The best one I've probably seen
• 15:06
  out there is close to B Milkshake over there.
• 15:09
  Like Sarah, she's close to B Milkshake I hear a lot of good
• 15:11
  things about I haven't dealt with in a while, but like, she's
• 15:13
  cool for a lot of people, right? close to B Milkshake.
• 15:16
  She helps a lot of people. And if I forgot y'all's stuff
• 15:20
  for narcissist women that are cool with me, I'm just on the
• 15:22
  spot right now. Y'all these people just on my
• 15:24
  spot. I'm talk to, I'll talk to Jacob
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  and him all the time. And the bat wolf and Leon, I
• 15:29
  talk to them all the time, so they're always in my head.
• 15:32
  But yeah, I'm not the only one putting the work in, but I'm
• 15:36
  just the most outward about it, right?
• 15:39
  I'm putting it in the most work right now on myself.
• 15:42
  Like you can't want, you can want them to go to get help, but
• 15:45
  they have to want it for themselves because otherwise
• 15:48
  it's just performative, y'all. They don't really want to go get
• 15:50
  help. They're just doing it to appease
• 15:52
  you. So how I got diagnosed, like
• 15:55
  diagnosis is just the first part of it.
• 15:57
  It's the work after the diagnosis that matters as well.
• 16:00
  After I got diagnosed, I've still been putting it in the
• 16:02
  work consistently and constantly because it's a requirement for
• 16:06
  my life, not for my wife. My wife does not require me to
• 16:08
  go to therapy, y'all. I do that for myself because I
• 16:11
  have kids. Like I have kids and whatnot.
• 16:15
  My kid. Like, Speaking of kids, you know
• 16:18
  what I'm going to say? You're just watching me.
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  I have kids that depend on me, that need to love.
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  You gonna come here, come and say hey.
• 16:30
  Come and say hello. Hey, say hello.
• 16:34
  Hi. So we we doing work, ain't we?
• 16:43
  We do a lot of work. You eating Doritos?
• 16:45
  OK, so they depend on me and I love my kids.
• 16:48
  I know people don't like. Well lady, you love your kids.
• 16:50
  Yo yes, I love my daughter. Is that I love you.
• 16:54
  There you go. OK, get out of here.
• 16:59
  Get anyways, y'all, now it's time to spend anyways, y'all.
• 17:05
  That's part of my story. I'll go into greater.
• 17:08
  I'll probably do a longer, longer video going to the
• 17:10
  greater detail about it. But my goal members on our
• 17:14
  YouTube channel, I do, I try to do a video a week based on the
• 17:17
  recommendations. I got an e-mail and I just like,
• 17:19
  hey, can you do a video about this, your journey, how you got
• 17:21
  there? Yeah.
• 17:21
  I realized that I was a problem. I realized that I can still be
• 17:24
  problematic. There's no cure.
• 17:26
  I'm not cured. I'm not recovered.
• 17:27
  You never hear me say I'm recovered.
• 17:29
  I'm just putting the work in because it's the work is worth
• 17:32
  it, right? Anyway, y'all thank you for
• 17:35
  tuning in. My one on ones over Zoom are
• 17:37
  still available y'all? Mental illness.net.
• 17:40
  My courses are still available to everything is at
• 17:42
  mentalillness.net. For my courses you can get a 50%
• 17:45
  discount either the code mothers or fathers for 50% off y'all and
• 17:52
  hit the subscribe button. I'm out.
• 17:54
  Peace.