4 ms·

I think narcissism is an incredibly inaccurate description, and I think writing people off as narcissistic tends to be a crutch people lean on when they are emo

I think narcissism is an incredibly inaccurate description, and I think writing people off as narcissistic tends to be a crutch people lean on when they are emotionally incapable of empathy themselves. The author comes to similar revelations in the post: “My perspective shifts. I realize how incredibly self centered I’ve been. How irrational it is to be worrying about how everyone else perceives my decisions and apparent failures.” Reflection can take time and it’s often a natural part of growth. I think this post is more about burnout. Your over-analysis of their “self destructive event” comes to the wrong conclusion. Not responding to emails when you are completely burnt out has nothing to do with your obsession with yourself. When you’re completely burnt out you go into self preservation mode and while that might appear like self obsession, that is a symptom of burnout, not the cause.

srcreigh 5y ago
You said what I wanted to say better than I could. Thanks. I also want to add, to the GP, it's inappropriate and insensitive to say that the authors problem is easily fixed. And even assuming the authors main problem is narcissism, which I doubt, your methods would be laughably ineffective.
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ohazi 5y ago
Completely agree. Narcissistic personality disorder is a thing, but it's almost the polar opposite of what GP described. It wouldn't even occur to a narcissist that they're making things difficult for someone else. If you have a voice in your head telling you that you should feel guilty about all the ways in which you're making things hard for others... sure you might have an anxiety or a burnout problem, but you clearly have empathy.
- mrjangles 5y ago
  I didn't say it was the psychiatric disorder NDP. I meant it in the common usage of the word, not the academic one. And my whole point was that it is indeed surprising because at first glance it seems to be the exact opposite - and this is what can make issues like this so hard to deal with when they pop up.
  - ohazi 5y ago
    I think I understand what you're trying to say, and I get where you're coming from, but I still don't really agree with you. If you believe that something you're doing is making things difficult for people you care about, it's not narcissistic (even in the common usage) for that thought to make you sad -- that's just how empathy works. Empathy works by making you feel bad when your brain thinks other people are feeling bad. If that thought never even occurs to you, and if your friends repeatedly tell you things like "when you do X, it makes things difficult for me because I then have to do A, B, and C, when I could have just done Y" -- but you are still unable to wrap your head around or even acknowledge this, then you might be a narcissist. Describing in detail how something made you feel isn't narcissism or arrogance... it's the author's stated reason for writing this piece, and it doesn't seem like he's fishing for pity points. If you're not interested, that's fine... you don't have to finish reading it, but other people can find it helpful to compare how they feel in their current situation to how the author felt then. In particular, that feeling of "I can clearly see how my own issues are causing problems for my team -- I can see that they're frustrated with me, and I really want to fix things, both for them and for myself, but I don't know how and I feel stuck" is pretty common. It's not necessarily self-centered to have the meta-discussion about how this thought makes you feel, because this "feeling like a failure" is often driving a positive feedback loop that turns a few relatively manageable issues into an insurmountable monster. You need to understand what this feeling is doing to you in order to have any hope of fixing yourself.

srcreigh 5y ago

You said what I wanted to say better than I could. Thanks. I also want to add, to the GP, it's inappropriate and insensitive to say that the authors problem is easily fixed. And even assuming the authors main problem is narcissism, which I doubt, your methods would be laughably ineffective.

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ohazi 5y ago

Completely agree. Narcissistic personality disorder is a thing, but it's almost the polar opposite of what GP described. It wouldn't even occur to a narcissist that they're making things difficult for someone else. If you have a voice in your head telling you that you should feel guilty about all the ways in which you're making things hard for others... sure you might have an anxiety or a burnout problem, but you clearly have empathy.

mrjangles 5y ago
I didn't say it was the psychiatric disorder NDP. I meant it in the common usage of the word, not the academic one. And my whole point was that it is indeed surprising because at first glance it seems to be the exact opposite - and this is what can make issues like this so hard to deal with when they pop up.
- ohazi 5y ago
  I think I understand what you're trying to say, and I get where you're coming from, but I still don't really agree with you. If you believe that something you're doing is making things difficult for people you care about, it's not narcissistic (even in the common usage) for that thought to make you sad -- that's just how empathy works. Empathy works by making you feel bad when your brain thinks other people are feeling bad. If that thought never even occurs to you, and if your friends repeatedly tell you things like "when you do X, it makes things difficult for me because I then have to do A, B, and C, when I could have just done Y" -- but you are still unable to wrap your head around or even acknowledge this, then you might be a narcissist. Describing in detail how something made you feel isn't narcissism or arrogance... it's the author's stated reason for writing this piece, and it doesn't seem like he's fishing for pity points. If you're not interested, that's fine... you don't have to finish reading it, but other people can find it helpful to compare how they feel in their current situation to how the author felt then. In particular, that feeling of "I can clearly see how my own issues are causing problems for my team -- I can see that they're frustrated with me, and I really want to fix things, both for them and for myself, but I don't know how and I feel stuck" is pretty common. It's not necessarily self-centered to have the meta-discussion about how this thought makes you feel, because this "feeling like a failure" is often driving a positive feedback loop that turns a few relatively manageable issues into an insurmountable monster. You need to understand what this feeling is doing to you in order to have any hope of fixing yourself.