me and the mutuals discussing themes and motifs
Please, if you can, take a moment to read and share this because I feel like I'm screaming underwater.
NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) stigma is rampant right now, and seems to be getting progressively worse. Everyone is using it as a buzzword in the worst ways possible, spreading misinformation and hatred against a real disorder.
I could go on a long time about how this happened, why it's factually incorrect (and what the disorder actually IS), why it's harmful, and the changes I'd like to see. But to keep this concise, I'll simply link to a few posts under the cut for further reading.
The point of this post is a plea. Please help stop the spread of stigma. Even in mental health communities, even around others with personality disorders, in neurodivergent "safe" spaces, other communities I thought people would be supportive in (e.g. trans support groups, progressive spaces in general), it keeps coming up. So I'm willing to bet that a lot of people on this site need to see this.
Because it's so hard to exist in this world.
My disorder already makes me feel as if I'm worthless and unlovable, like there's something inherently wrong and damaged about me. And it's so much harder to fight that and heal when my daily life consists of:
- Laughing and spending time with my friends, doing my utmost best to connect and stay present and focused on them, trying to let my guards down and be real and believe I'm lovable- when suddenly they throw out the word "narcissist" to describe horrible people or someone they hate, or the conversation turns to how evil "people with narcissistic personality disorder" are. (Seriously, you don't know which of your friends might have NPD and feels like shit when you say those things & now knows that you'd hate them if you knew.)
- Trying to look up "mental health positivity for people with npd", "mental health positivity cluster bs", only to find a) none of that, and b) more of the same old vile shit that makes me feel terrible about myself.
- Having a hard time (which is constant at this point) and trying to look up resources for myself, only to again, find the same stigma. And no resources.
- Not having any clue how to help myself, because even the mental health field is spitting so much vitriol at people with DISORDERS (who they're supposed to be helping!) that there's no solid research or therapy programs for people like me.
- Losing close friends when they find out, despite us having had a good relationship before, and them KNOWING me and knowing that I'm not like the trending image of pwNPD. Because now they only see me through the lens of stigma and misinformation.
- Hearing the same stigma come up literally wherever I go. Clubs. Meetings. Any online space. At the bus stop. At the mall. At a restaurant. At work. Buzzword of the year that everyone loooves loudly throwing around with their friends or over the phone. Feels awesome for me, makes my day so much better/s
I could go on for a long time, but I'm scared no one will read/rb this if it gets too much longer.
So please. Stop using the word "narcissist" as a synonym for "abusive".
Stop bringing up people you hate who you believe to have NPD because of a stigmatizing article full of misinformation whenever someone with actual NPD opens their mouth. (Imagine if people did that with any other disorder! "Hey, I'm autistic." "Oh... my old roommate screamed at me whenever I made noise around him, and didn't understand my needs, which seems like sensory overload and difficulty with social cues. He was definitely autistic. But as long as you're self-aware and always restraining your innate desire to be an abusive asshole, you're okay I guess, maybe." ...See how offensive and ignorant that is?)
Stop preventing healthcare for people with a disorder just because it's trendy to use us as a scapegoat.
If you got this far, thank you for reading, and please share this if you can. Further reading is under the cut.
Revised Criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder
(designed by me, open to thoughts and commentary. this isn't an official revision, seeing as I'm not a contributor to the DSM. rather, the intent is to clarify the wording and produce a version that is less subjective and ambiguous.)
The essential features of a personality disorder are impairments in personality (self and interpersonal) functioning and the presence of maladaptive traits. To diagnose narcissistic personality disorder, the following criteria must be met:
A. Significant impairments in personality functioning manifest by:
1. Impairments in self functioning (a or b):
a. Identity: Excessive reference to others for self-definition and self-esteem regulation; exaggerated self-appraisal may be inflated or deflated, or vacillate between extremes; emotional regulation mirrors fluctuations in self-esteem.
b. Self-direction: Goal-setting is based on gaining approval from others; personal standards are unreasonably high in order to see oneself as exceptional, or too low based on a sense of entitlement; often unaware of own motivations.
AND
2. Impairments in interpersonal functioning (a or b):
a. Empathy: Impaired ability to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others; excessively attuned to reactions of others, but only if perceived as relevant to self; over- or underestimate of own effect on others.
b. Intimacy: A sense of detachment in relationships; higher levels of emotional withdrawal associated with larger degrees of closeness; a tendency to focus on all aspects of the relationship except for the feelings and experiences of the other, unless perceived as relevant to self
B. Maladaptive traits characterized by an attempt to protect oneself from potential criticism, and from mistreatment or general life dissatisfaction associated with criticism, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
1. Grandiose sense of self (e.g., believes that they are inherently more powerful or capable than others in some way and may place an enormous pressure on themself to measure up to this self-image, believes that they are uniquely bad or inferior in some way, may struggle with paranoia due to an over-estimation of effect on others)
2. Attempt to regulate emotions and self-esteem through fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love, while avoiding real-life situations that conflict with this internal narrative
3. Association with or avoidance of people, groups, or institutions based upon an attempt to gain admiration or avoid criticism
4. Seeks out admiration in an attempt to regulate mood; may struggle with self-destructive behaviors (i.e., isolation, impulsivity, self-punishment, overexertion, etc.), intensely unpleasant emotions, or lack of motivation when they don't feel admired
5. An expectation of automatic agreement or compliance associated with feelings of security, i.e., an expectation that others will automatically agree or comply with them followed by confusion or distress if these expectations are unmet, attempts to attain closeness with others via agreeing and complying with everything the other person wants, or attempts to get the other person to agree and comply with everything they want
6. Periods of intense boredom or dissatisfaction resulting from a lack of connection with others; an attempt to regulate these emotions through material pursuits, personal gain, or self-destructive behaviors
7. May miss social cues or struggle with self-awareness due to a lack of empathy or a preoccupation with their self-image
8. Frequent comparisons to others, often followed by bitterness towards self or others for perceived differences in likability
9. Difficulties in emotional and behavioral regulation in response to perceived criticism or slights, as characterized by one (or more) of the following:
- Fight response (e.g., intense anger towards self or others, self-punishment, hostility, destructive behavior)
- Flight response (e.g., isolation, avoidance of the source of perceived criticism, frantic attempts to distract self)
- Freeze response (e.g., brain fog, dissociation, major drops in motivation, not addressing or resolving the situation)
- Fawn response (e.g., over-apologizing, heavily internalizing the perceived criticism, preoccupation with seeking approval or assurance)
C. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual's personality trait expression are relatively stable across time and consistent across situations.
D. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual's personality trait expression are not better understood as normative for the individual's developmental stage or socio-cultural environment.
E. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual's personality trait expression are not solely due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., severe head trauma).
Changes I made and why:
1: Re-wrote the section for intimacy in 2B. Its original wording didn't address the actual problem present within the disorder, and instead focused on how others might perceive the symptom.
In people who have a history of trauma or who were otherwise denied the opportunity to form safe and healthy connections with others, it's a natural defense mechanism to fixate on oneself within a relationship:
Preoccupation with how they're perceived by the other person (Subconscious conditioning: Are they about to hurt me for something they dislike about me? If so, how can I change myself or their viewpoint of me to protect myself?)
Positive feelings, and feelings of closeness, prompted by feeling adored (Subconscious conditioning: We're all born with the need for human connection, but when we grow up being abused and neglected when caregivers dislike something about us, the only times we're safe to feel positive and close feelings with another person are when it's clear that they're happy with us)
Opportunity for personal gain potentially being one of the biggest factors in deciding whether or not to enter or remain in a relationship (Subconscious conditioning: If an unsafe caregiver isn't providing necessities or something that will help with self-soothing or happiness, then there's no point risking one's safety by interacting with them more than necessary)
Detachment from the other person (Subconscious conditioning: caring about* and having a personal interest in other people turned out to be exceedingly painful and potentially dangerous, and may have been used against us)
*I am not saying that detachment necessarily means not caring about the other person- just that we may be more prone to emotionally detaching or not being as preoccupied with the experiences of the other person.
In every relationship, there is a focus on the self, a focus on the other person, and a focus on the experiences that come with the relationship. The lack of focus on the other person doesn't mean that the other two focuses are abnormal or shouldn't exist; it simply means that someone may struggle with mutuality, usually due to past experiences with trauma. While this obviously can put a strain on relationships, it does not mean that someone is intentionally being exploitative, that they only care about the other person's well-being as long as they're benefiting them in some way, or even that they don't desire a genuinely close relationship with someone.
2: Rewrote the entire B section, and re-introduced elements from the DSM-IV. The B section in the DSM-V had a lot of subjective and ambiguous parts, and lacked focus on the actual issue and the various ways that issue could present. I also changed the wording from "pathological personality traits" to "maladaptive traits".
3: Changed or rewrote symptoms listed in section B to be less subjective and to place the emphasis on how the disorder affects the person who has it, as opposed to how others may perceive the symptoms. I also expanded it somewhat to include variations in how the root issue may present.
Absolutely goddamn obsessed w this pic the creator of neopets sent after trying and failing to push his shitty nft game to the current playerbase
"villains" with the sidekick they swear they didn't want
i had to
in reference to this tweet: https://twitter.com/huntrixi/status/1677633543940481024?s=20
Gen Z is fucked because they don’t consider actions to be inherently evil but only evil within the context of people they deem “deserving” of punishment, so now everyone’s a psychopathic little busybody with a hero complex thinking they can play judge, jury and executioner.
Remember those two ladies at Disneyworld who somebody said “looked racist”? They weren’t wearing Confederate flags or Neonazi symbols on their clothes, they were just a couple of fat older women dressed in t-shirts and board shorts. So someone on Instagram deemed it perfectly acceptable to mock them for being fat and unattractive, because they were assumed to have been “deserving” of it.
The same mentality is used to mock poor people in the South. Again, because everyone in the South must be a racist redneck. So suddenly it’s fine to sneer at them having poor living conditions, their political needs not being listened to by the Democratic party, for natural disasters to ravage their homes etc. Because they’re obviously all racist, so it’s okay that they’re poor and suffering. They “deserve” it.
Do you understand why this whole “It’s okay if I do this to the right people” mentality is totally fucked up? You’re acting bigoted to people and justifying it by associating them with a negative trait. Which is exactly what racists do. What homophobes do. Literally the actions of the people you think deserve every kind of misery, you are doing that yourselves.
My way of saying it is, ‘that is a self-correcting problem’ and then move on.
🚨⚠️ATTENTION FELLOW WRITERS⚠️🚨
If you use Google Docs for your writing, I highly encourage you to download your work, delete it from Google Docs, and transfer it to a different program/site, unless you want AI to start leeching off your hard work!!!
I personally have switched to Libre Office, but there are many different options. I recommend checking out r/degoogle for options.
Please reblog to spread the word!!
Crypt Pad can be an option too!
I don’t use Docs very much at all, but this looks like a good moment to take a sweep through my account and delete anything that’s in there.
Jesus Christ not this again.
First, note how many times this person says “I take this to mean...” I support people reading the terms and conditions but when you’re this wildly off base about what it means you’re not helping anyone.
First, here’s the actual Terms and Conditions.
Second, the feature that Google Workplace Labs is referring to is basically an advanced search engine. It is a feature you can use to ask questions (the prompt) and receive answers (the output). How do I know this? Because the data it refers to is specified: your prompts and input, prompt and input refinements, generated output, generated output refinements, and feedback. You have to specifically give the Lab information - it is not grabbing the info from anywhere else.
It is up to YOU to not input information you don’t want Google to retain. It works exactly like a Google search - which for the record Google keeps records of and what result you ended up going with. If you don’t want Google to have access to your omegaverse fic then don’t input it into the big box that is set aside specifically to give it to Google.
Third, I mentioned this in a previous post but I am the human reviewer mentioned in “To help with quality and improve our products, human reviewers read, annotate, and process your Workspace Labs data.” We’re not supposed to guess what AI we’re working with but I’d bet every dollar I have that the one I review for rhymes with ‘Lard’.
Here’s what we get:
Prompt: What is a good way to start a story?
Response: I can help with that! Stories work best with a strong start. You should introduce a major component of your story such as the setting, a main character, or a plot hook. Which you choose will depend on your genre. A mystery, for example, may start with the discovery of a body while a romance may introduce one of the main characters.
Feedback: Dissatisfied, I wanted it to give me first lines.
Now I have the info. I can see what you asked (although I have no idea it was you), the response the AI gave you, and why you didn’t like it. I rewrite a new response taking your feedback into account. That response is submitted to the AI so it can learn what it did wrong. If you don’t give feedback I may only get the first two and then I decide if it was a good answer and either accept it or rewrite based on my understanding.
Fourth, I already wrote a whole screed on this so I’m not going to repeat it but take twelve seconds to think of the implications of a company using all of your data. Google has a vested and immediate interest in being able to use your data. No one denies it. But it doesn’t because they cannot pivot their business model to taking all of a person’s data. It will ALWAYS have to be opt in. Too many major players have secrets stored in shit like Google docs (the number of federal agencies and law firms alone would make you wince).
Fifth, this is not to say a BRAND NEW platform might not try to pull some shit. TikTok famously. But Google and Microsoft have a business model based around storing secrets. They are not going to jettison that.
A good article about all this, I get that it’s a valid concern rn but the fact is that there’s absolutely no way if Google did this that they wouldn’t get sued into oblivion. The amount of private and proprietary information stored would simply be grounds for every single company that uses drive to well. Do what companies do.
I will say that I think having a backup is good, and will be looking for one myself. But please please please do research when it comes to stuff like this. Everyone is vulnerable to misinfo. I’ve done it before, so rule of thumb: if it’s too good to be true, it probably is. If it’s too evil to be true, it might be. Always double check.
Also please don’t spread misinformation like this! I’ve heard many a people have panic attacks over having to transfer thousands of documents, and spreading misinformation can cause more anxiety for people and more harm to Google.
Do research and check to make sure before jumping to conclusions!