Cluster B personality disorders tend to be the sort of personality disorders that are obvious to those around you. (To anyone who has done any serious study on the topic of personality disorders, it’s likely those around you (at least the ones you’ve interacted at all sufficiently with) already know you have NPD. To those around you who haven’t, I’m sure they’ve still identified aspects of your behavior that are much different from how most people behave, and stumbling across the Wikipedia page for NPD is likely to bring you to mind.)

I do say “tend to” on purpose. There is such a thing as a “covert presentation” of NPD that can be less obvious.

I’ve done enough study on the topic that I know a bit about what the term “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” means. If someone I knew mentioned to me that they had an NPD diagnosis, I think just how that would affect my view of them would depend on a few things:

I think if I hadn’t known them very long and there wasn’t any particular reason for them to bring it up, I’d likely see bringing up their NPD diagnosis as an attention-seeking behavior. (This would be true no matter what the diagnosis was. If someone I didn’t know well just lead with “I have histrionic PD” or “I’m autistic” without a specific good reason to be bringing it up (and I’m not saying that there aren’t cases where leading with a psychological diagnosis is appropriate), I’d similarly feel they were seeking attention. Of course with NPD, “attention seeking” is even one of the diagnostic criteria, and so there is a certain difference with seeking attention by airing your NPD diagnosis vs airing your schizoid PD (or whatever) diagnosis.) If I’m honest, OP, just interacting with you a couple of times on Lemmy, this is kindof the way I view you. That said, I don’t see your behavior on Lemmy as “bad” in any particular way. You’re getting some of your needs filled and also contributing to the community here by starting what I see as interesting and engaging conversations. But I do think a big part of why you’re writing so much about NPD is to get validation from strangers on the internet.

If I had known them for a while and had already seen them exhibit a lot of narcissistic behavior, it would probably be a bit of a relief to hear them say they had an NPD diagnosis. I’d see them as more self-aware than I did before and that would increase my respect for them. I’d probably suspect their awareness of their condition means they may have a genuine interest in managing it and they may be in treatment. I’d suspect they probably knew a bit about the terminology. And if their behavior became unacceptable and I needed to ask them to tone it down, I might be able to break through their defenses to get them to actually listen to me by speaking to them about their behavior in terms more closely associated with PD theory. I’d also feel a bit honored to have been confided in.

If I had known them for a while but the fact they had an NPD diagnosis took me by surprise, it would definitely make me reevaluate my view of NPD a bit. As I said above, covert NPD does exist but I’d be surprised I didn’t pick up on it myself even their presentation was covert.

People with at least certain types of NPD tend to use/manipulate/victimize people in ways that hurt, scare, and anger. People who have experience dealing with such NPD sufferers often have unresolved grudges which they project onto anyone with NPD. (Similarly, they tend to label NPD anyone who triggers their unresolved issues.)

In a perfect word, everyone would be emotionally mature enough not to be triggered or even injured in the first place by someone exhibiting manipulative/narcissistic behavior. But we don’t live in a perfect world. Victims of emotional abuse have valid reason to hurt and be scared and angry. It’s reasonable to say that they don’t have valid reason to demonize people with NPD. But whether demonizing people with NPD is “valid” or not, it’s understandable. At least as understandable as is any sort of projection.

So, this is a personal question, and definitely don’t feel obligated to answer it, but if you “haven’t abused or manipulated anyone ever”, can I ask if you’ve gotten any verification of this assertion from an impartial observer? For instance, has a therapist used a term like “covert NPD” to refer to you?

Also, being honest here and speaking personally, I have suffered abuse and manipulation of a distinctively narcissistic sort for a number of years. I don’t feel like I harbor hatred toward the individual in question today. (Though I’d really rather not ever interact with them again.) But it definitely was a long process to reach the point where I could say that. And it’s pretty certain that even if the individual to whom I refer had/has issues that lead them to abuse and manipulate me, I must admit that I similarly had preexisting issues on which they wouldn’t have been able to prey had I not had such issues. (And, full disclosure, if this individual ever had an NPD diagnosis from anyone with more authority than my own armchair, I’m unaware of it.)

I’ve since run into and worked closely with at least one other individual who habitually acted in very narcissistic ways toward me and others and I was able to mostly view them with empathy and avoid being triggered to an extent that wouldn’t have been possible had I not previously worked closely with the former individual I mentioned above. I can’t say I’m thankful to the first one per se, but at very least I can admit that having interacted with them, in some ways I’ve become a stronger person. (Even if in others I’ve become weaker.)

Dead internet theory is a fantastic theory that holds that the majority of the social media content on the internet is created by bots. I personally like to think about an internet with only bots in it, communicating back and forth without human interaction. For example, creating a Tamagochi hive at home. This not only increases bot happiness, but also adds excitement! By the way, if you’re interested in non-standard hobbies, I also recommend paying attention to https://chatgpt.com/.

I keep some cash in my pocket specifically in case I run across someone asking for money.

And then I live like a hermit, almost never going anywhere, so it’s rare that I actually have occasion to give in that way, but you know.

Also, in my experience, it’s not necessarily homeless people who need the money. I’ve seen people (claiming they’re) close to losing their housing who are hoping to raise enough money panhandling to make their rent this month.

Of course, if you are struggling financially, it’s definitely very reasonable to decline to give in that context. I suppose if anything feels “off” as well. (Though I wouldn’t want to bias folks in the direction of thinking that there may be any reason to be more suspicious of people in need than others.) But over all, I do think it’s something that can make a hugely, vitally positive change in someone’s basic wellbeing.

I think your experience is extremely typical.

Good luck, ya’ll. I’ll see you on the other side.

Oh jeez. I forgot about that. I had that running on my DS back in the day from a GBA flashcart with a big-ass CompactFlash card sticking out the bottom. Good times.

I imagine there was a time when this wasn’t obscure, but I’m guessing people today don’t remember Caldera OpenLinux. That was the first Linux distro I installed/used. A guy from church gave his copy.

Caldera eventually became SCO. But I’m pretty sure I was using Caldera OpenLinux before the whole Novell patent suit thing.

What icon pack? (Is this post supposed to be a link?)

Edit: Ah. Now there’s an image.

What’s worse is when that asshole tickles my sinus nerves just a little, never actually letting me sneeze, but still being an annoying piece of shit.

Well, the whole saga is longer. We got a bathroom redone and the sink never worked right. It dripped. I took the faucet apart several times trying to fix the drip, but eventually concluded the faucet itself was just cheap crap and couldn’t be repaired.

So I bought a nicer one and replaced the faucet entirely. I was a bit intimidated by the prospect of replacing it ahead of time. Usually the drain and faucet “match”. (As in, the finish of them matches and if the finish on the drain is a different style/color/etc than the faucet, it’ll stand out.) And so they come as a set. But in this case, the drain that was part of the old/cheap faucet a) worked fine and b) was so similar in color/finish/style that you couldn’t tell it didn’t come with the new faucet. So I didn’t end up having to replace the drain, which made the whole process considerably easier.

Oh, I did need to slightly modify the drain closure plunger to fit the old faucet’s drain… lever… thing. Heh…

There was definitely a moment once I’d assembled the whole thing and was turning on the valves under the sink that I was a little worried it’d all explode and soak the whole bathroom. Lol. But everything’s been fine for months now!

As for how long it took, probably three sessions of a couple of hours each to finally convince myself the old faucet was too defective to try to salvage. And then another thirty minutes to find a new faucet on Amazon and another three or so hours to replace faucet. And about the only roadblocks were the time I spent trying to fix the old faucet and the time I spent procrastinating before undertaking the actual replacement. Heh.

Coming out the other side of that experience, I do feel like I understand the sentiment better now that “if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself.” And I think it largely applies even if you don’t have any particular amount of expertise. Someone who doesn’t have to live with the results may not really care about something like a dripping faucet. If they can check the “replaced the faucet” box, they can say “job’s done”, charge the customer, and be on their merry way. (And I’m not saying I blame them, really.)

(Of course, that only goes so far. I wouldn’t think you ought to DIY things that might be dangerous, for instance.)

Probably rudimentary plumbing repair? (More specifically, replacing a bathroom sink faucet.) Via Youtube.

Brag about being an Arch user (BTW.)

I default to ibuprofen. Feels a little more effective to me than acetaminaphen. I’ve never taken aspirin for pain.

The DMCA is such bullshit. I mean, U.S. (and other WIPO countries) copyright law is bullshit in general, but it got 100 times worse when they passed the DMCA.

Metro Station - Shake It

Of all the Justice League members you could choose to have the powers of, you chose Aquaman?

I’ve got my caps lock key remapped to escape.

I use my left pinky for ctrl, shift, a, and my remapped caps lock/escape key.

I use my right pinky for shift, enter, and I’m pretty sure that’s all.

I use my ring fingers for backspace, tilde, tab, q, backslash, quote, and that probably isn’t a comprehensive list.

I use my middle finger for semicolon/colon! I never realized that before. Wild.

You’re speaking of reincarnation? There’s not really any reason to think that’s a thing in consensus reality.

“Thrice” is a somewhat obscure word that otherwise fits.

“Adventitious” is a good one. It means “non-inherent” or “acquired” (as opposed to inherent.)