Mysterious_Eyes
(?)Community Member
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- Posted: Sun, 26 Sep 2010 05:54:30 +0000
First of all, this is going to be a long post, and I doubt I can summarize it. So please, if you are going to reply, read the whole thing.
I've been struggling with the question in the topic for years now. I've had issues with suicidal thoughts and self-esteem since middle school and anxiety since elementary school. Basically, my emotions get the better me and I cry...sometimes rather loudly. Things got worse as I started my junior year of high school since I intensely worried about the AP courses I was taking. I'm a perfectionist when it comes to school, and I feel that grades are a reflection of my intelligence. To me, my intelligence and my character are all I have to really offer to the world. So if something occurs that rattles my faith in those aspects of myself, I feel worthless. Furthermore, I began to wonder if I would be able to be truly successful in this world, with my definition of success being having a career I truly love and being independent. With the way I stressed out over things, I wondered if either of those goals would be attainable. I wondered if I would just be better off dead.
Anyhow, I went into counseling. After a few sessions, she told me that she believed I might be a narcissist. That upset me. Narcissism did not match my self-concept at all. Since she never brought it up again, I assumed that she thought I wasn't one after my reaction to the idea. I quit after a while, since scheduling was getting inconvenient and it didn’t seem to be helping me much.
The issue came up years later, in my second year of college. Back in January, my grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer. (He died in May, sadly. ;_; ) I decided to call a friend for advice on whether or not I should drop the semester. She said that I should, and thus we started chatting about other things. Somehow, we got to the topic of my suicidal tendencies. Killing myself would rid me of my suffering, but I would also be deprived of the joys of life. Not to mention it would hurt the people who do care about me. (That’s something I realized even back in high school.) After confiding this to her, she informed me that I would also go to hell. For some reason, my mouth bypassed my brain, and I said this:
“If that’s what you believe…”
Cue accusations of me being an atheist. You see, my friend is a devout Christian…who hates religious debates. And I was fully aware of this. I really should have kept my mouth shut to avoid digging myself deeper, but I felt the need to clarify. In reality, I’m currently noncommittal to any sort of belief, religious or not. I kept bringing it up in the conversation to make sure that she didn’t have the wrong perception of me. I wanted to make it clear that I really didn’t know what to believe, and that I don’t think she is an idiot for being a Christian. She kept telling me to stop, and finally, she accused me of being a narcissist who lacks empathy. To her, I was coming off as being condescending and as thinking she was stupid…which wasn’t what I was going for. In addition, she tried to “comfort” me by saying that I could “learn” to be empathic. Correct me if I’m wrong, but is empathy something that is supposed to come naturally to humans? Psychopaths lack empathy. Narcissists lack empathy. They are despised by the rest of the human race. I’ve always considered myself to be a relatively normal human who tries her best to be kind to others. My suicidal thoughts began to emerge again, and she suggested that I go stay with someone. (I was by myself.) I told her where I was going, hung up, and called some family members to pick me up.
After staying the night, I felt better. I returned home to find some messages on the voice mail. They were from the friend. I called her back. Eventually, I suggested to her that perhaps it was best that she not mention that she thought I was a narcissist, and I compared it to talking about religion. She went off on a tirade about how I didn’t respect her wish not to talk about religion, how she worried about me for hours, and hung up. I felt horrible (and suicidal), and left two messages: one was an apology, and the other was a suggestion that maybe we shouldn’t talk for a while. We haven’t spoken since.
My friend (ex-friend?) is not a trained psychiatrist, nor is she a psych major. However, I can’t help but to wonder if there is a grain of truth to her opinions. Could my entire self-concept be wrong? Could I be lying to myself when I say I care about others, when in reality they just boost my ego? Was I feeling in the back of my mind that I really was smarter and superior to my friend? Should I have called her back when I arrived at my family members’ home? If so, was I simply too stressed out to remember to call, or was I too self-absorbed to call? I keep having thoughts of killing myself, but I doubt that I would ever carry them out because I naturally fear pain, death, and hurting my family and friends. Given this, are my suicidal impulses really just a ploy for attention? Am I really just a heartless b***h? Honestly, I don’t know who I am anymore.
I’m in counseling again, and my counselor doesn’t think I’m a narcissist. But that doesn’t satisfy me because of the possibility that I may be lying to myself. So what do you guys think?
I've been struggling with the question in the topic for years now. I've had issues with suicidal thoughts and self-esteem since middle school and anxiety since elementary school. Basically, my emotions get the better me and I cry...sometimes rather loudly. Things got worse as I started my junior year of high school since I intensely worried about the AP courses I was taking. I'm a perfectionist when it comes to school, and I feel that grades are a reflection of my intelligence. To me, my intelligence and my character are all I have to really offer to the world. So if something occurs that rattles my faith in those aspects of myself, I feel worthless. Furthermore, I began to wonder if I would be able to be truly successful in this world, with my definition of success being having a career I truly love and being independent. With the way I stressed out over things, I wondered if either of those goals would be attainable. I wondered if I would just be better off dead.
Anyhow, I went into counseling. After a few sessions, she told me that she believed I might be a narcissist. That upset me. Narcissism did not match my self-concept at all. Since she never brought it up again, I assumed that she thought I wasn't one after my reaction to the idea. I quit after a while, since scheduling was getting inconvenient and it didn’t seem to be helping me much.
The issue came up years later, in my second year of college. Back in January, my grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer. (He died in May, sadly. ;_; ) I decided to call a friend for advice on whether or not I should drop the semester. She said that I should, and thus we started chatting about other things. Somehow, we got to the topic of my suicidal tendencies. Killing myself would rid me of my suffering, but I would also be deprived of the joys of life. Not to mention it would hurt the people who do care about me. (That’s something I realized even back in high school.) After confiding this to her, she informed me that I would also go to hell. For some reason, my mouth bypassed my brain, and I said this:
“If that’s what you believe…”
Cue accusations of me being an atheist. You see, my friend is a devout Christian…who hates religious debates. And I was fully aware of this. I really should have kept my mouth shut to avoid digging myself deeper, but I felt the need to clarify. In reality, I’m currently noncommittal to any sort of belief, religious or not. I kept bringing it up in the conversation to make sure that she didn’t have the wrong perception of me. I wanted to make it clear that I really didn’t know what to believe, and that I don’t think she is an idiot for being a Christian. She kept telling me to stop, and finally, she accused me of being a narcissist who lacks empathy. To her, I was coming off as being condescending and as thinking she was stupid…which wasn’t what I was going for. In addition, she tried to “comfort” me by saying that I could “learn” to be empathic. Correct me if I’m wrong, but is empathy something that is supposed to come naturally to humans? Psychopaths lack empathy. Narcissists lack empathy. They are despised by the rest of the human race. I’ve always considered myself to be a relatively normal human who tries her best to be kind to others. My suicidal thoughts began to emerge again, and she suggested that I go stay with someone. (I was by myself.) I told her where I was going, hung up, and called some family members to pick me up.
After staying the night, I felt better. I returned home to find some messages on the voice mail. They were from the friend. I called her back. Eventually, I suggested to her that perhaps it was best that she not mention that she thought I was a narcissist, and I compared it to talking about religion. She went off on a tirade about how I didn’t respect her wish not to talk about religion, how she worried about me for hours, and hung up. I felt horrible (and suicidal), and left two messages: one was an apology, and the other was a suggestion that maybe we shouldn’t talk for a while. We haven’t spoken since.
My friend (ex-friend?) is not a trained psychiatrist, nor is she a psych major. However, I can’t help but to wonder if there is a grain of truth to her opinions. Could my entire self-concept be wrong? Could I be lying to myself when I say I care about others, when in reality they just boost my ego? Was I feeling in the back of my mind that I really was smarter and superior to my friend? Should I have called her back when I arrived at my family members’ home? If so, was I simply too stressed out to remember to call, or was I too self-absorbed to call? I keep having thoughts of killing myself, but I doubt that I would ever carry them out because I naturally fear pain, death, and hurting my family and friends. Given this, are my suicidal impulses really just a ploy for attention? Am I really just a heartless b***h? Honestly, I don’t know who I am anymore.
I’m in counseling again, and my counselor doesn’t think I’m a narcissist. But that doesn’t satisfy me because of the possibility that I may be lying to myself. So what do you guys think?
