Because you were severely mentally ill and no one helped you…it wasn’t fair

It’s so painful that he feel unworthy of it and helpless to access it that the pain is so great he’d rather remove it all to finally create a safe world where he won’t be injured or annihilated.

He fully transcended in his last moments the need to be the one good enough for humanity and full flipped it…

His false self finally found something that could sustain grandiosity. But at the cost of his life. It would rather kill him than let him live in such severe danger as it believe he’d be in if he collapsed or accepted his invisibility. At least in this he is not unbearably helpless and tortured at the mercy of others, trapped in the permanent terror of the infant. At least in this there’s a sense of control.

I relate to this… I’m meant to change the world, I see things no one else does, I’m beyond human, a cute rare creature who is here to guide others to salvation as no one else was strong enough or brave enough to face what I have, to live through, to endure. All my pain and suffering, all the years I missed out on, will culminate in the change of the world but in a beautiful way, where no child will be left alone with this disorder ever again because I was brave enough to speak out and genius enough to make sense of it all

I would not be surprised if it was.

He’s making this elaborate plan to right each wrong he feels has been done and has this fantasy everyone will start seeing his way of viewing everything and then he’ll finally feel seen and valid and like his suffering was recognized and meant something.

Malignancy

Just total fantasy. They’d have no idea why they were targeted

Notice how his false self has already decided a certainty to protect him. But he has no evidence for it.

He mentions starved… This is a deep poignant description of exactly how it feels except he can’t understand it’s the false self that starved him. it doesn’t want a narcissist to understand it’s their mental illness because then you can dismantle an fight against it- and it doesn’t trust even the others pieces of the self. It thinks if any other piece of the self has control we will be in danger of annihilation

💔

This is completely true, he was starved of anything normal in life, any connection. I feel the exact same way. He’s just wrong about the reason why

Mind reading

All these therapists and no one spotted what was going on with him..

😞

(Also yes he’s often projecting his feeling of being twisted onto the world, I wonder if he ever feared it was him who’s twisted- not only worthless and pathetic, a family failure, unable to even stand out enough to gain attention but also bad, evil.) that would be so unbearable he would have projected it…

If Jazz, who shared his bloodline and parenting, could still naturally achieve the life Elliot wanted, then it threatened to mean that Elliot’s suffering wasn’t due to an unfair world—or even bad parenting or bad circumstances, it was a reflection of his own personal failure and worthlessness- if Jazz could figure it out in similar circumstances while he couldn’t. What was wrong with him? (The answer is whatever happened to Elliot early that caused a false self to develop.)

Elliot saw himself as the only one who truly understood the world—the one who saw through the façade of society and recognized everyone else as primitive, animalistic, and undeserving. His suffering and alienation was what made him special, enlightened, superior. Jazz was on track to become one of “them”—the shallow, unthinking, socially successful people Elliot despised. In Elliot’s worldview, Jazz’s success wouldn’t just be unfair—it would be a betrayal of the “bond” they had. Jazz, the little brother who once looked up to Elliot, was now outgrowing him, surpassing him, joining the enemy. And since Elliot only “loved” Jazz because Jazz admired and validated him, that love wasn’t unconditional. The moment Jazz was no longer a reflection of Elliot’s own superiority, the connection became worthless. Jazz’s success meant losing him as someone Elliot could see as an extension of himself.

It’s interesting because i almost get this feeling the universe was presenting Elliot with constant opportunities to get better but he isn’t taking any of them somehow? We will never know how he engaged with them. But it seems like he only takes very specific things from each conversation to reinforce his worldview. I wonder if we each have a choice of paths if we are brave enough. I wonder what had happened if Elliot let himself listen to others deeper despite the uncomfortable feelings. Or fully allowed himself to collapse into his worthlessness and fear and sought serious help; maybe he wouldn’t have gotten it because no one commonly understands how to spot and navigate collapse but who knows? It was another path he could have taken. I wonder if he had been through so much unplanned extra traumas and humiliations that it went sideways until he was too rigid to have listened at the time it could have been a turning point

I wonder if they had planned this lifetime out before coming to earth…

I relate to this as this is how it felt my parents were thinking too; dealing with a daughter that was just a failure and constantly needing assistance rather than impressing the whole family and even treating them to outings, successful, a kid to be proud of. What I’m saying is i get the shame it can cause

I agree that Elliot needed way more help than normal therapists give. Unfortunately this is why people write off therapy rather than understanding how deeply the right therapy can help: they see therapy as just “basic talk that goes nowhere” where from experience a specialist can really shift your entire world. We can also see how difficult it would be even with a specialist to convince the patient that it’s not the world that’s causing the agony, it’s a mental illness; this goes against what the false self wants to feel dominant and destabilizes it - and it will fight back. This is why most narcs that get into therapy are collapsed or in a narc crash.

This reflects Elliot’s desperation for validation and control. His inability to achieve these goals intensifies his fear of failure and humiliation. He sees failure as an existential threat, so he clings to the idea of destruction as a way to preserve his ego, rather than facing the pain of rejection or inadequacy and the fear of no relief and more pain to come.

I think this is more about how his false self couldn’t take the idea of moving to a new place only to risk even more torture and failure. It didn’t want to take this risk. He might feel even more powerless in the new environment and the cycle of humiliation might continue possibly worse than before. So it shuts this down as an option. Living with that feels worse than dying. Leaving would also mean he couldn’t “fix” the damage that had been done to his psyche or avenge it which would be unbearable, like admitting they won and could treat him like that. Like losing control and losing the last feeling of power or worth or dignity left.

If he even ran away and just lived away from people altogether, he would just live feeling resentful invisible and his identity and sense of reality would fall apart.

Grandiosity through power, significance, ability to affect after feeling so powerless

He’s lumping everyone into a monolith, but also exaggerating how many people saw it even significant in his humiliation. I think his false self was also too afraid at this point to try and believe there were any good people he could find because the search might lead to even more unbearable pain and betrayal

Even in this, grandiose

His false self completely cuts out everything he’d actually need to do socially in order for that to happen. But this debilitates him because he then can’t understand how to improve his results by changing his approach. The results then keep humiliating him and he keeps taking it personally.

He seems to somewhat see he did assault people but it’s framed under “I was defending myself and in doing so I said things that could get me in trouble”

So many distortions; no girls wouldn’t offer their bodies to makes him feel better.

He entered that party feeling already like everyone was attacking him, excluding him, and rejecting him so he already felt like the victim. Then when he feels he tries to righteously fight for justice he gets pushed to the street. Then one group helps him to the corner but leaves him there nonchalantly probably making him feel even more insignificant. In all this he feels like the total victim, who was just standing up for himself and cruel humanity proved they were cruel and cold.

What really happened? He entered a party, excepted people to socialize with him without putting any effort, got injured when they didn’t because his mind tells him “if you were worthy enough they would.” Then he picks fights with people who were just socializing to “defend” himself against “rejection and the cruelty of humanity. these people were just with socializing with the people they knew (which is normal) and not a stranger, he insults them then gets shocked and hurt when they insult back- feels even more victimized and he tries to seriously hurt them, and they defend themselves and he gets hurt in the process of trying to assault them.

All this could have been fixed by trying to improve his social charm and have stuff to talk about other than obsession but his false self won’t let him even see it as an option because it feels threatened by him trying or failing- he’s a ultimately a victim of his own false self.

He finally exposed himself to what his false self has been avoiding and it becomes clear why it was trying to have him avoid it as he immediately becomes dysregulated in multiple ways.

He seems unable to even consider it might be social skills or personality.

If he had the social skills to go up to a group and insert himself he could have had a fun night and felt included. He’d also need the skills to focus on anything except himself and make conversation about the environment and small talk. It’s like he learned nothing from the counselors and I’m not fully sure why. We can’t know what they did together but whatever it was, it wasn’t effective. I wonder how fully he opened up saying “I want to try to go to a party and interact what do I do?” I also think that because of the way his false self is narrowed, even participating successfully in a group might not give him a h boost or might even cause shame because he’d feel like a fraud who is hiding he doesn’t have a gf?

His shame was too activated here to not use this opportunity to practice talking with girls?? That’s insane, but ok. There’s so many things he could have asked her.

Ok I appreciate this step his parents took and mine did something similar. The problem was the issue goes far beyond social skills into identity and no one spotted it. He only seems to realize this might be a good idea when his parents put it into action showing a blindness to himself that I mentioned before.

This proves exactly what I was suspecting. The false self sets up this situation: “you can’t live until you meet my standards. Then we’ll be safe enough to live and finally focus outward.” You can get brief moments of access to life if you meet its standards, and it also adds a high that feels beyond heavenly. But the problem is it’s standards always escalate eventually with accumulated dangers and humiliations, and your life gets taken up by the emptiness, chasing the next high, and paranoia that things will shift and you’ll lose control over the external.

I wonder how aware he was of who started at him. My mind will do something where I’m so afraid of seeing someone in public judging me that I’ll block out the good too. I’ll kind of “limit” my sight to avoid threats. It seems plausible that could have been happening with Elliot especially since it caused him so much pain to see certain things in public like couples. But we’ll never know.

What’s ironic is if this had actually happened he would have been terrified to disappoint he was that fragile, he would be scrambling to figure out how to present and this is why his false self sort of prevented him from truly engaging. It wanted him to build himself into perfection first so approaching would be safe and any bad outcome would be sure to be the girl’s fault, but Elliot never could get to a point grandiose enough to where the false self felt those defenses would hold up and allow him to try.

But a girl smiled at him, and his mind dismissed it because it was too threatening. It went from “oh wow a pretty girl noticed me and smiled” to “oh god what if she doesn’t think I’m attractive what if she’s just smiling to be nice how do I know?” The validation was too subtle too be an assured source. But what sucks is I’m sure there were plenty of girls walking around who saw Elliot and thought he was cute but would never socially approach him especially out of nowhere in public. He was too afraid to try; the false self made it seem like it wasn’t even an option because it was too fragile to be directly rejected and was trying to project itself and him. Instead it came up with another protective belief “if we’re great enough people will approach”

His false self doesn’t let him realize anything real as to why he couldn’t achieve anything. It doesn’t allow him to realize it might his social skills because then he could fail and it can’t bare anymore humiliation. It’s trying to protect him but so misguided. It tho is it all would be too threatening. Cut off from reality he just sits genuinely confused and scared in his hall of mirrors.

I wanted to give you a way out…

I wonder seriously if this was his karma. I don’t know what he did in a past life but he was given a similar fate as me- to see why connection is important.

Neglect

He feels such satisfaction because his false self has finally found a form of relief that also makes him feel like the good guy. The savior. It doesn’t clash with his inner drive for justice and kindness and innocence. Instead he comes to the conclusion that it’s other humans who are animals and twisted- projecting his feelings of something being twisted in him (buying a gun, thinking of hurting people).

something we saw he was horrified by early on in the manifesto was people’s seeming brutality. He was introduced to a world where it seemed there was no fairness or kindness and this deeply traumatized him. While it’s true that people can behave cruelly, they also have good in them and are fighting their own battles but this would have been unacceptable to his false self because then it couldn’t protect him by escalating, it couldn’t take over and protect him if he felt too much guilt or empathy.

I had a moment like this in my life. It was after I left social media and had been treated horribly by haters, while watching my friends pass me up and get noticed over me. I started imagining exacting revenge on humanity, who was shallow, cruel, self obsessed, cold, unsafe. I did imagine malignant scenarios, such as crushing people under cars, stepping on people to get what I want without a shred of remorse, or relief at the idea of half of humanity dying from a plague because there’d be “less competition”. This was buffered only by the people who had been kind to me, so kind, so supportive, so affirming- on social media. My life wasn’t as devoid of love as Elliot’s. I imagined only helping those that deserved it. People would still reach out to me after I felt and it melted me. I was wanted- not forgotten. It kept the bitterness I see and relate to in Elliot at bay until I could heal more deeply. I want to share this to emphasize how easy it can be in a place of utter helplessness and shame- when the inner damage gets too bad and the identity feels too under threat of collapse- for dehumanization and projection to happen. The pain is more deep dangerous and severe to the point it needs projecting for the person to survive. It becomes life or death to keep the identity coherent. This is why it is a mental illness and deserves help.

Dehumanization as a defense, rube-Goldberg-like scrambling to find any reason why it’s not that he’s the weak one, pathetic, and invisible next to greater beings. He used to worry about that fear a lot before but now seems to be sinking fully into the first worldview that actually buffers his shame and fear but at the price of being so dehumanizing and vengeful- it has to be extreme to cover up the extreme damage and shame and fear inside that’s built up.

All this to avoid the fear that it’s just him who is worthless. An attempt to erase the power women have over his worth and life.

In his mind they hold the power, and so become the cause of all the deprivation and pain. He is so desperate for survival he isn’t even near a place of considering their feelings; that they’re people who are also allowed to choose what and who makes them happy. Incels with vNPD have a difficult problem. First they see getting a woman as the key to being allowed access to life rather than to just start living rn- bc that’s how the false self sets it up. Getting a gf wouldn’t take away the insecurity or make them “now fully worthy with no fear of insecurity ever again.” They might know this deep down and it might fuel hatred even more. Because if the fantasy isn’t real what will take away the pain? Even if the truth is they could all self improve enough to get a woman- if it was just an average or ugly woman (subjective) and not a woman who’s been currently portrayed as the ideal by current society (beauty trends change all the time)- this would affect their self worth though. “So I’m only worthy of an average/ugly woman? I am average too and still unable to live, I haven’t accessed the high life yet”. The false self only lets them live once they’ve met the standard. they’ll only feel ok if they feel superior, like “Chad” because standing out above is the only way to feel real, visible, worthy, significant, safe from being replaceable. They don’t realize that relief is a fantasy and the false self always drives you to destruction and starvation.…even if you get everything you want. More on this in my notes.

Flipping the script for temporary relief

He says he was bonding with jazz without realizing he’s just getting narc gratification. It’s not based on real connection because he’s too mentally ill; his mind is too preoccupied with getting needs met. I run into this problem so often in my relationships. All my new relationships become about how the other person can make me feel because I’m so hungry and it’s so hard to stop it. Especially when my mind tries to paint everything else as boring. It only rewards you when you do what the false self wants. Then it gives you a shot of meaning, relief, significance. But this is all to stop you from developing real connections based on authentic self which false self considers so dangerous.

Very narc

There’s a fear of being invisible and forgotten and loosing admiration (aka loosing identity) if you don’t ensure it that others will admire you by exaggeration. It’s a trauma response. Your identity falls apart if the outside world doesn’t admire you so it feels like life or death to secure that admiration and if the false self doesn’t believe you by yourself will be enough it will have you exaggerate to feel ok or stable in your own body.

I wish he could have take this and healed. I learned at some point in my life that sometimes people just sense something about you and want to be around your energy- and that’s it. They just like your vibe, your soul energy, which you can’t hide even under masks. I was always confused and even angry as to why people would still say they liked me when I didn’t do anything “spectacular” that the false self says will get me admiration. This is because the false self operates on this fantasy of control to feel safe, that if you “do” specific things it will make you worthy and no one will be able to resist you and if they dislike you- you’ll know for sure at that point it’s because they’re jealous.

But in reality, people admired and couldn’t get enough of me even when I felt I had acted in a mundane way and it threw me for a loop. They were acting outside of my control, my worldview. It’s both relieving (your standards don’t need to be so high) and scary. I was only able to recognize it when i was finally able to tolerate my fears better. The better I was able to tolerate my fears and the more I had a solid proof I was rare no matter what, the safer I felt to “see” reality and allow the idea that people could move outside of my control. This all comes back to the infant/early trauma (abandonment, rejection, abuse) and the baby developing a pathological need to believe it can control the absent mother and “cause” certain reactions to get needs met if it just develops certain traits -or performs certain impressive behaviors (but the mother becomes everyone). It’s all to avoid baby PTSD.

He usually tries to portray how it’s the world that’s wrong for rejecting the true ideal; a soft spoken, shy, polite gentleman- but here his fears slip out, that the true way to be worthy is to be social and extroverted.

God this is so sad…Jesus Christ. He’s so mentally ill. This also shows just how hard he fought not to end his life or carry out his plan, even after saying he gave up all hope. I think it shows how there doesn’t have to be “one major event” that snaps a person into malignancy. It’s a slow spiral sometimes. I do believe him when he says he was terrified to die.

He’s trying to find any other way out but what’s really sad about it is how all his solutions are really detached from the reality of what would actually help -and so they inevitably fail which only damages his psyche further. It’s a horrible loop. But his false self has literally discarded healthy solutions as even an option because it considers them too unsafe.

He fought against malignancy so hard. This kid suffered so much and I am so angry the system couldn’t spot it and help him. If what NPD really is- if it was more normalized and talked about maybe his parents could have seen something online and helped him. My life similarly was stolen from me and I feel the pain and confusion and rage so deeply and it makes me so incredibly empathetic to people like this. I know EXACTLY what it’s like to have your life stolen from you exactly like this. The only reason I feel ok and am not vengeful is because I believe in reincarnation.

He’s not wrong…it just makes me sad. His mental illness ruined his life, and mine ruined my life in such a similar way. I can’t count how many times I’ve sat contemplating such things, watching life pass me by, unable to understand how to be a part of life like this.

Here he describes the feeling of being trapped and confused in the vicious torture of his mind, unable to understand why his life repeats - and he’s sadly right that he has no way out- someone would have had to help him understand what’s going on and to do that they’d have to even spot his NPD first in its vulnerable form.

This defense comes in to reverse such deep feelings of helplessness and shame and invisibility. It’s like flipping the script for a moment to gain some relief in your inner world. I’ve had fantasies like this but without the destruction part. It’s always benevolent. The destruction part of his particular fantasy seems proof of the malignancy and level of damage in Elliot’s psyche. He’s not just flipping helplessness onto others, but the constant torment and narcissistic injury he felt others caused him since early middle school. He wants to now flip his agony and damage onto others as well, projecting it because it is too deep to bare. nor does he have the coping mechanisms to handle it.

He genuinely sees the world as his rejector, abuser, and the cause of his pain, because the alternative would seem like accepting he was treated this way because he was truly worthless. In being a victim he can also feel uniquely targeted and therefor still significant rather than face the terror that maybe: no one even thought about or noticed him; that he was just an invisible ghost too pathetic to gain attention, forced to watch the greats being seen and loved and admired.

This is such a vNPD thought and so relatable to me.

This is huge- it’s the final loss of hope. Hope to be a part of the world and be loved and admired and experience the good, to be safe and superior through being a “creator” as Elliot described it- and all that’s left is the rage of an entire life lost, years of connection, love, experience the false self stole. This loss of hope can be a huge transition into malignancy. And, the brink of annihilation (truly facing the idea that you were shut out of life because you were just truly worthless and weak, and couldn’t attract any eyes you’re so replaceable and forgettable). The only that covered up that fear and shame in this case was rage, and opting out of life altogether rather than living watching everyone else live and be adored.

Still rooted in vNPD feelings, it’s like with that final failure of hope his false self advanced and became mostly malignant (it dropped admiration for power) but at the core he still had the experience of a vulnerable narcissist, because of his lack of grandiosity or defenses.

Here we see a huge part of his false self switch more fully to power over admiration or love. But even though the malignant side of him grows stronger, his root feelings are that of a vulnerable narcissist. It’s like even as the false self grows more malignant, his narcissistic defenses are still so weak and the rage is one last attempt to ward off the fear that the real reason he didn’t succeed or was included is because he was truly born worthless. (Not true it was just a false self that blocked him from ever discovering what made him unique). Plus nothing in his life fueled his false self- he wasn’t praised for any unique external trait- and so his defenses and grandiosity had such a weak foundation, while meanwhile racking up way more proof his “fears” might be right- causing him to end up as an incredibly vulnerable narcissist.

This makes me so angry and sad. So before he does anything, he does reach out for help, and his parents seemingly don’t even reassure him that they don’t look down on him and tell him that he has worth and that they’re proud anyway- or anything good at all, they’re just disturbed. At least they send him to psychiatric help- sensing he’s mentally ill- but then this is the worst part. The psychiatrist was clearly not able to spit what was actually going on and send him to a specialist, they failed, just like what happened with me.

He’s so mentally ill…he drove across states just to win and he’s hinging everything on this lottery, with the assumption it will bring him immediate success with women. You can really tell how he’s hinging his entire sense of self on this one last possible source of supply. How fragile that makes him. But his false self has shut everything else down and labeled it unsafe.

This type of striving to show the world you’re superior and finally live the high life with everyone watching you is like the only thing the false self allows you to want, live for, dream about- everything else seems boring…

It blocks true self desires because it doesn’t want any part of the self to be built on something authentic- too dangerous, considering how authenticity led to danger and helplessness and unbearable shame, abandonment, rejection, vulnerability.

His false self has now discarded the last of the things that gave him supply; buying fancy clothes to complete the gentleman image. It did this because it had been seeing Elliot’s suffering still continue even while trying to use the source to ward off pain, and decide it was ineffectual. I suspect we’ll see a rapid shifting of the false self these next pages.

Also notice how getting a girl is a one-two punch. It’s access to love and connection and also a way to prove worth. This is one reason why incels with vNPD can come to resent women so deeply; they seem to hold the key to a whole host of relief and good- due to the false self’s demands for the standard to be met before allowing the person to live life. Sexual relief, relief from the torture of their own minds, the key to safety, worth, and being able to finally start living, the key to finally feeling real, to finally feeling belonging. to finally feeling like even a person that exists, who is significant, real, worthy, part of life, rather than the terror and isolation of feeling like you’re invisible and falling away from reality. NPD always paints some external other as they key to relief and access to life in order to keep the person safe. Any other option would force the person to get in touch with an authentic self which the false self sees as death and it feels like you’re going insane- and there’s no framework for what happening. How can you expect pepper to face it without help? But the problem is - this is why we see so much rage and even violence directed at others and controlling others because they are truly perceived as what can take the pain away. And it feels like life or death.

This is a sign of just how powerless he felt. How brutally he had to flip it to feel ok is a sign of just how worthless, powerless, terrified, and meaningless he was feeling. Even working on this a little in therapy to take the edge off would have lessened the extremity. His external extreme desires reflect the extreme damage and terror of his crumbling inner world.

This is super interesting because Elliot doesn’t seem to realize he’s projecting and describing himself (plays video games in room all the time, quiet, timid) and then harshly says they have nothing to offer- which is his true view of himself. I wonder sometimes if the malignancy in him took out his own projected self hatred on these kids later.

Also this is his false self once again refusing to have friends or even use them as social practice. His false self seems to have fully rejected friends as a form of supply. He longs for “popular parties with tons of friends” but only living as a popular guy with gf. On the one hand, if he goes out with friends who are too basic he still feels like an outcast on the inferior side of life; but if he tries to get a boost from a popular kid approving of him, it fills him with too much shame because he feels too aware he can’t beat them in competition. He’d feel so threatened to have the exact type of popular friends he wants that even if they were who he was rooming with he’d just shut down and hate them rather than learn from them. His shame is too strong.

This final dehumanization was probably key in allowing him to go through with what he did. He can’t process or understand why his life genuinely felt like torture, and he feels no hope left to be part of the good in life, and so heartbroken and betrayed by this that he feels the world was his abuser. He can’t understand why it put him through this while giving others happiness and access to everything.

I went through a similar dark phase but the fact I had at least two people there (Richard and empath) to love me unconditionally helped me cope and develop a more productive view, that this was a spiritual lifetime and that I would get the chance to have another childhood, and to make the best of this life. I can’t imagine going through this alone with no reference points. I wish Elliot had opened up more about his true feelings to anyone, but even then I’m not sure they could have helped him and that’s what makes me mad. There needs to be an established treatment plan and less demonization. Elliot tried to open up to James but when that went badly he shut down even further. James was not like Richard, who in my life guided me towards the light and helped me see my distortions. What I’m saying is I’m very lucky, I feel for Elliot and I want there to be more help accessible. What NPD really is- it needs to be normalized and accessible so people can have a framework for what the hell is happening to them and a way out of the torture.

This makes me so sad. I can picture it to a tee. I’ve often sat watching life go by from afar contemplating the exact same thing.

It’s like everything in him is fighting not to do this, and it makes me so fucking sad his false self won. When I look at Elliot I see a hurt, vulnerable, confused child that needed help, not a stone cold killer. I see someone who would have been a kind soft soul if they hadn’t been damaged in whatever detrimental way that triggered a false self take over. Even in his retribution video he looked like he was performing the most violent parts, like a script. The kid didn’t want to do this. Everything in him was fighting but he didn’t have the tools to understand he was being taken over by his false self. He had no comprehension of what the hell was happening to him or why his life had been like torture and that’s so clear here. People should at least be given the ability to understand what’s happening to them so they can make a choice to turn it around.

I really do suspect sometimes that being given a lifetime like this is karmic. I believe mine is. I’ve done several spiritual readings and every time it tells me in a past life I misused power, trust, connection, for my own gain and was very materialistic. I have a gut feeling that the karma can be faced in one of two ways; either being brutally deprived your whole life or being willing to heal and facing the exact amount of fear, shame, and suffering you caused others in a previous life as the karmic “price” to getting to re-access your identity, connection, peace, safety, love, and belonging.

It’s like the lesson is a lifetime where you’ve had the ability for connection removed from you so you can learn how bad life actually is without connection; to yourself, to others; something you didn’t appreciate until it was gone.

I feel like I need to express that after a lifetime of not being seen and starving inside yourself it’s NORMAL to be incredibly hungry for attention and admiration and what you didn’t get (and yes this starvation still happens even if you’re physically payed attention to bc the false self doesn’t let anything reach the true self and it doesn’t use any building blocks of your authentic self when constructing your identity so you grow up feel like you have nothing unique that was seen or praised or connected to and nurtured).

You don’t get relationships based on the person’a love and admiration of your true self and that fucks you up and causes so much shame. So yes a part of the constant “I’m starving for admiration” feeling comes from the false self rejecting all other forms of connection and even rejecting some types of praise that’s it’s been decided is too unsafe. But even if you start healing and getting connected with and seen for your true feelings, I’ve found part of the starvation for admiration just comes from going ALL those years without being seen when you should have been getting connected to, adored, admired, included, for who you really are, to have that nurtured, when it was normal in development. I missed out on the feeling of having a true identity reinforced adored and mirrored during so many crucial stages- elementary, middle school, high school, even college.

If he can show Spencer (and the world) he’s superior it’ll erase the shame and solidify his false self, “successfully” setting up a working identity (the false self) that doesn’t need to be authentic (dangerous) but can still get his needs met and make him a functioning part of life. This idea that the false self could ever work out to actually meet the needs of a person is a lie. But he’s trying to manage his own identity through others and his false self is trying to get him to where it thinks it can; a happy safe life where he never had to fear collapse or danger and he can still get his needs met. It feels like life or death because in some way it is; the false self will collapse of it can’t dominate, and the person will be shredded in some crucial ways. The false self treats this like life or death and there’s no time for empathy or others’ needs and feelings. I explain elsewhere in my notes why the false self can never be a true solution.

A key sign of severe mental illness is no hobbies, only ruminating or hobbies built around just procuring admiration. I deeeeeply relate and it’s made it so hard to socialize. Especially as I was never good at faking being well rounded and masking.

Same

He’s only able to get his view of the world from media since he doesn’t have a lot of social experience and it skews things- (not “everyone” has this 21st birthday experience, in fact most people just have a party at their house or somewhere with friends). But for him it’s highlighting the lack of connection AND admiration he’s experienced, probably leaving him trying to ward off fears that the real reason his life is empty is that he has absolutely nothing for anyone to even admire or want- and in that I relate so deeply.

There’s also the fact that even if he realized not everyone’s birthdays are like the ideal, his false self would likely STILL only focus on those who have “that type of party” because in his mind that’s a sign you’re superior; and that’s who “to be.” Even the idea of normal and average is humiliating like; “ok so this is all I’m worth? I have to settle for a basic party because I can never get to the level truly great people are at? I’ll always be outshone by them, always watching them getting adored living the “high life.” people would replace me immediately with them if they could choose, this is why I have to be better, to ward off any chance of being rejected or discarded or abandoned shamefully for someone truly superior. I need to make up for all the time spent being that disgusting pathetic empty creature in the shadows. I’ll do anything to live as the popular powerful one.” It’s the only way the false self allows you to feel alive, valuable, or safe. Being average is punished and shamed by the false self because sometime in very early childhood a belief developed that if you were just yourself you’d be rejected and left in grave danger so “your crib has to literally shine” “above and beyond” in order for people to choose you, to stick around, meet your needs, love you. The problem is sometimes the standard the false self sets is literally impossible for any human. There can be resentment and fear in that too. How will I stand out then? Standing out =safe.

Several things going on; he’s getting a high off of being able to affect or control the cause of his fear and shame. This makes him feel temporarily powerful and possibly superior, reversing the terror isolation and all-encompassing shame. The false self loves this, and is probably why it turned more and more towards antisocial tendencies because every time he behaves this way he gets relief when nothing else works.

“As I watched those people who thought they were better than me” is a projection, they don’t think that, he’s projecting his own shame. Just seeing them is an attack on his raw festering wounded identity, and the only way he feels he can regain power over the fear and shame is to flip it so he’s the powerful one, and the only way his mind can figure out how to do it with lack of skill is destruction. The last way he can protect himself from collapse.

His false self has set it up that he is only allowed to live if he meets its standards of getting a girlfriend. He could start living now for himself and enjoy his youth and even make some friends but his false self doesn’t allow that to feel real or satisfying. So he rightly feels his youth has been stolen from him because he never could connect with people due to not having much of an identity to connect with- and also because he genuinely has never gotten to live or be a part of things. The grief and pain has turned to rage towards a world that feels like it was what deprived him when it was his own mind; and if he’d been less mentally ill it’s also very possible he’d have dated by now.

That comment about raising a kid to make sure they went through way better than what he did breaks my heart. He still had some level of softness and it makes me think he might have been a vulnerable narcissist more than malignant -but the severity of his narcissistic injuries and the failure of his false self to buffer those injuries caused him to develop malignant traits. Even in his last moments, he seems so performative when trying to sound cruel and cold. But yet, he was genuinely capable of acts such as murdering. So the malignant side of him must have fully won and taken over in those last moments. It’s a complex case. ChatGPT suggests that perhaps it wasn’t true empathy, but a desire to project onto the child and create an extension of himself that would validate his injustices by healing himself through the child.

Another example of his defective and narrow false self making it impossible to feel OK. He’s in despair having no friends yet, he throws away any new friends he makes (Andy) and he doesn’t want to see his old ones due to the fact his false self won’t allow it -to protect his identity from collapse. It isn’t even presented like an option to him. But from the outside, it just looks like he’s starving while refusing food. That’s the false self at work.

James rejecting Elliot (which he couldn’t seem to understand was because of the horrific things he described, wanting to do to people) seemed to deal a final blow towards any softness left in him. He’s left alone in a world where even other virgins reject him. It’s really interesting that he takes the rejection so personally rather than reflecting on why he might have driven James away, the same thing happened to me in high school. I manipulated a scenario to get people to feel sorry for me and scared away the only real friend I felt I had who I was mirroring anyway (So not like it was healthy). This was during a more borderline phase. I did everything I could to get her back even explaining that I faked the scenario so she wouldn’t be as scared. When she rejected me, it felt so personal and I couldn’t see how she might have felt totally manipulated and horrified by the way I’d treated her, trying to provoke reactions in her. My mind literally couldn’t see how that wasn’t normal and I just felt like she was rejecting me because of my very core. I shut down very greatly after this and became cold and angry and it was like I had never cared about her. I had fantasies of her seeing me moving on, becoming successful and superior and imagining how she would regret her decision.

The sad reality of this is that no one helped him with his mental health when he really needed it so he did actually lose his entire life to it. He was being strangled by a false self that kept getting narrower and narrower, and no one was able to spot it and help him.

It’s really sad, but I can relate to this sensation. Wondering why the hell all this suffering happened with no breaks in the clouds, and fearing deep down that you are truly just a forgettable pathetic unremarkable being and that’s why you were made to just suffer in the background, watching greater people live life. Fearing I suppose, that you got that suffering and rejection because you were truly worthless and couldn’t hold anyone’s attention.

I wonder what he would do if he actually had won the lottery and pulled up in the Lamborghini only to once again get barely any attention because everyone is wrapped up in their own lives, maybe glancing once or twice, but hurrying into class. It’s not like Elliot’s social skills would have changed. What I’m trying to say here is that this fantasy is so unrealistic, that he would’ve found disappointment either way. It’s the idea that all he would have to do is have a certain type of car or a mansion, and suddenly people would flock to him. He would still have to be somewhat socially charming or even just friendly, interested and interesting- in order to have people feel comfortable enough to come home with him or to want to get to know him. And his false self just shoots him in the foot because it doesn’t allow him to realize the extent of his social issues and work on them, because it thinks doing so would be way too dangerous for how fragile he is- it’s protecting him from more overt humiliations or failures.

It’s really fascinating to watch Elliot’s false self operate so automatically, presenting a narrative to him that he’s meant for something extraordinary. He seems to fluctuate between total belief in that -and total despair that his destiny might be to live as a nobody, completely invisible.

It’s insane how fragile Elliot was that? He didn’t think it was safe enough to even go up to a woman and subtly brag about the event or his status so that someone would wanna come with him. I think it’s because women genuinely caused him so much fear that I don’t think he could sit next to one or even make small talk without fear of humiliation. His sense of self would not be able to recover a more direct blow if it went bad. his false self was so narrow and overprotective it didn’t even let him use his prestigious experience to fuel his confidence in other areas to get him even more social success. As we can see, he was so overly focused on how much better even other people had it, scanning for any sign of inferiority..that he managed to find something humiliating even in this event.

This is such a vNPD feeling, and I relate to it so much… I feel like I would literally die in happiness and disbelief if I suddenly woke up to a life like that. I can’t even imagine how much ecstasy I would feel, being surrounded and adored, everyone vying for my attention. I’ve gotten so little of it in my life, similar to Elliot, that I am so incredibly envious and can’t even envision what it might feel like. That type of envy also leads me to difficult thoughts, such as “I would do anything immoral to obtain that”… “ If I could trade places with that person right now but they died or lost everything, I would instantly do it”….or “The things I would do if I had the power of a celeb, of trump, or Elon Musk… I would indulge in as much as possible I don’t care whether it’s good or bad.” I’m kind of convinced that this is why the universe gave me a psychological set up closer to Elliot’s, to make sure I wouldn’t succeeded, that I would struggle with vulnerable narcissism because of the card I’ve been given and actually learn some lessons.

His grandiosity is so vengeful and bitter at this point, which leads me back to the point of him already fluctuating back-and-forth into malignancy. A more classic narcissist with not as much damage might just be very excited and even feel very kind and joyous towards everyone around them because everything is lovely, they are getting recognized. There’s a shared grandiosity that emerges in those experiences or so I’ve found for me and Jacob. They might also just feel benevolently superior, But there’s a vindictiveness behind Elliot’s feelings of superiority.

This is so fucking sad… You can see the kid didn’t want to do this. Whatever was left of him. He’s fighting like hell not to do it, but of course, he doesn’t understand what he’s even fighting against so he’ll ultimately fail. This also shows how early he started contemplating malignant outcomes -but it also shows a fight against the malignancy.

Also, what Elliot is mentioning about the peaceful form of “revenge” is what I was talking about in my previous annotation. It’s not even really revenge, just superiority, simply being above everyone else and having them watch you, with you, knowing that they’re inferior to you. It feels so safe and it is peaceful. There’s no active harm. That’s my favorite because it’s so peaceful, and I always imagine choosing to heap wealth or praise upon the few people who are lucky enough, worthy enough- for me to pay attention to them and include them in my grand life. Unfortunately, this never works in reality because you’ll always end up feeling triggered in someway while trying to be peaceful and then things go to shit. Nothing about this disorder’s vision turns out the way that you want, the NPD response doesn’t work. I go into why in my personal notes.

It’s sad because I’ve mentioned before why it would seem to Elliot like everyone around him was out to get him, considering all the humiliation and bullying and how little support he had. His parents also betrayed him or took away his control or safety several times in different ways. But the truth is, everybody else was just living their lives around him and yes- while nobody helped him, and he did deserve help out of his suffering- that wasn’t their responsibility. The reason he sees it is their responsibility is because he sees them as his torturers. He sees them as actively preventing him from feeling any sort of relief from his agony, shutting him out at every turn. He feels truly attacked. And he feels like everyone’s done this, because no one came up to him. He dismisses the people who did try and reach out to him, and the saddest part of all of this for me is that it was all his false self literally strangling him of life. I really want to help people with these mental illnesses so badly and I barely survived my own strangulation. If the world never learns the ins and outs of this, we will have many repeat cases because we won’t be able to truly help.

His mindset is one of utter certainty, and that’s the only thing the false self operates on. It also seems his false self has officially moved from any hope of inclusion, life, goodness- to pure rage and vengeance and power.

This makes me sad, I’ve had similar feelings although of less of an intensity, and the only thing that has helped me cope with missing out on my childhood, teenager, and early adulthood, is honestly spirituality and reincarnation. I truly believe I will get many more chances to live and so I can endure the pain of this lifetime and all the things I missed out on and tried to make the most of these lessons. Sometimes I picture myself in the temporary role of a narcissist. if I can survive this, who knows what I will be next life. It really helps put things in perspective for me at least and makes me less bitter. It’s the only thing that I found to have worked because as Elliot describes, the pain and loss is immense and I feel like otherwise I would also want revenge.

Even with my coping skills, I still have extreme trouble having any happiness or empathy for people who have the life I desired. I still struggle with fantasies of tearing down people’s happiness, or at the very least, feelings that they are the type of people I would have no remorse stepping on to get somewhere. I have fantasies that if I ever got successful, how I would make those people watch me from below or not help them at all and feel passively satisfied by their troubles.

For me, coping means allowing these to be passing thoughts, of course to not act on them- and not really give them fuel. I can’t really control my mind so I allow them to just be symptoms that come and go while I continue to try and cultivate good karma. I am scared of losing control if I feed rage-filled or cold thoughts too much.

Malignant NPD is NPD with ASPD traits. I already mentioned how Elliot felt so raw and sick from all the constant narcissistic injuries that now when he had an injury, his mind turned way more cruel to combat the deepening damage. Also, self-esteem or admiration was not working to make him feel stable. So it starts to escalate to power.

Also, when he asks the question “Why must my life be so full of torment and hatred?” I so badly want to be there and just tell him “ It’s because of a disorder called NPD” and sit him down on his bed and explain it to him. I feel like if people can understand what they’re suffering from, they can then try and take back their power and actually try things that go somewhere and get real results. Otherwise they just suffer helplessly and grab for extremes because they are confused as to what’s even happening.

His false self keeps blocking him from realizing the real reason is his social skills. If he had to actually put in effort, he’s so fragile he couldn’t handle the direct humiliation just like how he chose to sit away from that girl to protect himself even though he wanted her attention so bad. Sometimes he’ll recognize that he has bad social skills, but even then he thinks “Don’t they understand how hard it is with social anxiety?” He’s protecting himself from realizing it’s something he’d have to work on because it would collapse him

He keeps reinforcing the one thing that’s working for him, getting a temporary relief and sense of satisfaction from causing harm. It’s setting up a pattern of using violence to relieve the helplessness and pain. this is why I believe it’s more complex than mental illnesses leading directly to violence. I think it’s more about the environment and the patterns that are reinforced in the brain that are marked as “This type of behavior kept me safe and gave me relief.” And that’s more biological than anything connected to a certain disorder. Even people without mental illnesses could experience that type of pattern development. And it could also lead to violence.

I get how your mind could spiral from this stuff, but it could’ve just as easily been nerves or stranger danger. Stranger walks up to you and smiles? The point being, his mind kept needing to define what it meant about him with certainty, whether it was good or bad -because that’s the only way he could tell anything about his identity, through the external. The false self does this because it only allows you to have an identity through external traits so it can control everything. if you stop trying to figure out your environment with certainty, and what it says about you, your sense of self feels like it starts to fall apart.

His lack of confidence is always his downfall. He doesn’t have a baseline of superiority to go off of, and he can’t blame shift well so he feels terrified that if he makes a move that’s too bold, he’ll be humiliated directly to the core in a way that will only further destroy his last remaining innocence/heart. Humiliations that hit to the core like that further damage the vulnerable “hope for connection and to be a part of life”- the hope and soul that IS still there in all narcissists. I call it the last strand. If it gets too destroyed, the person loses all tether to their innocent inner child that never grew up but still hopes for love/safety. That’s when people transition to malignancy/ASPD. The false self is designed to protect this and if it can’t do it through working defenses, it will isolate you.

But because of this he’s basically made sure he puts himself into a position where she will never interact with him, and he’ll never have any chance to feel boosted. Or seen. It’s a really sad broken defense.

You can see how hard he has to fight to convince himself any of this is real. Even though he says he feels like a superior gentleman it really comes across more like he’s desperately convincing himself. it’s probably very hard for him to believe he actually comes across that way with no one to validate it. maybe he was afraid of not even living up to his own image of what he believed he was. What if that wasn’t real either?

Also, he’s trapped in such a horrible loop where he keeps not understanding he has to put in social effort in order to fully get interacted with, but all he does is walk around, and then, when no one really reacts, he uses it to further his humiliation as we will see again

These fantasies are so fucking good when you can live in them for quite a while. I really miss it, walking around, listening to music thinking everyone was admiring me, feeling superior, just knowing with certainty I would be important and successful someday. I was getting high off the grandiosity of a future scenario that hadn’t even happened yet- “Do they know that they’re walking past a future (star.)” I don’t even care if it was all a dream at this point… Kind of want to just indulge in the fantasy again. Reality broke my heart. Self awareness.

I 100% believe that Elliot misread Spencer’s look. It might’ve even been a sheepish look at getting caught with a girl. What’s so tragic is that it’s likely he attacked Spencer for what felt like no reason on Spencer‘s end, because it’s so unlikely Spencer was believing he was superior to Elliot… it was Elliot‘s own internalized shame that he believed Spencer was witnessing him and thinking how pathetic he was already- when that was also not likely happening.

I think he’s moving into genuinely more grandiose territory with a strengthening belief that women genuinely have gotten it wrong. Because of what he saw as a child at school he truly believes they all are attracted to obnoxious, extroverted, confident, harsh dudes (Black-and-white thinking)- and they really should be attracted to nice gentleman. I do think he genuinely saw himself as a kind gentleman who was only this angry because he was being starved and wronged by the entire world. I also think he was traumatized by the idea that he might have to become an obnoxious harsh type of person, which he acquainted with a lack of softness and safety, in order to get any attention. I don’t think he was able to see that it was really his social skills holding him back, and that if he was a kind, gentle and introverted person who still had decent social skills, it would eventually get him somewhere. His mind had been trying to make sense of everything alone for so long and this is why it’s so distorted. He didn’t have much guidance.

From this place of truly believing that women had gotten it wrong, and that his traits would never be appreciated or seen- both the fear of starvation/isolation and his own rage at this deprivation could fester easily. he would truly see these people as his torturer then.

I think his mother genuinely meant the best, but just couldn’t figure out how to see him or address him more empathize him. She seemed present, but unable to provide a safe space emotionally for Elliot to truly feel seen and helped. It really reminds me of my own parents so deeply. They’re so good natured but they had no idea how to actually empathize with me, make me feel safe and heard, get to know me deeply, emotionally connect with me, and etc..

I feel like Elliot experienced so much direct humiliation that he couldn’t ward off or rationalize, that he literally felt he was being tortured. His mind didn’t understand how to make it stop. He basically just kept having huge narcissistic injuries/crashes over and over, thrown onto the spikes again and again by his mind. And in that helplessness and agony, I think his mind started reacting in more and more raw and extreme ways, like a cornered animal.

But yet he rejects the only friends he could’ve partied with. This is one of the worst parts about NPD. The false self does not allow you to exist or partake in anything unless you meet its standards. Only then does it deem you safe to partake in life. He could’ve partied with the friends that he considered losers, but it wouldn’t make him feel alive, happy, or good at all -just humiliated and as empty as he felt at the dinner because it’s not the exact picture the false self demands/ it’s not one of those BIG parties and he doesn’t have a girl. The false self starves you inside a cage even as you may be offered things (remember Elliot previously feeling starved and unseen even when he had James listening to him). If the false self doesn’t consider the things offered safe enough to enjoy, or it doesn’t meet the standard of significance, it won’t even let you have them.

It’s almost like the false self says “ I won’t allow anything to be a part of the self (whether through association or experience) if it isn’t significant enough by my standard. We need to be (this) significant in order to feel safe and be assured we won’t be replaced, overlooked, or abandoned, and if we can’t prevent it at that point -at least we can blame it on someone else because we will know we are superior for sure.” Although that mindset may be faulty, it’s how the false self operates. It believes if it can portray itself in a certain way, it can control everything, including avoiding rejection. When the child was VERY young, for whatever reason, there was a scenario in which they were abandoned, harmed, or neglected, and their mind decided it was because they were “bad,” that the authentic self was not worthy enough to be attended to. That means it was dangerous to be authentic at all because it won’t get your needs met and it will lead to terrible things. The false self develops then, to create a version of you worthy or shining enough to never get ignored, overlooked, or harmed again. It tries to build you an identity without ever having to be vulnerable or authentic. The only way to do that, though, is through external traits…

First, this kind of confirms for me that Elliot didn’t think about anything except his obsessions. I relate so deeply.

But this is also another example of Elliot’s false self being really narrow. You might wonder, if he is so embarrassed of having not much to show off, why doesn’t he just go out and start doing a bunch of stuff and build this really cool life that he can brag about? But his false self is so narrow that nothing except getting a girlfriend will disprove his inferiority so everything else feels useless. Notice how even when he’s talking about having things to brag about, it relates back to a girlfriend. I don’t think he’s even conceptualizing that other things could give him a sense of worth or admiration anymore, and there’s a reason why. His false self has narrowed so much he can’t find superiority or feelings of worth in other avenues because the false self has already shut them down as not working.

This is my theory: Notice how at the beginning of the manifesto, he starts off describing several different avenues he takes to try and feel important and superior, skateboarding, fitting in with the popular kids in multiple ways, taking on different “cool” hobbies, even his height. But when he is outshone or “fails” in each of those categories, the false self discards it as “too humiliating or unreliable” to use as a source of supply (and safety). His false self narrows until there’s only one thing left that can give him identity, make him feel alive, worthy, and safe. If you read back, you’ll notice this pattern of his false self discarding a source of supply it after it does not work. Unfortunately, it eventually narrows so much that almost nothing can relieve his fears of inferiority except one thing, making the false self very fragile. There is a thing called “complex self concept,” where the more complex a self-concept is, the healthier an individual’s ego is because they have more identity pillars to make them feel good about themselves. If one pillar fails, they can rely on another. This also goes for false selves not just true selves. Grandiose narcissists often have complex false selves; or multiple avenues of feeling superior. The more humiliations they experience that they can’t ward off with defenses- the more their false self may also narrow, and eventually also transition to malignancy, leaving behind self-esteem for power.

It’s likely Elliot didn’t make the effort, and then once again used the result to reaffirm that he’s always an outcast. I mentioned previously that he might be getting a last sense of specialness from feeling like a victim.

One might wonder why he wouldn’t use those friendships to feel like the “coolest of his group” or practice social skills. He actually had friends to go out with. But his false self had already narrowed so much that the only thing that would make him feel like he stood out (or existed) was having a girlfriend. The other stuff meant nothing at that point. I explained the narrowing of the false self more in my notes on Elliot Roger. His grandiosity was dysfunctional and his false self wasn’t complex enough to be stable. Someone with a more complex false self concept might get a boost off of multiple areas and can feel special and alive in multiple ways. They can use almost any scenario to reboot their grandiosity.

He wasn’t able to rewrite himself if Spencer was a continuing witness to the shame.

He’s projecting the problem as “seeing a guy get girls when we can’t is torture” but the REAL torture was seeing the guy being superior, confident, perfect, adored, everything that Elliot feels like he can’t be. It’s the torture of raw humiliation with shoddy defenses to keep it at bay. Probably triggered all the fears of having utterly nothing to admire and the fear of living the rest of his life starving. His mind reacts like it’s truly being tortured- wanting revenge against “an abuser” for making him feel such shame- finally flipping the script for even a second, getting relief from the helplessness and powerlessness and shame and pain and loss- by inflicting it onto the felt perpetrator.

Grandiosity. He truly believed he was above those of certain races…it was an outlet when everywhere else he felt non-existent and inferior. I think this was one of the only places he could truly believe he was superior, but considering how triggered he got there’s still an underlying fear that even the “lowest” are better than him while he has truly nothing to look at, nothing that stands out. The shame in NPD is so bad because it literally feels like not only are you being outshone in external traits, but underneath there’s nothing unique, nothing to look at, nothing to love or admire, nothing that would remotely capture someone’s eyes or keep attention. Nothing at all, like you're an empty pathetic shell and all that you have to be of worth is the external traits and even in that you’re in danger of being outshone. deep down, he still feared that even those he deemed “inferior” had more substance than he did, that they existed in a way he never could.

Elliot has full blown NPD- but yet he doesn’t lie about something that causes him shame. I was pondering why he’d do this and I think it points to something interesting. Elliot’s identity and any sense of specialness might have relied on his victimhood since all else failed to provide stability- uniquely singled out, and if he didn’t have that he might have felt he had nothing that stood out, truly nothing to him.

Whenever I felt like this, I was living off the grandiosity of a future self; and always had the feeling that once I truly became superior I’d disown all the previous “versions” of me it took to get there. But it seems that would be why Elliot could still have grandiosity and the accompanying feeling of insult and rage even while presently feeling mostly worthless.

I feel like I’m in an endless version of this..

He’s getting really distorted here. He’s the one who curses at them first and they laugh at THAT, but he thinks they’re laughing at his unworthiness.

This is so fucking sad. He’s so mentally ill. He can’t see that he’s trapped in so many different distortions that are just throwing him around harming him over and over.

1. He assumes girls will come up to you if you’re hot or worthy enough. (This distortion formed to make him avoid having to try and then be rejected which would be way more shattering with his level of fragility/confusion)
2. He then bases his worth off whether people approach him. He’s just stuck there and not even aware of the full weight of his actual entrapment- if someone did approach him how would he even present? He does nothing but obsess over this stuff. How would he even come across as a person?

He’s escalated into malignancy/ASPD territory and this new rage and fantasy is now the only thing keeping collapse at bay.

This is so sad. He wasn’t his hatred. He just kept getting damaged severely- severely narcissistically injured- and each collapse threatened his entire sense of self and safety until his psyche couldn’t take it. He needed very specific help but that would take someone understanding what to spot.

What he means to say is the world molded him into someone who lost all contact with any innocence left- as he mentions. He seems to be able to even describe the feeling. Any last innocent pieces inside him must have been harmed and mutated to join the rest of the damaged, rage-filled pieces you’ll find in NPD. That final mutation means less of a conflict about harm. What makes me sad and angry is that this could have been prevented if someone had explained to him what was happening and that he was mentally ill and none of this was his fault and that he wasn’t pathetic. They could have explained what NPD was and helped him understand how to start actually feeling better and getting social success.

😞 just makes me sad, I’ve had revenge fantasies but never that brutal. I think he really escalated after realizing that violence could cause relief. Also because his classic NPD defenses weren’t working to keep his sense of self together or prevent pain so the false self escalated things to pure power and revenge. All I can say is I understand the feeling of wanting revenge. For me my entire life was stolen from me similarly and I was humiliated, deprived of a self, deprived of belonging, of connection, of being a part of life- all while I watched everyone get adored. I ended up literally hating the people who got admired and seen and got to reach their dreams, and would have taken great pleasure in tearing them down. The difference is that men approached me in college and broke that cycle and gave me the fuel to be eventually grandiose and I feel for Elliot’s predicament because idk what would have happened to me if men hadn’t come up to me in college. It seems more acceptable for men to approach women in culture. Men with vNPD like this would possibly have to be taught extra social skills to get more results as they might have to do the approaching of others more.

Pattern reinforcement again for using violence to feel relief

I’ve experienced this feeling so many times.

Grandiosity not working well

This shows his very limited social understanding. You can’t just go up to a woman and ask her out, you have to get to know her first and talk to her for a while before asking to date.

Elliot immediately collapses into defeat rather than trying to interact with the students and “compete” for attention which probably felt utterly humiliating at that point, like anyone who talked to him would be settling for a subpar conversation when they could be talking to the popular kids. He would rather collapse than fight to still interact because if he put himself fully into it and got humiliated, it would be a deeper trauma than withdrawing or not putting in effort. even if being ignored felt humiliating.

The thought just never comes into his head that maybe people don’t like to stare at people because they’re also shy and there’s a bunch of new people around -or that it’s normal unless you engage someone for them to not pay attention to you, no matter how you look. his ability to rationalize was so low I think because his fear of shame was so intense, his worry that his fears of inferiority were really true. he just so easily collapsed into vulnerability.

Elliot was trapped between two unbearable beliefs: either he was truly inferior and they were all superior for those qualities, which would destroy his fragile sense of self, or -women were wrong for not recognizing his supposed superiority. Blame allowed him to preserve his grandiose self-image, avoiding the collapse of his identity by dehumanizing others. But even if women were “wrong,” in his mind they still only payed attention to the “jocks.” So he was traumatized because if the world would never “notice” adore or recognize the traits he had- in his mind he would remain invisible, isolated, starving and unaccepted forever no matter how superior he believed he was.

I seriously believe sometimes that living a life with NPD especially VNPD is karmic as hell. Makes me wonder what type of person Elliot was in a previous life and how he might’ve mistreated people or had been racist.

He’s so utterly vulnerable in his NPD… He’s back to the vulnerable flip-side just shortly after writing that grandiose statement. It makes me feel very protective and want to take care of vulnerable narcissists (Presuming I figure out how the hell to heal from this mess)

The way he writes out his narcy thoughts is so matter- of -fact and it’s kind of amusing (maybe it’s because of his suspected autism, I don’t know). He always seems to me like someone who is trying to convince themselves so badly that their grandiosity is true. Like you can almost see him trying to convince himself as he writes it.

“ This is a chance IM giving to the world not the other way around” Is to ward off fear that YOURE the worthless one who truly superior people get to evaluate. It’s flipping from feeling powerless and humiliated to feeling powerful, safe, and momentarily on the flipside.

He’s building some semblance of a grandiose ideal self, but it’s so flimsy, and it remains flimsy and easy to crash into humiliation. He writes most about the anger and grandiosity side in his manifesto, but his journals tell another story. He has such a hard time fully believing in his grandiose self without any reinforcement. also, there comes the very relatable fantasy of revenge by becoming superior to the people who humiliated you and watching them watch you outshine them in every way

Here he is grandiose for once, but later and especially in his written journals, he laments feeling utterly worthless and inferior, then quickly explains it away again before his identity can fully collapse.

Elliot saw these people as his literal torturers and captors, people who stole his entire life from him and tormented him daily- and at a certain point something in his mind wanted to fight back at them and destroy them just like you would want to fight back at an abuser or destroy a threat to your life. He wanted revenge against what he perceived to be people who’d mercilessly abandoned, betrayed, ignored, and crushed him- kind of like how some people want revenge on their abuser.

in a way he WAS being tortured daily, because these peoples mere presence WAS literally able to destroy him entirely, shatter his entire identity and any sense of worth or safety, and trap him in an unbearable endless agony. His mind processed it as them abusing him and naturally it wanted to react towards the abuse or destroy the threat to his life. These peoples were basically causing him constant narcissistic crashes and he wasn’t able to get any relief because he didn’t have working narcissistic defenses AND because the people he’s talking about were just everywhere, living their own lives, and had no responsibility to cater to him.

But the torture he’s feeling is also very real. The problem is it’s caused by his mental illness, not others, and he deserved to help.

I was wondering why Elliot felt like this was realistically his only chance and I feel like he knew deep down somewhere that if he failed this time, he wouldn’t be able to tolerate the fallout or rationalize it away. His psyche had already been gathering so many brutal narcissistic injuries. Since he considered this the perfect environment, if even this failed, it had to be him, and if that were true, he would’ve collapsed.

Because he’s cut off from the real reason that he can’t get a social life: his social skills and the role he plays in his own isolation- his mind is left to literally theorize about random possibilities of what could be hindering him, but none of them are based in reality…

This is a huge problem in NPD and it’s destroyed my life so many times. You try to regain control and function by theorizing, but your mind blocks out the real reasons why things aren’t working. So you come up with theories that have nothing to do with reality and act on them to achieve no result. At least this has been my and Elliot‘s experience with VNPD.

He has such a brutal pattern of not socializing, not putting in effort, avoiding stuff, and then using the subpar result to humiliate himself with…

He was trapped in this self-destructive loop because his false self didn’t allow him to acknowledge his own role in his suffering. Vulnerable narcissism creates a deep split: on one hand, he saw himself as special and deserving of effortless admiration, but on the other, he felt completely worthless and humiliated when that admiration didn’t come. To admit that his isolation was partly his own doing would mean facing the painful reality that he wasn’t superior or owed automatic acceptance, something his false self couldn’t tolerate. Instead, he stayed in a cycle where he avoided effort, set himself up for failure, and then used that failure as proof that the world was cruel and he was a hopeless victim. What was missing was emotional responsibility the ability to see that his pain wasn’t just inflicted on him by others, but also reinforced by his own avoidance and expectations. But his narcissism likely blocked that realization, because accepting it would have shattered the fantasy that he was meant for greatness but unfairly denied it.

His only identity at that point was that he was “ it’s not that I failed, I was robbed.” if he truly accepted he wasn’t “robbed” he would have had to face the unbearable “truth”—that he wasn’t inherently special, that no “cosmic injustice” had singled him out (even the universe didn’t notice him or need him for anything, utterly worthless), and that his isolation was, at least in part, a result of his own actions (or inaction). This would have shattered his entire identity, leaving him with nothing to cling to. Without the belief that he was a victim of an unfair world, he would have had to confront the terrifying reality that he was just ordinary—that he lacked social skills, had put in no effort, and wasn’t owed admiration or love just for existing. For someone whose entire self-worth and sense of existence depended on feeling superior, this realization would have been annihilating. Instead of processing his role in isolation, his mind rejected it completely, reinforcing the victim narrative to preserve what little sense of self he had left.

Edit: no- this horrific reality of worthlessness is not the “truth.” The truth is Elliot had a true self that should’ve developed and he could’ve uncovered parts of it that would be very unique and very worthy of attention and love. The reason he felt like “nothingness” is because the false self had never allowed him to develop.

Either that or you being trapped in mental illness with no help

Oh my god, his vNPD is ruthless. Even my highs last longer than that…

He has such little grandiosity as a foundation and such strengthened fear or “proof” of inferiority that he can’t let himself trust anything good, because it could be suddenly revealed to be a lie or betrayal. Perhaps his mind is more afraid than most to build up his identity upon anything “good” because of the extra humiliations and betrayals and an awareness of how it could crumble.

He’s right in pointing out the power that affirmation, especially from the right source has in stabilizing him. The fear of something having that much power over you is a huge reason why so many incels with vNPD want to destroy women, to take back that power, to defeat their own helplessness shame and agony even if in an unhealthy manner. to find some sort of relief for a moment by flipping the script. now they’re the ones with the power for a moment.

Oh god narcy I know… I know. It’s like being wrenched from a cold, dark, deserted alien world where nothing is solid or stable into a quiet, warm suburban neighborhood- the ground is stable, everything is safe and ok and suddenly everything is possible again. Everything might be alright. That’s how I would describe it. It’s kind of a whiplash. The relief is insane.

He’s projecting his own shame onto Leo and then wanting to attack him to destroy his own pain and shame, and even the threat to his sense of safety and identity. it’s really interesting how this can happen even as he admits the paragraph before that he doesn’t even know what strengths he has (feelings of lacking).

:(

He’s projecting his shame onto the people in the world, and sees them as evil’s because they’re following him to remind him of his shame which he can’t escape by plunging into the game anymore.

Even these days, I keep falling back into this old mentality, and I have to wrench myself out of it. The truth is, I don’t put myself out there socially because I’m scared or I don’t know how and I don’t want to risk humiliation, so I sit and then I get bitter and even darkly vengeful and hateful when I see other people bonding or living life. “I hate everyone for not recognizing me.” (if I get deep enough into the mentality, I suddenly forget the fact that the reason is I don’t put myself out there socially and i just feel blindly enraged that people don’t notice me when they should. the false self dissociates me from the social issue so then I’m just bitter in a void.) I think to myself “they would never do that with me.” I switch from thinking “ It’s because I’m nothing I have nothing to look at” to “ They beneath me, they’re so boring and normal, and they could never comprehend a being like me. I’m beyond human” and I flip-flop between these feelings. But all of this certainty is a way to ward off the fear of a more personal humiliation if I actually try. So I’ve been working in therapy on healthy ways to not immediately assign situations to my sense of identity or worth- even if they go bad. However, if I DONT immediately assign new situations to my identity, I feel like I have NO identity and experience existential collapse because the false self only “allows” me to have an identity if it’s externally based… It’s such a mess…

(The false self only allows you to form an external identity because it’s controllable, editable and shiftable, and it can be manipulated to get specific reactions from people. All of this feels very safe. Allow allowing the self to be built out of authentic pieces makes it too rigid to get “positive” responses in “every” situation, (you’ll be less pleasing to more people) and it also feels incredibly dangerous because of the severe trauma that happened the last time I was authentic as an infant. The false self basically has a PTSD response when it thinks anything authentic is being exposed. It’s also scary feeling so undeveloped and empty underneath you feel like you could never capture attention or stand out or meet any needs)

The main reason he enjoys spending time with his brother is narcissistic affirmation.

:( ……

I felt the same way as a teenager, my dad withdrew from my life because he was put off and scared by how I started acting out- but he also was never really emotionally available. I too felt abandoned in the time I needed my parents most.

I relate so deeply and so unfortunately. Because of similar humiliation traumas, and because of similar VNPD i’ve had to do a lot of work in exposure therapy to social situations, even reading aloud in my Dbt group.

Giving in = weak. This mentality could explain why Elliot felt if he ever backed down from his tirade once it started, he would have to face the ultimate fear that he was utterly worthless. It’s true that fighting to prevail is strength, but he couldn’t see he was fighting the wrong battle, a battle that would lead him nowhere when he could’ve been spending his energy fighting the real fight. Of course someone would have to had explained to him what was happening to him.

So aware…yet so not…

Oh my god.. this is literally the exact thought process I had. So I wanted to be a famous popstar, but as time went on and I got older I realized that window was closing, so I dropped the fantasy because I wouldn’t have been able to have the adoration of being YOUNG, desired and talented and it felt pointless. I didn’t want to be old and just making music in some café. It’s also interesting how vulnerable narcissists seems so much closer to reality and so much more aware of the work that it would take and all the things that could go wrong, but that awareness also is what causes them to freeze and keep dropping their ideas and doubting themselves. Grandiose narcissists are so blindly certain their future will work out that some of them actually end up pulling something off from sheer confidence even if their success is usually short-lived because their disorder ruins it.

It’s really interesting that Elliot‘s more over grandiosity developed around 18 like mine did.

Yep, even his fantasy world is narcissistic. I had the same problem. My stories that I would write had no substance it was just very graphically, detailed scenes of perfect characters being adored, admired, or rising to power. I had no awareness of this, but I was aware of this feeling that I kept “running out of material” or that I didn’t know what to make the characters actually say to each other to “fill the story with substance” because all I cared about was playing out scenes where they would be getting viewed in some pleasing way.

Vulnerable narcissists have more awareness of their flaws but still qualify for full NPD… therapists missed this. What decides full NPD is not lack of awareness, or any external grandiosity. It’s how pervasive the false self is, how little of a true self there is (no authentic islands of identity besides the false self) and how early the false self took over.

When he’s already past 18 his mother finally gave him a shred of grandiosity. You’ll notice later how his new dream is to become a prolific writer. Grandiose narcissists often get this type of praise for their external traits, very young, which helps build a grandiose ideal self.

It’s like having a girlfriend by his side, finally gives him permission to enjoy the rest of life because he can feel secure finally that he is real, worthy, and safe. I think that the girlfriend is a symbol. It makes me sad because I really so deeply. It’s like NPD won’t let you enjoy life or have opinions on anything around you until you can secure your physical safety and internal safety and make sure you won’t fall apart. But that battle never really ends because you always have to manually keep yourself together.

Lack of empathy. The need to feel safe and keep your identity in tact and feel in control (inside and outside) are so pressing that all you can think about is how to get the people around you to help you meet your needs. There’s no space for them to be autonomous beings no space for empathy.

He didn’t have the grandiosity to protect him or shift that level of narc injury. He started out, probably feeling superior because he has his intelligence to cling onto now (notice how he feels insulted a lot more than crushed now of days) and has some level of fury and narcissistic rage at being insulted, and battles to protect his feeling of worth. But even those defenses are flimsy.

Elliot’s father repeatedly backs his abuser and this creates a sense of abandonment and betrayal very deep. It’s a part of the perfect storm that caused NPD.

That mentality is exactly what I used to justify my first job lol. “ I’m only working there for four hours two days a week. I’m just helping basically, getting paid for doing a favor.” Interestingly, enough, I wonder what would’ve happened if Elliot realized a lot of of those superior popular kids worked retail. my feeling is that it still would’ve been humiliating because they’re popular and work retail so they’re still superior and he works retail and he’s invisible, so he needs that extra mile to feel like he can stand out against them and push them into the inferior position to feel ok.

HAHAHAHA oh my godddd. OK, every narcissist I’ve known has struggled with this even me, but I ended up biting the bullet and getting a retail job and it actually taught me so much. I’m laughing because it’s just so damn tragic and stupid and egotistical but yet there’s so much pain, what a mess. On the surface, it looks like just entitlement. But it’s a lot deeper. What ended up helping me not feel humiliated for working retail was to know that even the great people had to climb the ladder to reach the heights, it doesn’t reflect their worth at all. Even the greatest people with the most intelligence have to put in work and even menial labor to get opportunity.

A huge distortion in NPD is taking any immediate new “part” of your life and having it immediately define your entire identity. Since your identity is external, anything that comes into your world and is connected to “you” that seems subpar can make you instantly feel worthless. It can also cause huge fears that this is all you will ever be worth, all you could ever amount to, even with your best effort is an ordinary life where you barely made an impact. you will always be outshone by brighter stars, always overlooked for better people. Both humiliating and terrifying. If you can’t make a mark on the world, you can’t control your environment and if you can’t control your environment, you can’t feel safe. If you can’t stand out, how can you be seen in the crowd? How can you ever make up for all of your starvation? How will you ever get your needs met?

Key admission here. It’s not about the girls, it’s about the worth that comes with it. Girls are the key in Elliot’s mind to accessing existence, adoration, worth, acceptance, identity, and life itself -everything that he emotionally is desperate for.

I want to reiterate that Elliot‘s feeling of unfairness is totally valid, but it’s not for the reasons he thinks. He was given a very difficult life, very possibly karmic, and was genuinely prevented from enjoying life, but it was because of his mental illness. There is real loss and starvation there. But the answer was not to take away what everyone else had, but figure out how to join it by healing. He should’ve had the resources to be helped.

This is all he cared about and thought about - that or how to obtain recognition. When people have obsessive thoughts like that which consume their entire interest and stop them from having a sociable or diverse inner world, we call that mental illness.

I wanted to note how Elliot seems to have repressed anything to do with adulthood until suddenly it all hit him when he realized he’d have to go out in the world. This exact thing happened to me. I was lost so deeply in my own stuff until around 18 that I never thought about work, having to be present as “me,” or my future. I disassociated away from it into fantasy.

He’s so trapped in his mind. Rather than reengage and ruminate until he figures out what ELSE could work if his appearance isn’t doing the trick, he collapses into hopelessness and vengefulness.

Elliot still has the initial reaction of grandiosity “how dare he attack and insult me and treat me like a loser, fuck him” which is why he first frames it as an insult rather than a humiliation, but later without the backing of grandiosity or his own successes, it spirals into worthlessness.

This is one of the biggest patterns of Elliot‘s life. He tries superficial things, but doesn’t realize that people won’t just come up and approach you no matter who you are. Then when he doesn’t get results, he freaks out and feels hopeless, rather than realizing he has to go up to people. This is most likely because if he has to initiate, there’s a chance he will fail, and the humiliation will be much more personal and devastating than if he kept a distance and was rejected. Remember how humiliation is more traumatic for people with NPD and can collapse the entire sense of self. Since Elliot doesn’t have a buffer of grandiosity to blame-shift if something goes wrong, his false self likely decided it was too dangerous for him to be fully aware of his social deficits, to prevent him from putting himself in scenarios that could cause collapse.

OK, so he’s actually working on himself in the real world for the first time around 18 to make himself ideal- instead of living vicariously through characters. That’s kind of around the same time I transferred from fantasy to editing myself as well. But he never seems to realize that it takes more than physical looks or money for people to start engaging you. He never works on his social skills. Strangely, sometimes he will mention he has a hard time socializing, but never seems to really deeply give it thought as to being a reason why he doesn’t get noticed. It’s likely his NPD is protecting him from fully realizing his social issues.

This is huge. Elliot finds some success in feeling powerful and protected for the first time -through violence. If you remember what I said earlier about patterns that are successful at meeting needs being reinforced, this will unfortunately be what likely feeds into his malignant narcissism later.

He has noooo idea how to present… he should’ve worked on his presentation and studied celebrities or something, anything, so he wouldn’t feel totally untethered and could get literally any positive result to create any foundation for grandiosity, but that’s bad advice (he should really just heal because turns out even if you get successful, you still starve, the NPD response doesn’t work and I’ll go into why some other time).

The only reason Elliot is interested in anything political is because he can use it to reinforce and explore his narcissistic worldview. In NPD there is a lack of interest in anything except the self.

This is a KEY moment that showcases Elliot‘s social issues, and lack of understanding on how to mirror, mask, or get anywhere socially to get the results he needs. He doesn’t even seem to recognize that the issue is social in the first place so he can practice. He doesn’t study other others to question what they’re doing socially and mimic it. There’s no realization he should at least try and create an enviable identity from others.<br /> In vNPD something is usually blocking the narcissistic defenses from working fully.

There’s a pattern here of this woman mistreating Elliot and him not being protected by his dad. That type of betrayal is obviously traumatic and makes you feel you can’t come to your parents for safety. Women become so scary to Elliot in various ways that the only way he feels safe around them seems to be imagining controlling them in some form.

Here’s the paradox of NPD. So I just wrote about how it FEELS like no one cares that you’re starving and “no one sees you”. But here we see James caring about Elliot and noticing him. Elliot’s parents also care about him, though misguided.

Elliot couldn’t see or accept genuine care because his false self only recognized validation that confirmed his specialness, desirability, or superiority. Any other form of support feels meaningless, humiliating, or even insulting—like being thrown crumbs while others feast. His narcissistic starvation warped his perception, kindness here can feel like pity. Admitting that some people cared would have shattered his victim narrative, which his false self relied on for any semblance of identity. It would have also caused humiliation and rage- since they’re caring about him while he’s “invisible Elliot,” they’re “settling to care” about a nothing- “the moment someone superior comes along I’ll be discarded so the shame/fear will kill me if I let myself truly RELY on this support emotionally.”

NPD is basically the false self avoiding so many things that you starve.

This is why, even when supported, people with NPD can still feel emotionally starving—the false self rejects anything that doesn’t perfectly meet its standards of “safe”. The false self makes you feel utterly invisible unless ITS ideal identity gets affirmed, because that’s the only safe way to feel or exist. Also because the true self is never seen and isn’t even developed TO be seen, no matter how much people see or address the “outside” of you, you feel like you’re never truly witnessed for who you uniquely are, and that continues the shame and starvation.

What we’re about to witness is one of the saddest things. Elliot will fluctuate between hope and despair for quite a while, trying fantastical solutions that don’t work and aren’t connected to reality until he finally loses all hope without any real help.

He will then snap into malignancy where he just wants to cause suffering and destroy everything because he was never allowed to be a part of the world, and in his mind, no one notices him or cares he’s dying as they flaunt and tease him daily with everything he desperately needs. It feels like you’re starving to death watching everyone else eating food and no one cares. That’s enough to cause utter hatred and coldness. Every human has basic needs- belonging, emotional connection, love, being seen and accepted, safety, self esteem. NPD starves you of all.

It’s not to say that Elliot’s tragedy was the responsibility of the people around - nor should they have been expected to go out of their way to cater to him. It was the responsibility of the mental health system to help him integrate into society, help him understand what was happening to him and give him any fighting chance.

This is so sad to me, because he really did want to try and get better, but had absolutely no framework and guide to actually make anything real happen or fully understand what was stopping him, so he just kept trying mentally ill things as we will see, none of which actually turned out. He needed help so badly and no one recognized what he needed.

This type of contemplation Elliot is doing is actually common in VNPD and the level of self reflection could leave therapists ruling out NPD when they really shouldn’t. There is an obsessive attempt to figure out what is wrong and regain control so you can function and there’s actually a lot of self reflection, but the person’s distortions are so deep it stops them from actually seeing the full picture. You can easily end up going round and round in your head, trapped, trying things that have no basis in reality while fixating on all the wrong things and not the actual problem. This happens because the false self tries to stop you from seeing anything that would reveal vulnerability. For example, Elliot focuses on getting the right clothes or winning the lottery when what he should really be focusing on is his social skills.

I relate so deeply… I’ve just dissociated from it and am waiting for my next life honestly. But this is my life, even right now writing this. I just watch everyone else live and get to enjoy everything that I can’t have. It’s been like this almost my whole life. (Luckily, I am in therapy so hopefully I will figure something out).

This shows how inattentive Elliot’s parents were to him emotionally, even if they didn’t mean to be. He was left completely alone in a confusing, terrifying, painful world with no safety or support anywhere and his mind couldn’t make sense of it and became broken in multiple ways. On top of all of the trauma and humiliation, feeling abandoned and unseen even at home could only have been survived through escalating defenses. One of the main reasons for lack of empathy in NPD is the feeling “ No one cared about me so why should I care about them? They all got to live happy lives and be a part of everything and no one helped me, they all failed me.”

We also have to remember that NPD forms super young, and we saw signs in Elliot as early as elementary school. if Elliot had only experienced neglect and trauma, it may have shattered him in a way, but he’d have a sense of self to buffer it and you wouldn’t see such escalated defenses and such internal obliteration. The final straw is the feeling that ever since you were young you just didn’t have anything unique or special inside to offer unless you take from others -and THAT level of core shame PLUS actual real-world humiliations is unbearable- anyone would have developed these defenses at that point. i’m trying to explain why other trauma survivors don’t escalate to this severity experiencing humiliation/trauma while those with NPD do. The mountain of trauma, terror, confusion, and helplessness builds way past the point a human could tolerate.

Elliot experiences such intense all-encompassing humiliations from everyone around him. Even his friends seem to outshine him. It can be seen why he assumes humanity is evil later. “They are all awful.”

This is a great description of vNPD, especially the contemplation and rumination. People always wonder why Elliot didn’t just stop obsessing over couples and sex and focus on hobbies or a life goal. But once again, the false self is the only self Elliot has access to. And all it does is obsess over affirmation or how to get affirmation to feed itself and make you feel real or exist. Even if you just sit there without any supply, it’s not like the true self suddenly starts showing itself, and you find all these authentic things to want and think about. You’re usually devoid of authentic interests and opinions about the world -because the false self blocks anything from forming. All that’s left to do is obsess about how to “get your needs met.” It’s the only thing that has any sort of life to it.

Here we can also see Elliot starting to slip into a malignant narcissistic thought pattern. mNPD usually starts when the narcissist feels NPD (gaining safety and existence through admiration) isn’t working to keep them safe and the person shifts towards power.

I used to do this too especially after I dropped out of HS and got homeschooled although I was a lot more lost in grand fantasies that I really believed would come true. I wanted to add that living like this feels so lost and confusing and bitter and it feels like you’re frozen, watching your life pass you by helpless to join in.

I imagine another world where someone would have spotted what was going on with Elliot and he’d been given a framework “this is NPD and here’s why and we’re going to fix it”, and he was going to therapy and on a treatment plan that was helping him reintegrate with the world… but he’s just sitting there completely helpless to his disorder and unguided. This is the fate of so many.

Jesus Christ…I could see how he would have felt they just wanted to “ship their failed child off.” The amount of fear and helplessness and shame that must have caused. I had a similar feeling when I was around Elliot’s age after my parents realized how mentally ill i might be and how dysfunctional I might end up and they just kept sending me to doctors and seemed so disappointed sad and tired of me. my dad withdrew completely and didn’t even engage me emotionally for years (I later found out this was because he was terrified of losing me to suicide and shut off but at the time it felt like he didn’t love me and had discarded me because I failed to be worth anything or even remotely normal let alone great.)

More abandonment, feelings of being controlled, helplessness, betrayal with no way to be heard.

This is where vNPD comes to bite you in the ass. (I hate it so much.) BECAUSE there was no backing of grandiosity in childhood, (and because of the failures that piled up due to lower grandiosity) there’s much more DOUBT available consciously. the “blindly grandiose” defense is too weakly formed to combat the doubt. This ironically makes vulnerable narcissists closer to their true emotions but they suffer a lot more and find it very hard to actually believe in their dreams without utter fear and obsession over what could go wrong- things that grandiose narcissists can easier project blame for or repress. Grandiose and vulnerable narcissists have the same levels of dysfunction and fear- the grandiose narcissist just has way more robust defenses to keep it at bay.

Enter grandiosity as a defense with worsening trauma. He’s coping with existential terror and meaninglessness and a lot of shit I so deeply relate to and it looks like this defense finally swoops in and saves him a bit. He must have felt relief finally thinking it’s the WORLD that’s got it wrong and he’s actually the worthy one, above them all and here to change the world to something fair and “how it should be.” I can sense the relief.

People always focus on how entitled Elliot seemed for demanding sex or wanting to legit destroy those that have it- and how “other people get rejected or stay a virgin for a while but THEY don’t do this.”

But they don’t understand the deeper pathology, which needs help. What Elliot REALLY wanted was a return to a world that was simple enough where he could control it, and receive positive outcomes. He wanted to be able to feel a part of the world, and the only time he’d been able to was before social dynamics got more complicated, including sex. He felt exiled from the world and unable to participate or know how to be seen and so he was basically starving while watching everyone else eat. His only identity inside was a false self, which is a hollow construct that only feels real with social affirmation. That meant that if he couldn’t get a functioning mask and be fed socially, he would essentially feel like he didn’t exist at all. The false self covers a core emptiness that has no uniqueness or spontaneity. That means unless the person takes others’ traits, they feel they have nothing special to offer. If those traits aren’t seen and validated, the person literally feels like an empty ghost (think No Face from Spirited Away) who is forced to watch everyone else get seen and admired because they have nothing to show, nothing that stands out. You feel like you literally have nothing for anyone to look at or love. You feel utterly replaceable and humiliated. It’s a profound, all-encompassing worthlessness that can only be experienced with such an empty core.

Elliot feels like he’s been denied identity and worth and even existence by being denied sex because sex is final proof you are “superior” and finally real, included, cool, admired, adored. If you can’t stand out and shine the brightest, you’ll have to constantly fear being replaced, discarded for something better and humiliated, and left to fall apart existentially.

It’s like he see sex as the key to being able to be a part life safely, or even to exist in any meaningful way.

Elliot’s NPD ensures he CANT feel like he exists or has any worth at all unless he gets these external things and gets proof of his own existence. If he tried to draw upon any internal interests, hobbies, or thoughts, he’d likely find emptiness as the false self is entirely obsessed with getting supply and it’s the ONLY self accessible. So getting this external stuff feels like life or death. I hope this makes sense why sex is so dire for Elliot. It’s a mental health issue. When supply is cut off, the narcissist feels like they are disintegrating. This explains why Elliot’s reaction to rejection was so extreme, it wasn’t just disappointment; it felt like an existential annihilation and removal of any basic needs.

Just added humiliation.

You’d think he’d ask for some advice on how max got there so he could start figuring it out but maybe that was too humiliating for him. I’d have been studying the hell out of max trying to figure out how to emulate it. But once again Elliot seems lost to understand why exactly he can’t have that life and doesn’t connect it to his social issues

Karma, young narc

This is totally valid and Elliot is right- his life was unfair. But he can’t connect that it’s due to severe mental health issues and social skill issues. If there was a system in place to spit and help people like us, we could have been reintegrated into society.

This hurt to read. I went through the exact same feeling. I still haven't fully processed how much I missed out on and continue to miss out on. And you feel so helpless and starving because you can see where you want to be so badly but don’t know where to even start to get there. Feeling so utterly inferior and then also realizing what you missed out on… I really wish Elliot (and i) had gotten the help we needed. It’s so horrific being trapped on the outside of life like that.

Being forced to watch in high definition as it’s “proven” to you how utterly inferior you are in every way…

So hatred would be the only response that remotely would keep the shame away. People don’t talk about how you can have vNPD and without any sign of overt grandiosity there, and also you are aware of your feelings of shame and fears of worthlessness and can communicate them.

lol that constantly hidden narcissism

This is SO relatable. This happened to me- my fantasy world was the only place left I could feel safe and my parents would set limits. That was somewhat reasonable as in their eyes they were seeing a kid fall into obsession but it felt like betrayal. One time when I acted out badly they took my drawings and laptop and threatened to rip them up and delete everything I’d ever made. It was like total existential terror for me. It was around that time for me that I considered it to be unsafe to stay in fantasy and started trying to become my own main character. But yeah, my and Elliot’s timeline though different align in such bizarre ways.

I guess I was right, this was the thing that severed that final tie. It seems a huge reason Elliot was traumatized was that he wanted to believe that good in the world was rewarded, and he probably wanted to be good himself, but seeing that the only thing that would get him seen or admired was what seemed like evil was traumatic. On the one hand, he had extreme narcissistic urges to reinforce his identity externally to feel safe. the only way to do that in his mind was to be “evil” like these people he saw getting admired, therefore betraying his own hope for saftey and goodness and proving for a final time that there is no kindness in the world.

He wasn’t able to see outside of the black-and-white mindset, which told him that there were two sets of people, superior and inferior. Superior, you get seen and you feel real and safe and in control and included and everything good. Inferior - you are utterly worthless and have nothing for others to notice and would never stand out or be chosen over those superior. neglect and invisibility and terror and disintegration, you feel like you’ll never be able to get your needs met again and you’ll be left watching everyone else getting seen and adored, so invisible you become terrified you don’t exist. Living every day hyper aware that you are so fucking pathetic and worthless that your best attempt could barely leave a mark or even get a glance next to the truly worthy people, who will always shine a thousand times brighter in every way.

I wish Elliot had been able to cope the way that I have with this. I eventually started fetishizing and objectifying my own humiliation and how small and pathetic I had been in certain situations. Somehow I spun it to feel special even in my brokenness because I saw myself as a cute creature beyond human, adorable even when pathetic and humiliated, cute and rare even when being crushed. I even fetishized my own nothingness and would play scenarios in my head of my blankness being exposed in front of a crowd and people humiliating me, even torturing me or using me for experiments because I deserved it for having nothing of value. But somehow, I was still the center of attention and still felt fascinating even broken and useless. This coping, almost taking control of humiliation in some sort of way has been so central to me surviving especially on those days I felt I legitimately had nothing for anyone to look at and felt utterly pathetic and invisible and non-existent next to everyone else.

I think because Elliot was male, he was born into the a world that seemed to emphasize certain male attributes like height or strength or emotionlessness, and so he wasn’t able to cope cognitively like this because it just hit too close to home. But whenever I read this, I want to give him a hug and tell him he’s a narc and explain why he shouldn’t be ashamed and help him before he damn hurts everyone including himself.

Jesus. Elliot must’ve felt like he was being literally tortured by everyone around him and it really explains his hatred for humanity. I will say that he had a more intense experience here than me which could explain why I held onto more of my warmth while his innocence destructed into cold malignancy. When my ego death shattered me I found out I had an innocent baby piece that had been preserved, baby Tess, who was very, very, very young. Many people with NPD often disconnect or deeply repress this baby piece at all costs because if it came in contact with the world in the wrong way and got damaged, they would lose their last tether to themselves and to any hope for safety and connection. But that baby piece is still there which causes a small internal conflict even in NPD - impaired empathy rather than absent. But in cases where even the baby piece has been damaged or corrupted, they often fully succumb to malignancy or antisocial behavior losing that last tether to innocence. I had the buffer of having a friend group in HS that accepted and included me although, as I said, I was often in the butt of the joke and very aware of being the least favorite. My friend group at least offered a buffer against the rest of high school where I was often humiliated. Elliot didn’t have this.

This could easily be mistaken as PTSD, anxiety, or even avoidant personality disorder, but what you need to understand is Elliot was hiding away in the fantasy world because it was the only place he could feel superior, powerful, and admired, and actually control how he was perceived, living vicariously through characters. His narcissistic pathology could’ve been easily missed if he had been taken to a psychiatrist for analysis. taking his childhood history into account, all he has ever done for hobbies is try to adopt the popular kids hobbies. He has clear issues having any identity of his own. but since he says stuff like he didn’t care about appearances anymore, people would not have clocked his NPD because it’s vulnerable NPD.

I see Elliot’s parents are trying here, and it made me sad. so it’s more likely that they just weren’t aware that they were being emotionally neglectful. They did try and help him. This reminds me of my own parents. They had such good intentions, but they just didn’t know how to be supportive emotionally.

I’m sure the betrayal and abandonment must have been tumultuous-first his parents, and then this. It might have been this day that he lost touch with most or all of his innocence and empathy. I remember that for me, my bitterness grew because no one ever extended a hand to help me, so why should I ever care about them.

Your kid is clearly experiencing abnormal shit, fucking take care of them. I would literally comfort and soothe and care for him so deeply right now if he was my kid. I’m sorry, I know that parents try their best and maybe thought they were doing a good job their way but fuck I relate to this so intensely. There would be times where I was so fucking terrified to do something that was considered normal by that point, and my parents had absolutely no sympathy- they couldn’t understand why I was acting out when it was such a “normal thing” and would just push me into the thing without being able to recognize my trauma or take the time to help me sort out my emotions or make me feel safe. Honestly, a lot of times I felt shamed as well for not being able to do the normal thing everyone else was doing and feel fine. “ Just get over it, just do it, stop being ridiculous”