Am I a Vulnerable Narc or something else?
For the past 8 years, I've been alone and have cut myself off from all the real friends I had. I even stopped talking to my internet friends for the most part. I have only had one relationship with a girl I met online. All of this is from me isolating myself from intense shame, I can't leave my room without feeling anxious, watched, inferior, empty. I can't honestly meet people, I am very kind and timid to most people despite any emotion I may have about them. After I know people for a while I usually just become dismissive of them and avoid them. On weekends I turn off my phone or ghost people just to be by myself.
I feel very special, like I'm in on the secret workings of life, psychology, art and rarely meet anyone that is as interesting as me. When I meet someone who I think is better than me I'm humble but want to share in their greatness as someone who is also in the know. The only thing I ever succeeded at was piano, I received free lessons and praise from my parents. I felt I was finally recognized for how great I was, people would finally see how great I am, that I wasn't just a failure. But when I didn't put in the work, because I was suffering and because I'm someone who hates responsibility I just felt more shame.
I was always the weird kid, moved around a lot and had no one to teach me anything. I failed in school, couldn't show up, skipped, had unrequited love, really started to hate my family and my own body. I would neurotically look at myself in the mirror and notice every thing wrong with myself, I felt disgusting and unloveable. This is really where I started to believe that I was great but I had to become a perfect person to be worthy of anything. I have so much potential, but no one recognizes me, no one sees how I really suffer because I know I'm not who I should be. I'm not like everyone else, I feel like the most despicable husk of an animal but really I'm just unrealized and one day everyone will realize that I have something divine in me that was there all along.
I'm really an agreeable and kind person for the most part who doesn't take advantage of most people at least in an overt way. Everyone involved in my life seems to have some feelings of pity and admiration towards me, I don't know why my boss hasnt fired me yet for always showing up late, being a weirdo etc. I guess the only person I directly hurted was my ex, I would become emotional and controlling of her, I didn't want her to go out, I was suspicious of her friend and that she was betraying me. I went to inpatient again when I was dating her because I felt so terrible about my body again, I had thought about my own life when I thought about people she was with before me.
But above all, deep down I don't want to change. I know I have an ego problem, I tell myself I want to be selfless, live for "God" or something outside of myself but I can't help it. I feel like I'm going to have to crash and burn to change.
Posted Apr 5, 2026, 2:45 AM UTC