Source
r/DiagnoseMe•
dpsumner1289

Need help with mental health diagnosis

Mental Health

Age: 32

Sex: Male

5'10'' 170ish lbs (lost weight recently and am about 158 at last weigh)

White

United States

Diagnosed a few times with depression, once with complex PTSD

These symptoms are lifelong

Looking for a mental diagnosis. I have a lot of narcissistic traits in terms of how I act and some of how I feel, but I also have traits of other things. Here's a breakdown:

  • I'm selfish, when I do something for someone, like playing with my son, I try to gear towards things that we both like to do and try to steer away from things I find completely unenjoyable.
  • I'm prone to addiction. I have had a bad porn addiction that ruined my current marriage, and even though I knew it was hurting my marriage I kept it up for years before finally stopping about 6 months ago.
  • I have a serious lying problem, and I'm extremely avoidant. I've been trying to change this over the past 6 months as well but it's been a struggle, I still have a hard time facing myself and admitting my ugly traits, especially when it makes me feel bad about myself. I used to lie about the most ridiculous things, I was highly manipulative and would concoct massive stories to sound cool and also would come up with elaborate lies to get out of trouble. I avoid conflict and have a tendency to want to avoid negative feelings, though I try not to these days. I still am manipulative as well, in subtle ways. Like, I'll say something like "divorce isn't good for the kids either" to try and sway my wife to not divorce me. In this same vein, I'm very controlling, but in ways like lying and scrambling around trying to fix things in crisis.
  • I get complacent easily. If my wife is about to leave me because I lied, I will become extremely distressed and think of all these grand ideas for how to change and make promises, and then struggle to follow through once the dust has settled. I intend to follow through when I make the promises but after some time I get complacent.
  • I struggled with a lifelong identity crisis. I used to take on characters to feel good. For example, if I saw some character in a movie that I really liked or looked up to, I would emulate them, or try to be like them, to an obsessive level for about two weeks, then crash and feel empty and drained. I would dress like them, wonder how they would act in certain situations, try and think of how they would think about things, and try to mirror that.I was never truly myself. I haven't done that in about 6 months either, but did it for 31 years, so it's significant.
  • I have extremely low self esteem. I used to be incredibly sensitive to criticism and still am sensitive to some criticism, especially when given in a harsh way. I tend to defend myself if I don't like what the criticism is about, before even giving it serious thought and evaluating if it's true or not. I.E. if you tell me I'm super lazy, I might try and give you examples of how I'm not lazy. without really considering if you have a point. I also feel like there's something defective with me.
  • I have a never ending feeling of loneliness and feeling misunderstood. Mind you I have destroyed my beautiful marriage through lies and addiction, so there's an underlying depression about that as well. But before that, I used to feel always restless and never content. I had everything but still was miserable. I went 31 years not facing myself at all and since doing so in some major way about 6 months ago, a lot of the restlessness and discontent has lifted, but worth noting.
  • I can't seem to stop defending myself. That's the main thing that's hard to stop here. Anytime I have a confrontation with my wife, I go into it not wanting to defend but I always end up doing so. It's like I'm stupid. That's one of the things that have lead me to this post. I feel as though it shows that there's something really wrong with me.
  • I have empathy, and extreme remorse for hurting those around me. This is new for me though, I wasn't like this before about 6 months ago. I used to just ignore others' feelings and walk all over people.
  • I've gotten in trouble with the law before, and struggled with substance abuse.
  • Until about 6 months ago, I was highly emotionally and mentally abusive.

Hopefully this is enough to go off of. If anyone needs anything more, let me know, I can add to this. Thanks so much in advance guys.

Posted Feb 28, 2022, 4:34 PM UTC · edited

14
hudcraufNot Verified•

Sounds like you have made some changes in the past 6 months.

2
lauraq68Interested/Studying•

How would a diagnosis help you? It's really not that important. What IS important is what you're doing now, which is: identifying the things about yourself that need to change and changing them. It takes work, but it can be done, if you're serious about it. And it sounds like you are. Do the work, you're worth it.

1
aresALTNot Verified•

A diagnosis can be extremely helpful. I've never understood this whole "you don't need a diagnosis" thing. A diagnosis can be so beneficial when it comes to receiving the proper help and understanding yourself better.

I have had undiagnosed PTSD for around 16 years until recently. The diagnosis has helped me immensely.

  1. i am now taken more seriously when trying to access treatment and general help.
  2. having more of an understanding of what it specifically is that I suffer from has helped me in determining the exact sort of treatment and medication I've needed.
  3. It has helped me immensely with understanding my past behaviour. This isn't to be interpreted as me giving myself excuses for mistakes, but things make much more sense now and I realise that I'm not just a total failure who struggles with many things that the average person can do easily.

The list goes on. A diagnosis is important for most people who suffer with something.

1
stinkykoala314Not Verified•

This sounds exactly like Borderline Personality Disorder. My mom has borderline, and has the exact same set of symptoms.

Treatment is therapy plus meds. You need a psychiatrist who actually specializes in borderline, because most psychs don't understand it very well, and many will say that there's no medication that helps borderline, which is totally false.

1