What’s it like to be a Narcissist
Being a narcissist isn’t what most people think it is. It’s not walking around thinking you’re better than everyone else all the time. It’s not constant confidence or arrogance or being some cartoon villain manipulating everyone around you while you twirl a mustache. It’s a lot more pathetic than that, honestly. It’s about power—but specifically, needing power to feel okay. To feel safe.
Let me say upfront: I’m not officially diagnosed with NPD. But two different psychologists, including the one I see now, have described me as narcissistic. I study psychology myself, and while that’s deeply ironic, it also gives me a lens. And through that lens, yeah—this fits. This is me.
When I think about what it feels like, I have to compare it to something I’ve known intimately: depression. In a depressive state, you cherry-pick every flaw you’ve ever had and build a miserable little identity out of it. You become the worst version of yourself on loop. Narcissism, in contrast, is like cherry-picking the best parts. The praise. The clever things you said. That one test score. That one time someone looked at you like you were a goddamn genius. And then you build an identity around that. Not to celebrate yourself—but to protect yourself.
Because being a narcissist doesn’t mean you think you’re amazing. It means you have to be amazing. You have to be important. If you’re not, then who even are you? If someone so much as blinks at you without respect—if they roll their eyes, ignore your opinion, challenge your authority—it’s like a flare goes off in your nervous system. Rage. Not loud, not always visible. But hot and bitter and consuming.
That rage started early. I was a smart, spirited kid. Aggressive, sure. But not cruel. And while other kids could be cheeky or emotional or stubborn and get away with it, I couldn’t. I always felt like my mistakes were treated as moral failings, while adults’ mistakes were excused as “grown-up stuff.”
I remember thinking: Why do they get to yell and swear and screw up and still hold all the power? Why do I get punished for being a smaller version of them?
So I started watching. Cataloging. They spotted my flaws—I’d spot theirs. And I wouldn’t forget them. I wanted to grow up fast, not so I could be free, but so I could win. I wanted them to need me. I fantasized about turning the tables.
That fantasy—of superiority, of dominance—never really left. But reality gets in the way, and so do people. Not everyone responds to truth, to logic, to being nice. I had to learn how to get what I wanted in other ways. I had to learn people.
Manipulation isn’t a cartoon villain move when you’re a narcissist. It’s survival. It’s adaptation. It’s learning how to wear a mask depending on the room you’re in. Turning the volume down on your anger in one conversation. Dialing up the emotion in another. Learning when to guilt, when to flatter, when to explode.
Was it dishonest? Sometimes. Was it effective? Usually. Did it make me feel powerful? Hell yes.
But here’s the thing: That power is never secure. It has to be fed constantly. I’m generous, even kind, when people treat me with respect. But condescend to me? Talk down to me? I will do everything in my power to dismantle you emotionally. That’s the part I’m not proud of. That’s the part I’m working on.
The breakthrough came when I realized that real, earned admiration feels better than tricking someone into liking you. It’s deeper. It doesn’t evaporate the second they see through you. When I started helping people—really helping them, not as a game, not as a tool—it filled the same craving, but in a way that didn’t make me feel hollow afterward.
I still have the narcissistic urges. I still need to feel important. But now I’m trying to channel that into something useful. Into something good.
You don’t have to like me. You can even judge me. But if I’m being honest—and I am, unusually so—it’s better to be a self-aware narcissist working to grow than a saint who doesn’t know why they do anything at all.
This isn’t an excuse. It’s an explanation. A glimpse into the machinery.
And yeah, part of me hopes you’re impressed. But another part of me? That part’s just trying to make peace with the kid who never felt like he could be enough without power.
What’s it like to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge and survive
I didn’t jump because I didn’t care. I jumped because I cared so deeply, so exhaustingly, that I couldn’t carry it anymore. The pain was everywhere—emotional, physical, existential. It wasn’t a dramatic moment. It wasn’t a cinematic climax. It was a slow collapse. Years of chronic pain. Years of panic attacks that hijacked my chest. Years of quietly screaming under the weight of Complex PTSD, wondering why the hell it wouldn’t just let me rest.
The day I jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, it wasn’t an impulsive moment. It was the end of a chapter I never wanted to write. Two weeks prior, my psychiatrist doubled my antidepressants—meant well, but it launched me into a manic episode. I wasn’t myself. I blew through savings on tattoos like I was trying to carve the pain out of my skin. And then, I walked to the bridge, not in a rage, not in tears, but with a grim sort of relief. Like turning off a loud machine that’s been humming for too long.
I chose the Golden Gate because I believed it would work. I didn’t want a failed attempt. I didn’t want my family to find me. I thought the Coast Guard would handle it—clean, simple, distant. I was wrong about a lot of that.
I didn’t hesitate. If I’d stopped, someone might’ve noticed me. Might’ve stopped me. And I didn’t want to be stopped—not then. The fall only took seconds. Not long enough to form thoughts, but long enough to feel everything. Time stretched just enough for me to register one thing: this is really happening.
The wind spun me mid-air. I hit the water feet first, slanted—my left ankle took the worst of it. The impact was like smashing into concrete. I remember the pain. I remember dissociating. I remember realizing I was alive and thinking: Shit. I don’t want to drown.
I didn’t flail. I couldn’t. My body was wrecked. There was no epic swimming-to-safety scene. Just a boat nearby that had seen me fall. They pulled me out. I barely remember how. My mind was fogged, my body broken, but I never lost consciousness. Which was its own kind of curse.
I shattered my ankle. Tore my perineum—hello, colostomy bag. Compression fractures in my spine. A bone infection after the first ankle surgery that, somehow, hurt even worse than the jump. I’ll never walk normally again. But I do walk. And I’m here. That’s the miracle.
Did I regret jumping? No. Not in the way most people expect. I felt relief mid-fall. Probably why I survived—I didn’t tense up. But I regret what it did to the people I love. I regret the trauma, the medical bills, the scared faces in hospital rooms. I regret that part.
It wasn’t like one day I woke up “fixed.” Recovery was—and still is—a long haul. But I learned to cope. I got the right meds. A good therapist. A support system. And a new commitment: to respond differently when the darkness comes. Because yes, it will come. Mental illness isn’t something I “let” happen. It’s something I manage. Like walking with a limp—permanent, but survivable.
Since then, I’ve built a life. A real one. I’m in school for nursing. I live with my best friend. I’ve fallen in love with this weird, beautiful world again. And yeah, with myself, too—corny as that sounds.
What would I have missed out on if I’d died that day? Everything. The chance to grow. To heal. To laugh again without it feeling forced. To feel the sun and not resent it. To cry because something moved me, not because everything hurt. I would’ve missed me. The version of me who made it through.
If you’re in that place right now, thinking there’s no way out, I need you to hear this: You don’t have to die to end the pain. You can live through it. You can outlive it. You don’t have to jump.
You’re not alone. And you’re not broken beyond repair.
You’re still here. So there’s still time.
What’s it like to be an unattractive woman in a superficial world?
I am ugly. That’s not self-pity. That’s not low self-esteem. That’s not fishing for someone to say, “No, you’re not!”
It’s just the truth.
I’ve known it since I was twelve. Before that, I thought the problem was just weight—that once I lost it, I’d finally unlock the version of myself that people would love, or even just see. So I lost the weight. 30 pounds. And underneath it was… more disappointment. I wasn’t hiding beauty. I was just hiding me.
My face doesn’t fit. My nose is hooked and too long. My eyes are small and squeezed too close together, like someone made a mistake during assembly and just left it that way. I get acne like a teenager, still. My hair is a brown, frizzy storm cloud, impossible to tame. My body is broad—ribcage, hips, shoulders—and no matter how little I eat, I stay stuck in this soft, pear-shaped frame. Small breasts. Big hips. Tall enough to be seen by everyone in the room, but never looked at the way I’d want to be. Always seen. Never desired.
The world doesn’t work the same for ugly women.
I’ve lived next to beauty my entire life. My sister is beautiful. My friends are beautiful. I exist beside them, but not with them. I see the way the world moves around them—bending, softening, celebrating. People are drawn to them like they radiate some kind of warmth. Even when they’re cold or distant or uninterested, people still chase them, still want to be near them.
Me? I disappear in real time. I’m the gap between the camera clicks. The name no one remembers. The girl who was standing next to your friend but didn’t quite exist. When I’m in a photo, people crop me out. When I’m not, they don’t ask why. They’re relieved.
I’ve been insulted by strangers more times than I can count. Random, unprovoked cruelty—on the street, online, in bars. Men feel entitled to point out how repulsive they think I am. I’ve been told, flat out, that I ruin the picture. That I shouldn’t be dressing up with my friends. That I should know my place.
And I do. That’s the worst part—I do know my place.
Because even the “ugly guy gets the girl” trope has no female equivalent. There’s no redemption arc for us. No moment when the world says, you may not be beautiful, but you matter anyway. We are never the protagonist. We are the villain. Or worse, we’re just… omitted.
You don’t grow up seeing anyone like you in books or on screens. Ugly women don’t get to be loved. They get to be jokes. Or witches. Or forgotten. We train children with these fairy tales: beauty = good. Ugly = evil. And that story seeps into everything.
It makes me feel like I don’t deserve kindness. Like the only reason I’m ignored or dismissed or laughed at is because of course I am. I’m not beautiful. I don’t have the currency that counts.
I don’t want to be pitied. I want to be seen. Not just tolerated. Not just told I have a great personality like that’s a consolation prize for my face.
I hate being ugly. Not because I believe beauty is the only thing that matters—but because the world won’t let me believe otherwise. I try to love myself. I try to focus on my intelligence, my humor, my friendships. But when strangers mock you for simply existing, it gets harder to fight back.
Some days I dream of disappearing entirely. Not because I want to die, but because invisibility would be less painful than being seen this way.
Maybe someone will read this and understand. Maybe someone will realize there’s a whole world of women like me—unwritten, unphotographed, unheard.
We are not the punchline. We are not the villain.
We are here.
Even if the world keeps pretending we aren’t.
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