(no subject)

[hannibalv]

Yeah, I saw so much of myself in this that I nearly threw up.

Of course, I pervert it a little bit by being self-loathing on top of it all, but then that's just me.

Comments

Not quite what I saw.

[somebodystrange.livejournal.com]

John--

Okay, here lately I've been just owning up to what I'm thinking instead of beating around the bush. I'm not exactly charging in and letting the chips fall where they may, but I'm leveling with people. It's part of my New Year's plans.

So here goes.

I didn't see you in that. You may have a few of the same traits, but so do most people I know. For example, the memory gaps -- that's me. I don't remember big chunks of my childhood. I'm very caught up in my own world and seldom remember to pay attention to others unless it has to do with me. Not all the time, mind you, but more than I am comfortable with.

But people like you and me can see when we do these things, even if we don't see it until later.

John... the traits that you have that match the descriptions are probably learned traits. Because in my lifetime, I have only met two people who seem to perfectly fit the description of narcissist. One was a pastor whose name I fortunately cannot remember. The second is your father.

You know I love you, John. And I have never before criticized your father to you, and I don't intend to continue beyond this post... but even if you had not been the one to point me to that page, I would have found myself thinking, "Wow, that's John's dad." I even found myself wanting to ask you if he had strange eating habits or occasional surprising gaps in knowledge ("Didn't the Beatles have a couple hits when we were in high school?" etc...)

You will never convince me that you are a narcissist. I doubt you will convince anyone who knows you that you are a narcissist.

Hang in there.

Again, have to agree

[e-m-s.livejournal.com]

Sharing a trait or two with a profile is a very different thing from being what the profile describes. I'd compare it to any other sort of illness. Yes you may have headaches and feel nauseous, but that doesn't mean you have the flu, you could have a hangover, food poisoning or any other of a number of things.

The defining trait of a narcissist is the inability to care for anything other than yourself. I know this is not you. In fact, you have behaved selflessly on more occasions than I could remember.

[bdar.livejournal.com]

There are dozens of labels I can apply to you, jokingly and not.

Not even in jest would I refer to you as a narcissist. Narcissists don't give of themselves as much as you do. A true narcissist doesn't give of himself because then there might not be as much left over for him to love.

(And I know you can be a cagey so-and-so, but even that doesn't make you a narcissist. It makes you a cagey so-and-so.)