Learning to Empathize

I'm writing this as I'm in a psychiatric ward. I was experiencing dangerous but temporary lack of appetite and insomnia. I was collapsing to the ground from exhausting my body that could not rest. I've been thinking and learning a lot as I'm under the care of genuinely supportive people. There are more things I feel I need to get off my chest.

They thought I was going psychotic, but decided I'm not actually going psychotic. I actually don't have chronic depression. I'm not bipolar either. The lack of sleep and appetite was not a result of a manic episode. I'm actually not autistic; I'm a narcissist - I simply don't have proper reactions to people's feelings because I often just observe people and not know what to do.

Nobody loves narcissists. Narcissists don't have friends.

Let's admit it, we all hate narcissists and psychopaths for not caring about other people's feelings. They hurt our feelings with little to no remorse. We can always have less of those sorts of people in our world.

One of my best friends, I will not mention her name, but you know who you are. I'm one of her few friends in the entire world. She's very picky about who her friends were. For some reason, she felt I was definitely friend material and has included me in her circle of friends connected only by a skype group. She's learned a lot about psychology to get a better sense of who she was, and said she knew how I worked. I felt a little uncomfortable, feelings that somebody knows me better than I know myself. She has once said that she uses her manipulation techniques only for good, and only in hindsight, I realize exactly how I came to a full realization that I was a narcissist myself.

Nobody loves narcissists. Narcissists don't have friends.

When I was causing my old friends a lot of distress, they would tell me things. I think highly of myself. I lack empathy. I thought, this isn't true. I have good intentions as a person. How could those untrue, mean things apply to me? They were wrong, they were purposefully misunderstanding me.

Everyone was the asshole. I was bullied all the time. Nobody wanted to be my friend, they made fun of me for not having a pair of jeans in my wardrobe. They break the rules. Every bully I knew were disrespectful. They were the enemy. I did nothing wrong. I don't deserve to be bullied. Bullies are the enemy.

I am a troll. I didn't know my behavior was considered to be trolling until just a few months ago. I had been trolling since around 2011. I just disagreed with people because they were wrong, not because I wanted to hurt their feelings. I was telling people how wrong they were, and did not believe that was trolling. We tell people how wrong everyone is all the time. To me, that was normal behavior. What was abnormal was being wishy-washy, not taking a stance and standing up for what you stand for.

It took a while to fully realize that everything I knew about the world, was wrong. Nothing made sense anymore. My doctors believed I had a psychotic episode. Others felt I was experiencing manic depression. I wanted to kill myself because my sense of who I was and everything I stood for was dead. What was left of me? I had no reason to live because my own self was the most important thing in my life. I had nothing else in the world except myself.

My best friend, at various number of times, has literally encouraged me to literally troll people. I did not understand why. Trolling is a despicable behavior and one of my best friends was literally encouraging me to go troll people. I think I understood why, but it took a while to figure out why that was so important that I was encouraged to do what I've always done, even if I knew deep inside I shouldn't even be doing that.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I eventually had to realize that I had to fully accept that I had impaired empathy. I was literally encouraged to troll and mess with people's heads to get funny reactions. My own best friend basically made me embrace that fact. I had impaired empathy.

Nobody loves narcissists. Narcissists don't have friends. I would never admit to being a narcissist because that was a threat to my own personhood and a threat to my acceptance to the people I know. Nobody loves narcissists. Narcissists don't have friends.

For a short period of time, I honestly believed I was not capable of empathy. The times I have regularly visited social settings, people felt a connection with me. I felt no connection back. I had an expectation that friends were people you can spend time with three times a week. People I saw, are capable of feeling connections with people who they have never seen for six weeks. From that point, I realize something was missing. My counselor said that I was right that it was unrealistic. Once every week is more realistic.

How do I survive in a world if I cannot experience empathy or connections? I began to look for answers.

There's no secret that some of the most successful people just happen to be sociopaths. They say they simply pretend to be an empathetic and emotional person where none of those qualities actually exist within themselves. This was exactly what I wanted as a narcissist. I wanted love and admiration, to be appreciated as a person. I'll do what it takes if that's what I feed off of.

I began to present to me a truly empathetic person. I started to pretend to listen. I began to poke at other people's interests to get them to erupt in extroversion. I was experiencing a power trip. For a while, I felt no connection with people who I was engaging with. I felt on top of the world. I knew exactly what it took to survive in a world if you have no empathy. You simply... pretend to be like other people. Mirror the things they like. Take advantage of what makes them tick to make them give the attention I crave.

But that's where I started to learn. I was actually beginning to feel genuine empathy, almost exactly like how most people would say what empathy is. I'm beginning to feel genuine connections to people. I'm not a sociopath all this time. I just never gave people a fair chance.

Nobody loves narcissists. Narcissists don't have friends. Bullies are not the problem. My upbringing is not the problem. I am the problem. I'm a narcissist.