Mental illnesses are real. There exist patters with people's thinking and the way their brain works that results in their either being problematic for themselves or those around them.

From my lived experience, it seems as though the majority of people do not believe mental illnesses are real unless somebody is literally insane and needs to be institutionalized because they're too crazy to be allowed into society. "OCD, ADHD, autism, personality disorders? They're all made up excuses for weak losers. They don't really exist."

Of course, if you have a mental illness, you're going to want to improve on yourself so that you can be more functional in day to day life and less likely to find yourself in trouble, but learning how to make a mental illness more tolerable isn't the same as curing it; you're just adjusting yourself to get around it, often painfully.

I'm still learning about narcissism, but I'm from a poor family, and it clearly runs in the family. The worst narcissist I know is my uncle, and he's a poor, drug-addicted loser with nothing to show off. He's even talked about his own balding like it's no big deal. He can lecture you for hours, demand excessive apologizing, including for past events going back many years that you already apologized for, insult you for all your flaws, demand excessive pity whenever something wrong is going on in his life, and demand praise whenever he does a favor. He is low empathy and can really antagonize you. I avoid talking to him and dealing with him as much as possible. The longer you talk to him, the more likely he is to begin his narcissistic bullshit.

The stereotype and even the type of narcissist most people talk about is the grandiose narcissist. This is the annoying trust fund kid with an inflated ego. They say that excessive praise growing up can create a narcissist, when I'm certain there are tons of people who grew up in antisocial trailer park environments who ended up being narcissists. I also believe there is a genetic component to narcissism, since it runs on one side of my family.

>>81881421
Super hot. I would love a girlfriend like this. Would this be something a BPD girl wants to do? What other types of girls would like to do such a thing?

>>81881170
>So, at my age, and with my current states, could I still get a girlfriend while being carless? What should I expect?
I really need an answer for this. Self improving to the point I look really good (I'm no longer fat.), have a decent-paying job, and have a car is going to take years. I turned 25 last month. I don't want to wait until I'm 30 to get a girlfriend.
>inb4 it can be done sooner than that
If I didn't have OCD, I likely would've landed some IT job when I was 18 and have gradually climbed the career ladder. I honestly feel like my most realistic option is getting an engineering degree, since those jobs are more likely to be flexible, and this is going to take time. I'm not sure if getting my own car would be worth it. My dad and I don't have much money, and I've talked about it with him, and he told me that if I got a license, that I would just be driving his car. I really am fucked. I have self improved a lot, and my insomnia seemingly magically got much better over the years, but I don't think it's ever going to go away, so I'm going to be stuck with not being able to maintain a job on a schedule. I have consistently been lifting since January 2024 after a nearly 4-year hiatus, so I do have some discipline. The issue with the degree path is that, although I can see myself actually getting the degree and even maintaining a relatively high GPA, I'm not sure how successful I'd be actually landing a job. I'm a white male, and they're not going to give me the job just because I'm mentally ill, even though this counts as a disability. They would need to make accommodations for me, and engineering jobs are difficult to land in the first place.

>>81831641
I started this entire thread last night.
>>81823593
What do you anons think? The only thing is, I've been an incel all this time till the age of 25 for various reasons, but I've been working on myself a lot, so I've never gotten a chance to have a girlfriend. I feel like my dad, whom I live with, fills that void. I wouldn't want to be separated from him, but I'm certain the only way that could happen would be through death or prison or the like, and this has brought me a lot of anxiety, since he's the closest person to me and nobody else comes close. I used to have separation issues with him when I was a child. I also got enraged when my best friend in middle school stopped talking and hanging out with me and I had an angry episode with him.

I definitely have severe OCD, but I suspect I also have some other disorder, possibly a personality disorder. I tend to get very angry and lash out at my dad. (I've been living alone with him since I was 17, and I am 25 now.) I do this regrettably and feel really guilty and ashamed afterwards. I regularly hug my dad and tell him I love him, but this is a habit we've had since I was little. I actually stopped at one point during middle school, but he felt bad about it and brought it up, so I reverted back. I have low self esteem. I would say I have a decent amount of empathy, but I can suddenly switch to being low empathy, having fantasies about doing nasty things to people. I wouldn't actually act on these fantasies, even if I could get away with it. I feel guilty and ashamed afterwards. The anger outbursts I have typically happen after heightened anxiety, but they usually onset very rapidly. I blame my dad for everything, but then I feel guilty, and blame myself, telling my dad this. I often keep yelling beyond the point my throat hurts.

I recently learned that my uncle has a bad and very obvious case of narcissism. He really creeped me out in 2019, and since then, I've only had a few interactions with him, and he is often emotionally draining, so I make sure to avoid having anything to do with him. Prior to 2019, I would view him as a friend, but get very angry at what I didn't know was his narcissistic bullshit at the time. My grandma was very antisocial, and I grew up in the same household with her. She would make fun of me and tell me nasty shit like I didn't own anything and that nothing was mine, and she was always yelling. My dad couldn't afford to move out with me until I was 17.