Thanks everyone, especially Blake.
The more I actually talk with people (and listen...equally, if not more important, lol), the more I realize that life is hard on everyone. I think what bothered me in my situation was so-called "professionals" deliberately inducing excessive trauma and pain, with the justification that "well, he's narcissistic...what else are we supposed to do?" Riiight.
Anyway, I also have to show more gratitude and be steadier in my ways. God has been good to me, as He is to all His children, many of us before we even become His children, because He's just that gracious and benevolent. I prayed my own little sinner's prayer and cried almost exactly 2 years ago, but I couldn't really *get* Christ or Christianity, you know? Not at a deep level.
Now, 2 years later...I can feel things again, especially things of Christ. My writing style has improved and continues to improve w/ regular assignments at Liberty. I'm less apathetic, not as lazy and inert. I'm waking up to the reality of the external world, which is not supposed to happen (social isolation + madness + narcissism + loads of involuntary electroshock= la-la land).
I have outgrown or am outgrowing NPD. That's huge. Yeah, I mean...if mental health people would actually skim the literature once in a while, they'd see that NPD isn't always a permanent state of being. Lives change, people change. Some people mellow out with maturation, some people are NPD as teens and young adults and tone it down later, some people are healed through spiritual experiences, etc. For me, its all about Jesus when it comes to tackling the dreaded NPD. "It is no longer I who lives, it is Christ who lives in me." Plus, lots of the NT--I just got finished reading Romans 1-8 for Liberty, so I'm thinking of that chunk of Scripture, in particular-- indicates that, left to our own devices, we're all somewhat narcissistic. Rebellion, witchcraft, sexual deviance, general nastiness and sinfulness, etc...its a big part of human nature, not just an NPD thing. Honestly, sometimes I think NPD-ers get picked on because the whole culture is becoming much more narcissistic. Example: when I was younger, docs told everyone how terribly NPD I was. Lots of pretentious (I mean, like college professors and other people...well-educated, under paid, uber-pretentious by nature) would pick on me for being NPD. I guess I was NPD and they were "authentic" or something. I dunno. For my progress/transformation, I think the NPD was loved away by Christ, which is awesome, because everybody else was extremely sadistic and punitive towards me...for having been diagnosed with NPD. At age 18-20.
People are cruel, too. I think that I was really childlike and childish and then went crazy and had all kinds of shrink-induced trauma and brain damage, so I'm just now facing reality. And it bites, honestly. Nobody in the world cares about anybody's problems very much, especially if you're low on the totem pole. Poor people are routinely oppressed, something even parts of the OT address. And "mental patients..." wow. Sure, you can recover: on our terms. In my case, that means the docs who destroyed me so thoroughly years ago want to control every aspect of my life and tell me how to recover and how to live, what to think, etc. That sort of controlling stuff towards the mentally ill (in large part because poverty overlaps with mental illness) isn't limited to my ex-shrinks. Because I'm not a member of this community, because people project things on to me, because I'm stigmatized, even my neighbors feel like they have the right to control me.
Blah blah blah...back to my original post. I was out driving today (to get cigarettes...terrible, I know) and it dawned on me: new creation in Christ Jesus. That's me, that's you, that's every Born Again Christian. And I felt a peace and serenity, rooted not in therapy, counseling, self-help, self-talk, etc., but rather rooted in Christ. That's huge for me. Coming to the realization that I really, honestly, truly can't think my way out of sin and pain, but must instead rely on Christ (and Him crucified) for everything, that the goal isn't to be "well-adjusted," but rather to be good, not to self-actualize but to die to self daily, etc., that's huge.
Which brings me to another point....my ex-shrinks don't care for my Christianity. I was saved by Pentecostals and have the privilege of talking to an older, wiser, Pentecostal woman often, sometimes daily. Her now deceased husband would chime in sometimes, too. Great people. Anyway, point is...I emailed an ex-shrink (bad move, I know) on some ways that psychology and psychiatry contradict Scripture, and they're less than pleased. That and me saying that Jesus loves poor and stigmatized people. And that I want to be celibate (ex-gay here), per The Bible.
Ramble ramble....point is, I came to the realization that I may not have my original spirit. I mean, I don't know how these things work, but...to say "Jesus healed my Spirit" would be to contradict "I am a new creation in Christ Jesus." I was wretched and broken when I came to Christ, and now I'm prone to sins, still, but I seem to have been made (and am being made) increasingly, surprisingly, amazingly...whole. By coming to the end of myself and relying of Christ and His goodness, I have found (and am finding...hopefully, will find) a whole new life, character, personality, hope, etc. Everything I could ever ask for, plus more.
Sorry this was so long.
I am a broken spirit made whole.
