I'm 34, I have been going through a time of reflection following the end of a 3-year relationship that was very important to me. As a result my self-esteem has been at rock bottom and recently I have started to question my life and how I behave and I think that I may be a narcissist. I have some very clear issues that have been pervasive throughout my life and all of my friends and partners can easily identify these.

Before I continue here are my scores:

NPI 16-18
OCD 2/20
Codependency 5

I absolutely do have empathy but I can switch it off at will. I call this my 'stone face' when literally all the emotion leaves my body and significant others hate this during arguments and it has caused significant relationship issues for me. However when I don't do this I can be a very kind and empathetic person.

From my early twenties to now (a decade) I have been obsessed with fame and success and I have pursued this actively through artistic projects, politics and other means. I find 'normal' life mundane and people who pursue doing things like gardening and decorating their house I do not respect this behaviour, I consider them 'NPCs'. To me, the whole purpose of life is to be important and to leave a legacy. As a result, I am constantly disappointed when my projects fail and I have taken massive blows to my ego when things haven't turned out and I haven't become famous. I probably haven't put enough work in either objectively so I do definitely have entitlement issues with regards to this.

I had a very traumatic childhood upbringing and now I understand that narcissism forms a very clear response to that. I was in physical danger most of the time as a child and my parents were quite crazy without going into further detail I think I can clearly see how because of that I have become obsessed with myself and self-pity is a very common emotion for me.

I hate not being good at things - as a result I am now good at a lot of things. The cycle will go like this: discover I am not very good at something -> becoming obsessed with improving at it -> get to a level I deem acceptable (usually way higher than most average people) -> become bored with that thing and move on. For example, I am in the top 5% of worldwide chess players, I can solve a Rubix cube, I can read music, etc all of which I did because being average is like agony to me.

I do not struggle to make friends or attract partners but longer term the traits do seem to destroy all the relationships I have had. I am eager and willing to change, and I have been reading books about narcissism recently which really illuminated the problem and hit home for me. What I am unsure of is whether I have NPD, whether a diagnosis would be helpful for me or unhelpful, and what I should do to try to become a healthier person? There are very little and poor mental health services where I live so I don't even think finding good therapy is an option.

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