Narcissism was now my new fixation at this point during the Post-Discard Days, and I waded into its waters without hesitation.
First it was blogs, and then I moved onto The Human Magnet Syndrome by Ross Rosenberg. It was YouTube after that. I couldn’t read all of the time; when I didn’t have the mental energy to crack open a book, I was packing my brain full of video content chattering away about all things narcissism.
I eventually found my way to the video, “Chatting With An Expert On Narcissism,” from the LAHWF channel. Dr. Ramani Durvasula was the expert in question. She was a total stranger to me at the time.
But everything she said made sense. I watched the 40-minute video two or three times back-to-back.
I didn’t want it to end.
25 Points Of YES
I’ve mentioned Dr. Ramani numerous times on this blog. Some of the posts that yield me the most traffic involve her expert information on narcissism.
In particular, I mentioned the 30-point narcissism checklist she includes in her book, Should I Stay Or Should I Go: Surviving a Relationship With A Narcissist, in a blog post from January 2020.
When I first read the book, I obsessed over this checklist, and I filled it out concerning the Gay Narcissist countless times. I even brought the results into one of my therapy sessions with the Lovely Therapist to pick apart the findings.
When I was being as generous as humanly possible, I selected YES on 25 out of 30 items on the list. I’d even go back and undo some of my selections. I wanted to soften some of the severity I thought I was unfairly assigning to the Gay Narcissist.
Something common among those who have lived for years in a narcissistic relationship is this: self-blame.
So, I’d apply Dr. Ramani’s 30-point narcissism checklist to myself to measure my own sins.
Self-blame is addictive, and I constantly struggled to find any way to revel in it. Even though the information was clear and the answers plain, I still couldn’t help myself.
Diagnosis Versus Description
“Why do you continue to doubt yourself?” the Lovely Therapist asked me during the session where I brought up the narcissism checklist findings.
It was a key question.
Even today, as I write this, I still doubt myself over many things—past and present. I know I will doubt myself over a great many more in the future. And while revisiting all of these occurrences in my life when I was in a gay narcissistic relationship, I still sometimes take inventory of my responsibility.
No, I don’t blame myself for the end of the relationship anymore. Hell, I’m so grateful it’s over that I commend myself for playing any kind of part in putting the whole mess out of its misery once and for all.
I looked over the Dr. Ramani’s narcissism checklist again recently, with the clarity of years-long distance. I’m still stunned at how closely it mirrors the behavior of the Gay Narcissist. How did I put up with all of that for years?
As I said in my original blog post, Dr. Ramani stresses that Should I Stay Or Should I Go is not a clinical manual. It’s a survival guide for people in narcissistic relationships. You should take all of its information and use it to help yourself. I’m well aware that is never easy for a person freshly emerging from a narcissistic relationship. Often, it is impossible.
Still, the checklist does not exist to assign anyone with a clinical diagnosis. It is provided for you to recognize patterns of behavior in your difficult and antagonistic partner and organize those patterns under a descriptive label for you so you can understand what’s going on in your life and decide how to move forward.
Narcissism is not a clinical diagnosis. It is a descriptive term.
The checklist, along with the rest of the book, was an incredible help to me in the early weeks and months of the narcissistic discard. While my mind was polluted with thoughts of the Gay Narcissist and the New Supply building a perfect life together, I began to realize more and more from all of the knowledge I was absorbing that these were fabrications and illusions projected by the Gay Narcissist combined with my own white-knuckled need to believe everything was my fault.
But no matter how much I tried to ignore this, the checklist never lied. Even when I gave the Gay Narcissist a pass on some “maybe” and “a little” responses, he was still well into an unpleasant range on Dr. Ramani’s 30-point narcissism checklist.
Moving on was becoming easier a little bit more each day with information like this.
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If you’re interested in learning more about narcissism, toxic relationships, dark personalities, and sexuality, then I highly recommend the books below.
Please consider buying through the provided Amazon Associate links. While the content on my website is yours to read for free, I do appreciate any support offered toward my work.
The reading list includes:
Should I Stay Or Should I Go: Surviving A Relationship With A Narcissist (Dr. Ramani Durvasula)
The Human Magnet Syndrome: The Codependent Narcissist Trap (Dr. Ross Rosenberg)
The Sociopath Next Door (Dr. Martha Stout)
Without Conscience: The Disturbing World Of The Psychopaths Among Us (Dr. Robert D. Hare)
In Sheep’s Clothing: Understanding And Dealing With Manipulative People (Dr. George Simon)
Being Homosexual: Gay Men And Their Development ( Dr. Richard Isay)
The Velvet Rage: Overcoming The Pain Of Growing Up Gay In A Straight Man’s World (Dr. Alan Downs)
