u/Messy-Abnormal-2835

I have no interest in anything. Everything I used to do for fun as a child was all a form of escapism.

In school, the fear of being looked down upon by teachers or humiliated by other students is what forced me to keep my grades in check.

At the end of high school, I had no idea what to pursue since the only thing that I wanted to do during my free time as a teen was to eat, sleep and spend hours on the Internet researching why I am the way I am.

Because I wasn't passionate about what I was pursuing and was also afraid of getting a job, I did really bad during my bachelor and have been unemployed for a year.

Even now, I only do things to avoid humiliation, like showing up to hangouts to not be hated by my friends.

Therapy hasn't helped me at all in the past because they think I'm a sweet person and they just give me the same advice my mom gives me for free.

I recently became an atheist after being an agnostic for a long time. Growing up, my parents were religious but they never forced religion upon me except during festivals when I was expected to pray to god. Or when we occasionally went to the temple.

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I always had doubts about stories like the Mahabharata (or any of the god stories for that matter), but I did believe in the possibility of a god and even thought I had a special connection to him. Especially shiva since I come from a family of shiva devotees. I thought that I was a lucky child because I had a special connection to god.

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I also believed in astrology. In fact, I was obsessed with it ever since I learnt about it and would spend ages reading about my moon sign, learning about all the different signs, and different aspects of the birth chart. I've used astrology calculators so many times that I wouldn't be surprised if one of the website owners shows up at my door step. I also used it to understand other people in my life.

I think the worst thing I did was spend 4500 rupees on an astrological report from an astrologer on YouTube who I was convinced was genuine (Unsurprisingly, that report was really bad. I expected a personalised analysis but it turned out to be a bunch of vague descriptions in a poorly formatted word document).

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I was obsessed with other personality systems too like MBTI and enneagram, neither of which have much scientific basis either.

To be honest, these personality systems were a way for me to label myself, to understand and justify my behaviour.

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Another thing that I believed in was the evil eye. I would tell everyone I knew that I was gonna fail an exam or that I barely prepared, to prevent people from jinxing, and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy because whenever I did tell people that I was studying, I would be so worried about not living up to their expectations, that I would just not study as well. However when I didn't tell anyone, I would be more motivated to study and hence would get better grades.

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Also, I would assess my gut feeling (which I believed to be a message from my "strong" subconscious mind that god had blessed me with) to make decisions (both trivial and important) like what someone thinks of me, whether I should go to the restaurant today, whether I should choose a certain subject etc.

In my defense, these instincts have been right on occasion and for major decisions I do use logic as well. But I realised a while back (through conversations with ChatGPT of all places) that my instincts were mostly anxiety.

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Lastly, I became a supporter of "natural" things in the past couple of years. I wasn't like this as a child (in fact I loved regular skincare products), but in my pre-teens, I had really bad anxiety and would have frequent panic attacks that left me and my mom sleepless for months on ends. We would go to the emergency and every time they would say that I was fine and that I should just stop stressing. That used to frustrate me a lot because I didn't feel like I was stressing. I mean, I didn't have anything to stress about.

This happened like every two years and I used to wonder whether this was going to be my fate.

To shorten a long story, I went to an alternative medicine practitioner and ate a bunch of expensive herbal medications that they prescribed and they helped relieve me from my symptoms. This was when I started to hate everything that was not "natural" as well as actual doctors.

Fast forward, I had anxiety attacks for a couple of days and then start confessing everything that was on my mind (because I was convinced I was going to die), and all of the symptoms suddenly started to fade. This makes me feel guilty because both my mom and I spent decades struggling through nights together, running to hospitals and spending so much money for literally nothing (though in the process they did find out I had a hormonal issue, so I guess it wasn't literally nothing).

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Anyway, even though now I don't believe in any of this stuff, I keep catching myself thinking things like:

"I wonder if all these bad things are happening to person x because they're in the middle of sade sati."

"I shouldn't tell this to anyone to avoid the evil eye."

"I should pray to god to make this happen."

"I should ask my instinct first before deciding."

"There are so many chemicals in this product. It's not good for me."

It feels so confusing and I'm starting to wonder whether I'm truly an atheist and if I'm just not smart enough to be one.

No mental health advocate would tell a person struggling with depression or anxiety to stop feeling sad or anxious.

No mental health advocate would make fun of or criticise someone with autism if they do something messed up.

No mental health advocate would tell someone with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder to stop having intrusive thoughts and to quit their rituals.

Yet when it comes to pwNPD, these same mental health warriors will do a complete 180.

A sample of the things I've heard from those who suspect I am narcissistic:

"Just be a better person"

"Learn to control your ego"

"Stop being so arrogant"

"You're not human"

"You're evil"

"You should be put to shame"

How is any of this okay?

A pwNPD, due to both genetics and growing up in a neglectful and/or abusive environment wasn't able to fully develop a self and is therefore coping in the only way their childhood self thought was possible. They didn't choose to have a mental disorder.

That doesn't mean that all their behaviour should be justified, but it means that they need access to the right kind of help.

But when people dehumanise those struggling with NPD and spread false narratives about them, it makes accessing treatment a lot harder.

What makes this worse is that most mental health professionals believe and preach these false narratives about NPD as well. They also don't know how to properly identify and treat someone with NPD.

Every mental health professional I've been to has told me that I'm too warm and sweet to be a narcissist.

My friends tell me that it's not possible since narcissists don't think they have narcissism and also because I'm nice, emotional and empathetic.

Something seriously needs to change in the mental health space.

We need more awareness as well as more effective and accessible treatment options.

I really don't want to talk badly about my family online, but this has been really bothering me and I don't know where to let it all out.

So until the age of 10, I didn't have severe issues with hygiene. I only used a bar soap and a cheap kid's shampoo, yet still had thick, straight and shiny hair. And once a week, I had to do an oil bath.

After that, puberty hit and things became more complicated. I started sweating a lot more, had more body hair, oily skin, pimples... you know the whole drill.

I wanted to start using a face wash because I heard that it could be helpful. The first time, my parents told me that I'm too young to use a face wash but after I insisted, they gave in. Unfortunately, that particular face wash was not suitable for my skin so it made things worse. I also wanted to use a deodorant, but that was a no-go because apparently it can cause cancer. I was told to use perfume instead.

I had PCOS (which I didn't know at that time), so I started having severe hairfall and seborrheic dermatitis amongst other issues. I wanted to use an anti-dandruff shampoo which they agreed to, but after one use told me to throw it away since it only got rid off the dandruff for a day and was too strong.

As time went on, they became more and more obsessed with buying and using natural things. I was made to oil my hair and body more frequently, use a "natural" shampoo, a "natural" bar soap, a "natural" face wash, and aloe vera gel to get rid of frizz. I was not allowed to use anything else. Even my toothpaste had to be "natural".

I became more insecure about myself because I knew how terrible my oily/gelled hair looked like, how it smelled like coconut oil, and how much I reeked after a hot summer day. I justified my decisions by telling myself that I am healthier than other people.

The shampoo also didn't help with my seb derm and whenever I pointed that out, they'd tell me that I should learn to wash my hair properly using a comb.

But this all changed years later in college when I started to consume more social media and all of the rhetoric about South Asians online made me more conscious of the way I carried myself. I also started consuming more content from science communicators and it helped me build more faith in regular products.

I was hesitant to ask my parents for the stuff I wanted, but for some reason they gave me the green light. I was happy and started buying products one by one based on what dermatologists and doctors online recommended. I experimented with a couple of shampoos, conditioners and leave-in conditioners, and even bought myself a moisturizer.

I discovered my favourite shampoo, Nizoral, and a really good conditioner.

Then about a month ago, I decided to show my family what I bought after a day of shopping and they were shocked because one of the products contained urea and apparently it's an ingredient in fertilizer.

The next week, they started looking through all my products and told me to throw them all of them out because they contain so many chemicals which can damage my skin. Apparently, they thought I was just going to try them out temporarily but they believe it had gotten too far.

I forgot to mention that they are anti-science, so me explaining to them that these products are tested is not going to work with them.

So in the end I had to throw everything out and go back to the stuff I used to use.

I'm sad because I was planning on purchasing sunscreen, a nice deodorant/antiperspirant, a fluoride toothpaste etc. but I guess they all have to wait.

My scalp is super irritated and my seb derm, which had actually disappeared after regular Nizoral use, has made a comeback. When I tell them that, they either say I need to wash my scalp properly, drink more water or lose weight (I am obese so the advise isn't wrong, but I don't see the connection with my scalp).

I'm not sure if this is the right subreddit for this topic, so feel free to delete this post if it's not.

Growing up, I moved often between Europe and India, and I remember when I was younger, most people actually seemed to like Indians or feel neutral about them. Many of our neighbours were curious to get to know us and learn about our culture.

Don't get me wrong, there was definitely racism against Indians even then (the usual nerdy stereotype, curry smell, dirty etc.), but the difference between then and now I feel is that they were mostly unserious, and most people weren't threatened by us or interested in kicking us out of the country.

Nowadays, I go down the street and I see many people look elsewhere when I'm in their sight. I used to tell myself that I was just overthinking it because of all of the comments online, but after a couple of incidents, I no longer believe that to be true.

Two years ago in Portugal, we had a man come up to my family while we were waiting at a bus stop and say "We are from the Goan liberation army and we'll eat Modi's cow". In my head I was like sure go ahead, no one's gonna stop ya.

A few months ago, I was trying to buy tickets for the train from the ticket machine and a security officer came and helped me out. We were both speaking in one of the local languages. Afterwards, my sibling told me that while I was busy purchasing the tickets, the officer had said something along the lines of "I bet you don't have this in your country".

Occasionally, old people in public transport will greet other passengers but when they see me, they avoid.

Even my friends will mention things like Indians stealing jobs, Indian street food, cow poop, and talk about how annoying the stereotypical Indian accent is (I don't have the stereotypical accent btw) in front of me.

These are just a handful of examples.

Anyway, I'm just tired of this.

EDIT: Modified a few wordings.