Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

Narcissistic Personality Disorder is characterized by a long-standing pattern of grandiosity (either in fantasy or actual behavior), an overwhelming need for admiration, and usually a complete lack of empathy toward others. People with this disorder often believe they are of primary importance in everybody’s life or to anyone they meet. While this pattern of behavior may be appropriate for a king in 16th Century England, it is generally considered inappropriate for most ordinary people today.

People with narcissistic personality disorder often display snobbish, disdainful, or patronizing attitudes. For example, an individual with this disorder may complain about a clumsy waiter’s “rudeness” or “stupidity” or conclude a medical evaluation with a condescending evaluation of the physician.

In laypeople terms, someone with this disorder may be described simply as a “narcissist” or as someone with “narcissism.” Both of these terms generally refer to someone with narcissistic personality disorder. Symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder

In order for a person to be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) they must meet five or more of the following symptoms:

Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)

Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)

Requires excessive admiration

Has a very strong sense of entitlement, e.g., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations

Is exploitative of others, e.g., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends

Lacks empathy, e.g., is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others

Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her

Regularly shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

http://psychcentral.com/disorders/narcissistic-personality-disorder-symptoms/

La la...connect the dots....

"Jenna. When I met you, just three years ago, you were… farmCurious. You had three sheep, a few chickens, and that's it. Now you have mastered this place."

Brett isn't one to hand out compliments. I didn't believe him, but he had my attention. Master? Are you kidding me? Yet that strong a word has a lot of weight and it made me pause, think, and reevaluate what I had all around me.

I thought about how the day before I had taken two live roosters and turned them into food. How I taught this skill to a friend and together we butchered seven birds. I thought about my demonstration bird and the perfect kill stroke of the hatchet. I thought about the dozens and dozens of birds it took to get to such a point of confidence in teaching such a slaughter to others. The woman just a few years earlier was a vegetarian who thought fox hunting was along the same lines as vehicular manslaughter. That growth is something.

I thought about the sheep I just sold him, four large and healthy animals we loaded into the back of his truck with our own hands and my dog. Gibson and I are not sheepdog trial stars, nor are we anything special. But we did work as a team, him reading me and I reading him and communicated the work of gathering sheep and at the end of the day he had certainly helped to do the work he was bred for. That doesn't just happen. It was three years of working and living side-by-side, on this little farm. That relationship is something.

I thought about that hill side I am so ashamed of. And how even if it is a disaster, it is MY disaster. That this is land I own, bought myself, and raise food on. That I had a whole plan on paper for re-seeding and healing my mistakes and that is something. Even though it was a sloppy first-three years it was also impermanent. This wasn't a jail-sentence, but an interim. And a mistake that one summer of proper seeding and nature's blessing could return to grass, and eventually, livestock. The video is showing you dirty underwear, but you can do laundry. It's never too late to wash those drawers. That realization is something.

And yes, my body isn't something you'll find molded out of plastic at the GAP modeling a sweater. But you know what, it's my body. It is alive in every sense, and only getting better with every year. It's got curves and it knows what to do with them. It can buck hay, carry full-grown goats, ride a draft horse up a hill, and hit a bullseye with a good arrow. It can run, swim, smile, and shine. It has loved men, climbed mountains, and smote epic summer jogs. Plastic people can not do these things. They do not even try.

So from a few dead chickens, a dirt hill, and four sold sheep I got a little perspective, thanks to Brett McLeod. All it took was letting myself choose to see the positive instead of my haunting negatives. I am all those things I said in the beginning of this post, but I am more than that, too. I am a woman (not a girl) who has fought and won the life she desperately wanted. I have gone from half-hour rides on dressage horses at lesson barns to traveling miles by horse cart from my own front lawn. I have learned to spin wool, chop firewood, heat my home, milk goats, breed critters, and sell pigs. I am a hopeless romantic, morally secure, spiritually wealthy, and a powerhouse of hope and force. I have grown so much, more than anything else on this farm that was ever so planted and it truly floors me when I think about it. You can go back to the beginning of this blog and read a life from a total beginner who had no idea what was happening, just the passion to try. Now there's a lot more frustration and fear, yes. And a lot of healing of mind and land to happen, but I am certainly equipped to pull both off. I needed a lumberjack to tell me that. I needed a witness.

I am not a failure. Cold Antler is not a failure. It's just a beginning.

And that's some serious perspective.

http://coldantlerfarm.blogspot.com/2013/11/perspective.html?m=1

I'm fairly certain Jenna pulled off meeting not just 5 but all symptoms of NPD in the above post alone.

I have been reading the Cold Antler Farm blog for sometime now, and almost immediately I noticed an overwhelming if not overpowering trend of self congratulating superiority.  Blogs and books are written with the driving force of a woman obsessed with being unique.

It's a me vs them mentality...

I assure you Jenna, western saddle vs dressage/english, horse vs pony, riding vs driving, kilt vs skirt, falconry vs volunteering at a wildlife rescue, a large border collie vs small border collie, curves or not, hot tubbing and drinking vs tubing and drinking (ugh, stupid frat kids)...it goes on and on.

So you take hobbies or skills enjoyed or known by many and try to spin it as something out of the realm of possibility and if that's not enough belittle those who don't participate or do so in a different manner.

'It's got curves and it knows what to do with them. It can buck hay, carry full-grown goats, ride a draft horse up a hill, and hit a bullseye with a good arrow. It can run, swim, smile, and shine. It has loved men, climbed mountains, and smote epic summer jogs. Plastic people can not do these things. They do not even try.'

Is it possible by curves you mean fat and by plastic you mean fit?

I assure you, it doesn't take curves of nonplastic to carry livestock or ride a horse, to love or be loved, or to simply be active...or just be.

Being special isn't being better or superior, its being your own special self.