Narcisstic personality disorder?

[Elise.Matei]

...Is that It? All the internal struggles, the emotions, the fear, the elation, Narcissism?

...I love her deeply, anyway, she is gorgeous by the way, but this is a brick wall- do you think so too?

U answered ur own question. IF there truly IS a sense of internal struggling wrt your gender identification that is ameliorated when you allow yourself free expression as the female you feel yourself to be, then I would say no, it is not simple narcissism. Only u know that. If on the other hand its just something u like to do for, say, sexual reasons, then it falls more in the domain of "recreational" sexual activity and - IMHO - it would be insane to lose a gorgeous woman over THAT? The question u have to ask is, if u had to make a choice, between indulging ur desire (or need) to dress, act and be a woman or not in order to preserve ur relationship with this woman, which way would you choose? How deep is your love?

[shannonFL]

Way back in time, early teens I guess, walking through a mall, past the clothing stores, shoe stores, and a wig shop, something clicked, and in my mind, I put together the dresses, shoes, wigs, makeup and ...me. It may have started as a recreation,but progression has resulted in some gender questioning. I would give up everything for my wife, thats just the way it is, I cannot change that, I also cannot change this.....I don't know what to call it anymore, if could just wish away the angst .

[TSchapes]

hardly narcissistic. If you were, you would not be asking this question, nor considering the affects of your cross-dressing on your SO.

I love it when a lay person goes trolling through the DSM-IV looking for an explanation of something without the training or understanding.

Now if your cross-dressing has made your family bankrupt, you don't interact with then and ignore them, and the pink fog is all you ever think of, then they have a case. Otherwise, another label to control you!

Love, Tracy

[battybattybats]

Of course everyone has their own (equally legitimate) opinions on things,

Everyone is equally legitimately entitled to forming and holding their own opinion. But not all opinions are equally true. There is still a real world outside our blurred subjective narrow experience and understanding of it that can nevertheless be weighed, measured and explored and some will know more about bits of it because they have explored those bits far more and some just guess better than others

As for narcissism.. nope. I discussed my crossdressing with a very well respected psychologist I was seeing for CBT techniques to help deal with swift decision making during bad bouts of disability-indiced cognitive impairment.

Perfectly sane with extremely high resilliance but in a number of very-high-risk catagories for developing depression: Disabled, with CFS as the disability, socially isolated, living with emotionally-abusive mentally-ill possibly-suicidal girlfriend, closeted crossdresser struggling not to crossdress.

If it was narcissism i think she'd have picked that up, stated so plainly and treated me for it. Instead I got some CBT techniques, advice on handling the girlfriend and advice on coming to terms with crossdressing.

[MissConstrued]

I love it when a lay person goes trolling through the DSM-IV looking for an explanation of something without the training or understanding.

Or any idea of why the DSM exists. It is for the purpose of describing enough "disorders" -- real and imagined -- so that every single human being on the planet may be "diagnosed" as mentally ill. It's good for drug sales of course, but its real reason will become clear within a decade.

[Lorileah]

I think this is an interesting spin...

http://www.freud.org.uk/narcissism.html

Interesting article. I am wondering now how I can get 10 times the pleasure. Oh look! a mirror!

[2b.Lauren]

There are only about 6% of Americans with the diagnosis of NPD in the population. The actual ability to get the proper diagnosis for this and all personality disorders is not that likely. We tend to love to lump people into catagories. If you do this then you must have that, as if we need an explanation for what we do. The world does, but hey what do they know. Certainly, I agree that all of us have certain aspects or parts of the major personality disorders in our make up, but not to the point of them being so pervasive in our lives that they render us unable to function, which is also a major part of having the diagnosis in the first place. Not many things get my panties in a wad, but folks passing around psychiatric disorders like chips from the bag, will get me every time. I have seen the life changing stigma that can be placed on a person with a label like that.

[Gabrielle Hermosa]

Is that It? All the internal struggles, the emotions, the fear, the elation,
Narcissism?

I think it's safe to say that most crossdressers are narcissistic - at least to some extent. I know I am and I'm very honest about it.

When I'm all dressed up, I love to look at myself in the mirror, and then walk to another mirror and look some more, and find another mirror... we have several in the house - more for me than for my wife.

I understand my own narcissism factor and therefore can keep it in check. Unlike the "not caring" comment in your post, I care very much about other people. I care especially about those I can relate to a lot - like my cd sisters.

Cding is not the result of narcissism, but rather narcissism often accompanies those who cd. My opinion on the matter, anyway.

It's ok to be narcissistic, btw. Just keep yourself in check.

[battybattybats]

I think it's safe to say that most crossdressers are narcissistic - at least to some extent. I know I am and I'm very honest about it.

Actually I'd suggest that most men and most women have an unhealthy degree of lack of narcissism. I mean this seriously.

Most guys disregard their appearance entirely or substantially, when appearance is the presentation of the inner self thats a bad bad thing.

But worse many women utterly despise their appearance or facets thereof and that is truly horrific!

I think CDs are mostly at close to a healthy level of narcissim, its everyone else we seriously should be concerned about.

[Sigrid Cutie]

well all i can say is that i am very narcissistic, and i truly love my self, i always thought that was one of the reasons i CD, i love to see Sigrid in the mirror and in pics .

[Satrana]

Looking at yourself in the mirror is not a sign of narcissism if you are checking out your outfit, wig, make-up etc. CDs do it because we find it aesthetically pleasing and it is different from our normal appearance. We feel good seeing the transformation from male to female. That is a far cry from a narcissistic person who loves themselves, thinks the world revolves around them and believes their everyday image is beautiful.

If CDs did have a narcissistic personality we would stare lovingly at our male selves as well. I doubt if any CD does that.

[shannonFL]

Who I am, Who I'm not, & Who I want to be, thanks to everyone here for helping with the Who I'm not part. Pretty deep and thoughtful reading for sure. My inner narccissist has put up a couple pics on my profile