Just what's behind our obsession to over diagnose our partners as psychopaths?

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

Not only was she 100% insane, she slowly made me feel insane as well.

I know what you mean GB, and in keeping with the spirit of this thread, someone with a personality disorder is not technically insane, even though an informal use of the term might seem right; that's exactly how I put it initially, I fled the relationship with what was left of my sanity.  And in fact, I first found this website by googling "psychopath", turns out she's not one, but it seemed like an appropriate label at the time, and that search led me into the wonderful world of personality disorders.  Easy to see why those labels get thrown around in the culture so freely.

[fromheeltoheal]

Not only was she 100% insane, she slowly made me feel insane as well.

I know what you mean GB, and in keeping with the spirit of this thread, someone with a personality disorder is not technically insane, even though an informal use of the term might seem right; that's exactly how I put it initially, I fled the relationship with what was left of my sanity.  And in fact, I first found this website by googling "psychopath", turns out she's not one, but it seemed like an appropriate label at the time, and that search led me into the wonderful world of personality disorders.  Easy to see why those labels get thrown around in the culture so freely.

[seenr]

I first found this website by googling "psychopath", turns out she's not one, but it seemed like an appropriate label at the time, and that search led me into the wonderful world of personality disorders.  Easy to see why those labels get thrown around in the culture so freely.

I know in the past when her & I broke up, I used terms like 'Narcissist' in messages to her. That was unfair. I am not a professional and have no right to call her something like that.

So this time around, I haven't said anything. All I know is that her decision making and thought process is a lot different to mine and I felt like the harder I worked in the relationship, the less reward I was receiving from it. Something was wrong, I think it was a lot on her side, but who knows, it could have been me too. I'm said that it didn't work out.

[fromheeltoheal]

I know in the past when her & I broke up, I used terms like 'Narcissist' in messages to her. That was unfair. I am not a professional and have no right to call her something like that.

And again in the spirit of this thread, there are now quite a few peer reviewed studies that link 'narcissism' with social media, not in a personality disorder way, but in the tendency to self-promote way, and the overall 'narcissification' of the culture in general.  "Narcissist" has become another popular and loosely defined term, although someone with NPD or strong narcissistic traits will have a field day with these relatively new platforms.  Most of us noticed; I loved the text and Facebook version of my ex, this fictional character, the real one, not so much.  So there's a key for all of us: if you really want to get to know someone, lose the technology and spend time together; we've been evolving our gut feel ability for millions of years, turns out it doesn't work on an iPhone, too new.