How to delete my Samsung account permanently - Quora

Original sources of this guide (might be more up to date in case you're viewing a mirror of it):
https://old.reddit.com/youtubedl/comments/jktx5b/how_to_anonymously_host_the_continued_development/
https://raddle.me/f/AntiCopyright/121477/how-to-anonymously-host-the-continued-development-of-youtube
In this guide I will go through how to anonymously host the continued development of youtube-dl offshore using companies that have a track record of being very resilient to DMCA takedowns. As a general disclaimer, youtube-dl is not illegal, no matter how much the RIAA wants it to be. Hosting it is not illegal, but the RIAA doesn't care about what's legal, so we'll have to act accordingly and not rely on companies that will bend over backwards for them. This post is basically my way of flipping the bird to the RIAA.
DMCA ignored hosting providers
RIAA report including DMCA ignored hosting providers
MPAA report including DMCA ignored hosting providers
United States Trade Representative report including DMCA ignored hosting providers
ESA report including DMCA ignored hosting providers
Europol report including DMCA ignored hosting providers
La Liga report including DMCA ignored hosting providers
Former bulletproof hosting reseller reviews offshore hosting providers
Former bulletproof hosting reseller on what the most warez friendly hosting providers are
(Novogara aka Ecatel recently got busted for tax evasion and are shady as hell in general, allowing anything to be hosted on their servers, so it's best to stay away from them.)
Take into account what data center the hosting provider uses. If they don't run their their own data center the company running the data center can shut down the server if the data center isn't DMCA ignored. That isn't to say that resellers can't be resilient, but it depends on how resilient the data center they use is.
This goes without saying, but keeping the hosting provider secret makes it a lot harder to take down.
Some countries like Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Korea force hosting providers to use government SSL certificates, meaning that they can MITM the connection.
CDNs and proxies to hide the real hosting provider
DDoS-Guard - Highly recommended. Based in Russia. Doesn't care about DMCA at all. DDoS-Guard is mentioned in the MPAA's Notorious Markets report and currently provides protection for Nyaa (the world's largest public torrent tracker for anime and manga) and Sci-Hub (the world's largest piracy website for academic papers which is under constant legal pressure from big US publishers). Has a free plan and accepts Bitcoin for paid plans. DDoS-Guard might be inaccessible outside of Europe for a few hours/month, meaning that sites using it would be unreachable outside of Europe during that time. This is probably peering related, but I'm not sure. Just tell site visitors to use ProtonVPN's free plan and connect to one of their VPN servers in the Netherlands if that happens.
While I recommend DDoS-Guard, I'll list some other alternatives in case something happens:
CloudFlare - Might be a honeypot, especially since I'm not sure how they'd be able to get away with this otherwise, but CloudFlare works for now. Just don't expect privacy from them. They're a US based company so they'll probably be reigned in eventually, but for now they're having their Wild West days. CloudFlare has a free plan. If CloudFlare is not configured properly when set up the real hosting provider will be leaked. More info about that here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

It's a myth that Cloudflare does not forward DMCA complaints, they forward everything. However, Cloudflare does not store any "sensitive data", which means forwarding "useless" information is similar like ignoring the DMCA request. A general advice is that whenever you use Cloudflare you should use a bulletproof backend server as well to avoid DMCA takedown request in the first place, so less or nothing gets forwarded (less "leakage risk").

Source: CHEF-KOCH / Warez / Bulletproof Hosting.md
OVPN's public IPv4 proxy (the Switzerland proxy) - Swedish company that provided a proxy for The Pirate Bay for a while, went to court because of it, and won. The two advantages with their Switzerland proxy in particular is that it's hosted by Interxion - the same Netherlands based company that is hosting Feral Hosting's DMCA ignored seedboxes - and that Switzerland is a pretty good jurisdiction. OVPN also scores well on That One Privacy Site. Accepts Bitcoin.
Before we go into registering a domain, I think it's worth considering if it's really worth keeping the name youtube-dl or if it could be spun off into a more accurate and less trademark infringing name like media-dl, for example. It downloads video and audio from a lot more sites than just YouTube, after all.
Resilient TLDs (there are more options than just these)
.is - As of a few years ago ISNIC had only ever suspended one domain and it was connected to ISIS.

When we asked whether ISNIC would follow Greenland’s lead and move for a proactive suspension, we got a clear answer.
“The short answer is no. Such an action would require a formal order from an Icelandic court. ISNIC is not responsible for a registrant’s usage of their domains,” ISNIC’s Marius Olafsson told TorrentFreak.
“This policy applies equally to any .is domain,” Olafsson says, adding that it’s the domain owner’s responsibility to abide by the law, not theirs.

Source: https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-finds-safe-haven-in-iceland-switches-to-is-domain-130425/

“Domains can hardly be considered illegal any more than a street address. A street address is not illegal even if there is illegal activity in one apartment at the address,” ISNIC says.

Source: https://torrentfreak.com/torrent-domain-suspensions-damage-credibility-registrar-says-140617/
.ru / .su - Good for anything that doesn't affect Russia or go against Russian interests.
.to - Used by a lot of torrent and other filesharing websites. I have never seen one get suspended. .to is managed by a US company though, so it being "bulletproof" could change.
.cr is a resilient TLD according to the International Intellectual Property Alliance's (IIAP) report:

thepiratebay.cr domain is still online despite actions against it from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica. Other notorious infringing sites are following the trend of using .cr domains as a safe haven (e.g., kickasstorrents.cr). Costa Rica’s failure to deal effectively with its obligations regarding online infringement, more than eight years after they came into force under DR-CAFTA, is a serious concern.

In case you want cheaper options that are available on Njalla, .ws and .ch are said to be pretty good.
.ec is also looking pretty solid as Library Genesis (the world's largest book piracy website, which is under constant legal pressure from big US publishers) have been using it for some time without getting suspended.
Vulnerable TLDs
.com, .net, .cc, .tv, and .name are operated by VeriSign, a Washington DC based company that is controlled by the US government.
.org, .info, .asia, .aero, .ag, .bz, .gi, .hgn, .in, .lc, .me, .mobi, .mn, .sc and .vc are operated by Afilias, a company that blocked one of WikiLeaks' domains.
.site, .website, .tech, .online, .uno, .fun, .space, .store, and .press are operated by Radix, a company that has an anti-piracy partnership with the MPAA.
All TLDs operated by Donuts, a company that has an anti-piracy partnership with the MPAA.
Resilient domain registrars/resellers
Recommended:
Njalla - As anonymous as you can get when buying a domain. Njalla is a Nevis registered company that buys the more common domains from Canada based Tucows, which is pretty abuse friendly and some TLDs like .is they buy from the registry directly. They then lease it to you while legally speaking they own the domain. This means that you don't have to give them any personal information to register it and they take Monero. Njalla is mentioned in the RIAA and MPAA's Norotious Markets reports. Njalla has a Tor Hidden Service, PGP key, and has support for registration via XMPP with OTR. Njalla is run by one of the Pirate Bay founders and they kept the Pirate Bay sense of humor alive when dealing with DMCA.
Other:
NiceVPS - As anonymous as you can get when buying a domain. NiceVPS is a domain reseller based in the Dominican Republic that buys the domain from easyDNS and then leases it to you, meaning that you don't have to provide any personal information since they own the domain on paper. Accepts Monero. Has a Tor Hidden Service, PGP key, and warrant canary. I've seen NiceVPS recommended on some websites, but I'm not sure how solid it is. Doesn't seem to offer all of the TLDs that Njalla, Openprovider, and easyDNS offer, including a lot of the more resilient ones.
Openprovider aka Hosting Concepts B.V. - Netherlands based registrar that is one of the most abused registrars by rogue pharma sites. Doesn't suspend domains without a WIPO decision or court order. Has a full section dedicated to it in the United States Trade Representative's 2019 report and a brief mention in the 2020 report.
easyDNS - Canada based registrar that has a big focus on due process. The current registrar of The Pirate Bay's .org domain, which it defended against the RIAA. Wouldn't suspend a domain for a video downloader like youtube-dl unless ordered by ICANN, CIRA, or a court according to their takedown policy. Accepts Bitcoin.
There are a few resellers of bulletproof Russian and Chinese registrars that accept cryptocurrency, but because those are pretty much only used by cyber criminals they would not be a good look for this project. And there's also the risk that they'll just be gone one day without a word and no way to transfer domain and not much recourse. Because of those reasons I'm omitting them from this list. I think the above mentioned registrars and resellers will be good enough, the project is legal after all.
Worth considering:
In order to anonymously directly register a domain at any of the other mentioned services than Njalla and NiceVPS you'd have to fake the WHOIS information, which violates ICANN's rules and registrars usually suspend domains because of that. I could especially imagine easyDNS doing this. Not sure how the other registrars would react to that, but ICANN does have the power to withdraw their accreditation - meaning that the registrars would lose the ability to issue domains - if they don't follow ICANN's rules. In the cases of Njalla and NiceVPS they aren't a registrar, they just fill in their own details and buy the domain for you from a registry/registrar when you register a domain using them.
If you use Njalla or NiceVPS you're handing over control of the domain to somebody else and have to take their word for it that you'll always have access to the domain. It's easier to trust Njalla than NiceVPS in this case since it's known who owns Njalla and they have more of a track record than NiceVPS, which is fairly unknown.
TLS/SSL
Let's Encrypt - Free, uses open source software, backed by EFF, Mozilla, and others. Easy to set up and easy to maintain with an auto-renewal script.
If you're using CloudFlare, you'll have to use their phony SSL certificate.
Keeping your server secure and other technical advice

Check your server, and how reliable it is in terms of security and privacy, online services like https://centminmod.com can test your server and it's configuration to ensure nothing is "leaking".
Check if someone can see your hidden backend server IP via https://dnsdumpster.com. In general you should block every IP connection to your backend server, only allow your own connection, VPN's or reverse proxies. You quickly can check if someone has an "open" backend IP service via services like https://censys.io.

Source: CHEF-KOCH / Warez / Bulletproof Hosting.md
If you use CloudFlare, also check that your backend isn't leaking using CrimeFlare.
If you have set up email with your domain, use SMPT and a custom mail server so it doesn't leak your origin server IP. Email is the easiest way to leak origin server IP addresses.
Use SSH instead of VNC. With VNC the login information is sent unencrypted via plaintext, meaning that a rogue exit node in the Tor network and any server the login information is sent over on the clearnet could record your login information if they wanted to.
Use a password generator for all accounts and have it set to the max number of characters. Don't put the login information into a proprietary password manager or an online password manager. Make sure to back up the login information to multiple hard drives/SSDs/USBs/etc.
Try and make the site portable so that all software and all configurations can be saved to an ISO that can be spun up at any hosting provider at a moment's notice in case the site has to move at some point.
If you get a VPS, make sure it's KVM. KVM is much more secure than OpenVZ since OpenVZ doesn't have much separation between different customers on the same server. OpenVZ is also easy to oversell. Xen is also secure, but has worse performance than KVM.
Use nginx, it has a lot better performance than Apache.
Use MariaDB. It's a more up to date fork of MySQL developed by MySQL's original developer after he sold MySQL to Oracle. Contains bug fixes that sometimes have not gotten into MySQL yet. It is of course fully compatible with MySQL databases.
Basic security hardening (I'd probably use OSSEC + Shorewall instead of fail2ban and ufw, but I'm not an expert at this ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
nginx configuration for improved security (and performance): GitHub Gist | blog post (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 are both Google Public DNS resolvers, so if you enable OCSP stapling, use a more privacy friendly DNS resolver, like Njalla's public DNS, one of the DNS resolvers mentioned on PrivacyTools, one of the DNS resolvers in DNS66's settings, or an OpenNIC server that doesn't keep logs. Digitalcourage e.V. and Chaos Computer Club are pretty trustworthy organizations, so their DNS servers from DNS66's settings along with Njalla's DNS resolver are probably solid, at least. Few OpenNIC servers seem to last very long, judging by that most of them were added in 2019 and 2020. If you use CloudFlare for the site, just use CloudFlare's 1.1.1.1 DNS, they'll get site traffic data regardless, so just use them for that DNS resolver as well instead of sending out data to another party.
nginx tuning for best performance
nginx SSL/TLS hardening including HTTP Strict Transport Security
Top 25 Nginx Web Server Best Security Practices
Let's Encrypt auto-renewal script
If you need FTP server software, Pure-FTPd is the most secure option. Use SFTP instead of FTPS for better security and less of a headache.
Disable password access for administration, require login using a SSH key, and limit the number of login attempts.
Change default ports, like SSH. If anyone tries to access the default SSH port, have the firewall block them for a few hours.
Disable root login.
More security tips for SSH are available here. Don't implement port knocking though.
Disable nginx logging once everything is set up to protect user privacy and improve performance.
Keep the software up to date to decrease the risk of your serveVPS being hacked.
Don't use analytics. If you have to, self-host Matomo (formerly known as Piwik). It's open source.
Keep up to date backups of the site on multiple hard drives/SSDs/etc.
Anonymous payments
Bitcoin is fully traceable nowadays and tumbling/mixing your Bitcoin won't make any difference.

Tumblers are useless
Against my better judgement, I’m going with this click bait heading, but the premise is correct. Due to the software running real time analysis on the ledger, simply avoiding taint and breaking up coins is now entirely ineffective, as it matches the full bitcoin amount to be received over a period of time, as the software is built around a neural net of sorts (talking out of school here, I’m not a programmer) it appears to self-correct in real time as a more "likely" or "accurate" owner conclusion is reached.

Source: Blockchain Analysis and Anti-Money Laundering (X-post from /DarknetmarketsOz)
Meanwhile Monero was the only cryptocurrency that that the US government couldn't track when they took down one of one of the biggest darknet drug markets and seized the site operator's cryptocurrencies. This is because Monero is the only major cryptocurrency properly designed to be private.
Update:
There has apparently been some recent developments when it comes to tracing Monero. You can read more about it in my comment on Reddit or Raddle. I wouldn't worry too much about it at this stage though.
Use I2P or Tor when transacting with cryptocurrency. I2P has some privacy benefits in its design over Tor:

Unidirectional tunnels instead of bidirectional circuits, doubling the number of nodes a peer has to compromise to get the same information. Protection against detecting client activity, even when an attacker is participating in the tunnel, as tunnels are used for more than simply passing end to end messages (e.g. netDb, tunnel management, tunnel testing) Tunnels in I2P are short lived, decreasing the number of samples that an attacker can use to mount an active attack with, unlike circuits in Tor, which are typically long lived. I2P APIs are designed specifically for anonymity and security, while SOCKS is designed for functionality.

However, I2P doesn't have as much funding and reseach or as big of a developer community behind it. I2P's userbase is also a lot smaller than Tor's. A full comparison about that can be found here. Monero chose I2P over Tor.
More information about Monero + I2P/Tor is available here.
Either get cryptocurrency donations or use a peer-to-peer exchange that doesn't enforce KYC (Know Your Customer) to buy Monero or Bitcoin. Unlike centralized exchanges, private sellers on decentralized exchanges won't automatically submit all their data to the government. Even if you get all of the cryptocurrency via donations and it therefore has no connection to your real identity at all you should still anonymize it via Monero so that it can't be traced from the donation wallet to the hosting provider which you want to keep hidden.
Some private sellers on peer-to-peer exchanges won't require IDs, while some might require it. If nothing is mentioned, it's worth asking the seller before you send them any money. A few even accept cash meetups and cash by mail (watch out for being scammed or mugged though). If you do go to a crypto for cash meetup, make sure it's in a public place with lots of people in case something goes wrong. LocalCoinSwap, LocalCryptos, and LocalMonero even has sellers that accept gift cards (which you could buy with cash in a physical store). However, most gift cards are only redeemable in the country they were bought in, making this an option that won't work outside of the countries the sellers are based in. The one exception to this that I know of are Steam Wallet gift cards, which work internationally.
If your method of paying for cryptocurrency involves going somewhere to buy it/a gift card/a prepaid card/a burner phone, consider leaving your phone at home since it's essentially a tracking beacon. If it's a cryptocurrency for cash meetup you might want to have it with you in case something goes wrong though.
From what I've read there are some centralized exchanges that don't require KYC, but at least some of them freeze funds if they think it seems suspicious (which I would imagine a Tor IP would fall under) and they refuse to release the funds until they have been provided with an ID.
If you decide to buy cryptocurrency using a normal payment method, a wire transfer would be the option that involves the least amount of companies getting the transaction info, though I don't think you'd have much recourse with getting your money back if you got scammed and paid via wire transfer.
Bitcoin ATMs may require ID and usually have surveillance cameras around them, but this may vary depending on where you live.
If you bought Bitcoin, use XMR.to to exchange it to Monero. If the service provider only accepts Bitcoin and not Monero, exchange the Monero back to Bitcoin so that the Bitcoin has been anonymized. Don't pay in Bitcoin without exchanging it to Monero and back first.
Prepaid cards usually require SMS verification and are sometimes limited to purchases within the country they were sold in, so be sure to read up on whatever card you're considering using. Vanilla Visa gift cards used to be the go to for VPN buyers back in the day since they only required putting a zip code into a website, but things change, so read up about activation requirements and international purchases for the card in your country before buying anything and if you get information from an unofficial source, try and make sure that it's at least somewhat recent. If SMS activation is required there are two options. One option is buying a push-button burner phone and a prepaid SIM card at a physical store using cash, activate it at a major public place and then once the prepaid card is activated shut off the phone and take out the SIM card and the battery. Another option is buying access to a dedicated number in the same country that you bought the card in at an online SMS inbox site using cryptocurrency (the free SMS inboxes that have shared phone number might be used up already). The catch 22 there is that you wouldn't have any cryptocurrency yet at this stage, so it's not really an option unless you figure something out that I wasn't able to think of. If the prepaid card can't do international purchases you could withdraw the money into an anonymously created PayPal account (requires SMS verification). Expect the prepaid card and PayPal account to almost certainly get frozen if you try to pay with it over Tor. The risk is lower when paying via a VPN IP, but it's still a notable risk, especially if it's a VPN server with lots of users and you can never verify that the VPN provider isn't logging you. An anonymously paid for self-hosted VPN on a dedicated IP address in the same country that you bought the prepaid card would be less likely to cause the card to get frozen. A residential proxy/proxy would be the least likely to get the card frozen. Just don't connect to that residential or self-hosted VPN/proxy directly using your real IP address since your ISP would see that and since you would be the only user of that self-hosted VPN it would be directly identifying. You could use the prepaid card on public WiFi, but that will give out your general location and will give the WiFi network your IP address. It will also give the WiFi network your MAC address, so be sure to set the MAC address to be random (just search something like "[operating system] random mac address on wifi" on DuckDuckGo). Then there's the issue that most browsers other than Tor Browser, SecBrowser, and Bromite are bad combating browser fingerprinting. Sure you could also customize Firefox with arkenfox user.js (formerly known as ghacks-user.js) and a bunch of add-ons to combat all the different kinds of tracking, but you'll just make your browser more unique the more you modify it.
Anonymous Internet browsing
Use Tor when doing anything in connection with the site, including when using PuTTY and FileZilla. Verify the integrity of the Tor Browser installer using PGP before running it so that you know that it hasn't been tampered with. Use a bridge if you don't want your ISP/government to see that you're using Tor. Running Tor over a VPN may seem like a good idea, but even if the VPN provider really doesn't keep logs (which is impossible to verify) using Tor over VPN can make you easier to track since that makes the VPN service a permanent entry node [1][2][3][4] and there's also VPN fingerprinting. If Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) is a concern you can use Pluggable Transports [1][2] to disguise the Tor traffic. Keep Tor Browser up to date. Never run Tor Browser in full screen. That makes you more easily trackable as websites can detect the real resolution of your screen. Don't install any add-ons or plugins, that makes you a lot easier to track. If you have logged in and then logged out of a site it can link you to other accounts you have on the same site using session cookies if you login to those accounts without hitting the "New Identity" button to relaunch Tor Browser with a clean slate. Block JavaScript when the website doesn't require it, that's the closest thing you'll come to an ad blocker. Use the Hidden Service version of sites when available, that way your Internet traffic never goes onto the clearnet and it also adds three more proxies between you and the site's server for a total of six proxies.
Since you shouldn't use an ad blocker with Tor Browser it's important that you keep your operating system up to date to minimize the risk of getting infected in case you come across some malicious JavaScript via for example malvertising when you have JavaScript activated.
If you use Windows and don't want to switch to Linux (even though you can set up dual boot or just boot it from a USB without even having to install it on your computer), use a non-admin user account and have an admin account that you only use to authorize trusted software to run, that will mitigate 94% of critical Windows vulnerabilities. You can use a tool like W10Privacy to decrease the amount of tracking in Windows 10, just be sure that the tool you use is updated to match the latest version of Windows 10 or you might brick your OS.
Email
Use an end-to-end encrypted no logs email provider located outside of Five Eyes, Germany, Enemies of the Internet, and countries under surveillance - preferably ProtonMail - when signing up for all of those services. Use a different email address for anything not related to the administration of the website. ProtonMail has a Tor Hidden Service, but signing up for ProtonMail is only possible on the clearnet address, so you'd have to go into Tor Browser's privacy settings and change "Prioritize .onion sites when known" from "Always" to "Ask every time" when you register the ProtonMail account. Change it back to "always" once the registration is complete. And yes, it is possible to sign up for ProtonMail via Tor. It's not easy finding an exit node that hasn't gotten blocked yet, and you will most likely need a secondary anonymous email account on another email provider to send a verification code to, but it is possible. Don't try using a disposable email service, ProtonMail blocks pretty much all of them so you'll just waste time and will probably get your account frozen. Once you have made an account, go into Settings > Security and then wipe and disable the authentication logs. Once that's done - before you sign up for anything - log out and wait a while then log back in, just to see if their anti-fraud system decides to freeze your account or not.
If you go for a email provider other than ProtonMail, keep in mind that it has to be there for the long haul in order to be usable. If it suddenly shuts down without notice, you're pretty much shit out of luck. So try and go for one that has been around for a while and seems like it will continue to stick around.
Comparison of alternatives:
https://privacytools.io/providers/email/
https://www.safetydetectives.com/blog/email-comparison/#3
https://www.prxbx.com/email/
Other
Use a new username that you haven't used before.
Use end-to-end encryption for all private communications. ProtonMail has built-in end-to-end encryption between ProtonMail accounts. If you want to encrypt email with PGP when communicating with non-ProtonMail users follow this guide. That will allow you to import it into ProtonMail. Just remember that the subject line will not be encrypted by PGP. PGP/MIME gives out less metadata than PGP inline and is just better in general, so use PGP/MIME. For file transfers you can also use OnionShare if the receipient also uses Tor Browser or put the file(s) into a password protected .7z file using 7-Zip with the "Encrypt file names" option enabled + a password generator set to the max number of characters that you then upload to Disroot Upload. Be aware that the lufi software that Disroot Upload runs on keeps the filename visible after the file has been deleted. If you need an end-to-end encrypted pastebin, self-host PrivateBin or use Disroot's PrivateBin. Disroot uses a privacy respecting hosting provider and claim that they don't keep logs for services that don't require an account, such as Disroot Upload and Disroot's PrivateBin.
Use DuckDuckGo instead of Google. At least when doing work related to the site. It has a Tor Hidden Service that you can easily find by searching "duckduckgo onion" or "duckduckgo hidden service" on DuckDuckGo.
Rely on open source software and privacy respecting services when it comes to processing and storing data related to the site. PrivacyTools.io, awesome-privacy, AlternativeTo, and GitHub makes it easy to find privacy respecting alternatives.
Keep software on your devices up to date to decrease the risk of it being compromised by an exploit.
And yeah, I probably went pretty deep on some of the less relevant sections, but I thought it was best to include everything.

Quora is in my opinion the worst website on the internet.

Reflections on Narcissism: My experience and some misconceptions [Long Post]

I'll apologize in advance that this post is so long, it's something I've been working on for over a week, fine-tuning and re-writing bits and pieces. I've broken it down so that anyone can take from it or comment on what they want. If you want to save it in order to come back to a specific part, you can. I'm also not sure what flairs to use and chose "Tips" since I'm really just trying to get some information out there. This might be a combination of Support/Venting and my own story may or may not trigger some people, so just a warning. I really hope that people find some of this useful though
I've watched documentaries, read books, wiki articles, spent countless hours browsing Reddit and Quora and often tend to see a lot of black and white thinking in how many approach the subject of narcissism. You'll find a lot of good information in some articles and some brilliant comments on Reddit, but a lot of it tends to be quite sparse and centers mainly around Parent/Child relationships or Significant Others and a lot less around friends or people that you've been somewhat close to for whatever reason. My personal experiences involved a "friend" and a parent (nDad) but the frame of reference I had for narcissism was mainly a "friend" and since I've been interested in narcissism as a subject for so long it took a lot of time for me to come to terms with the fact that this person was the "biggest" narcissist that I knew, so I'm writing this post based mainly from that perspective.
So here we go!

My experience with Narcissists.
Story #1: 'The Buzzing misadventures of Mosquito'
The nFriend ('Mosquito') I met when I was still a student at University and knew him for about 6 years. Mosquito was incredibly charismatic and charming, he appeared to be an excellent conversationalist and after the first few encounters you couldn't believe that you had found someone so interesting.
Over time though it became clear that he had many typical narc traits:

Exaggerated sense of self-importance
Had a sense of entitlement and required constant, excessive admiration
Expected to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warranted it
Exaggerated achievements and talents (I will say that he was/is legitimately talented, it's just that he thought that it gave him a license to mistreat people).
Believed that he was superior and could only associate with equally special people
Monopolized conversations and belittled or looked down on people he perceived as inferior
Had an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others
Was envious of others and believed others were envious of him
Behaved in an arrogant or haughty manner, was conceited, boastful and a very pretentious person

Mosquito was what you would refer to as a cerebral narcissist. This brand of narcissism primarily involves showing off their "intellectualism" he was, however, still superficial in the typical sense (judging people on appearance). Mosquito was an "expert" on any subject, be it Politics or Science (or anything really) and his pet peeve was to continuously spam dozens of links over Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp or Instagram Messenger usually to Right-Wing, Conspiracy YouTube/Bit-Chute videos/websites or occasionally he'd fixate on a handful of opinion articles. It was mostly incoherent drivel and just plain falsehoods at times but all that mattered was that he had to "win" and be "superior" even when it became clear that he was remarkably inept in these areas - here is one really embarrassing example I posted in iamverysmart
Mosquito held contradictory opinions with a straight face and would throw away the one that wasn't needed at the time only to reuse that discarded point sometime later as though he'd never held the opposite opinion in the first place. He referred to himself as a literal genius as well, there was hardly ever a time where he'd changed his mind organically it was essentially just: "This is what makes me look smart now so I'll use it", engaging with him trapped you in a constant feedback loop that was focused on repeating the same thing over and over again as though it hadn't been discussed several times already.
Sometimes I might have went a few days without hearing from him and all of a sudden an excessive ranting cryptic message would appear in my inbox. Mosquito had no real regard for boundaries (like the insect they can't help but hover around the blood supply), there would be times where I was dealing with some personal issues when he attempted to call and I'd say: 'Hey, I'm tied up with some stuff, I'll call next week', I would then be accused of ignoring him even if I'd only spoken to him a couple of days before. I was often on the phone to him three hours a week on average and I would still feel guilty that maybe I wasn't listening enough. We were going through some of the same issues (sick family members) and I thought that we were relating to each other's struggles but in hindsight that was never the case. I was giving him a gigantic amount of narcissistic supply and getting nothing back from it and his "advice" on issues a lot of the time wasn't even practical let alone generally useful.
We'd be at a café in public and he'd start criticizing the appearance of someone sat nearby even when it became obvious that they could hear him; he didn't care. The person did nothing to him at all and was simply minding their own business but what he thought was wrong with a complete stranger had to be explained in detail there and then - he was very misogynistic and targets of this sort of behavior were usually women. The relationships he had with women failed because the woman had always done something wrong, either she wasn't smart enough, wasn't good enough in bed or she cheated; never mind the fact that he'd confessed to doing it too. For quite a long time he'd have to talk about the same things using the same words and intonation on his voice when talking, like he'd rehearsed as script for a play. It got to the point where I knew more about these relationships (or his pathological version) than I did about members of my own family. At the end of the day I'd leave feeling really frustrated and exhausted; whenever it was my time to talk I could see that he wasn't interested, barely making eye-contact and as soon as there was a break in the conversation he'd instantly start talking about himself again. Some of the most painful memories of that time was how he'd casually insult me in a way that was dressed up as "helpful advice" and I rationalized it by thinking that it was his way of helping me since he was older than I was.
Before cutting him off altogether (and resisting the urge to spray him in the eyes with Raid), I gradually stopped hanging out with him in person because it just became too much. The final straw came when he was upset that I hadn't respond to a text even though he knew I was working at the time he had sent them (or he probably forgot I was working because no-one else really exists), I finally called him out and went No Contact.
Story #2: 'nDad the Gargoyle'
The other narc (nDad) had no charisma and charm at all to the extent that he would become obvious to even complete strangers who would clock that something wasn't right with him, I remember cutting him off at the age of about 14 because I realized that he wasn't like other dads. It wasn't that he didn't care enough, it's just that he was and is unable to understand what being a parent meant and that it involved a great deal of self-sacrifice - pointing out the flaws of and upsetting a 10 year old on his birthday and making him walk on egg shells wasn't that. He wasn't particularly dangerous to me (as I got older anyway) but he was to those that he could get something from - usually money. He was particularly dangerous to my grandfather who by the time my grandmother died (circa 2003) became increasingly withdrawn and lonely over time, he was the perfect target for Gargoyle's scheming parasitism. My grandfather would enable him by bailing him out of every financial dispute he had gotten himself into (parking fines, taking out loans and then not paying them off, court summons when non-payment became serious etc). When my grandfather was ill in hospital he confessed that nDad had spent years manipulating him and making him feeling guilty in order to get money from him.
Since nDad is very insular he was exposed to everyone in the family as soon as it was explained to them what narcissism was (since I had experience with mosquito - who even by this time I realized was narcissistic but hadn't yet taken the step in going 'No Contact') and dealing with him became far easier because the gaslighting they resort to no longer works when your version of events can be verified by everyone else. This caused the now broken nDad to flee and cease immediate contact.
**If they have no charisma or charm then everything that is ugly about them is on full display.*\*

Narcissists CAN have some degree of Sympathy or Empathy:
In my experience they weren't completely devoid of empathy or at least having an awareness of the concept in order to appear that they show concern. The smarter the narcissist the more skilled they are at pretending that they empathize or sympathize and I think that this is the reason it can be so hard to nail them down because the frame of reference for what's real or not has been blurred and can't always be so easily pointed out to others; I've also found that attempting to point this out to people can result in their denial as they either have to reexamine their relationship with the same person or someone similar and that can be a painful experience. Narcs can apologize for things too, but it is an act of damage control and not an authentic apology, it will be to stave off any further criticism of their wrong doing. After the dust has settled they'll spend ages trying to revoke that apology until you concede defeat or you end up being the one apologizing.
I would also add that the level to which they appear to empathize (or sympathize) can depend on the quality of the supply that they get from you but they will still discard you at a moment's notice. If you're one of their most reliable sources of supply then they may sometimes show a great deal of what you might call "sympathy" or "empathy" this is only so that they can get a return on that investment later on. One dangerous avenue is that their attempts at empathy is a really stealthy way for them to attempt to gaslight you as they go about trying to subtly undermine the way you feel, by telling you how you should think or feel.

There's a ton of videos about "how to kill" or "how to destroy a narcissist" and this does more harm to the victims than good:
It's easy to fantasize about having that one last showdown with the Narc in which you finally expose them and cast them into the shadows forever, the reality is that it never works out that way. For even if you get into that one conversation in which it feels like you're breaking through, it doesn't matter, the next time you see them they will ignore what was already discussed or proceed to use whatever talking points they were at the time. You never seem to "pick up" from where you left off, you are in effect having the conversation all over again from scratch; you'll get upset because you remember what was said but that you've made no progress.
The feeling of anxiety that you have when they're nearby or feelings of anger you feel when you're alone and you replay those memories over in your head and you say: "Dammit, why didn't I say this or do that at the time?" is apart of the damage they've caused. You're now left second guessing everything you think or say, every time you take up a new hobby or interest you can hear the narc's voice in the back of your head judging and criticizing you, they've stifled your confidence in risk-taking and self-improvement.

Narcissism and Selective Memory:
Over time I've observed about 5 possibilities regarding the narcissist's ability to remember previous events:

They actually don't remember because whatever the memory was didn't stroke the ego or provide them with supply so their brains filter out anything that can't satisfy them. This is partly the reason why you'll notice that if you didn't see the narc for a long time they'll begin the conversation as though they only saw you last week - they don't have 'object permanence' so it's like you don't exist when you're not in their presence.
They're aware that you remember key details in something that they know they did wrong and this is when they "don't remember", they will attempt to deflect or evade the conversation.
They actually do remember something but as soon as that memory enters the brain they begin the process of breaking it down and then rebuilding it to how they want it to be. Imagine two pictures, one is a jigsaw puzzle and another is a normal image, the jigsaw puzzle has pieces that are cut to the right size and putting those pieces together creates a normal picture. The second image is then cut into all kinds of different pieces that are not measured correctly and by the time that the image is assembled it's wonky and certain pieces are moved to another part of the puzzle because the person wanted it there and not because it actually fits.
When it's you that's in the wrong it's as though they have a photographic memory, the level of detail that they remember about the memory would impress even the smartest MIT graduate.
They fully remember and will gaslight anyway, this may depend on how powerful they think they are and if they can be successful in convincing you that it is them that is in the right regardless (extremely common in instances of domestic abuse).

"Moving the goalposts is" one of the worst things that a narcissist can do, but you can use it as a step forward and away from their control.
Remember that time you managed to exceed expectations even though it appeared that the narcissist was sabotaging you? This is common with people who have narcissistic parents but can apply to those who have nSpouses and nFriends too. Suddenly what you already accomplished will be downplayed or diminished and now the requirements for their approval will be x10. Well if you succeeded at whatever it was, then you did in spite of them and not because of them and if you could do it with them having a looming presence in your life then you would do even better removing them completely.

'No Contact' and 'Grey Rocking' are the only things that appear to work consistently.
For No Contact to work you have to be willing to cease all contact and disregard even the slightest reason to see or hear from them, take that one step forward to block any and all media accounts and numbers (change them if necessary), back up any WhatsApp conversations and email them to yourself just incase they decide to organise a smear campaign to your boss or immediate family. Once you've deleted their numbers and can't remember you've no choice but to begin the healing process. If you decide to scroll their social media pages or google their name then you're willingly engaging with them even if they don't know it.
Grey Rocking works in a public space if you are unfortunate enough to find yourself in the presence of the narc. You might see them on public transport, at an event or even when you're sat in a café and since they thrive on any interaction be it positive or negative they're going to scan your body language desperately looking for that crack in the armor to exploit and you have to try to make that armor as impenetrable as possible. If you're on a subway/bus but not in a rush and they get on either have your headphones on as not to encourage conversation or simply get off the train or bus and wait for the next one. It's hard and does take practice though, wanting to suddenly scream at them and hope that everyone around is exposed to these demons is tempting but futile.
Check out this link on stoicism for more information.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism

Using cold and sterile language is best when talking about dealings with a narcissist.
Whenever I've commented on someone's posts to give advice on their dealings with a narcissist the most positive responses I received was the type of language I would use when talking about them. For example, you don't have a "relationship" with a narcissist because a relationship is an organic and naturally developing connection between human beings and since a narcissist is one-dimensional in nature I prefer to describe their involvement with others as "supply chains" or "contractual agreements". I feel it helps break the emotions from the situation, they aren't friends, you've entered into a psychological contractual agreement and you are their supplier, the product of their "awesomeness" will be distributed to whoever they feel deserves it and the contract is broken when you are discarded by them or you decided to finally break off. It's a weird hybrid of a corporate relationship and a parasitical organism.

Having Empathy even for these damaged souls isn't a weakness and is apart of personal growth-your mental health depends on it.
They're never going to be able to properly connect with the world and they will only have a series of broken relationships with most of the people they'll encounter in their entire lives. Their emotional and psychological development stopped somewhere in their pre-teens and it's stuck their forever. They can't evolve or progress as a person because they don't know how and won't put in the effort to try. That's remarkably tragic no matter how you look at it since it prevents them from having a complete human experience, which at the very least every human being deserves.
**These people are driven only by their internal phobias and insecurities and everything else is peripheral*\*
Referring back to Mosquito, he was actually a decent artist and it's the reason I started talking to him in the first place, his music/busking allowed him to obtain nSupply in a way that didn't really harm anyone else which I think is what allowed his worst traits to fly under the radar- as long as he was getting his supply his worst traits were dormant. His mother was worse than he was which looking back, it is easy to see how someone would end up as he did, she was a rather malignant type so he was bound to develop some of it himself
I was a young and insecure person in my late teens/early twenties -like many young people and I think a lot of the resentment and unresolved issues with nDad allowed me to walk right into the trap of another narc. Years later I still bemoan the fact that I wasted so much time with Mosquito but I was always going to come across someone or something like this eventually so I've learned some valuable lessons. As for nDad, he's been blackballed in our family and the community at large, my grandfather who had a stroke (September 2019 - still hanging in there luckily) was the last person he could rely on for any kind of supply before he wrote him off as well, from here on out he has nothing and no-one apart from the flimsy supply he gets from his doormat girlfriend.
Lockdown has been very useful as I needed to be sat doing nothing in order to realize that I was gaining nothing and getting nowhere, at the beginning of this post I still had some lingering animosity toward Mosquito and Gargoyle, (Mosquito was the reason I'm writing this post), but since I've been able to write this all down and share it I actually feel a lot better, I'm probably never likely to see Mosquito again anyway since we live in different locations and where he lives (big city) it's easy enough to avoid his haunts.
Having the ability to self-actualize is how you differ from them. It's not your job to fix these people, it's your job to survive.

Cerebral Narcissism:
https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/cerebral-narcissism
https://www.quora.com/What-are-traits-common-to-people-with-cerebral-narcissism

I need reassurance again even if there is none

Best explanation of a covert narissist anyone will ever read.

Do covert narcissists discard you permanently?

Kay Morton, An Expert On Narcissism & Analyzing Human Behavior
Updated Nov 30
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I know this question is old and there are several good answers, but I wanted to add an additional answer to this question. Covert narcissists are a different type of narcissist. A covert narcissist does not mean they are discrete. A covert narcissist is a narcissistic type where the person is more reserved than the typical narcissist. They are not overly extroverts and are MUCH more difficult to spot than typical narcissists. Typically, people who encounter covert narcissists will not know them as such UNLESS they develop a very close relationship with them. These types are significantly more introverted than “normal” narcissistic types. Their motivations are also different. Their “flights”, unlike a lot of narcissists who are trying to juggle multiple people, are typically NOT caused by their desire to see other people and covert narcissists can and do stay in relationships for long periods of time without ever being unfaithful. While certain types of narcissists do NOT discard people permanently, covert narcissists actually DO have the capacity to do permanent discards AND WILL! In fact, they can go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that they “CAN” discard a person permanently. Unlike typical narcissists, covert narcissists experience EXTREME “fight or flight” responses and, when they take “flight” and run, they run HARD AND FAST! They exist in this space with one foot in and one foot out of the relationship. In fact, people who have been in a relationship with a covert narcissist have likely noticed that the covert narcissist has TRIED to leave several times! Covert narcissists do this when things get overwhelming for them! Running is a coping mechanism for them. You can see this illustrated even when you are talking to them about something they find uncomfortable. When they are getting panicky and want to get out of a conversation, they will do things like:
move toward the door while you are speaking,
walk out of the room while you are talking,
refuse to answer when you ask them something,
turn their backs to you while you are talking,
intentionally move far away from you while you are talking,
refuse to look at you while you are talking and
just continually shake their heads no while you are speaking.
All of these things are designed to signal their discomfort and force you to end the conversation. They get angry and extremely upset during uncomfortable conversations and TRULY BELIEVE they are being misunderstood to the point that they can actually have PHYSICAL reactions (heart palpitations, fits of anger, high blood pressure, etc.)! They TRULY BELIEVE you are not listening and “getting” them! THIS is INCREDIBLY frustrating for them and they will RUN LIKE THE WIND because of it! Covert narcissists tend to have problems communicating their feelings to their partners, even though they have thought about their feelings and your possible response to what they are feeling, a million times. They have these internal conversations to the point that they actually FEEL like the response they envision you having is REAL! They may say things like
“I know what you are going to say…” before you say anything.
“I know what you are thinking…” before you have responded to what they have said.
They may even lay out what they believe your response is going to be and TELL YOU what they believe you are going to say. They often believe this even if what they were thinking and your response are ENTIRELY different.
Typically, a covert narcissist REALLY DOES want to get away and stay away once they have made the decision to discard you, and they will lay the internal and external ground work so that they “CAN” facilitate that disconnect for themselves MENTALLY! They will work HARD to “erase” you from their lives, as if you never existed, if they are trying to do a permanent discard of you. Typical narcissists want to maintain a source of supply, but covert narcissists see themselves as TRUE VICTIMS and YOU as the abuser! They just want out! Please understand that you often won’t think things are that bad because the covert narcissist has a problem communicating their feelings! They file things away and hold grudges, while normal people will just tell you what they feel you did wrong, let you respond, resolve the issue with you and move on! Covert narcissists do NOT do this, so their anger which has been stewing and brewing, seems VERY CRAZY AND OVER THE TOP to their partners when it FINALLY comes out! However, the covert has been reliving the nightmare things “YOU DID” to offend them over and over again in their heads! YOU are doomed and don’t even know it with a covert narcissist! And please note that it doesn’t matter if you DID or DID NOT do anything wrong. The covert narcissist PERCEIVES your actions in a certain way and, TO THEM, whatever you did was wrong. To them, their perception of things is all that matters, and they are often unwilling to entertain or try to understand the root cause for why something has happened ESPECIALLY when it is usually THEIR BEHAVIOR which may have started the problem.
If a covert narcissist is planning to discard you, they typically do the following:
Start being mean to you so that they can feel justified in treating you as if you don’t exist after the discard. It is kind of a scorched earth policy. They want to burn that bridge, scorch the earth and make SURE that you don’t want them or chase them after it is over! They go to extraordinary lengths to make sure they stay away and to prepare themselves to disconnect AND to push YOU away so YOU stay away and don’t try to reconnect.
Please note that covert narcissists will treat you poorly AND THEN, when you react, they point to your reaction as the REASON for their behavior or as PROOF that you are somehow unstable or have anger issues or have a problem!
Delete your number from their phone. Of course they remember the number, but their hope is by deleting your number, they remove the temptation to call you and stop holding on to anything connected to you.
Delete all emails they have to and from you.
Completely discard any picture of you that may exist on social media.
If you were staying with them, they will discard all clothing & items they have of yours.
If you were staying with them, they will discard sentimental cards and mementos from their relationship with you. If you were living in a place together and they leave, they will leave these items behind.
If you were living together, they may leave EVERYTHING there and just go. They do not do this because they intend to come back and get their things. They do this because they don’t want any vestige of what existed between the two of you and they intend to start everything over and make their entire life over “BRAND NEW”. This particular item is interesting because they will often leave valuable things behind. They just want to get away from you and they don’t care what they lose in the process.
Move to anywhere you aren’t. They will try to put as much distance between you and them as they possibly can!
Limit their exposure to you in every possible way. This means they will likely block you on social media, unfollow your social media accounts, move and not tell you where they are moving to, etc. They are going to make SURE they put a stop to casual connections between you that could take place socially.
Refuse to talk to you over the phone or only speak to you very briefly if you force the issue.
Refuse to meet with you or, if you force the issue and they do agree to meet with you, they will let you know that they don’t want to be there and they will use their body language to demonstrate that they want to leave. For example, they may keep their jacket on, continue to stand after you are sitting, stand close to the door, etc. They WILL let you know that they really do not want to see you.
They will ask people who are close to them to not speak your name.
They will pretend as if your relationship never existed.
They are going to go through all of this because, TO THEM, they often consider YOU abusive! You may or may not have been, but they are EXTREMELY sensitive so they will perceive very small slights in an exaggerated way internally!
Covert narcissists are the kings and queens of blame! Narcissists blame others in a general sense, but covert narcissists are very different. The extent of their blame runs deep and they, unlike some others, TRULY BELIEVE YOU ARE THE ISSUE! They deflect and convince themselves of this through their own false narratives! They are extraordinary drama kings and queens and are extraordinarily negative. They have EXTREMELY FRAGILE EGOS and get mad at the SLIGHTEST REAL OR PERCEIVED threat! They internalize and personalize almost EVERYTHING - even when things are not personal or something they should internalize! They hold grudges - FOR AN EXTRAORDINARILY LONG TIME! To them, if you did something at one point, you will NEVER escape from the negativity associated with that in their mind! This means that they are continually holding on to A LOT of baggage AND A LOT OF ANGER AND HURT! THIS is one of the core reasons why they can be so miserable with their partners!
Covert narcissists will also say something and then DENY that they said it! This creates an off-balance feeling in the victim of this and often makes the victim question his or her own sanity. The ONLY “solution” I have ever seen that works for this is recording all conversations with them! However, even in situations where the conversations were recorded, sometimes a covert narcissist will actually REFUSE to listen to the recorded conversation! They may not listen, but at least you have the proof for yourself. Notice that I put solution in quotes. That is because recording your partner all the time is not truly a solution to anything. It just provides you with the “proof” that you are not crazy. Leaving is the TRUE solution.
When they finally DO explode or decide to leave, many people are left absolutely shell-shocked because the “final straw” for a covert narcissist is typically something VERY small. This is because the covert narcissist has worked themselves up over time because of the grudges they have held. They do NOT TRULY forgive. Instead, they file things away and move past it temporarily. In essence, they stop talking about it, but they do NOT forget it. For example, let’s say that you hurt their feelings in Year 1. In Year 2, you said something else that they found offensive. In Year 6, you say something else. In Year 7, you have an argument about something completely unrelated and the narcissist breaks up with you because they said you don’t “respect” them. The argument, which had nothing to do with “respect”, wasn’t about ANYTHING connected to what happened in Year 1, 2 or 6, but because the covert narcissist has held on to the NEGATIVE EMOTIONS they felt about those events, they are STILL MAD and will bring up the events of Year 1, 2 & 6 like it happened yesterday! YOU are sitting there wondering why they are so angry about this little thing you are arguing about in Year 7 and why they are breaking up over something so stupid! You likely never realized they were even thinking about what happened in Year 1, 2 or 6 because they never communicated their anger and TALKED IT THROUGH like other people. Again, covert narcissists are EXTREME grudge holders and they have an inability to TRULY forgive and let things go permanently. Instead, they may SAY they forgive, stop talking about something and then file it away. You will think they are letting something go, but they are NOT! Things build up inside of them. I liken covert narcissists to volcanoes. They are always one explosion away from running and when that explosion happens, it is extraordinary!
When a covert narcissist has decided that they are leaving because of everything YOU did wrong, they have typically gone over the reasons why their leaving is necessary for A VERY long time! They have thought about it and thought about it and have come to the idea that you are not going to “change”. Therefore, they feel ABSOLUTELY justified in blaming you for everything under the sun, getting away from you and discarding you! They will have had these internal conversations so much that they actually BELIEVE they talked to YOU about it when they have not! They may even say that they said things connected to what has been eating away at them when they have not because the internal conversations they have had has been going on for so long!
Covert narcissists can stay in relationships for long periods of time! A relationship with them is usually miserable when it starts stretching out because they are always angry and upset about SOMETHING! As I stated, it may be year 5 and the covert narcissist may STILL be secretly upset about something that happened in year 1! You will likely not even realize that they are angry or still holding a grudge! In one case of covert narcissism, the partner said something to the covert narcissist’s boss that the cover narcissist did not like less than a year into their relationship. Oddly enough, the partner found out from the covert narcissist IN YEAR 12 OF THE RELATIONSHIP that the covert narcissist was STILL mad about that! The partner had NO IDEA they had even offended the covert narcissist! THAT is how they hold on to things AND don’t communicate that they are upset about something!
When you hold on to things for years, don’t communicate your negative feelings about whatever it is, don’t forgive and passive aggressively make your partner “pay” for what you think they did to you, it is no wonder that the covert narcissist has mentally come to a point where they feel they want to get away from you! They were mad about things they were going over and over in their head and, often, the partners had NO IDEA how mad they really were! This is also one reason why intimacy with a covert narcissist may end LONG before the relationship ends! It is NOT rare to go MANY YEARS without having sex with a covert narcissist! It WON’T be because they are cheating either! A covert narcissist may not be cheating, but they STILL can reach points where they go for VERY long periods of time without being intimate with their partners! The covert narcissist typically will develop intimacy issues as he or she internalizes more and more and communicates less and less. Covert narcissists will tell you that the reason they can’t communicate is YOUR fault! They will say that you don’t let them express themselves, which of course is completely untrue! To the covert narcissist, however, it is their perception and it is REAL AND TRUE to them!
So, to answer your question, covert narcissists ABSOLUTELY CAN & DO discard people without hoovering, unlike the more typical narcissistic types people encounter. Many people think that all narcissists are the same and that they engage with people in the same manner, but they absolutely DO NOT! People often base their feelings about narcissists on their own experience. However, unless you see a variety of narcissists and a variety of situations, those people may not realize that there are “varieties” of narcissistic types. In fact, if you are looking on Quora, you will find many instances of people who have encountered people they believe to be narcissists who have NOT hoovered or attempted to contact them at all. Again, this is because narcissism occurs on a spectrum and there are multiple varieties of narcissists and their behaviors, although typically similar, can at times deviate. Some are more inclined to do certain things than others and covert narcissists are very different among most narcissists in that they absolutely can and do discard people. IN FACT, if you leave a covert narcissist alone AFTER they discard you, they typically will not try to come back! So if YOU can control YOUR emotions and leave them alone, you will often end up free from the covert narcissist types.
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Aaron Hill
Nov 27 ·
8 upvotes
including Kay Morton
Hilariously, my (probably) BPD w/ some NPD ex accused me of being a Covert Narcissist.
Then she came on Quora using pseudonyms to continue her very distorted view of reality to claim I had 19/20 traits of covert narcissism. I recognised her writing style and specific personal details she shared that left no doubt in my mind that both Quora accounts were hers. She even tried smearing me with another user. I very subtly asked her a benign question in a comment she made, a few hours later both accounts were deactivated. I have screenshots of what she wrote just in case she continues the twisted charade. She did threaten me with all sorts of character assassination to “destroy my reputation” and legal action. Glad I’ve got the evidence just in case.
Even started attacking the character of my 74 yr old mother, my son with autism and even accused me of giving my late wife the rare cancer that killed her by “exhausting her immune system with my covert narcissism that gave her repeated episodes of depression and anxiety.” She didn’t know my late wife. How despicable and bizarre is that? Who says things like that? She’s very disturbed.
Reading through your post, the only traits I share is that I ended up going no contact with her because well, it’s the only way to deal with a BPD w/ NPD. I considered deeply for the best part of two months before breaking it off after trying to understand what the hell was wrong with her. I gave her so many chances. And warnings by putting up boundaries and desperately hoping the person I fell in love with would resurface from the dark dragon that replaced her. I’m sure in her twisted reality this is evidence I am a covert Narc. And the fact I think she might have BPD (she does have C-PTSD, severe separation anxiety, she told me of this diagnosis and was hypersexual), would be seen as more evidence of me being a covert Narc.
As for the rest of the stuff, it just doesn’t apply to me. But I’m sure she’s made up some episodic memories to match the belief.
She’s in utter denial about her BPD, or whatever it is that caused her to be so unstable and gaslight the fuck out of me and a litany of other bizarre emotionally abusive behaviours that I thought for a while were deliberate attempts to destabilise me. I still don’t know for sure if it was deliberate or she literally couldn’t help it as a BPD “rage”. From what I’ve read, BPD’s can have these emotional memories that make zero logical sense or exist in reality. But in their minds it is 100% true, they truly believe the narrative of the reality they have constructed.
So sad and so very strange. I’m not sure who the person was that I loved or if they even existed. But I do know my feelings were real.
Beware the scorned BPD (or NPD) that projects their crazy onto you as an ex because you went no contact to protect yourself.
Im certain she has another pseudonym and is reading this. Get some help and be honest with the therapist Miss D.
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Kay Morton
Original Author · Nov 27 ·
8 upvotes
including Aaron Hill
LOL! So you came here to figure out if YOU were a covert narcissist? That is awesome! Do you know why that is so awesome? It is awesome because you cared enough to invest the time in trying to figure that out! Knowing who you are OR learning who you are is so essential to a happy life! What I wrote
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Aaron Hill
Still gone! Definitely not a narcissist. I have let go of trying to diagnose my ex. NPD/BPD/
Jon Crowley
Dec 29 ·
2 upvotes
including Aaron Hill
I theorize that to someone with BPD, anyone leaving them would seem to be a covert narcissist. You absolutely have to cut all contact and be firm. Due to their splitting, chances are you were seen in “angel” mode and the warnings didn’t register. Now all of a sudden (in their mind) you want to lea
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Aaron Hill
This is an interesting theory indeed. Fits what I experienced it seems. Its my only experience, so I

Merit Clark
Nov 24 ·
23 upvotes
including Kay Morton
This was, sadly, a road map for the relationship and ending with my ex. The discard with these kind of narcs is very different; he was able to leave and stay gone. In fact, the way he cut off contact seemingly out of the blue (at least to me) was downright brutal. As he was leaving/discarding, I hea
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Corinne Ann
Dec 27 ·
11 upvotes
including Merit Clark
You’ve described exactly what happened the last year with my ex covert narcissist.
When his mask slipped and let loose with his rage, I heard about things from 10/15/20+ years ago in the relationship. Things I had NO WAY of knowing had upset him because he’d NEVER said a word until the final discard(
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Leslie Metzig
Aug 24 ·
18 upvotes
including Kay Morton
I would upvote this a million times if I could! I’ve never seen a covert narcissist described in detail like this, but this is spot on!
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Kay Morton
Original Author · Aug 25 ·
10 upvotes
including Leslie Metzig
Leslie I have heard so many stories about covert narcissists and they run 100% along the same vein. These types are actually MORE predictable than some other narcissistic types! I’m glad you identified with it. I hope you are making the most of your life and taping into what is important and NOT let
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Leslie Metzig
Definitely giving it my best shot!

Eric Neis
Aug 24 ·
13 upvotes
including Kay Morton
My narc does not like me very much lol. She knows Im one of the few that actually knows exactly whats wrong with her. That and I tried to warn her new toy after she discarded me for him. Even sent him links on narcissism and told him to read it and think about how it relates to him(I do wonder if he
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Serena Joyner
Aug 27 ·
9 upvotes
including Kay Morton
You are spot on with all your comments regarding the ‘covert narcissist.’
My ex narcissist had his house up for sale (we live fairly close) 3 months after the big discard. He has blocked my number. Interestingly, I only called him once to do a wellness check on him, nothing vindictive. I thought I wa
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Kay Morton
Original Author · Aug 28 ·
9 upvotes
Oh Serena! Welcome to the other side! Covert narcissists are VERY hard to deal with because their pathology is something that people typically do not see outside of therapy. Other people will look at the person and not believe what you are saying. It is only the people who get close to them that TRU
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Serena Joyner
Dear Kay, Thank you for the kind words. There's also another twist. This guys actions are almost crim

Discord's Unfair Bans & Double Standards

I've been using Discord for ~4 years. I've made many communities which went perfectly fine. Some died, some went on forever like my gaming community and my server franchise. I've ran every community perfectly with little or no troubles whatsoever, and I've never received any prior warnings or troubles from Discord staff, ever. I love to use Discord as a platform for casual or competitive gaming. A great platform for creating communities and getting people together to discuss or debate things.

But recently I decided to make a Discord based around a political ideology called Anarcho-communism. You don't have to know much about the ideology, except it doesn't like abusive hierarchies, and does not like capitalism, and you don't even have to agree with it to understand where I'm coming from when I say my account was unfairly disabled for making this Discord.

I made the Discord on a April 19th Friday, advertised it to related An-com spaces on April 20th Saturday, and we earned around ~60 members. Everything was fine, and plenty of 'comrades' were freely talking and enjoying themselves, debating with one another, helping one another out - it was just a typical fun discord to be in.

On April 23rd Tuesday, I did my second wave of advertising, which brought the member count up to ~170 people last time I ever checked. I projected we would've had ~300 members had my account never been disabled. Why was my account disabled?

Apparently a few anti-commie and or fascist discord servers mass-reported the discord with reports like "terrorism" and "promoting violence", yet as the owner of the Discord I was never reported anything along these lines. Nobody ever approached me and told me someone was "violating" the Discord TOS. These people most probably purposefully and intentionally avoided reporting it to the staff, opting to instead report it to Discord directly. If anything I wouldn't doubt if these fascists came into our discord, proceeded to type "terrorist" and things that promoted "violence", then later reporting it to Discord staff

So at exactly 6:17PM April 24th (Wednesday) my account was disabled

"Why didn't you just be a good moderator and delete what they said without the need for a report?"
Because I literally just made this discord ~4 days ago. It wasn't even properly setup yet, and neither were the discord bots for it. I never expected it to blow up so big so quick. 170 people in 4 days is a lot, and there was only me and one other moderator (who also, received zero reports). The chats were booming with conversation which we could not moderate 24/7.

Again, I received zero warnings or anything from Discord staff. My account was simply immediately disabled and the An-com discord was deleted. Plenty of people came to me on Reddit asking "what happened" or "why did you kick everyone out". I did nothing wrong, and I even tried to make a ticket to Discord under "hacked account" - because I know I had done nothing wrong, and assumed someone must have done something really bad through my account, to which I got this in reply

I wouldn't have even been angry if they temp-deleted this discord, then sent me a warning to better moderate the chats. Maybe Discord's staff team is so understaffed that they'd rather not even bother with sending out subtle warnings? Thats really the only excuse I can think of for Discord's side of things.

Now I'm pretty angry - I just lost my owner access to all the other communities I loved, such as my group and server franchise mentioned earlier, however, I can understand. I can assume that the moderators who review these reports go through hundreds a day and probably do them very quickly.

But really? Had the mod taken their time and read through some context they'd realize it was a joke, irony, or satire. We never promoted terrorism, or etc, infact I condemned it. And even if we 'did' as an edgy joke - PLENTY of discord servers and discord users do the same exact thing all the time. I wouldn't be surprised if you, reading right now, have ever made an edgy 9/11 joke or etc.

Now here's where the 'double standard' part really kicks in. Because there are plenty of other political discord servers that I can find with an easy Google search, which are actually more violent than our ideology, such as nationalism or even fascism - ideologies which history has shown time and time again, such as WW1 or WW2 are hateful, mean, and promote violence/terrorism.

Why doesn't Discord delete private fascist and nationalist discord servers that are probably promoting violence? How come there are so many public discord servers to talk about fascism and nationalism, yet I couldn't find one an-com discord? (which is the exact reason why I made mine!)

And now, to end, I wanted to talk about earlier - when I claimed that I don't doubt if a fascist joined our discord just to promote violence, then leave and report it on their main account. Any discord server could be susceptible to this, and rather than punishing the user whom promoted the violence, the discord server as a whole is punished by Discord staff?

That sounds like lazy moderation, and even if that was not a fascist on an alt account, and rather a real person that is really promoting violence, then Discord is not solving the root cause of the problem by deleting the medium (discord) on which they are projecting their ideas.

Discord staff is punishing everyone besides the one who started it, and there is nothing stopping said person from going on to other discords to project violent content, just for that one to be deleted, and the discord owner's account to be disabled - just like mine.

I just want you guys to understand, from my point of view, why this was a completely unwarranted ban. It pained me very much to get a single, one-line reply to my support ticket that merely stated w/o any extra details "We will not be reinstating the account"

EDIT1:
🦀🦀My account is now officially falsely, unjustifiably deleted. Assuming Discord doesn't save account information, my 4 year old account is now permanently gone🦀🦀

Staying alive was a mistake, so I will die instead

My entire life I've been spoonfed lies about why I should stay alive, and that is why I know that suicide is the right answer for me. I've been told:

You will be missed
Your life has value
You have so much to offer the world
You can make more people happy by staying alive
You are cared about

All of these assertions are patently incredulous. They are so cliche that it's impossible for me to even take them seriously. It's as absurd as as the "It gets better" trope, which has no basis in fact.
Other than my mom, nobody truly knows me as a person. I've asked so-called friends about the most basic facets of my life (favourite food, where I was born, my birthday) and they don't even know the answers. That's not suggestive of people that are happy with me staying alive, but rather completely ignora t of the most essential things that define me. It's a blatant deception.
In addition, nobody would notice if I was gone. I tried disabling various social media accounts to see who comes looking for me. After 12 months I haven't gotten a single letter in the mail or a single phone call from former coworkers or so-called friends. Nobody has come by my house to check on my welfare, except my mom that abused me, so she doesn't count.
There is no proof I have anything of benefit to offer the world either. I have spent years trying to share my talents and interests with other people, and more often than not I am rejected, criticized, mocked, and ridiculed just for being myself. That is not an indication that I have anything of value to offer society for being true to who I am as an individual.
And even if we assume, for sake of argument, that there is something I can offer society, there are millions of other people that can offer the same thing. This is economics 101! The law of supply versus demand dictates that you have an overabundance of a given product, each individual product is therefore diminished in value and importance. There is nothing special about me that is worth my suffering a miserable existence just so a tiny fraction of the population can potentially appreciate my continuing to stay alive. I am one person in 8 billion.
Likewise, there is no reason to believe that my life has value. We live on a planet with 8 billion people. I could disappear today and human civilization would continue as it did before, with no impact. If anything, my absence might bring about an improvement since I would no longer be disrupting societal norms with my worthless existence.
Here is an abridged checklist of incidents that have given me reason to doubt whether life is better than death:

I was molested by my mom growing up. She would always play with my genitals and say she was doing it for fun, even when I would tell her to stop.
My boss once took a transgender pride flag and threw it on the floor, stomped on it repeatedly, and shouted "See! This is what I think of you shitty tranny people".
A coworker last year sneaked over to my apartment building while I was asleep, and threw my brand new bike into the dumpsters a practical joke. I spent 10 months saving up just to buy another bike.
After spending over $600 on a new bike and lock, it was stolen from the rack outside my apartment building only two days later and was never found.
I've been raped multiple times by gay men. Even when kept begging them to stop, they repeated "I know you want it" as they forced me to have sex with them.
The general manager at my previous job once told me that I couldn't have been raped, even though I had been. He said I must've been asking for it since I am bisexual.
The boss at my other job always tells me that I'm going to be arrested for how I dress since he thinks my wearing woman's clothes should be outlawed.
A crisis worker once laughed at me because she thought it was silly how I smile to hide the fact I'm clinically depressed. Then after I stormed out of her office, she followed me outside and started swinging on the bike racks like a little kid.
A counselor once told me that if I want to end my life, she thinks it's totally okay and recommended going to the side of a deserted road and putting myself to sleep when I'm ready to die.
A psychiatrist once dared me to go home and put a plastic bag over my head because he didn't think I'd really be able to commit suicide.
Four years ago I was brutally attacked by security guards in the ER after I attempted to leave the hospital without signing my discharge papers even though a crisis worker had insisted "You wasted everyone's time coming here" and told me I was being released.
Two years ago I was riding my bike downtown, and a teenage boy ran out into the street and punched me in the face. Then he jumped on the bike, riding in circles while taunting me. When I called the police, the officer didn't bother to file a report because he told me that since it involved a minor, there would be no criminal charges.
I was banned for 5 years from our local shopping mall because I was wearing women's clothes and the security officer told me that "crossdressing is abnormal".
A homeless man spit in my face at the bus terminal yesterday. When I informed the security guards, they refused to take any action and instead reassured me that since he's homeless, there is nothing they can do.
I purchased over $500 worth of MoneyPak cards only to discover they didn't work. When I tried to get a refund, I could never get through to their customer support hotline. I repeatedly tried to use their online forum, to get a refund via mail, but the server crashed. Now I am completely out the money.
Two years ago I was brought into the ER for a psych eval. I was just sitting calmly in one of the observation rooms. After about an hour, some nurses and a doctor threatened to inject me with a drug to "calm me down". When I a refused, they ordered two security guards to put me in restraints.
I was banned from using PayPal because an employee Googled my name online and discovered I had photos of myself dressed in women's clothes. Their abuse department argues I violated the end user agreement by selling pornography, but they were never able to produce any evidence of such a claim.
I was bullied by a gay man on Quora that was angry after I posted a question about how sexual orientation relates to transgender people. Even though the question in no way violated of Quora policies, he began harassing me about my name and gender identity, just before getting a moderator to delete my profile.

Usually when I tell counselors and social workers about these horrible experiences, they dismiss it as "You must be a strong person if you are still alive, so don't listen to these people".
First of all, I'm not a strong person. I'm a damaged person. Secondly, part of being in a society is caring about what other people think. That's the fundamental reason that human civilization still exists. Thirdly, most of the incidents that have traumatized me have less to do with what other people think about me, but rather how they act toward me.
What's particularly disturbing is when complete strangers pretend to care about me only after I announce that I plan to kill myself. Apparently, I'm only worth people's time and attention when I'm dead. Maybe people should be nicer to others while they are still living, instead of waiting until the irreversible act of suicide is about to take place before people's life suddenly matters.
Of course, I will never forgive nor forget all of the incidents where I have been abused, neglected, or otherwise mistreated in the mental health system. Not to mention the thousands of dollars I have been charged for services rendered against my will that have permanently traumatized me. We don't bill people for being raped do we? So why I am forced to pay for being strangled, thrown on the floor, pushed into a wall, and tied to a bed and forcibly medicated by professionals all under the guise of "healthcare". That is not health care, that is health torture.
I refuse to be a part of society where the government not only condones but ENDORSES the systematic torture of mentally ill people with no accountability even when we are in our most helpless and vulnerable state. Mental health is supposed to be about hope and healing, not about psychological manipulation, financial extortion, and physical violence.
I have been taken advantage of time and time again, and nothing was ever done to help me. Therefore if people were not concerned about me when I was crying in pain, they are obviously not concerned about me when I am about to die. And to suggest otherwise is nothing short of patronizing.
Staying alive was a mistake, so I will die instead.

My Instagram is showing past users I've searched before when I type the first two letters even after clearing the history.

how do i permanently delete my quora account video

Quora has a handy Q and A page detailing how users can delete their accounts. Unfortunately, you can’t delete the questions you have asked because these are community owned. However, these are not... Open Quora app on your phone (iPhone or any Android device) or tablet. Tap on your profile picture to the left to open the options pane. Now tap “Settings” menu at the bottom of the screen. Tap “Privacy”. Scroll to the very bottom of the page and tap “Delete Account”. Enter your Quora password and confirm. Under 'Settings' on the 'Privacy' tab, click on 'Deactivate Account' at the bottom. Please be aware that, by deactivating your account, you will no longer receive any emails or notifications from Quora; however, any content you've posted will still be available on the site. If you are certain you wish to delete your account, visit your account privacy settings and choose "Delete Account". It will ask you for your password in order to confirm the deletion ( Note : if you created the account via Google or Facebook, you will first need to create a password by clicking the "Change Password" link near the top of the page, then clicking on "create an account password"). I have seen users do this in different ways, but have never, or not intending to this in the future. The Quiet Way This can be done in two ways. Either deactivate your account without a fuss, or gradually stop using Quora. The DiscreetWay Tell... Log in to your account, and then click the Settings & Privacy from your account menu at the top right of any LinkedIn page. Click the Account tab. Scroll down and click Closing your LinkedIn 1. Go to Quora.com and log in to your account. 2. Click on your profile picture in the upper-right corner. 3. From the drop-down menu select “Settings.” 4. Select “Privacy” from the lefthand navigation. 5. At the bottom of the page, click “Delete Account.” 6. Confirm account deletion. A few things to note about deleting your Quora account: quora.comImage: quora.comOpen Quora website and log in to your Quora account. Now click on Profile icon on top right and select “Settings”. In Settings select “Privacy” Settings. Scroll down to last and click on “Delete Account”. Go to myaccount.google.com. At the left, click Data and personalization. Scroll to "Download, delete, or make a plan for your data." Click Delete a service or your account. Open Quora website and log in to your Quora account. Now click on Profile icon on top right and select “Settings”. In Settings select “Privacy” Settings. Scroll down to last and click on “Delete Account”.

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How to Delete Quora Account Permanently - YouTube

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