Every single psychology student does this—myself included. You read the DSM and you just diagnose yourself with half the shit in there.

You’re kind of proud of it, like “I want to give myself more diagnoses.”

I think there’s a kind of victim-hero thing going on there, where we’re like, “Look at me, I’ve got a problem—I’m special.” It does have a helpful role in that sense.

You go, “Okay, now I know what I need to focus on. I know what’s causing me my pain. I know that there are ways through this—I can’t just sit here banging my head against the wall. I’ve got Nice Guy Syndrome.”

But this double-edged sword comes at a price, because now there are two problems.

Especially with Nice Guy Syndrome—though this probably applies to all of them—you start questioning if everything you’re doing is derived from the syndrome.

Nice guys in recovery go through a transition where they really struggle with this.

They realize they’ve spent a lot of their life being manipulative, and they weren’t even honest with themselves about it.

They didn’t even know they were being manipulative. And now, they wonder if everything they do, all the time, is manipulative—including their recovery from nice guy syndrome.

Like: “Am I just trying to look like I’m recovering so that people will like me?” Or “Am I just doing this to tell myself a story of X, Y, and Z?”

And so now, even when they’re taking the kind of actions they always wished they could have taken—being more bold, more shameless, more honest—they’re still saying: “Is this just a new manifestation of Nice Guy Syndrome?”

To dive deeper into this topic, check out the original video here: