>I already explained why this conclusion doesn't really fit well with the foundations of stoicism, to them humans are social animals.

So is the principle to put "reason over emotion" or to follow the original stoics?

Regardless, substitute lonlineness for another situation outside of humans being social animals and we arrive at the same thing

Yes, however what I am saying is that constantly persuing to put "reason over emotion" leads to a dulled sense of yourself and emotions to the point that you may not even realize/understand what youre feeling.

Imagine for example that you did have many friends. But over time one by one, you lost those friendships. And at every time, you said "This is ok, it happens." And when you had no friends and had trouble making them you said "this is ok, It happens. I can do everything alone!" And so on. You wouldnt immediately feel this deep sense of loneliness, youd have adapted at each point to be reasonable about the outcomes. See the reasonable thing is to always be ok with something. So imagine you were a perfect Stoic from birth, would you be any different from a robot?

You have to be in tune with your emotions to recognize and change them, but I find that hard to do if I always put reason first.

I think what you are talking about is tangential to what I am saying.

I dont have anything against therapy, if your natural reactions are indeed causing you issues then as I said, one has to try to control their feelings in order to improve, but what I am saying is that there is no need to achieve being a perfectly virtuous being.

In the context of stocist philosophy, the ultimate goal is to achieve a peace and calm through all misfortune by recognizing that such events are a natural part of life, typically outside our control. Say if one experienced an earthquake that led to a loss of loved ones and ruined their fortune, the ultimate stoic response would be to say "This was a natural event I could not do anything about. There is nothing to feel angry or spiteful about".

Or if you were wronged, youd try to understand that the person who wronged you is a human being whose acting out of their biological impulses, and instead of being angry youd try to be understanding and and subdue your natural distateful resctions.

While this a completely logical course, my argument is that the practice of constantly trying to subdue such feelings, in my experience, is in itself harmful.

I am arguing that such a practice goes against your natural will as a human being. That it isnt necessarily good to always be logical about things and it is good at times to let out your natural reactions of being fearful, angry, spiteful, hateful.

I find being trying to be logical about everything to be a surpressment of myself as a human being. I took this view after reading Nietzche.

I no longer feel need to be ok with everything and everyone. There are things and people I hate and I feel much more at peace with myself expressing that.

To respond to your, why do I think it makes for someone being uninteresting. Uninteresting, isnt the right word, its more like you feel a sense of dullness. But Imagine that we all achieved this perfect state of being, everyone would be the same person with no defining personal characteristics.

Doesnt controling your emotions by its very nature mean to subdue them?

Say if someone honking at me pisses me off, if my natural reaction is to get angry and want to flip them off, and I try to control myself and say "Oh its ok, there are just pissed drivers in the world, I shouldn't be angry", then I am subduing my natural emotions. And clearly, to an extent that isnt a bad thing. Otherwise we wouldnt have any self improvement.

However, if say relationships arent working out for me, or I cant seem to make friends and feel lonely, and if I have to tell myself "This is ok. This is a natural part of life. I should be content", etc I find that very damaging as it is really just a lie. I feel sad, angry, lonely etc on the inside as much as I tell myself that I am not, I just become far removed from understanding myself.

I feel that in end I end up as a person whose "ok with everything" and no personality. Negative emotions are just as important as positive ones.

Stoicism sounds nice in theory, and perhaps to an extent it is, but in practice I find "bear with every suffering and try to control your emotions" to not be fruitful. One shouldnt try to surpress everything and at times should be angry or hateful. Tailoring your personality to be "ok" with everything feels very hollow. Who are you as a person at the end?

What unbiased assesor? Its a human intepretation of another human. The diagnostic criteria is entirely up to interpretation and changes nothing Ibe said.

Its not anti intellectualism. Look at psychology 50-100 years wrong and how far its changed since then. Youd be silly to think the same thing isnt going to happen 50 years from now. You should be critical of modern practices. Thats how science progresses.

Why is it only true to "an extent"? It's literally what it is. There is no scientific definition of these disorders or any objective way to test them. It's entirely an interpretation of a human being based on the words of another human being.

Sure certain behaviors of patterns could be destructive. But I don't see any practical use of categorizing and labeling a complex set of behaviors into "NPD" or "not NPD". Is there a clear cut off line of what is NPD and what isn't? Surely it is a spectrum, and everyone has some of these traits, which can even be exacerbated by social/environmental factors (where one person whose "not NPD" can be NPD under certain environments and vice versa).

Also its possible one person with the same exact behavioral patterns as another could be widly successful in a different environment. Does that mean one has NPD and the other does not?

Thats cause NPD isn't real clear distinctive disorder. Its a label of certain behaviors, up to human interpretation.

I dont find absurdity of life to be suffering at all. Quite the opposite, I find it comforting and fun.