🔗 Share this article

On occasion, a 22-year-old from Los Angeles believes he is “unmatched in his abilities”. As a diagnosed narcissist, his grandiose moments frequently escalate into “detached from reality”, he explains. “You are on cloud nine and you think, ‘Everyone’s going to know that I’m better than them … I’ll do great things for the world’.”

In his case, these times of heightened ego are often followed by a “emotional downturn”, where he feels deeply emotional and embarrassed about his conduct, rendering him highly sensitive to criticism from those around him. He began to think he might have narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) after researching his symptoms on the internet – and was later confirmed by a specialist. However, he questions he would have taken the label if he hadn’t previously arrived at that realization personally. Should you attempt to inform somebody that they have NPD, {they’ll probably deny it|denial is a common response|they’re likely to reject it,” he says – most notably if they experience feelings of superiority. “They’re in a delusional world that they’ve constructed. And that world is like, No one compares to me and {nobody can question me|no one should doubt me|my authority is absolute.”

Defining The Condition

Though people have been identified with narcissism for more than a century, definitions vary what the term implies the diagnosis. It’s common to label everybody a narcissist,” explains an expert in narcissism, who believes the word is “applied too broadly” – but when it comes to a formal diagnosis, he notes many people keep it private, as there is widespread prejudice associated with the condition. Someone with NPD will tend to have “an inflated view of oneself”, “impaired compassion”, and “a strategy of using people to seek admiration through actions such as seeking admiration,” the professor explains. Those with NPD may be “extremely narcissistic”, to the point that {“they’re not able to hold down stable relationships|“their jobs are damaged|“they have a distorted view of reality,” he emphasizes.

Emotional connections were never important about anyone really, so I didn’t invest in relationships seriously

Sex-Based Distinctions in NPD Presentation

Though up to 75% of people diagnosed with NPD are men, findings suggests this figure does not mean there are fewer narcissistic women, but that women with NPD is typically appears in the covert form, which is often overlooked. Narcissistic traits in men tends to be more socially permissible, as with everything in society,” notes a 23-year-old who discusses her co-occurring conditions on online channels. Frequently, the two disorders co-occur.

First-Hand Experiences

It’s hard for me with dealing with feedback and rejection,” she explains, since when I’m told that I am at fault, I either go into a defensive state or I withdraw entirely.” Although experiencing this response – which is often called “ego wounding”, she has been attempting to address it and listen to guidance from her loved ones, as she doesn’t want to slip into the harmful behaviour of her previous life. “I was very emotionally abusive to my partners in my youth,” she states. Via therapeutic interventions, she has been able to mitigate her NPD symptoms, and she notes she and her current boyfriend “operate with an understanding where I’ve instructed him, ‘When I speak manipulatively, if my words are controlling, call it out {right then and there|immediately|in the moment’.”

She grew up primarily in the care of her father and says she lacked positive role models as a child. “I’ve been learning over the years which behaviors are and is not appropriate to say during a fight because I lacked that guidance growing up,” she shares. “Nothing was off-limits when my relatives were criticizing me in my early years.”

Root Causes of Narcissistic Traits

Conditions like NPD tend to be associated with early life adversity. “There is a genetic component,” notes a mental health specialist. But, when someone develops narcissistic traits, it is often “tied to that individual’s particular early environment”. Those traits were “a survival tactic in some ways to cope in formative years”, he adds, when they may have been ignored, or only shown love that was dependent on meeting certain expectations. They then “rely on those familiar tactics as adults”.

Like several of the individuals with NPD, one individual thinks his parents “could also have the disorder. The adult says when he was a child, “everything was all about them and their work and their social life. So it was like, don’t bother us.” When their they engaged with him, it came in the form of “intense expectations to achieve academic success and career success, he notes, which made him feel that if he didn’t achieve their goals, he wasn’t “acceptable.

When he became an adult, none of his relationships were successful. “I’ve never cared about anyone really,” he states. As a result, relationships weren’t relationships seriously.” He believed he wasn’t experiencing genuine affection, until he met his current partner of three years, who is diagnosed with BPD, so, similar to his experience, has difficulty with feelings. She is “highly empathetic of the thoughts that occur in my head”, he explains – it was in fact, her who originally considered he might have NPD.

Pursuing Treatment

After a visit to his general practitioner, John was referred to a clinical psychologist for an diagnosis and was told his diagnosis. He has been put forward for talking therapy on the public health system (ongoing counseling is the primary approach that has been shown to help NPD patients, experts say), but has been on the waiting list for an extended period: The estimate was it is likely to occur in a few months.”

He has shared with a handful of people about his NPD diagnosis, because “negative perceptions are widespread that all narcissists are abusers”, but, privately, he has embraced the diagnosis. “It helps me to gain insight into my behavior, which is beneficial,” he comments. All of the people have come to terms with NPD and are pursuing treatment for it – hence being willing to talk about it – which is probably not representative of all people with the diagnosis. But the growth of individuals sharing their stories and the rise of online support communities indicate that {more narcissists|a growing number