🔗 Share this article

On occasion, a 22-year-old from Los Angeles feels he is “unmatched in his abilities”. As a diagnosed narcissist, his periods of extreme self-importance can become “highly unrealistic”, he admits. You’re riding high and you tell yourself, ‘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 usually succeeded by a “crash”, during which he feels overwhelmed and ashamed about his actions, leaving him highly sensitive to negative feedback from others. He came to wonder he might have this personality condition after looking up his traits through digital sources – and was later evaluated by a clinician. However, he is skeptical he would have taken the label without having previously arrived at that conclusion personally. “If you try to tell somebody that they have this disorder, {they’ll probably deny it|denial is a common response|they’re likely to reject it,” he comments – particularly if they feel a sense of being better. They inhabit a fantasy reality that they’ve built up. And in that mindset, I am superior and {nobody can question me|no one should doubt me|my authority is absolute.”

Understanding The Condition

Although people have been labelled as narcissists for decades, definitions vary what is meant by the label. It’s common to label everybody a narcissist,” says a leading researcher, adding the word is “applied too broadly” – but when it comes to a clinical identification, he notes many people conceal it, due to so much stigma linked to the illness. An individual diagnosed will tend to have “an inflated view of oneself”, “impaired compassion”, and “a tendency to exploit relationships to enhance their social status through actions such as displaying material goods,” the expert explains. Those with NPD may be “deeply egotistical”, 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 states.

I never truly valued about anyone really, so I’ve never taken relationships seriously

Variations by Gender in Narcissism

While a significant majority of people diagnosed with NPD are men, research suggests this statistic does not mean there are less female narcissism, but that female narcissism is frequently manifests in the vulnerable narcissism type, which is under-identified. Narcissistic traits in men tends to be somewhat tolerated, just kind of like everything in society,” says a 23-year-old who shares content on her NPD and borderline personality disorder (BPD) on social media. Frequently, the two disorders appear together.

Individual Challenges

I find it difficult with receiving negative comments and being turned down,” she shares, “because if I hear that I am at fault, I often enter self-protection or I become unresponsive.” Despite having this reaction – which is known as “self-esteem damage”, she has been working to manage it and listen to guidance from her loved ones, as she doesn’t want to slip into the harmful behaviour of her previous life. My past relationships were toxic to my partners during adolescence,” she admits. With professional help, she has been able to manage her condition better, and she notes she and her current boyfriend “maintain an agreement where we’ve agreed, ‘If I say something messed up, if I say something manipulative, call it out {right then and there|immediately|in the moment’.”

Her upbringing mostly in the care of her father and says she lacked positive role models as a child. It’s been a process of understanding all this time the difference between acceptable versus unacceptable to say during a fight because it wasn’t modeled for me as a kid,” she shares. “Nothing was off-limits when my household were belittling me when I was growing up.”

Root Causes of NPD

Personality disorders tend to be connected with early life adversity. “There is a genetic component,” says an expert in personality disorders. But, when someone exhibits NPD characteristics, it is often “linked to that specific childhood circumstances”. Those traits were “a survival tactic in some ways to survive at a very early age”, he adds, when they may have been ignored, or only shown love that was conditional on meeting specific standards. They then “rely on those identical strategies as adults”.

Like several of the individuals with NPD, John (a pseudonym) thinks his parents “might exhibit similar traits. The individual explains when he was a child, “their needs came first and their work and their social life. So it was like, don’t bother us.” When their focus was on him, it came in the form of “significant demands to achieve academic success and career success, he recalls, which made him feel that if he didn’t meet their standards, he wasn’t “worthy.

In adulthood, none of his relationships ever worked out. I didn’t truly value about anyone really,” he admits. As a result, relationships weren’t relationships seriously.” He didn’t think experiencing genuine affection, until he met his long-term relationship of three years, who is facing similar challenges, so, in a comparable situation, struggles with mood stability. She is “very supportive of the stuff that goes on in my head”, he notes – it was surprisingly, she who originally considered he might have NPD.

Seeking Help

After a visit to his general practitioner, an assessment was arranged to a therapist for an diagnosis and was informed of his condition. He has been referred for talking therapy on the public health system (extended treatment is the only treatment that has been demonstrated to benefit NPD patients, experts say), but has been on the treatment delay for an extended period: It was indicated it is probably going to be in a few months.”

Disclosure was limited to a few individuals about his mental health status, because “prejudice is common that the disorder equates to toxicity”, but, in his own mind, he has embraced the diagnosis. The awareness assists me to understand myself better, which is positive,” he explains. Each individual have come to terms with NPD and are looking for support for it – which is why they agree to talk about it – which is possibly not the norm of all people with the condition. But the existence of NPD content creators and the rise of online support communities indicate that {more narcissists|a growing number