
What It’s Like to Be a Diagnosed Narcissist - pseudolus
https://www.thecut.com/2019/01/what-its-like-to-have-narcissistic-personality-disorder.html
======
zamalek
There's a good chance my brother suffers from borderline personality disorder.
My therapist has explained the biggest issue about PDs: the disorders make a
person extremely unlikely to seek out help, as (to put it poorly) they believe
the problem exists with the people around them and not themselves. This means
that very little is understood, medically, about the disorders and how to
treat them effectively.

The author of this piece is an extreme anomaly, not for having a PD (it is
surprisingly common), but for having received effective treatment.

If you suspect that someone in your life suffers from a PD, I strongly
recommend "Out of the FOG[1]." It focuses on what you can do to protect
yourself and potentially have the semblance of a healthy relationship.

[1]: [https://outofthefog.website/toolbox-
intro/](https://outofthefog.website/toolbox-intro/)

~~~
toufiqbarhamov
There is also a healthy debate over the degree to which personality disorders
represent a true disorder, or just an extreme personality on the edges of
normal distribution. If you consider it in those terms, then “treatment”
amounts to having someone voluntarily attempt to change their personality at a
fundamental level. Even if they wanted to, how likely is that to succeed?

All too often treatment for personality disorders, especially in Cluster B
just train people how to better fake “normalcy” and to speak the language of
therapy.

~~~
da_chicken
> _There is also a healthy debate over the degree to which personality
> disorders represent a true disorder, or just an extreme personality on the
> edges of normal distribution._

I'm not sure that's a meaningful distinction. That is to say, a "disorder"
should be something that interferes with your ability to function and flourish
in a normal environment. I'm not sure it's meaningful to draw a distinction
between people who absolutely cannot function and people who merely
_effectively_ cannot function. Just because your ankle is sprained and not
broken doesn't mean you don't need medical care or that you should be walking.

~~~
drb91
Well, if functioning and fluorishing is defined by conformity, this doesn’t
seem very meaningful. Some personality disorders allow a high functioning
career and social life.

To be clear I am trying to illustrate the idea that a disorder seems
inherently devilish to define.

~~~
DanBC
> Some personality disorders allow a high functioning career and social life.

No, they don't, because built into the definition of disorder is the impact it
has one someone's life.

~~~
toufiqbarhamov
Which is a bit of an issue isn’t it. Is Shkreli in Cluster B? Probably, and
now he has the impact on his life to prove it. So before that, when he was
just incredibly successful, had no criminal record, and seemed able to
function at a high level did he have the same disorder? If outcomes represent
a diagnostic criteria then it reveals a weakness in understanding or even
defining the disorder in question.

It’s important to distinguish between diagnostic criteria, and the disorder
itself, if they are actually disorders.

------
motohagiography
I know a couple of men like this, and it's not confidence, arrogance, or
judgmentalism that defines them, it's a lack of respect for normal adult
boundaries, and a need for external validation that motivates their basic
decision making. It's solvable for them if they learn enough, but I see them
as psychologically un-weaned.

Men interact based on boundaries and often hierarchies, and a guy who is
obliviously transgressive to that is usually thought of as "on the spectrum,"
or more rarely, a narcissist. Sometimes they are in actual positions of
competence or authority, where their lack of respect for personal boundaries
is consistent with an externally granted authority role, and this misdirects
from the more pathological aspect of their behavior. Being transgressive is
sometimes a sign of exceptional intelligence as well, so people tolerate it
under the aegis of "brilliant jerk."

Personally, I have some sympathy for them because it's such a steep hill to
climb if they are going to ever improve, but have learned to just be
unambiguous about setting boundaries and making it clear I think they have a
blind spot on boundaries they need to manage.

Provided you aren't being paid to take their abuse, you can reasonably say to
them, "Consider whether you may have a blind spot on personal boundaries." If
you are being paid, I recommend getting paid somewhere else.

------
gerbilly
I had to disentangle myself from a friend who was a narcissist.

Looking back it feels like I was his 'sidekick'. I was one of his sources of
narcissistic supply.

He thought he was improving me, helping me with my 'problems', like I was his
project. This went on for years before his personality became sufficiently
extreme that I couldn't ignore it any more.

It was a very difficult time, and it was surprisingly hard to disentangle
myself, even though being around him made me feel bad.

~~~
DigiMortal
Hey - I was recently in a similar situation. Friend of 8 years, roommate, etc.

His arrogance, narcissism, having to be right about every single little thing
(impossible to be wrong), built so much toxicity I could not take it anymore.
I had to cut him out of my life, it was so toxic to me as a person.

I'm about three months out from it. I feel better. I feel less anxiety, he
isn't stressing me, etc.

Now I can better focus on my own problems and continue building myself to my
best self.

Hope your journey is going well!

~~~
gerbilly
It's been a long time so I'm ok, thanks for asking.

People who haven't been in that kind of relationship can't really know what
it's like.

You really do have to sever all ties with a person like that. You can't be in
50%, they demand all of you and more.

It sounds like you did the right thing.

~~~
DigiMortal
Yup, came to the conclusion it has to be severed ties. And I really look for
the best in people too

What helped me was when my best friend growing up committed suicide a few
months ago, when I was home I kept thinking how amazing a person he was, how
nice, how pure and caring....

Then I thought about this person I was spending all my time with, the opposite
kind of person. It made me sad to lose someone so good, I decided I would cut
that other person out because they were so bad. IF that makes sense...

------
bellerose
I think children get really harmed by parents who happen to be narcissists.
I’ve seen a lot of hurt on Reddit about being raised by narcissists and It’s
almost as if children of these parents should have been warned growing up and
so they could have avoided the pain of realizing the love is different than
normal. I think healcare needs to focus on the family development with a
narcastic parental figure and similar to other illnesses.

~~~
dsabanin
Isn't blaming their parents' character flaws for the adult children's
character flaws just a way to avoid responsibility by those adult children?

If a grown up child thinks parent should've fixed their flaw before it
affected the child, then they presume that the flaw could have been fixed or
mitigated.

In that case, why the child spends time blaming the parent on reddit now,
instead of working on fixing the flaw that was, in many cases unknowingly,
created by the parent?

~~~
danharaj
Determining the etiology of a problem sounds _exactly_ like taking
responsibility. I think you wrote your post with a mean-spirited attitude.

------
fzeroracer
It's interesting, considering my mother's side of the family tends to
seemingly run a bit narcissistic. My grandmother especially, but I also see
bits of it in my mother.

The best way to describe it is that her world sort of exists around her.
Things only really matter if they personally affect her, and when they do it
revolves around her feelings, regardless of the feelings of those around her.
She clearly deeply cares about me, but the ways she shows that affection
revolves around herself if that makes sense.

It does make discussing emotional matters a bit...difficult, at times. But
I've long since accepted that.

~~~
jondubois
I think that the vast majority of people (narcissist or not) will never do
something unless they personally benefit from it in some way. Everything that
people do is for themselves. Even when people give money to charity; they do
it because it makes them feel good.

I think that maybe the difference between a narcissist and an altruist is that
a narcissist doesn't derive any positive emotions from helping others.

~~~
fzeroracer
I disagree, I personally believe it's possible for people to be altruistic
entirely for the sake of altruism. Making themselves feel good is secondary to
the altruistic action.

And I think that's what differs between a narcissistic action and an
altruistic one. Narcissists absolutely can and do derive positive emotions
from helping others, but it's either entirely to help their own self-worth
and/or achieve a certain goal, like the example in the article of helping an
old lady accross the street.

An altruistic action is done for the sake of helping someone first, with the
positive reinforcement as a potential bonus. A narcissistic one is done for
the sake of positive reinforcement with helping others as a side effect.

~~~
jondubois
You may not realize it consciously, but writing this comment probably made you
feel (at least slightly) good about yourself.

Not consciously realizing that helping others feels good doesn't mean that
you're more of an altruist.

------
rrggrr
Its worth noting that the line between Aspergers (which I probably misspelled)
and NPD can be blurred, particularly in women. Similarly, egocentrism,
generalized anxiety disorder, NPD share features. This matters because empathy
and patience is an effective strategy for engaging with those suffering from
most of these disorders... but not NPD unless you're trained to do so.

~~~
core-questions
Can you tell me more about this? I think I'm facing this situation - it
increasingly feels some kind of half-ASD, half-NPD that makes my domestic life
less than ideal.

~~~
PlugTunin
I'm no expert but suspect the empathy deficits present differently. Seems more
willful on the part of the NPD, perhaps. With ASDs, it's often a case of not
being self-aware enough to know how you come across, but once pointed out, it
can be helpful to know. The narcissist may not even care? The subject of this
article, to his credit, may not be the norm. And there are other
differentiating factors. Along with autism comes certain sensory issues.

------
Townley
The author's comments about the "positive vs negative aspects of narcissism"
are interesting.

I remember reading[0] about how one of the most effective ways to determine if
someone is a narcissistic is to ask them... "are you a narcissistic?". That
surprised me at first because self-diagnosis is almost always a bad idea, but
on second glance it makes sense that people who think about themselves all day
could be more introspective than normal (or sometimes not: they could waste
their day thinking about how great they are).

But if part of success is understanding your own thought process and working
around your strengths/weaknesses, these are useful insights for anyone on the
narcissism spectrum (see: everyone)

Ref: [0] [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/socially-
relevant/20...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/socially-
relevant/201601/how-profile-narcissist-one-simple-question)

~~~
jordinl
> I remember reading[0] about how one of the most effective ways to determine
> if someone is a narcissistic is to ask them... "are you a narcissistic?"

So what would a narcissistic person answer to this? Yes?

~~~
flybrand
Yes - or they would explain all of the good things about their worldview.

Source:
[https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/280718.php](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/280718.php)

"People who are narcissists are almost proud of the fact. You can ask them
directly because they don't see narcissism as a negative quality - they
believe they are superior to other people and are fine with saying that
publicly."

------
airstrike
Thanks. This was a disturbing read as each paragraph further convinced me I
suffer from the same thing. Time to go see a shrink.

EDIT: and clearly only a narcissist would comment on how relevant the article
is to _them_ specifically... sigh

~~~
zamalek
Even if you don't have a PD, going to a shrink is always a good thing. It's
great that we spend so much time looking after our physical health in the
modern world, but we should also be taking more care of our mental health.

------
dsabanin
I think a lot of what this person describes about their thinking process and
life patterns is actually going on in everyone's brain, but with less
awareness of it.

The irony is, I guess, that the narcissist part is only the part that actually
making him think that these patterns are somehow special or unique to him.

~~~
gerbilly
All mental disorders are made of up behaviours, and mental processes that are
common to everyone, just taken to an extreme.

It usually starts to be considered a disorder when it starts to interfere with
functioning, or maintaining healthy relationships.

------
BerislavLopac
I was glad to see that the article explicitly mentions introvert narcissists
(or "covert", as they're sometimes referred to).

> But the form in which narcissism can present itself also varies, says
> Malkin. While most people are familiar with what Malkin calls the
> “extroverted narcissist” — the braggadocious chest-thumpers — there are also
> introverted narcissists, whose sense of specialness may derive more from a
> sense of victimhood than superiority. “These are people who … might feel
> special because of their emotional pain,” says Malkin. “They agree with
> statements like ‘I feel I’m temperamentally different from most people,’ or
> ‘I have problems that nobody else seems to understand.’” (Malkin says this
> form comes up a lot in teenagers.) Because these narcissists aren’t so
> showy, or grandiose, they often fly under the radar.

I've spent five years in a very difficult relationship, and only when someone
pointed me to the direction of narcissism I was able to understand what is
going on. The other person check pretty much all of the boxes describing a
covert narcissist, and only after understanding what I'm dealing with I was
able to look for the right form of therapy (for myself) and finally leave the
relationship nearly a year later.

------
sparrish
Just like a narcissist to write a post about himself. <grin>

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
There were about 200 instances of "I" in that post.

~~~
saghm
Most of the article is the author asking the person questions about himself;
I'm not sure how anyone could give proper answers to those questions without
using first person pronouns.

~~~
brewdad
Brewdad could refer to myself in the third person.

~~~
saghm
> I spoke to one such person, a 46-year-old man who was diagnosed with
> narcissistic personality disorder in his mid-30s and was treated for years
> afterward. [I’ll note here that while his English is pretty much perfect, it
> is his second language; he is Dutch, and lives in the Netherlands.] That
> conversation, which has been edited for length, is below.

It seems pretty clear to me that the author is not the person who's answering
the questions.

EDIT: I see what you're saying, but it would be more strange to answer
questions like that than in the first person. I don't think I've ever read an
interview where the interviewee didn't respond to questions in the first
person.

------
eggy
Is there any truth to the fact that in order to be covered by medical
insurance in the USA, mental disorders have to have a DSM entry for medical
coding practices, and that this has created a plethora of acronyms, or other
labels for phenomenon that haven't really been sussed out as actual disorders?
I have heard many people over the years reference the DSM as some way
validating a phenomenon or label applied to themselves by their therapist or
self-diagnosed.

------
andrewstuart
I'd be interested to hear, anyone reading this, if you know someone who tends
to behave in a narcissistic way, exactly what are they doing that you see as
narcissistic?

~~~
MarsAscendant
My mother, I suspect, is some level of narcissistic. She can be generally
okay, and even nice to be around on occasion, but if there's a _hint_ of her
being in the wrong, she becomes exponentially more defensive.

"Never happened" is one. She'd claim that the the event of her doing wrong –
calling others names, sabotaging others' performance, behaving in an immature,
passive-aggressive kind of way – never happened. "Yeah, it did" is met with
further denial. _Maybe_ she'll admit she did that, but _only because_ it was
justified: maybe she felt _so bad_ she could do nothing else, or maybe someone
forced her to behave badly.

In general, her negative traits are flung under the rug, and her positive
traits are put under the limelight. She would never admit to not knowing
things, unless not knowing things puts the responsibility for the failure away
from her. She'd also claim how good at <something> she is ("I'm such a good
psychologist! I understand people _so well_!"), and any attempt at countering
her positivity assertions are dismissed passively.

I suspect her faking illness – presenting herself as ailing to gain attention
and sympathy, which becomes self-fulfilling bullshit – also has something to
do with the perpetual-victim mentality that underlies narcissism.

~~~
alashley
This is usually referred to as gaslighting, which you may know.

A Narcissist's Prayer

That didn't happen.

And if it did, it wasn't that bad.

And if it was, that's not a big deal.

And if it is, that's not my fault.

And if it was, I didn't mean it.

And if I did...

You deserved it.

~~~
tapland
After learning about the narcissistic prayer and having siblings and my SO
tell me that they thought my mom has it she proceeded to pretty much say this
exactly after wiping her wet hands off on my shirt in the kitchen when we were
visiting. Just remove the 'you deserved it'.

I asked her to not open our private mail when we were moving and had to
redirect it to my parents (no other relatives nearby) and after doing so she
threw a fit and threatened to kill herself on a main street in the capital
rather than to say that she was sorry to my SO for opening all out mail.

She even sent me photos in a fit of rage proving that she knew the mail was
fine to open, because it said it was just a bill for the redirecting in one
case, something that was only visible from the inside after opening.

