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Sometimes, a 22-year-old from Los Angeles is convinced he is “the most exceptional individual alive”. Living with narcissistic personality disorder, his grandiose moments frequently escalate into “highly unrealistic”, he admits. You’re riding high and you tell yourself, ‘People will see that I stand above others … I will achieve remarkable feats for the world’.”

Regarding his experience, these times of heightened ego are typically succeeded by a “crash”, a period when he feels overwhelmed and ashamed about his actions, making him highly sensitive to negative feedback from others. He first suspected he might have this personality condition after researching his symptoms online – and subsequently evaluated by a clinician. Yet, he questions he would have taken the label without having independently formed that understanding by himself. 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 comments – particularly if they experience beliefs of dominance. They inhabit a fantasy reality that they made for themselves. And within that framework, I am superior and {nobody can question me|no one should doubt me|my authority is absolute.”

Clarifying Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Though people have been called narcissists for more than a century, definitions vary what is meant by the diagnosis. “Everyone calls everybody a narcissist,” explains an expert in narcissism, who believes the word is “overused” – but when it comes to a clinical identification, he suggests many people conceal it, due to so much stigma linked to the condition. A narcissist will tend to have “an inflated view of oneself”, “difficulty understanding others’ feelings”, and “a tendency to exploit relationships to seek admiration through actions such as pursuing power,” 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 adds.

Emotional connections were never important about anyone really, so I’ve never taken relationships seriously

Sex-Based Distinctions in The Disorder

Though a significant majority of people identified as having NPD are men, studies points out this figure does not mean there are fewer narcissistic women, but that female narcissism is more often presented in the less obvious variety, which is under-identified. “Men’s narcissism tends to be a bit more accepted, similar to everything in society,” explains a young adult who posts about her dual diagnosis on digital platforms. Frequently, the two disorders appear together.

Personal Struggles

“I really struggle with receiving negative comments and rejection,” she explains, whenever it’s suggested that the problem is me, I often enter defence mode or I become unresponsive.” Although experiencing this reaction – which is often called “narcissistic injury”, she has been working to manage it and accept input from her close relationships, as she strives not to return into the harmful behaviour of her previous life. “I was very emotionally abusive to my partners during adolescence,” she reveals. With professional help, she has been able to reduce her narcissistic traits, and she notes she and her partner “maintain an agreement where we’ve agreed, ‘When I speak manipulatively, if I say something manipulative, address it {right then and there|immediately|in the moment’.”

She grew up primarily in the care of her father and explains there was an absence of positive role models in her youth. I’ve had to teach myself continuously what is and is not appropriate to say during a fight because I lacked that guidance as a kid,” she comments. Every insult was fair game when my family members were belittling me when I was growing up.”

Root Causes of NPD

Personality disorders tend to be connected with childhood challenges. Genetics play a role,” says a consultant psychiatrist. But, when someone exhibits NPD characteristics, it is often “tied to that person’s unique upbringing”. Those traits were “a survival tactic in some ways to survive at a very early age”, he states, when they may have been neglected, or only shown love that was conditional on meeting particular demands. They then “rely on those familiar tactics as adults”.

Like several of the individuals with NPD, a person from Leeds thinks his parents “could also have the disorder. The individual explains when he was a child, “the focus was always on 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 “significant demands to achieve academic success and professional advancement, he says, which made him feel that if he didn’t fulfill their expectations, he wasn’t “good enough”.

When he became an adult, none of his relationships ever worked out. “I’ve never cared about anyone really,” he says. “So I’ve never taken relationships seriously.” He believed he wasn’t loving someone, until he met his current partner of three years, who is diagnosed with BPD, so, similar to his experience, finds it hard to manage mood stability. She is “very supportive of the thoughts that occur in my head”, he notes – it was in fact, her who first suspected he might have NPD.

Pursuing Treatment

After a visit to his GP, he was directed to a clinical psychologist for an assessment and was given the NPD label. He has been put forward for psychological counseling on the public health system (a long period of therapy is the main intervention that has been demonstrated to benefit NPD patients, experts say), but has been on the patient queue for 18 months: “They said it is probably going to be in a few months.”

He has shared with a small circle about his NPD diagnosis, because “prejudice is common that the disorder equates to toxicity”, but, privately, he has accepted it. “It helps me to gain insight into my behavior, which is positive,” he says. All of the people have acknowledged their condition and are seeking help for it – leading them to be open to talk about it – which is possibly not the norm of all people with the disorder. But the existence of online advocates and the development of online support communities suggest that {more narcissists|a growing number