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At times, a 22-year-old from Los Angeles feels he is “the most exceptional individual alive”. Having received an NPD diagnosis, his grandiose moments can become “really delusional”, he admits. “You are on cloud nine and you’re like, ‘Everyone’s going to know that I surpass everyone else … I’ll do great things for the world’.”

In his case, these phases of exaggerated self-worth are usually coming after a “sudden low”, during which he feels overwhelmed and ashamed about his actions, making him especially susceptible to criticism from those around him. He began to think he might have NPD after looking up his traits on the internet – and eventually evaluated by a clinician. Yet, he questions he would have taken the label if he hadn’t previously arrived at that conclusion 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 harbor a sense of being better. “They’re in a delusional world that they’ve built up. And in that mindset, I’m the greatest and {nobody can question me|no one should doubt me|my authority is absolute.”

Defining NPD

Although people have been labelled as narcissists for more than a century, the meaning can be ambiguous what people refer to as the diagnosis. “Everyone calls everybody a narcissist,” states an expert in narcissism, noting the word is “used more than it should be” – but when it comes to a formal diagnosis, he believes many people conceal it, as there is widespread prejudice associated with the disorder. An individual diagnosed will tend to have “an inflated view of oneself”, “difficulty understanding others’ feelings”, and “a tendency to exploit relationships to enhance their social status through behaviors including seeking admiration,” the expert says. 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’ve never taken relationships seriously

Variations by Gender in NPD Presentation

While up to 75% of people found to have NPD are men, studies indicates this statistic does not mean there are a lower rate among women, but that female narcissism is frequently manifests in the less obvious variety, which is under-identified. Male narcissism tends to be more socially permissible, similar to everything in society,” notes a young adult who posts about her dual diagnosis on social media. It’s fairly common, the two disorders are comorbid.

Personal Struggles

I find it difficult with dealing with feedback and not being accepted,” she shares, whenever it’s suggested that the problem is me, I tend to switch to a defensive state or I withdraw entirely.” Although experiencing this response – which is often called “narcissistic injury”, she has been working to manage it and take advice from her loved ones, as she strives not to return into the harmful behaviour of her previous life. “I was very emotionally abusive to my partners as a teenager,” she states. With professional help, she has been able to mitigate her NPD symptoms, and she says she and her current boyfriend “maintain an agreement where I told him, ‘If I say something messed up, if I say something manipulative, address it {right then and there|immediately|in the moment’.”

Her childhood primarily in the care of her father and notes she didn’t have supportive figures during development. “I’ve been learning continuously the difference between and is not appropriate to say in conflicts because I never had that as a kid,” she shares. Every insult was fair game when my relatives were criticizing me when I was growing up.”

Root Causes of NPD

Personality disorders tend to be associated with difficulties as a child. Heredity is a factor,” notes a consultant psychiatrist. But, when someone shows signs of narcissism, it is often “connected with that specific childhood circumstances”. Those traits were “their strategy in some ways to cope in formative years”, he adds, when they may have been overlooked, or only shown love that was based on meeting specific standards. They then “rely on those familiar tactics as adults”.

Like several of the those diagnosed, one individual thinks his parents “may be narcissists themselves”. The individual explains when he was a child, “their needs came first and their work and their social life. So it was like, stay out of our way.” When their focus was on him, it came in the form of “significant demands to achieve academic success and life achievements, he notes, which made him feel that if he didn’t meet their standards, he wasn’t “worthy.

In adulthood, none of his relationships were successful. “I’ve never cared about anyone really,” he states. As a result, relationships weren’t relationships seriously.” He didn’t think experiencing genuine affection, until he met his current partner of three years, who is diagnosed with BPD, so, like him, finds it hard to manage emotional regulation. She is “highly empathetic of the internal struggles in my head”, he says – it was surprisingly, she who originally considered he might have NPD.

Seeking Help

Subsequent to a consultation to his doctor, an assessment was arranged to a mental health professional for an assessment and was given the NPD label. He has been referred for talking therapy via government-funded care (a long period of therapy is the primary approach that has been demonstrated to benefit NPD patients, clinicians explain), but has been on the treatment delay for 18 months: “They said it is expected around maybe February or March next year.”

He has shared with a small circle about his NPD diagnosis, because “there’s a big stigma that the disorder equates to toxicity”, but, in his own mind, he has accepted it. “It helps me to gain insight into my behavior, which is beneficial,” he says. Each individual have accepted their narcissism and are looking for support for it – hence being willing to talk about it – which is possibly not the norm of all people with the diagnosis. But the existence of online advocates and the rise of online support communities suggest that {more narcissists|a growing number