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At times, a 22-year-old from Los Angeles is convinced he is “the greatest person on planet Earth”. Living with narcissistic personality disorder, his periods of extreme self-importance can become “detached from reality”, he explains. “You are on cloud nine and you’re like, ‘The world will recognize that I surpass everyone else … I will achieve remarkable feats for the world’.”

Regarding his experience, these episodes of self-aggrandisement are often coming after a “emotional downturn”, during which he feels sensitive and self-conscious about his conduct, rendering him especially susceptible to negative feedback from those around him. He came to wonder he might have narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) after looking up his traits online – and eventually confirmed by a specialist. However, he doubts he would have agreed with the assessment unless he had already reached that realization on his own. When someone suggests to somebody that they have this disorder, {they’ll probably deny it|denial is a common response|they’re likely to reject it,” he comments – most notably if they experience a sense of being better. They operate in an altered state that they’ve constructed. And within that framework, I’m the greatest and {nobody can question me|no one should doubt me|my authority is absolute.”

Clarifying NPD

Though people have been identified with narcissism for over 100 years, the meaning can be ambiguous what people refer to as the term. It’s common to label everybody a narcissist,” explains an expert in narcissism, noting the word is “used more than it should be” – but when it comes to a professional assessment, he notes many people keep it private, due to widespread prejudice associated with the condition. A narcissist will tend to have “a heightened sense of self”, “impaired compassion”, and “a pattern of manipulating others to seek admiration through actions such as displaying material goods,” the specialist 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 emphasizes.

I never truly valued about anyone really, so relationships weren’t a priority relationships seriously

Variations by Gender in The Disorder

Though three-quarters of people found to have the condition are males, research indicates this statistic does not mean there are less female narcissism, but that female narcissism is typically appears in the less obvious variety, which is less commonly diagnosed. Male narcissism tends to be a bit more accepted, as with everything in society,” says a young adult who posts about her dual diagnosis on online channels. It’s fairly common, the two disorders are comorbid.

Personal Struggles

“I really struggle with dealing with feedback and being turned down,” she explains, whenever it’s suggested that I am at fault, I often enter self-protection or I become unresponsive.” Although experiencing this response – which is often called “ego wounding”, she has been trying to overcome it and accept input from her loved ones, as she strives not to return into the negative conduct of her previous life. “I was very emotionally abusive to my partners during adolescence,” she reveals. Through dialectical behavioural therapy, she has been able to mitigate her NPD symptoms, and she says she and her partner “operate with an understanding where I’ve instructed him, ‘If I say something messed up, if my words are controlling, call it out {right then and there|immediately|in the moment’.”

Her upbringing mainly in the care of her father and explains there was an absence of supportive figures during development. It’s been a process of understanding continuously what is acceptable versus unacceptable to say when arguing because I never had that in my formative years,” she comments. Every insult was fair game when my household were insulting me when I was growing up.”

Root Causes of Narcissistic Traits

These mental health issues tend to be linked to early life adversity. Genetics play a role,” notes an expert in personality disorders. But, when someone exhibits NPD characteristics, it is often “linked to that individual’s particular early environment”. Those traits were “a survival tactic in some ways to manage during childhood”, he continues, when they may have been neglected, or only shown love that was conditional on meeting specific standards. They then “rely on those identical strategies as adults”.

Like several of the NPD-diagnosed people, a person from Leeds thinks his parents “could also have the disorder. 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 attention turned to him, it came in the form of “intense expectations to achieve high marks and professional advancement, he recalls, which made him feel that if he didn’t fulfill their expectations, he wasn’t “acceptable.

As he grew older, none of his relationships ever worked out. I didn’t truly value about anyone really,” he states. As a result, relationships weren’t relationships seriously.” He didn’t think loving someone, until he met his present significant other of three years, who is diagnosed with BPD, so, like him, finds it hard to manage mood stability. She is “highly empathetic of the stuff that goes on in my head”, he says – it was actually she who initially thought he might have NPD.

Seeking Help

Following an appointment to his GP, an assessment was arranged to a clinical psychologist for an assessment and was given the NPD label. He has been put forward for psychological counseling via government-funded care (a long period of therapy is the only treatment that has been shown to help NPD patients, clinicians explain), but has been on the waiting list for an extended period: “They said it is likely to occur maybe February or March next year.”

John has only told a small circle about his mental health status, because “prejudice is common that all narcissists are abusers”, but, privately, he has accepted it. “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 seeking help for it – which is why they agree to talk about it – which is possibly not the norm of all people with the disorder. But the existence of NPD content creators and the development of online support communities indicate that {more narcissists|a growing number