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Sometimes, a 22-year-old from Los Angeles believes he is “unmatched in his abilities”. As a diagnosed narcissist, his periods of extreme self-importance often turn “detached from reality”, he states. You’re riding high and you’re like, ‘People will see that I’m better than them … I will achieve remarkable feats for the world’.”

In his case, these episodes of self-aggrandisement are typically followed by a “crash”, during which he feels sensitive and self-conscious about his behavior, making him highly sensitive to disapproval from those around him. He first suspected he might have narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) after looking up his traits online – and subsequently confirmed by a specialist. However, he doubts he would have accepted the diagnosis unless he had previously arrived at that conclusion personally. “If you try to tell 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 experience a sense of being better. “They’re in a delusional world that they’ve built up. And within that framework, I am superior and {nobody can question me|no one should doubt me|my authority is absolute.”

Defining NPD

While people have been labelled as narcissists for over 100 years, it’s not always clear what the term implies the diagnosis. It’s common to label everybody a narcissist,” states an expert in narcissism, adding the word is “applied too broadly” – but when it comes to a clinical identification, he believes many people hide it, due to widespread prejudice associated with the condition. An individual diagnosed will tend to have “an exaggerated self-image”, “impaired compassion”, and “a strategy of using people to seek admiration through actions such as seeking admiration,” the specialist clarifies. Those with NPD may be “highly self-focused”, 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.

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

Sex-Based Distinctions in Narcissism

Although up to 75% of people diagnosed with the condition are males, findings suggests this number does not mean there are a lower rate among women, but that women with NPD is frequently manifests in the less obvious variety, which is under-identified. “Men’s narcissism tends to be a bit more accepted, as with everything in society,” notes an individual who posts about her co-occurring conditions on social media. Frequently, the two disorders are comorbid.

First-Hand Experiences

“I really struggle with handling criticism and being turned down,” she shares, “because if I hear that I am at fault, I either go into a defensive state or I become unresponsive.” Despite having this response – which is often called “narcissistic injury”, she has been attempting to address it and listen to guidance from her close relationships, as she aims to avoid falling into the damaging patterns of her previous life. I used to be manipulative to my partners in my youth,” she states. Through dialectical behavioural therapy, she has been able to mitigate her NPD symptoms, and she explains she and her partner “have a dynamic where I told him, ‘If I say something messed up, when I use toxic language, call it out {right then and there|immediately|in the moment’.”

She grew up primarily in the care of her father and notes she didn’t have supportive figures as a child. It’s been a process of understanding continuously which behaviors are suitable or harmful to say in conflicts because it wasn’t modeled for me as a kid,” she says. There were no boundaries when my household were insulting me in my early years.”

Origins of The Condition

These mental health issues tend to be linked to early life adversity. “There is a genetic component,” explains a consultant psychiatrist. But, when someone shows signs of narcissism, it is often “linked to that person’s unique upbringing”. Those traits were “their strategy in some ways to survive at a very early age”, he continues, when they may have been overlooked, or only shown love that was based on meeting certain expectations. They then “continue to use those identical strategies as adults”.

Like several of the those diagnosed, a person from Leeds thinks his parents “could also have the disorder. The 38-year-old explains when he was a child, “their needs came first and their work and their social life. So it was like, keep your distance.” 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 achieve their goals, he wasn’t “acceptable.

When he became an adult, none of his relationships lasted. I didn’t truly value about anyone really,” he admits. Therefore, I never treated relationships seriously.” He believed he wasn’t loving someone, until he met his current partner of three years, who is also dealing with a personality disorder, so, like him, finds it hard to manage emotional regulation. She is “very supportive of the stuff that goes on in my head”, he notes – it was actually she who first suspected he might have NPD.

Accessing Support

After a visit to his doctor, an assessment was arranged to a mental health professional for an diagnosis and was told his diagnosis. He has been recommended for therapeutic sessions via government-funded care (extended treatment is the primary approach that has been shown to help NPD patients, specialists note), but has been on the patient queue for 18 months: “They said it is probably going to be in a few months.”

Disclosure was limited to a small circle about his condition, because “negative perceptions are widespread that every person with NPD is harmful”, but, personally, he has embraced the diagnosis. “It helps me to gain insight into my behavior, which is always a good thing,” he explains. Each individual have accepted their narcissism and are seeking help for it – hence being willing to talk about it – which is probably not representative of all people with the disorder. But the growth of NPD content creators and the expansion of virtual networks indicate that {more narcissists|a growing number