That no-one warned us about the horror of narcissists?

[iwunderwhy]

Am I wrong to be really angry that the medical and psychiatric communities let the public down by not educating us decades ago on narcissism, and for not calling it the serious F'g mental illness it is. Narcissism - the real deal (not vanity etc) is shocking, devastating, and dangerous AND there's mounting evidence its increasing. It's like a narcissism tsunami ...Is it me or WTF??

Well I think it would help to be warned. I bought into the myth that my father was some misunderstood genius for five decades. Now I see him for the self absorbed, cruel shit he is, I feel sick when others fall into his trap. He fits the medical brief for narcissism perfectly and made my life and my sister's life hell. We are both scarred - me with serious debilitating long term MH issues and her with a severe eating disorder. It's so hard to explain to people who just have normal but difficult parents (or nice ones!) how pervasively damaging such people are.

I don't think narcissism is on the rise at all though. I think it has always been quite prevalent. Narcs are dynamic charmers. They rise to the top of every social structure that exists. Perhaps they are even needed in some way. Imagine if the entire world were run by reasonable people who considered everyone else's feeling before making a decision? I find it interesting how many people enjoy the role of being sheep to the narcissist's wolf. People seem to love the drama, love being issued commands and errands and being hectored. It baffles me but they queue up to entertain and serve my dad.

I see the word narcissist so often on this site it has lost all meaning. Funny how only exes and MIL's are accused of it..

I think I know one person that could be described as one (not diagnosed!) but on here you'd think 10% of the population are one.

It is an over used phrase, especially on MN, which is the sort of place people get hold of words and pepper shot absolutely every thread with them, with little or no understanding of the medical condition behind.

It is part of BPD and affects less than 1% of the population. Unfortunately everyone who ever encountered a narcissist apparently congregates on MN.

It affects more men than women, usually young men, but apparently simply EVERYONES MIL is 'a narc' .

I don't know, @SouthernComforts - maybe it's used to freely here, or maybe people who had horrific experiences eventually make their way to the stately homes thread and find solace here. It's pretty hard to find understanding elsewhere.It's like ASD diagnosis. People say it's high on MN but MN is a natural place to find comfort if you are coping with difficult relationships which the outside world can't see or understand. There are millions of M-ers. It only takes a hundred or so outspoken ones to discuss narcissism for it to appear skewed on here. But I'm not sure it is. Not on Stately Homes, anyway. I think that is a life-saving thread for people who have suffered emotional abuse.

too freely not to freely!

"Unfortunately I've noticed that everyone who has a horrible mother / ex partner / sister describes them as a narcissist - or just a "narc". No wonder people think it's more common than it really is."

^^ This
I'm aware of narcissism but never hear it regularly discussed in real life, only on MN.

Well I think it would help to be warned.

Warned by who, though?

Imagine if the entire world were run by reasonable people who considered everyone else's feeling before making a decision?

But again, how would that work? How could the feelings of everyone else in the world be taken into consideration before those running the show made a decision? And even if it was possible to do so, no decision or action will ever satisfy every single person, or work to everyone’s benefit or preference.

which is the sort of place people get hold of words and pepper shot absolutely every thread with them, with little or no understanding of the medical condition behind

Yes. See also ‘ASD traits / on the spectrum’, OCD, and anxiety.

I think more people should read about the profile of toxic/abusive people yes. Arguably, the label "narcissist" to apply to these people is helpful as a kind of shorthand, google search term, etc. I certainly found it extremely useful and enlightening when I was dealing with my ex who absolutely fit the internet definition of a narcissist. Whether he actually has a diagnosable disorder - several years later I couldn't begin to say. And I'm not really sure in hindsight whether having the commonly used term cross over with a personality disorder is helpful or not. It ends up blurring truth and exaggeration, armchair psychiatrists and legitimacy. If the "internet diagnosed narcissists" are not really sufferers of NPD, then it adds stigma and potentially unhelpful/incorrect information to a real disorder. But on the other hand, if they are following the profile so exactly, it can also be useful to look at clinical information as it is very valuable information for anybody stuck in the very confusing position of trying to relate to somebody like this.

So I don't think it's as unhelpful as everyone makes out. I believe if you do think it's applied to "everyone" or bandied about etc you probably haven't had a close personal relationship with somebody who fits the description, and therefore you probably don't really understand exactly how discombobulating and all encompassing it is, and how much it feels like a raft in a storm when somebody else can say "Yes, I know what that's like, my experience was like that too" and describe the profile of a person so exactly that you would swear they had been dating the same person.

I've only experienced the same sense of relief and understanding like this twice. First when I read the description of a (so-called) narcissist in relation to my XP, and second when I read the description of inattentive ADHD, something I was diagnosed with myself aged 27, meaning that my life for the preceding 13 years suddenly all made sense.

But on the other hand, I know that both with the narcissism and the ADHD, and so presumably for other similar things, for a little while after you've been through that kind of world-changing revelation, you can get a bit obsessive about it. Suddenly you're wearing ADHD- or Narcissist-coloured glasses, and everyone who has a slight hint of tendencies seems to be glowing brightly shouting out to you "It's everywhere!!" It comes from a place of kindness - you have experienced such a weight of change from recognising something that was important to you that you want to help everyone experience the same kind of thing. And in reality anything that affects ~1% of the population isn't rare at all, that's a huge number. And everyone has some kind of mystery, some struggle, or some secret. Interestingly 2 out of 3 of the "narcissists" I have known I would be borderline for saying they probably have severe ADHD - either on top or as an underlying cause for the behaviours that don't seem to make sense.

It dies down after a while, though I do still find that I can spot "narcissists". Whether it's a made up internet definition or some real thing. I can spot people with that behaviour/personality profile, I find the ways they act to be quite predictable even though they appear erratic in comparison to how most people act, you can see the dances people do around them as well. I honestly don't think 90+% of people with that profile though would ever consider themselves to have any problems, even when it is plainly obvious to people close to them that they have pretty severe problems, patterns of broken relationships, messed up jobs etc - because they have such a skewed vision of reality that the phrase "if you're the common denominator maybe the problem is you" simply doesn't occur.

And narcissists usually are extremely likeable to be around, at least while you're in their good books. That is exactly part of the profile!

Reading with much interest. A question for those of you who have experience of a narcissist. What are the symptoms ? How would you recognise a narcissist next time round ? I'm watching a very mean boss undermine a colleague. Would narcissism explain her behaviour? I have a lovely friend who talks about herself incessantly. Is she a narcissist ?

Mn diagnosis of others narcisism is on the rise

This is very true. The term gets bandied about too often imo.

My Dad has an NPD diagnosis, not that he would ever accept it. The destruction he has caused is breathtaking, and his ability to rewrite events is incredible. I recently discovered that most of my childhood was a complete fiction I had cobbled together from the occasional good memory, and Enid Blyton books. However, I would say that he has NPD, and is also a complete bastard. I don’t think it is necessarily just the NPD.

@colourlessgreenidea - yes, that was the point I was making. It wouldn't be workable. Maybe we actually need this sort of personality to take charge. I know my dad decided something shouldn't happen in his community and something else should and he just stormed to the top to make it go his way. It was pretty impressive to watch from the sidelines how utterly insistent he was that he would get his way. And in that scenario what he did was of benefit to the community. It was a good thing he did. Narcissistic personalities have their uses.

I have read each reply with great interest as I would say that I am responsible for being an amateur psychologist who has been surrounded by people who I have deemed 'narcissist' but now I'm thinking that perhaps it's just my own low self esteem and rather than trying to change their own behaviour just change mine. I have a Mum who displays narcissistic traits and my own brother and sister have just copied her behaviour as 'the norm'
Perhaps most of us reading this post can use the advice to give us confidence in our own opinions and act according.
As a side note, my children had a headmistress who has every narcissistic trait, I have spoken to them about this and advised them to succeed despite her and to appreciate the many fantastic teachers thy have subsequently encountered and to recognise that the other woman's behaviour was bad and if you recognise that in others to try to avoid them..... everyday's a learning day.

@NoneButOurselves

The key qualities are that they can't show empathy for others - not at all 0- zero ability to imagine why someone else behaves or thinks the way they do, and that they are furious and can sulk and rage for months if their opinion if ever challenged. My dad refused to come to my 50th because three months earlier we'd had a petty row about the colour of someone's eyes and it had turned out I was right. He was still fuming at me for 'publicly humiliating him' (disageeing about the eye colour of a famous person while having lunch with him and my mum) three months later.

I worked in mental health, and met some people diagnosed with NPD. They wouldn't accept the diagnosis of course and insisted they had something else.
It is rare to be diagnosed with this, perhaps people should be better educated on mood and psychiatric disorders to better understand their own mental health and to be more aware of these illnesses in others.
Above all, we should be teaching mental wellbeing and resilience.

They also have grandiose ideas about their own importance. My dad is aging and has ailments. When he didn;t feel his GP was taking his natural aging problems seriously enough he summoned my brother and sister both of whom live 400 miles away at opposite ends of the country, and me (I lived about 50 miles away at the time) and we all had to attend his GP to badger the GP about how serious this was and how he needed better treatment. No matter that he had been sent at NHS expense to every specialist in London all of whom had told him he was aging and it was natural. And we all did it. I still shrivel to remember who that poor GP called my dad into his surgery and in came an entire family, criticising and badgering him, because we were trained monkeys at the time.

It’s good that there is more awareness, especially of personality disorders, abuse and narcissism. After the first one I encountered, a boss who I could not get along with, it was my counsellor who suggested they were a narc and I should leave and stop trying to make it work. Best advice ever! Like others say, since then I can recognise the “dance” and the “slightly-off”ways they act out, the little power plays etc. The trauma and upset when they “discard” someone- it’s useful to be able to tell that person about narcissism, it helps to know there wasn’t anything they could/should have done.

@growlingbear I've never read the stately homes thread so I can't comment on that. I'm talking about general threads that start "Narc MIL won't do X" or where the first replies to a vague thread have diagnosed the ex as a dangerous narc based on him not taking the bins out.

I work in a personality disorder mh team. Never come across a patient with a diagnosed npd. Much more likely to work with EUPD or antisocial pd. The word gets bandied about.

I remember a few years ago everyone was trying to armchair-diagnose psychopaths. There seemed to be quite a few programmes on TV about psychopaths a few years back which probably didn't help.

The trouble is, mental health diagnosis and treatment is still a fairly imprecise science. Someone slaps a few traits together, having noticed that they seem to occur in the same cluster in patient after patient, labels it a syndrome or disorder and suddenly everyone's got it. Whether the treatment is drugs, institutionalisation or a bunch of colouring books will depend, as much as anything, on what's likely to be profitable for someone else.
Interesting to note that several pps noted that traits considered 'bad' have their uses, though. I've seen this a time or two: difficult, tiresome people who are still necessary because the things they get done are of huge benefit to others.
It's also true that most people are basically quite lazy-minded. They are happy to have their thinking done for them by 'public opinion' about anything deeper than what to have for dinner or where to go on holiday. This also has its good and bad aspects.

I have no idea whether my mother has bipolar disorder or NPD or any other condition. She is undiagnosed and will remain that way because she is supremely confident that it is not her that has a problem, it's the rest of the world. Her belief is reinforced by the words and behaviour of my father who has always shielded her from the hugely damaging consequences of her words and behaviour, even though it has meant sacrificing the physical and mental health of his own children and grandchildren in the process.

Narc may be an overused term on MN but being able to find some sort of explanation is the key to working out how to recognise it and protect yourself from further damage. Until I found the Stately Homes thread, I thought only our family suffered in this way. It's been an eye-opener.

Do I think this sort of damaging behaviour is on the rise? No. I now believe it's always been there, all around us. What has changed is that those who suffer from its effects are better able to seek out information and support.

I'm guessing most of us have displayed one or more narcissistic traits at one time or another. A far more concerning one is a complete lack of any form of empathy, or the kind of personality that drives some people to abuse others. It's possible that this kind of behaviour is increasing; it's far more likely though that these days it's more easily recognizable now there is more research, and more help available for those who have suffered at the hands of these people.

I'm interested in a PP's point as to whether it makes a difference that someone is diagnosed with NPD or a similar Cluster B disorder, or is on the spectrum. I think it does. We're inclined, nowadays, to pathologize everything. Stick a neat little label on something, stick it into its predesignated category or box, and this for some reason makes it so much more comfortable to live with. It seems to make us feel happier to find bona fide reasons which explain why people do the things they do.

How much more uncomfortable to admit that some people are just abusive arseholes, who enjoy the power and sense of privilege they receive from totally dominating or hurting others.

What exactly is 'normal', anyway?

I don't think it is increasing, I think it is more recognised then it was. It's probably like autism, autism is not increasing either but whereas people with high functioning autism were probably just labelled 'a bit strange' years ago, it is now recognised.