What do you consider a narcissist

[probablynotthesame]

I have been out of an abusive relationship for 10 years. I truly believe that my ex is a narcissist by things I have read since splitting up and reflected on my experiences whilst together.

I'm conscious that if you truly want to believe something or desperate for an answer you can end up making things 'fit' to give yourself answer.

So what traits/behaviours do you think a true narcissist presents?

No agenda just a curious question.

The predictability of the cycle of abuse in relationships and business interests: idealise, devalue, discard.

A history of mental breakdowns.

Boring and childish.

Victim mentality.

A entire harem of women (and a few men) who they keep sweet. A closet misogynist, however.

A slew of crazy exes. These accusations are in fact confessions.

Mimics others good qualities.

Alcohol/substance abuse.

Loud, arrogant, obnoxious.

Slimey glint in their eye, smug, uses reactive abuse to crazy make their exes.

Children by multiple women (they keep this one fairly quite).

A criminal record, possibly.

Long term instability in terms of finances and career, dramatic shifting and lack of genuine friendships, no permanent address/contact details, ruthless towards their children and exes.

A DP who is abusive, with similar characteristics.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder is defined within the DSM-5 OP. Nobody can really say what they ‘think it is’ it has an actual, medical definition.

I have always steered clear of calling someone an out and out Narcissist because I am not qualified to say that about someone. I may say that I suspect they are one but you can never be too certain.

Have a Google and you will see all of the traits listed. Also, listen to a podcast with Dr Chatterjee interviewing Dr Ramani - she is an absolute expert on NPD and abusive relationships with them. She had a book out called ‘it’s not you’ also.

After listening to her podcast, I could relate to so much of what she said that I suspect my ex is a narcissist although I can obviously never be totally sure about that. But, well, it doesn’t matter does it? I don’t need to label him with anything in order to know he wasn’t right for me and treated me badly

Self-aborbed, expect the world to revolve around them, and utterly incapable of understanding someone else's point of view. There is only one point of view, and it's theirs, and they are always right.

1% of population have NPD. That's 700 000 in UK alone, statistically. In a room of 100 people, you have every chance of being near one!

I’ll describe my father…..

Vain, self obsessed, little to no empathy, constant need to be centre of attention, likes to belittle people and make them feel worthless, no friends but a constant stream of women who think he’s wonderful, unable to compromise, unable to show affection.

Generally horrible.

I’ve always found this statistic intriguing as to how they arrive at it. Typically, someone with NPD will NOT go to therapy or seek a diagnoses as they never think anything is wrong with them. So how can’t they assume it’s only 1% of the population? It could be higher.
But you’re right, even with those stats we are all highly likely to meet at least one in our lifetimes

Empty shells of beings.

No empathy
No sense of consequence

@FlayedAbout I'll have a listen thank you for the recommendation.

I believe they have absolutely no ability to see anything wrong with themselves or their behaviour.

@DeleteIm I wonder how accurate that number is l? as PP said, they don't generally get help/diagnosis as part of their inability to see themselves as narcissistic.

Inflated view of their own importance
Entitled
Exploit others for their own gain
Empathy only when it suits them (e.g. they make others feel sorry for them to get something they want)
Little or no self awareness or self reflection on own behaviour

Apart from the stream of women you’ve described my mother.

The weird thing is my father copied her ways, he was like a puppy looking for praise from her for badmouthing people. It was a very toxic environment to grow up in.

They have NO empathy
Grandiose sense of self importance
Preoccupation with power, success or beauty
Must be admired
entitled, feeling that they deserve privileges and or special treatment
Interpersonally exploitative for their own gain
insisting that they have the best of everything
a belief they are more special or unique than others
envy of others and the belief that others are envious of them

Pathological need for adoration, performative, masking, charmers, low ability to love others, lack of care for the boundaries of those who love them or depend on them eg aggressive, abusive, inappropriate physical contact, belittling and extremely vain.

No boundaries, liars, dreadful parents, constant pitiful tales of all the terrible things, dying their hair a lot/have many tattoos/piercings (attention), exaggerating everything, mimicking people, mirroring behaviours, loud, rude, aggressive, will offer to help you to the point of forcing themselves on you to throw it all back at you, believe they're entitled to bloody everything, spiteful, hold grudges for eternity, quite often benefit cheats (or very successful cutthroat business people and will tell you about it with glee) they don't know how to cope when people cry, they try to destroy people who are happy, selfish, don't look after themselves, yellow teeth. When you finally get away from them they'll tell all and sundry what a terrible person you are, how you used them, how you're a huge narcissist etc etc.

They will curl up and die if you manage to be happy again. Shame.

Hope this helps.

@FlayedAbout researchers take samples of the general population and do structured interviews to try to determine prevalence of conditions. Then extrapolate the numbers. So that figure won't be based on people seeking treatment but on the general population.

https://ourworldindata.org/how-do-researchers-study-the-prevalence-of-mental-illnesses

Fwiw, I work in this field and some people with NPD absolutely do seek treatment.

Also, though I am trained to diagnose, I would not presume to do so for someone who was not my patient.

I have experience of the martyr type - took me a while to realise it was probably still narcissism.

Strong belief that they are owed things by ‘the world’ and if things go wrong in their life ‘the world’ is against them.

Keeps a long list of every thing that has ever gone wrong for them that is brought out every time they feel someone has let them down.

Never does anything to improve things for themselves, expects things to just happen for them, gets aggressive if suggestions are made.

Never looks to own behaviour when something happens (falling out, for example) it is always the fault of the other party.

Regularly drinks and becomes very nasty.

Deeply held, very unpleasant views, can’t be challenged.

Grandiose sense of self - belief that they are ‘better’.

Semi lives in grandiose fantasy world.

Puts one child on a pedestal and puts upon the other.

Dismisses the difficulties of others.

No empathy - always says something awful when someone is having a difficult time.

Has scared all potential friends away.

Male ones think everyone should respect everything they say and do

Female ones think other females are "after their man"

Boring to talk to never mind anything further.

Whereas they are all just dreadful humans all round.

CANNOT have a grown up discussion about a relationship (will fly off the handle, verbally attack, deny, blame others etc etc).

Although very few of these people will have the full blown Narcissistic Personality Disorder in DSM terms, I believe there are many “average” or mid-range narcissists in the world. Maybe as many as 1 in 10.

For the mid-range narcissists it can be hard to tell from the outside, but their family and perhaps a couple of close (ex!) friends will know there is something wrong with them.

How they respond to being told no is a tell tale imo.

A smugness , self importance, like all the attention to be on them . Subtle behaviours like walking off so people have to follow them. There are clues in their facial expressions and body language.

Lots of people have narcissistic traits , but very few are true narcissists.

So my ex was not diagnosed with anything. His daughter has bipolar. Most people in his family are depressed or anxious and his second cousin has bordline!!

My ex was just really immature emotionally and ive personally never met a man like it. He was 47 when we met. Good looking and sold a story of restarting life after battling drink. He was friends with his ex and all was peaceful between them.

Overtime i learned he lost her to cheating, money issues and addicition. He kept in contact with her but he was being manipulative with it. He wanted her attention and support and then was chasing me. He spoke to alot of women behind my back. I know of one tinder affair when we were still just talking. He then got involved with a friend to hurt me. He kept in touch with lpafs of women and didnt want to put our relationship on fb. Triangulation and cheating!

He lied and lied and lied about money, people and what he was doing. He hid addiction. He didnt pay the bills and he lost everything even though he had a decent job. He was so irresponsible he was always asking for money. He had always lent on his partners for loans and help so he didnt have to grow up and function.

Sex was confusing. Daily sex to months without. He used to say sex with his ex was a chore so in the end i figured i was a chore.

All his family had washed their hands of him.

Silent treatments. Lying. Blaming. Denying. Refusal to talk. Sometimes he would run cold on me for half a month! Then hed become warm again.

Hed never treat me on my birthdays.

We never went out.

He wasnt interested in me and 9/10 i could see his brain switch off if i spoke about my friends or work or my day.

Selfish and life was all about him

I believe in hg tutor’s classifications: vague summary:

1.Upper range narcissists (the real minority NPD types)
2.Mid range narcissists (he thinks 1 in 6, I think probably less than that maybe 1 in 10)
3.People with narcissistic traits
4.Average people (some empathy)
5.Empaths (he thinks 2 in 6)
6.Super Empaths (fairly rare).

I do believe this.

Actual narcissists are pretty rare but many people show such traits to various degrees.

When someone tells me their ex is a narcissist I usually role my eyes. There's so many narcissistic exs ...

My ex has 2 daughters aged 28 and 26.

Daughter aged 28 has walked away from both her parents 5 years ago. She has 2 children under 5. She got back in touch with her dad when her sister went manic with Bipolar and was sectioned.
She had looked out for her sister right from them being kids as both parents were useless and my ex wasnt around from them being approx 8. She spoke to me and i could see she was sane and trying to take care of her sister who was being chaotic and blaming her for everything.

The youngest urned up at my exes one sunday whilst we were getting ready to go to bed. She was manic and this was the first time i met her. She kept us up all night and we got her help in the morning. She hadnt seen her dad for 3 years and suddenly he was her world. She rang him and tore her sister to shreds. My ex was constantly on her side and harsher towards the other dd. He actually said she the younger one was prettier etc.

After a month of this i clicked on he liked the youngest because she was unwell and was currently thinking he was her hero. She was giving him stuff and lending him money. Giving him photos etc. There relationship started to make me cringe. I couldnt get my head around the lack of effort with his other child and her children. But i could see that because she said NO to him and wasnt falling at his feet fussing him he didnt pay her attention.

Its really messed up. Hed tell her youngest we were arguing to make me look like i was being controlling and bullying him.

Slight misunderstanding, actually @DWK123 I think narcissists are fairly common! The mid range ones can cause a lot of damage behind closed doors. The full-blown upper range NPD type narcs (perhaps verging on psychopathy) are more rare. I think people with strong narcissist traits - but who are not narcissists - are also fairly common.

Luckily there are some ‘normies’ and empaths around too. If a normie or (especially) an Empath gets tangled up with a narcissist (whether mid range or upper range) it’s a pretty rough experience for them to say the least. As an example, maybe Meghan Markle is a mid range narcissist …

Obviously this is just my opinion based on my reading and experience.

Narcissists cannot express or feel genuine affectiveempathy. They may show, because they have learned it, “cognitive” empathy, especially for others (outside their family!) but it’s cognitive, not based on true or real or deep feelings. Affective empathy can be silent even. By contrast cognitive empathy can be very verbal but superficial and fleeting, so sometimes people are taken in by the niceties in the outside world.