Narcissistic people/personality disorders

[Hellomartinitslinda]

Can you tell from first impressions if someone has a personality disorder?

Sometimes you meet someone and everything you say is wrong or they are dismissive etc. Or they try to tell you who you are.

No, you can’t. You can only be diagnosed with a personality disorder by a psychiatrist or psychologist.

What you’re describing is just normal interraction with a person you don’t particularly get along with.

My latest boyfriend has a personality disorder. He has emotional unstable personality disorder (borderline)

He's a very complex individual who sometimes worships the ground I walk on. Spoils me with attention. Helps me around my home. Cooks for me. Tells me he loves me. He sits in therapy telling his therapist he's frightened to loose me. He's scared of being abandoned.
But he has another side. Small arguments or even attempts to communicate. Pointless lies etc. It can lead to silent treatments. Ridiculous accusations. Saying he doesn't want me and can't handle me. Then 2 or 3 days later we are back together. We never discuss the situation and we "move on"

The only reason I'm still with him is he's on weds now and under therapists. If there's no improvement after this then I most likely will end it as I don't want years of the way he has been.

I find people with personality disorders are never in the middle. They are either up there or down there. They tend to have mood swings. Lie. Cause drama. Often have exes etc in the background. They tend to have problems with money. Jobs. Home. Family. They are so confusing. What they say can feel meaningless once a new mood arrives. When he's on a high he will say I could marry you. But when he's on a low he will dig at me for what i watch. How I behave on my phone. What I talk about.

I'd strongly recommend getting out and not wasting 2 or 3 years on a person who will drag you down.

No, for a start personally disorders are contentious and something like NPD is very rare.

Some people are just difficult or not very nice. This person you met doesn't sound like he likes you very much.

If I can give you some advice: don't waste your time analysing people, it doesn't matter what's wrong with them, just keep away.

No, the phrase word gets bandied about a lot but Narcissistic Personality Disorder refers to a specific set of diagnostic criteria, not just not liking someone or finding them overbearing and rude. It is diagnosed by a psychiatrist after taking a thorough history with the person themselves. Even a consultant psychiatrist couldn't reliably diagnose a PD just by meeting someone.

Bear in mind it is very possible to have traits of any of the personality disorders, Im sure I have some, you may do, without having a PD. It is also possible to not like someone and give them a miss without ascribing this to some disorder.
Have a look at something like the ICD-11 classification for PDs. There's no way you could make a clinical judgement on that just by meeting someone.

I have a relative who developed BPD and it’s made me a lot more wary of people. If I see certain traits in people, it will make me back away from them because of what my borderline relative put me through. It’s not about diagnosing people, but there are certain traits that are a real red flag to me now.

No, it took decades for the reasonable people in my family to figure out that we have someone with NDP in the family.

Personality disorders are simply a case of whether you tick enough boxes. Everyone has a personality and everyone is in a spectrum. The diagnosis is fairly arbitrary really. And people don't need to have a proper diagnosed personality disorder to be arseholes.

I don't think you can 'know' but you can certainly suspect. 😉

Not sure who they are? Just say "No" to something and see how they react.

I actually don't think you can tell usually - what you're describing is to me in the OP is a rude/maybe nasty person, not a narcissist.

I think everyone calls everyone a narcissist nowadays but I have a family member who is one and her behaviour is just so bizarre. She basically feels no empathy, isn't upset in the usual way when her parents etc died. I say in the usual way because she'd made a big dramatic scene in front of people to garner attention and then just shrug afterwards because she's forgotten about it/doesn't care about them.

She creates 'personas' for attention. Is obsessed with thinness and plastic surgery. Adores attention of all types even if it's negative (which is very strange to most people I think). She manipulates people to create drama - and thrives on it.

Maybe the lack of grief when close people to her die is more of a psychopath than narcissistic, I'm not sure. But she's been like that even with her closest lifelong relationships. That's the level of personality disorder I think of when I think of narcissist. Having encountered someone like her, when people say "my ex was horrible/cheated on me and is a narcissist" it does make me roll my eyes a bit. Your ex is a dickhead, not a narcissist

I actually think we're perfectly able to detect any pattern we're used to. In some people therefore, personality...dysfunction...might be evident in within a few meetings or even less. But it's also important to recognise that there can be different causes for certain behaviours.

So we may jump to the wrong conclusions.

Often people don't recognise covert narcissism after relationships with more overt narcissists, for example. Because they may seem different...in the beginning.

I think its safe to say however, to focus on how people make you feel rather than the underlying cause of why they make you feel that way.

If being around them is draining or upsets you, offends you, or feels like a constant battleground or generally uncomfortable, then they aren't healthy for you to be around. Labels aren't necessary.

Narcissistic traits are very common. But NPD is rare.

But I would be concerned if I picked up bad vibes from someone from a first meeting.

Actually some experts on the subject put it as high as 1 in 10.

I think the dsm says you now only need 2 out of the 9 possible traits to have the full disorder. Of course a professional is needed to officially diagnose.

But I don't think it's as rare as we'd like to think.
Just that many are lower on the scale.

I think we can definitely identify if someone feels like bad news and will sometimes be right, sometimes be wrong and they'll turn out to be ok. That is enough to make a decision on how to proceed with them. There is no need to speculate on any conditions they may or may not have.

@Supersimkin7 all personality disorder (patients) need 'others more than we need them'? Is that relevant to avoidant? OCD? It's the exact opposite for those with schizoid PD.

There is enough stigma out there about MH issues including PDs, which are often caused by trauma, without this nonsense.

If you grew up with a narcissist parent its very easy to spot the signs in other people. It’s different from just being an unpleasant person, it’s a clear and predictable pattern of behaviors and responses. Some are better at hiding it than others.
I also think it’s extremely common, every dysfunctional family will have a couple.

Ok but you cannot diagnose a personality disorder or any other MH condition from just meeting someone, even if you recognise traits.

There is is big trend for recognising personality disorder traits in others and not so much for self examination along the same lines (not that that is necessarily healthy or accurate). That seems to lean towards things like deciding one is an 'empath' and more sympathetic sounding things. That, to me, suggests that amateur diagnosis is heavily biased (I know that those with things like NPD and ASPD may be less likely to examine their behaviours which would add to the bias but those with some traits still might).

Having experience of the condition may be different (As you say, I think it, or traits are probably relatively common as a maladaptive way of handling relationships and the world) but it still doesn't give the ability to diagnose a PD from meeting someone. Fine to have knowledge of conditions. Fine to make decisions about people. Not fine to label them based on short interactions. Stigma is a real problem

I completely agree with pps disdain for labels like empath. I believe usually people who claim to be that have suffered lots of abuse and were trained to be intune with their abusers mannerisms so as to avoid further abuse. They haven't healed from that yet and are perhaps more sensitive to picking up things like micro facial expressions from others that give away their mindset. And more reactive to it. Life living in constant fight or flight is probably draining. But requires therapy not magical labels.

However, every time people on here discuss recognition of narcissists, someone goes "ok but only professionals can diagnose'. No one is talking about diagnosing!

Various things can be recognised with experience of them. I couldn't give a diddely about stigma. Oh boohoo, a total assholes been labeled a narcissist when actually they don't quite meet the level of 'asshole' to be one. My heart bleeds.

Yes I agree the word is overused. But I'm glad it's out there. It allows more people to hear about it and google the meaning and spot further people in their lives that are at best jerks, and at worst some sort of cluster b personality.

The only risk factor for me is that people often confuse npd with autism. You see it regularly on here, people asking if 'they could just be autistic?'. I'll concede that it could be really difficult if everyone labeled some person with autism as a narcissist (not to say someone can't be both) of the cusp, say based on a few similar traits displayed.

But on the larger scale of things, I'd rather the word was overused than underused. And I couldn't care less if mean people get slightly inaccurate labels.

I agree with this. Its quite common. And if you know, you know.

Why is it necessary to decide someone else has anything else wrong with them? If you don't like the way they behave, move on. Have the resilience and recognition of your own needs to do that under your own steam. It isn't necessary to find a label before you can do that.

No I don't think you can.
I'm convinced one of my ex supervisors had an anti social personality disorder- but that was after 3 years of working with her.
She could be incredibly nice and charming but then the more you got to know her you realised she was only ever nice when it benefited her in some way, she didn't have any real friends (just people she called friends but were in some way useful like would give her lifts home etc), she could be really nasty to people and I heard her say some really cruel things. She also lied a lot especially to get herself out of trouble. She never cared if someone was sick or going through a bad time personally, just cared about how it would impact work. My grandma died while she was my supervisor and she was a like "hmmm Monday isn't great for time off, can't you make it another day" when I asked about time off for the funeral.
I was only young at the time but now when I look back I really think she would score highly on the psychopath test!

And if you scroll back you'll see thats literally what I said on a prior post too :)

I think it’s possible to be an utter areshole without being a narcissist.

I also think that genuine narcissists are usually very charming when you first meet them. Other than thinking they’re a bit smarmy, I don’t think it’s something you’d usually spot immediately. They usually reel a person in before they show their true colours.

If I can give you some advice: don't waste your time analysing people, it doesn't matter what's wrong with them, just keep away.

This, all the way.

It doesn't matter whether they're certifiable, an asshole, or you just don't get on - just self-preserve and stay out of their orbit.

@user2848502016

I think every workplace has people like that and they tend to band together and support each other . I remember one colleague who was very pally with a narcissist manger and was very upset and shocked when he turned on her too .