Are narcissistic people just extremely insecure?

[Warmfairylights]

I think I have a narcissistic family member. I know they had quite a traumatic childhood with the death of a parent at a young age. They are just really difficult to form any relationship with, like they will abandon you for attention from a stranger or a person they might have spotted who they used to know. You might be talking about something really important and they just disappear off the conversation onto something completely irrelevant but will be about another person, maybe that person bought a new house and how brilliant that is.

They seem to always need attention and need to always been seen. They need loads of people around them, will talk to people all through the night, will lead all committees and jobs. They literally need to be seen at all times. But you can’t rely on them for anything that you need. They change subjects and will interject into conversations people they have spoken to and what they have been doing. I never have any idea of who these people are and I’m not interested in people I don’t know. They literally know everything about everyone and everyone is a possible supply of attention, it never ends.

Spot on description.

Ok. I just feel really cut off like we are of no importance and not good enough. Not interested in his nephew nothing only the wife and all the people she knows.

What's your question, OP?
You wondered whether they are narcissists. The answer is no.
People can annoy/hurt you even when they aren't narcissists.

But what is your question? What do you need advice on?

• How to change them into becoming friendly human beings? You can't. Let it go
• How to show the world how unkind they are for not being interested in you? Why bother, mind your own business and move on.
• How to cope better with your feelings of disappointment so you can stop being so invested in these people's behaviour? Just stop giving them so much headspace. Stop going down that rabbit hole. Yes, they suck. Move on.

You can go on and on about how unkind they are. No one here is in any position to change that fact. The only change that needs to be made, is that you need to stop giving them so much attention.

You say all she ever does is talk about others but you're on here picking her apart. Perhaps she feels the same way about you?

yes you are probably right. I don’t think she knows what a family is like and is very avoidant with us and so is he now. It is sad but nothing we can do.

Just because people are family doesn’t mean that they have to like every person within that family. It just sounds to me like they don’t particularly enjoy your company and you also don’t like SIL. Your brother will pick up on that and naturally side with his wife. You haven’t said anything positive about either of them.
Let them live their life and you live yours is my advice.

It’s pretty much all of us really. It is hard to have a conversation really as like I said the wife will most of the time derail all conversations to something else that she has done. It’s hard to build a relationship on really superficial talk. When we ask them over I ask my brother and he says I’ll ask wife as it’s up to her. Now that he has no car he goes nowhere unless she takes him she has agreed. It is what it is I suppose.

Perhaps they're just self absorbed and not that interested in your side of the family. Doesn't make them narcissists. That would infer things like manipulation, need for admiration, lack of empathy, probably grandiosity.

Avoidant would infer she is keeping people at arm's length due to fear of rejection and social anxiety. Maybe she is but you can't just hop from saying someone is narcissistic to avoidant to, what next? Stop using therapy speech you don't understand and just accept them for who they are. In this case people you don't get on with that well, and manage the conversations. Feel free to say, 'ok tell us about that in a minute, we were talking about xxx'.

Not fitting in with your family isn't necessarily not understanding how a family works.

She/he is showing you what they are like now and it seems from what you are writing here that you want them to change. There is no need for therapy speak, they probably won't. So I would decide what you are comfortable with regards to contact going forward, accept that they just aren't interested, and be grateful that you don't have to spend more time in their world that revolves around others. It is a miserable place to be.
The uncomfortable truth is that the more you obsess about them you are doing the same but it is your choice how you move forwards.