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Sometimes, Jay Spring feels he is “unmatched in his abilities”. Having received an NPD diagnosis, his grandiose moments often turn “detached from reality”, he states. “You are on cloud nine and you tell yourself, ‘People will see that I surpass everyone else … I’ll do great things for the world’.”

In his case, these times of heightened ego are usually succeeded by a “sudden low”, a period when he feels overwhelmed and ashamed about his behavior, rendering him highly sensitive to negative feedback from external sources. He first suspected he might have this personality condition after looking up his traits on the internet – and was later evaluated by a clinician. But, he doubts he would have taken the label if he hadn’t previously arrived at that understanding on his own. “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 notes – particularly if they harbor feelings of superiority. They operate in an altered state that they’ve constructed. And that world is like, No one compares to me and {nobody can question me|no one should doubt me|my authority is absolute.”

Clarifying Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Though people have been labelled as narcissists for more than a century, it’s not always clear what people refer to as the term. People frequently term everybody a narcissist,” explains a psychology professor, who believes the word is “applied too broadly” – but when it comes to a formal diagnosis, he believes many people keep it private, due to widespread prejudice associated with the condition. An individual diagnosed will tend to have “an inflated view of oneself”, “impaired compassion”, and “a strategy of using people to bolster one’s self-esteem through things like seeking admiration,” the expert clarifies. Those with NPD may be “deeply egotistical”, 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 emphasizes.

Emotional connections were never important about anyone really, so I didn’t invest in relationships seriously

Gender Differences in The Disorder

Though three-quarters of people identified as having the condition are men, findings points out this statistic does not mean there are fewer narcissistic women, but that female narcissism is more often presented in the vulnerable narcissism type, which is less commonly diagnosed. Male narcissism tends to be more socially permissible, similar to everything in society,” says an individual who posts about her co-occurring conditions on online channels. Frequently, the two disorders appear together.

Personal Struggles

I find it difficult with handling criticism and being turned down,” she explains, whenever it’s suggested that the problem is me, I tend to switch to defence mode or I withdraw entirely.” Although experiencing this response – which is sometimes referred to as “ego wounding”, she has been attempting to address it and accept input from her loved ones, as she doesn’t want to slip into the damaging patterns of her previous life. “I was very emotionally abusive to my partners in my youth,” she admits. With professional help, she has been able to mitigate her NPD symptoms, and she says she and her partner “operate with an understanding where I’ve instructed him, ‘When I speak manipulatively, if I say something manipulative, call it out {right then and there|immediately|in the moment’.”

Her upbringing mainly in the care of her father and says she lacked supportive figures during development. It’s been a process of understanding continuously the difference between and is not appropriate to say when arguing because it wasn’t modeled for me growing up,” she says. Every insult was fair game when my household were criticizing me in my early years.”

Root Causes of Narcissistic Traits

Personality disorders tend to be connected with childhood challenges. “There is a genetic component,” says an expert in personality disorders. But, when someone develops narcissistic traits, it is often “tied to that specific childhood circumstances”. Those traits were “their strategy in some ways to cope in formative years”, he continues, when they may have been ignored, or only shown love that was dependent on meeting particular demands. They then “continue to use those familiar tactics as adults”.

Like several of the NPD-diagnosed people, one individual thinks his parents “may be narcissists themselves”. The 38-year-old shares when he was a child, “everything was all about them and their work and their social life. So it was like, don’t bother us.” When their attention turned to him, it came in the form of “significant demands to achieve high marks and professional advancement, he notes, which made him feel that if he didn’t achieve their goals, he wasn’t “good enough”.

In adulthood, none of his relationships lasted. “I’ve never cared about anyone really,” he says. As a result, relationships weren’t relationships seriously.” He felt incapable of forming deep connections, until he met his present significant other of three years, who is diagnosed with BPD, so, in a comparable situation, finds it hard to manage mood stability. She is “highly empathetic of the stuff that goes on in my head”, he notes – it was actually she who originally considered he might have NPD.

Pursuing Treatment

Subsequent to a consultation to his doctor, he was directed to a clinical psychologist for an diagnosis and was informed of his condition. He has been put forward for therapeutic sessions via government-funded care (extended treatment is the primary approach that has been proven effective NPD patients, experts say), but has been on the waiting list for an extended period: “They said it is likely to occur early next year.”

He has shared with a handful of people about his mental health status, because “prejudice is common that every person with NPD is harmful”, but, privately, he has accepted it. “It helps me to understand myself better, which is always a good thing,” he comments. Each individual have accepted their narcissism and are pursuing treatment for it – hence being willing to talk about it – which is possibly not the norm of all people with the diagnosis. But the existence of online advocates and the expansion of virtual networks point to {more narcissists|a growing number