Genuine question:
NPD is probably rare, but narcissism-lite is endemic to humanity. What are the indicators that tell me I should start inducing a collapse in myself? How do I make it obvious that my ego has diverged from the world around me?
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Yeah I read this article and think: isn't that a possible reaction for anyone who feels like their world is falling apart? It just happens at a different point for a "narcissistic" person, of which I definitely can recognize some in myself. Just like I can identify with a lot of other things on various spectrums. I don't have much advice on your specific question, other than I happen to have a wonderful woman in my life who taught me some things: laugh at myself, especially when others are teasing me; accept I'm human and don't expect otherwise of myself; things always change, so just be patient and don't do anything drastic in a moment to make things worse.
Lashing out when your self-image is damaged isn't unusual. Individual acts of narcissistic behavior isn't unusual.
For example, a relatively normal person might lash out after being dumped, but then after one regrettable night yelling at his friends, or one regrettable text message, realize that he did some dumb things and self adjust.
In general, the difference between what usually gets diagnosed a personality disorder, and the spectrum of normal is how systemic a behavior is, and how resistant a person is to changing their behavior.
Article sure casts a wide net. Like it says collapse can manifest as 'trying to win the other person back if their partner broke up with them'. It says 'people with NPD are so insecure, they often feel empty and hollow – they need admiration from others to feel validated.' Could be NPD and collapse are super prevalent or maybe I need to face some truths about myself and my circles
Right. The article could maybe be written a bit better, but it says right from the beginning that this is an article discussing NPD individuals. NPD individuals do a lot of things that highly overlap with what non-NPD individuals do. They are just much more harmful.
In general, whenever you read about X personality disorder, you need to mentally qualify every statement of behavior with some variant of "to the extent of consistently/frequently causing self-harm or harm to others".
Chiefly, the fact that you are concerned with acting narcissistic is a strong indicator that you likely would not be diagnosed with NPD.
Like I said, acting narcasissitcally in a moment, lashing out when your ego/self-image is damaged, feeling insecure, wanting external validation - these are -all- normal human behaviors. Completely erasing these "faults" is... I think impossible.
That said, one does not have to be a NPD to be an asshole. Every group will have different thresholds from "noticeable trend of behavior" and "a real actual problem". Self-reflection is always helpful.
NPD is fairly uncommon, and people with it are generally completely immune to feedback. You could tell them they have harmed you in X way, and they will simply be unable to internalize it. 'Immune to negative feedback' is a good proxy. Where as people merely high in the narcissitic trait are more likely to behave that way, they would also eventually be able to understand that they harmed you. A narcissist would be very reluctant to go to therapy. Someone with NPD would believe at their inner most core that therapy is incompatible with their being.
>NPD is fairly uncommon
And
>Someone with NPD would believe at their inner most core that therapy is incompatible with their being
You do see how these things could correlate in a manner that leads to a diagnosis rate lower than the population rate.
For sure. But the destructive wake of people with actual NPD is so large, it is a relatively stable rate.
You're probably right - actually medically diagnosed narcissistic personality disorder is likely very rare diagnosis... Because the people who have that would deign to admit they have a problem. "Its the world that has a problem and they're right."
And if reading https://old.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/ is any signifier, yeah it's likely rampant. It gets bad there quickly and stays bad.
Even my own mother is one such narcissist. She's tried to bait us siblings against each other. Fortunately, we'll just get on a call or zoom and actually talk. As of now, all siblings have blocked her. Thankfully, we (siblings) all met up for thangsiving, which was awesome. Mommy dearest can go tell herself how great she was, by herself.
I think that when somebody (almost anybody) today blows up out of proportion of the cause it is a "narcissistic collapse". That is, somebody flips from "I'm a good person" to "I'm a bad person" and to use a technical term, they lose their shit.
That is, it's a problem in my mind that "Narcissists" are othered as a category whereas narcissism (self-love) is a natural and essential part of the psyche the same way your heart is a part of your body. Everybody has it. You have to engage with (cathect) your own self image to remember to do self-care such as brushing your teeth, planning for retirement, etc. Many things can go wrong with your narcissism the same way that many things can go wrong with your heart (heart attack, heart disease, heart failure, arrhythmia, etc.)
There is a case that people have more trouble with narcissism today than in the recent past because of the need for self-invention that people have today: it used to be that you didn't move, you didn't have to think about who you would marry or what kind of work you would do or how you fit in with other people, it was all decided for you. Chris Lasch, on the other hand in the book
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture_of_Narcissism
saw the culture in the US being corrupted by narcissism in the later half of the 19th century to today. Japanese people think that analysis applies to Japanese people in the Tokugawa period and if you believe that you might also find traces of it in Imperial Rome. (Lasch would see religion with an ecclesiastical structure separate from the state as a countervailing force.)
Myself I had two periods in my life of about six months in my life where I experienced NPD-like symptoms and behaviors. Once I found an article in Psychology Today with a title like "Are you the target of a Narcissist?" and I think I had exhibited 10 out of 12 of the behaviors on their- list. In both of those cases I was under stress, in a kind of transitional situation, and exposed to bad influences.
Narcissism is not self-love. It's a reaction formation to hide the opposite.
People who genuinely like themselves aren't usually emotional extremists. Challenges and setbacks don't obliterate their sense of self and they can deal with them in a mature way. They're capable of empathy for others and don't need to perpetually one-up themselves with condescension, bullying, criticism, and psychological and emotional attacks.
Not so much narcissists, who are notorious for all of the above.
Self-esteem does change over time, but not always in predictable ways. Young people aren't necessarily more narcissistic than older people, or vice versa. The common factors seem to be embedded shame and a kind of terrified sense of impotence that can only be alleviated by constant and excessive praise, attention, and reassurance.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthy_narcissism
Terminology shifting in the last 10-20 years is another sign of that othering. The thing about othering is that they always other somebody else until they come to other you.
> Terminology shifting in the last 10-20 years is another sign of that othering.
Or the development of the understanding that it is a spectrum?
> they always other somebody else until they come to other you
Who are "they"?
Freud uses narcissism for two different things. The term gets fleshed out by later psychoanalysts, particularly Heinz Kohut and Otto Kernberg who seem to be talking about completely different populations of patients. Kohut in particular develops the concept that is described as "healthy narcissism" in Wikipedia and very much sees pathological narcissism as "narcissistic disturbance".
If you had to blame somebody for the othering it starts with Kernberg, Lasch makes his contribution, probably the worst of them all is Sam Vaknin who claims to be a narcissist and obviously gets narcissistic supply by doing massive SEO spam on the subject to warn the world about the dangers of narcissism. (He'd probably agree he's the worst and that's the disease talking) There is a particular horror in that people are waking up to NPD being the "master personality disorder" in our culture in that people who are NPD or NPD-adjacent frequently rise to the top in business and political organizations.
My first take is to reject "spectrum" in terms of autism spectrum because in the case of autism most people are not autistic at all. I think there are people with other disorders, particularly "schizoid spectrum" or "schizotypal spectrum" that want to imagine they are on the autism spectrum because there is so much awareness of autism.
I would say that "narcissism" is a part of normal psychological organization and that (1) has something to do with why some people with NPD can dangerously hook people, and (2) complicates people who have other disorders. I knew a woman who I think had schizoaffective disorder (never got a real diagnosis or treatment) that that caused her to be disabled and on top of that had intense feelings of worthlessness because she was disabled (narcissism spectrum). It was the latter that I think led to her suicide.
I'm having difficulty understanding your response.
Clearly narcissism is part of human nature, but are you saying that people make too much of NPD and that we should ignore the impacts of it, both on the individual and people they interact with?
(1) Whenever "othering" is going on the weak are victimized but the strong are able to protect themselves. Sam Vaknin presents a particular case study because his whole narrative and behavior around narcissism is an obvious manifestation of the disease. (Look at "Stack Ranking" as an institution where a person who can convince management that their glass is 70% full and that yours is 30% empty will always win out.)
(2) If you've ever talked to someone in the limerent phase of love you will recognize that such a person will not bide any discourse that the love is a lost cause or that the love object is no damn good. "Naming and shaming" is a highly ineffective way to change people's behavior.
(3) The psychology of narcissism is full of insight into everyday psychology, ordinary behavior, and questions like "why do social interventions often have the opposite effect as intended?" If "narcissism" just becomes a label we slap on some other, we can't have conversations which might actually proof people from damage by narcissists.
(4) To take an example, some people would say the last president of the US was narcissistic and that he was a threat to democracy. On the other hand, one might say that democracy itself is problematic if somebody like that can run the gauntlet to get elected. Maybe that's "blaming the victim", but the real problem is the vulnerability of the population to a person with certain characteristics and simply calling out this person's characteristics has a polarizing effect where the people who weren't going to vote for him will glom on to this label and the people who were going to vote for this people will reject it. Daniel Boorstein in his 1963 book The Image thought that it was just a matter of time before celebrities would outcompete ordinary politicians and he might have been surprised it took as long as it did.
The problem is bad enough that one might conclude that democracy is not such a great idea after all, but one thing for sure is that someone is going to try to replicate his success again.
Start journaling your thoughts and then review them weekly to see how things are going. You might notice a gap.
I think that it's really good to examine yourself, and to keep trying to understand and work out the truth of your particular situation. I don't know anything about you, so please take this with a grain of salt, but the fact that you are serious about inducing a narcissistic collapse tells me that you probably don't need one.
It might even be damaging for you. Maybe you're depressed, or have self-esteem issues, alcoholism, addiction, co-dependency, developmental issues, or any of a number of other things going on.
Re: Narcissism-lite -- it's been pretty well established that a small amount of narcissism can be a good thing, while too much is a bad thing. How to know the difference? Results. Does your life work for you? Do you have some friends that you can talk with about this? Or maybe a therapist?
Yeah, I've recently made huge strides in overcoming alcoholism, and I think I'm just interested in other large positive perspective shifts I can make in my life. But it might be better to stick with some smaller incremental gains for a bit :)
Thanks!
I remember reading The Road Less Travelled, by M. Scott Peck, a long time ago. It dealt with issues of narcissism, addiction, self awareness, hard work, suffering, and growing into being an adult. Parts of it are out of date, and in retrospect, I can see that the book has some big flaws with regard to religion; but it also does a good job of exploring self-centeredness, and where too much can veer off I to unhealty behaviors. I think it might be a good book to add to your reading list.
You could just skip waiting for or looking for indicators and skip straight to Mahayana Buddhism.
Maybe try https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonglen
Interestingly, though, the way you talked about inducing collapse reminds me of a Vajrayana Buddhism guru type thing where the guru sometimes punches you in the self-centered weak spot in the context of practices that help you realize self-clinging as the ultimate source of the pain.
> Interestingly, though, the way you talked about inducing collapse reminds me of a Vajrayana Buddhism guru type thing where the guru sometimes punches you in the self-centered weak spot in the context of practices that help you realize self-clinging as the ultimate source of the pain.
That happened to me after I came to a pagan high priestess. I tried to explain my problems.. but she knew already (learned narcissism and other terrible behaviors as a defense - terrible parents). She was able to do a ritual which was a forced ego-death. The ritual was maybe 5 minutes. None of the hollywood trappings. It allowed me to see me for who I am, others for who they were. Basically it reversed much of my extreme ego, and did similar to what Tonglen does... but in a span of a half hour. I broke down at least 5 times with the gravity of what I had done to others in my life.
My case was extreme. And since I explicitly asked, she did so. I asked her afterward the downsides (since I knew I was spiraling downward), and most people just crumble under that. And I'm still eminently grateful she did so.
one trick I used to have is to check your value regularly. try and fail and know where you sit. it avoids the overinflated aspect. reality check to put it simply.
another thing is to relate to others in very simple context: a charity, doing simple stuff for others, it helps reconnecting with people without an egotistic ladder in mind
ps: I don't know i'm NPD or a competitor, but I often need perfectionist context and comparisons. I have trouble not being able to rank myself on a ladder.
I think it's definitely a spectrum. You read the article and thing "yes I also get sad and somewhat defensive when I am laid off, broken up with or not hired." But just feeling those narcissist feelings for a moment is much different than it be out of control, or causing you to binge drink or yell at your partner etc etc.
I love this question and I salute you.
What if you practice being wrong? Present your firmest-held opinions to those most prepared to challenge them.
I suspect non-narcissists don’t lose their minds over it because they practice it all the time, present more accurate and reasonable personas and don’t base their personality on a fiction.
keep friends that would just tell you the truth. very valuable.
Something that narcissists generally avoid. Gotta surround yourself with yes-men to keep the ego fed.
Comparing oneself to others is usually the #1 indicator.
Once someone builds their identity around a job, title, group, app... they either continue to build and nurture that identity by focusing exclusively on their strengths... or play "not to lose" and get defensive at anything that threatens their image.
So, maybe there's a "narcissism spectrum disorder" ?
But I think that might be over-medicalizing things.
There probably is, but its symptoms are very much intermingled with those of ADHD and a whole slew of mental conditions.
Reading the article, I recognized a collapse in myself after a lost a deeply-valued job in a horribly-unfair way. I was fired after a new sysadmin pulled drives from a still-active storage array, after I told them to pull drives from the shut down array. The reason given was that I didn't write a change request, when there was no change control system in place.
I met some of the conditions in the article, but none of the abusive-towards-others ones - I didn't accuse my then-wife of being responsible, I didn't gaslight or lash out verbally. I withdrew into myself and became deeply depressed and anxious.
Back on topic after too much personal sharing, I think everyone has aspects of NPD, just as everyone is on a scale of other personality traits. The more we understand these scales and spectrums, the better we'll be able to deal with negative events, I feel.
Probably. Like most psychological disorders, NPD is diagnosed by getting a high score on a specialized evaluation, so you could easily describe someone who gets a score that’s not quite beyond the threshold as being on the narcissism spectrum. But it doesn’t seem practical to say that an otherwise normal person who is “showing arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes” has a medical condition.
If you suspect you are a narcissist, you probably are not one. You can also go to therapy to sort things out.
So basically meta questioning yourself and your personality probably means you do not have NPD.
Genuine answer, given cryptically so as to keep the implications implicit: if you think you might benefit from something like a self-induced narcissistic collapse, you might be interested in “ego death”.