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At times, Jay Spring feels he is “the greatest person on planet Earth”. Living with narcissistic personality disorder, his periods of extreme self-importance often turn “highly unrealistic”, he explains. You’re riding high and you tell yourself, ‘People will see that I’m better than them … I will achieve remarkable feats for the world’.”

Regarding his experience, these times of heightened ego are typically followed by a “emotional downturn”, a period when he feels sensitive and self-conscious about his actions, leaving him especially susceptible to disapproval from those around him. He first suspected he might have NPD after looking up his traits through digital sources – and was later diagnosed by a professional. However, he is skeptical he would have taken the label without having independently formed that realization personally. “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 – most notably if they experience beliefs of dominance. They operate in an altered state that they’ve built up. And that world is like, I am superior and {nobody can question me|no one should doubt me|my authority is absolute.”

Defining NPD

While people have been called narcissists for over 100 years, it’s not always clear what people refer to as the diagnosis. It’s common to label everybody a narcissist,” says an expert in narcissism, who believes the word is “applied too broadly” – but when it comes to a professional assessment, he believes many people hide it, because of significant negative perception associated with the disorder. Someone with NPD will tend to have “an inflated view of oneself”, “a lack of empathy”, and “a pattern of manipulating others to enhance their social status through behaviors including seeking admiration,” the expert says. Those with NPD may be “extremely narcissistic”, 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 adds.

I never truly valued about anyone really, so I didn’t invest in relationships seriously

Gender Differences in NPD Presentation

While up to 75% of people found to have NPD are males, research points out this figure does not mean there are less female narcissism, but that female narcissism is frequently manifests in the less obvious variety, which is less commonly diagnosed. Male narcissism tends to be a bit more accepted, as with everything in society,” explains an individual who discusses her NPD and borderline personality disorder (BPD) on social media. It’s fairly common, the two disorders co-occur.

First-Hand Experiences

“I really struggle with dealing with feedback and rejection,” she explains, whenever it’s suggested that the problem is me, I either go into self-protection or I become unresponsive.” Although experiencing this behavior – which is sometimes referred to as “ego wounding”, she has been attempting to address it and accept input from her support system, as she doesn’t want to slip into the harmful behaviour of her past. My past relationships were toxic to my partners in my youth,” she admits. Through dialectical behavioural therapy, she has been able to reduce her narcissistic traits, and she explains she and her significant other “maintain an agreement where I’ve instructed him, ‘When I speak manipulatively, when I use toxic language, point it out {right then and there|immediately|in the moment’.”

She grew up primarily in the care of her father and notes she didn’t have healthy examples in her youth. “I’ve been learning continuously the difference between suitable or harmful to say in conflicts because I lacked that guidance as a kid,” she says. There were no boundaries when my family members were insulting me during my childhood.”

Underlying Factors of The Condition

Personality disorders tend to be linked to early life adversity. Heredity is a factor,” says a mental health specialist. But, when someone shows signs of narcissism, it is often “linked to that person’s unique upbringing”. Those traits were “their strategy in some ways to survive at a very early age”, he adds, when they may have been neglected, or only shown love that was dependent on meeting certain expectations. They then “continue to use those same mechanisms as adults”.

Like several of the NPD-diagnosed people, John (a pseudonym) thinks his parents “may be narcissists themselves”. The adult shares when he was a child, “the focus was always on them and their work and their social life. So it was like, keep your distance.” When their focus was on him, it came in the form of “significant demands to achieve good grades and professional advancement, he recalls, which made him feel that if he didn’t fulfill their expectations, he wasn’t “good enough”.

In adulthood, none of his relationships lasted. I didn’t truly value about anyone really,” he says. As a result, relationships weren’t relationships seriously.” He believed he wasn’t experiencing genuine affection, until he met his present significant other of three years, who is diagnosed with BPD, so, like him, has difficulty with emotional regulation. She is “highly empathetic of the internal struggles in my head”, he says – it was surprisingly, she who initially thought he might have NPD.

Accessing Support

Following an appointment to his doctor, John was referred to a clinical psychologist for an assessment and was informed of his condition. He has been recommended for talking therapy via government-funded care (a long period of therapy is the main intervention that has been demonstrated to benefit NPD patients, clinicians explain), but has been on the patient queue for 18 months: It was indicated it is likely to occur in a few months.”

Disclosure was limited to a small circle about his condition, because “there’s a big stigma that every person with NPD is harmful”, but, in his own mind, he has embraced the diagnosis. The awareness assists me to comprehend my actions, which is positive,” he explains. Those interviewed have acknowledged their condition and are pursuing treatment for it – which is why they agree to talk about it – which is possibly not the norm of all people with the condition. But the existence of individuals sharing their stories and the rise of online support communities point to {more narcissists|a growing number