4 ms·

The diagnosis is not arbitrary and the lack of self-awareness those suffering from NPD experience places them at a disadvantage at self-diagnosis. DSM standards

by rrggrr 8y ago

The diagnosis is not arbitrary and the lack of self-awareness those suffering from NPD experience places them at a disadvantage at self-diagnosis. DSM standards have moved a lot over the years, but NPD has remained largely the same. Ask a child, love-interest or spouse of someone with NPD about the manifestations of the condition on their lives and you'll get a remarkably consistent story. There are two grey areas: First, NPD in women can be confused with Asperger syndrome. Second, NPD is often accompanied (co-morbid) with other disorders (eg. BPD).

mxiia 8y ago
> First, NPD in women can be confused with Asperger syndrome. Can you expand on this or provide some more reading for me? I believe my mother has NPD and have, on occasion, sworn she was on the spectrum as well.
- scarecrowbob 8y ago
  I say this as a person who has been abused by a string of relationships with folks who almost certainly have some variation of NPD, not as a clinician. So take this with a big 'ol grain of salt. A lot of the epistemological problems for people who are pathologically narcissistic come from understanding the difference between how they see things and how other people see things. Part of the pathology is that they have a filter set up to protect a fragile image of themselves, and so they often don't understand why other people are acting in some way, specifically when other people's actions are only explicable in ways that contradict the fragile image. They aren't able to take in information that would allow them to modify their behavior because even mild criticism will harm their understanding of themselves, and since that filter is strong they have a hard time knowing the difference between useful criticisms and all the other reasons people say mean or hurtful things to them. This disconnection appears similarly to other pathologies where people have issues identifying other peoples' motivations. For instance, most people have a healthy skepticism of other people's negative reactions: even though other people might think I'm a jerk for, say, constantly name dropping some person some behavior, I will probably keep doing it for a bit. But at some point, I will (hopefully) notice the trend in negative reactions and either rework the name dropping habit so that other people find it interesting/relevant or understand that it's something that I should change about myself. But if I have such a strong filter against criticism of my identity that literally anything could harm that identity, I might not pick up on social cues that would tell me I need to alter my behavior. I don't know a lot about asperger syndrome, so this is totally my lay-person's interpretation, but basically they seem similar because they both involve dysfunctions with how people parse other peoples' behavior.
  - DanBC 8y ago
    For fucks sake.
    - dboat 8y ago
      Could you elaborate?
    - scarecrowbob 8y ago
      Well shit duder, can you help me understand where my big misunderstandings are? Or am I just so dumb and off base that there is no helping me and I should just go fuck off and die?
theoh 8y ago
Absolutely this. It's not a trait that should be measured on a spectrum; it's more like a consistent mode of interacting with the world, a pathological mechanism/system of functioning. It takes a clinician (or victim) some time to see enough examples and gain the experience that's needed to recognize whether any given individual is relating to the world in a narcissistic way. In other words, it's a pathology of personality, analogous to pathological states of other biological systems. Trying to grasp it as if it was a simple trait (height, introversion/extraversion, BMI) is unlikely to be successful, because narcissism is a pattern of intra- and interpersonal dynamics. It's something that has to be reconstructed from multiple observations.
scarecrowbob 8y ago
I think this is a helpful comment. All people have some narcissistic tendencies, and in a sense I feel like my culture (I'm in Texas) amplifies and rewards those tendencies. There is a difference between displaying a tendency and having your entire life torn apart because of a person's pathological need to defend an image of themself. I have a lot of sympathy for both Echo and Narcissus, because that's a hard story to live in.

by rrggrr 8y ago

mxiia 8y ago

> First, NPD in women can be confused with Asperger syndrome. Can you expand on this or provide some more reading for me? I believe my mother has NPD and have, on occasion, sworn she was on the spectrum as well.

scarecrowbob 8y ago
I say this as a person who has been abused by a string of relationships with folks who almost certainly have some variation of NPD, not as a clinician. So take this with a big 'ol grain of salt. A lot of the epistemological problems for people who are pathologically narcissistic come from understanding the difference between how they see things and how other people see things. Part of the pathology is that they have a filter set up to protect a fragile image of themselves, and so they often don't understand why other people are acting in some way, specifically when other people's actions are only explicable in ways that contradict the fragile image. They aren't able to take in information that would allow them to modify their behavior because even mild criticism will harm their understanding of themselves, and since that filter is strong they have a hard time knowing the difference between useful criticisms and all the other reasons people say mean or hurtful things to them. This disconnection appears similarly to other pathologies where people have issues identifying other peoples' motivations. For instance, most people have a healthy skepticism of other people's negative reactions: even though other people might think I'm a jerk for, say, constantly name dropping some person some behavior, I will probably keep doing it for a bit. But at some point, I will (hopefully) notice the trend in negative reactions and either rework the name dropping habit so that other people find it interesting/relevant or understand that it's something that I should change about myself. But if I have such a strong filter against criticism of my identity that literally anything could harm that identity, I might not pick up on social cues that would tell me I need to alter my behavior. I don't know a lot about asperger syndrome, so this is totally my lay-person's interpretation, but basically they seem similar because they both involve dysfunctions with how people parse other peoples' behavior.
- DanBC 8y ago
  For fucks sake.
  - dboat 8y ago
    Could you elaborate?
  - scarecrowbob 8y ago
    Well shit duder, can you help me understand where my big misunderstandings are? Or am I just so dumb and off base that there is no helping me and I should just go fuck off and die?

theoh 8y ago

Absolutely this. It's not a trait that should be measured on a spectrum; it's more like a consistent mode of interacting with the world, a pathological mechanism/system of functioning. It takes a clinician (or victim) some time to see enough examples and gain the experience that's needed to recognize whether any given individual is relating to the world in a narcissistic way. In other words, it's a pathology of personality, analogous to pathological states of other biological systems. Trying to grasp it as if it was a simple trait (height, introversion/extraversion, BMI) is unlikely to be successful, because narcissism is a pattern of intra- and interpersonal dynamics. It's something that has to be reconstructed from multiple observations.

scarecrowbob 8y ago

I think this is a helpful comment. All people have some narcissistic tendencies, and in a sense I feel like my culture (I'm in Texas) amplifies and rewards those tendencies. There is a difference between displaying a tendency and having your entire life torn apart because of a person's pathological need to defend an image of themself. I have a lot of sympathy for both Echo and Narcissus, because that's a hard story to live in.