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On occasion, Jay Spring feels he is “the most exceptional individual alive”. As a diagnosed narcissist, his grandiose moments can become “really delusional”, he explains. You’re riding high and you’re like, ‘The world will recognize that I stand above others … I’m destined for greatness for the world’.”

For Spring, these episodes of self-aggrandisement are typically coming after a “crash”, during which he feels sensitive and ashamed about his actions, making him especially susceptible to disapproval from others. He began to think he might have narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) after researching his symptoms online – and was later evaluated by a clinician. Yet, he is skeptical he would have taken the label without having independently formed that understanding on his own. Should you attempt to inform somebody that they have the condition, {they’ll probably deny it|denial is a common response|they’re likely to reject it,” he says – most notably if they feel a sense of being better. They inhabit a fantasy reality that they made for themselves. And that world is like, I’m the greatest and {nobody can question me|no one should doubt me|my authority is absolute.”

Clarifying Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Although people have been identified with narcissism for more than a century, the meaning can be ambiguous what people refer to as the label. People frequently term everybody a narcissist,” says an expert in narcissism, who believes the word is “applied too broadly” – but when it comes to a formal diagnosis, he notes many people conceal it, as there is widespread prejudice linked to the illness. An individual diagnosed will tend to have “a heightened sense of self”, “impaired compassion”, and “a strategy of using people to bolster one’s self-esteem through actions such as seeking admiration,” the expert clarifies. Those with NPD may be “highly self-focused”, 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.

Emotional connections were never important about anyone really, so I’ve never taken relationships seriously

Gender Differences in NPD Presentation

Although a significant majority of people identified as having narcissistic personality disorder are men, findings indicates this number does not mean there are fewer narcissistic women, but that female narcissism is more often presented in the covert form, which is less commonly diagnosed. Male narcissism tends to be more socially permissible, similar to everything in society,” notes a young adult who posts about her NPD and borderline personality disorder (BPD) on social media. Frequently, the two disorders appear together.

Individual Challenges

It’s hard for me with receiving negative comments and being turned down,” she shares, “because if I hear that the issue lies with me, I tend to switch to self-protection or I withdraw entirely.” Even with this reaction – which is often called “ego wounding”, she has been attempting to address it and accept input from her close relationships, as she doesn’t want to slip into the damaging patterns of her earlier years. My past relationships were toxic to my partners as a teenager,” she reveals. Via therapeutic interventions, she has been able to mitigate her NPD symptoms, and she says she and her significant other “have a dynamic where I told him, ‘If I say something messed up, if I say something manipulative, call it out {right then and there|immediately|in the moment’.”

Her childhood primarily in the care of her father and says she lacked healthy examples in her youth. “I’ve been learning over the years which behaviors are acceptable versus unacceptable to say during a fight because I lacked that guidance as a kid,” she shares. Every insult was fair game when my relatives were insulting me during my childhood.”

Origins of NPD

Personality disorders tend to be connected with childhood challenges. Genetics play a role,” says a mental health specialist. But, when someone develops narcissistic traits, it is often “tied to that specific childhood circumstances”. Those traits were “their strategy in some ways to survive at a very early age”, he continues, when they may have been overlooked, or only shown love that was dependent on meeting certain expectations. They then “persist in applying those identical strategies as adults”.

Like several of the individuals with NPD, a person from Leeds thinks his parents “could also have the disorder. The 38-year-old says when he was a child, “everything was all about them and their work and their social life. So it was like, stay out of our way.” When their attention turned to him, it came in the form of “intense expectations to achieve good grades and life achievements, he notes, which made him feel that if he didn’t meet their standards, he wasn’t “worthy.

When he became an adult, 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, in a comparable situation, struggles with emotional regulation. She is “highly empathetic of the stuff that goes on in my head”, he explains – it was in fact, her who first suspected he might have NPD.

Seeking Help

Following an appointment to his doctor, he was directed to a therapist for an diagnosis and was given the NPD label. He has been put forward for therapeutic sessions via government-funded care (a long period of therapy is the only treatment that has been shown to help NPD patients, experts say), but has been on the patient queue for 18 months: “They said it is probably going to be early next year.”

Disclosure was limited to a few individuals about his mental health status, because “there’s a big stigma that the disorder equates to toxicity”, but, privately, he has embraced the diagnosis. “It helps me to understand myself better, which is always a good thing,” he comments. Each individual have acknowledged their condition and are looking for support for it – hence being willing to talk about it – which is possibly not the norm of all people with the condition. But the presence of individuals sharing their stories and the expansion of virtual networks indicate that {more narcissists|a growing number