How do you know if a person has Narcissistic Personality Disorder (#NPD)? Red flags and warning signs of NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDER are actually pretty easy to spot, figure out, or openly see. Share academic news and information about #CLUSTERB and teach your family, friends, co-workers, and children how to recognize and stop participating in the cycle of #NarcissisticAbuse when and if their spider senses are tingling. People with narcissistic personality disorder tendencies are both overt and covert about their desire to engineer the social, emotional, financial, or physical well-being of their targets. Every person who comes into contact with one or a person who has ever been bullied, targeted, or scapegoated by a Narcissist for smear campaigning or abuse has (whether they are fully aware or not) been socially and emotionally impacted.
Truly, adults who are suspected of having or have been formally diagnosed with NPD are a vexing bunch. “Since childhood or adolescence, was unkind, greedy, arrogant, and callously exploited others. Felt superior to others and didn’t respect the feelings and needs of others. This was not due to a medical or substance use disorder…” write the folks over on MentalHealth.com.
Social symptoms include the following personality “evidence”. Patterns of behavior that all Narcissistic people exhibit tend to include but are not limited to the following:
- a grandiose and falsely inflated sense of self
- acting as if they are the center of the universe
- a propensity to act as if they are an absolute authority figure on any and all subjects — including when they have little to no objective or subjective experiences to meaningfully share with a group, individual, or to speak in public or private about but still compulsively feel the need to dominate conversations or negatively interject
- Works poorly in a close teamwork environment with others (self-centered, can’t tolerate criticism or defeat, has a tendency to sabotage others or will deliberately self-sabotage so work that needs to be finished remains functionally incomplete)
- Arrogant; feels superior to others; has a sense of entitlement; snobbish or patronizing attitudes
- Attention-seeking (requires constant, non-stop, excessive praise or admiration)
- Limited to no ability to self-soothe in a healthy manner
- Passive-Aggressive tendencies
- Irrationality centered in faulty logic and egocentrism
- Frequently rage for little to no reason at the slightest provocation in order to control other people’s emotions (raging for no reason other than to cause discomfort for targets and collateral damage witnesses [victims])
- Callous (lacks guilt); unkind; doesn’t respect the feelings and needs of others
- Perpetually short-sighted; unable to conceptualize long-term consequences and concentric circle results
- Pervasively invalidates the fundamental human rights of others
- Greedy
- Jealous
- Manipulative
- Pathologically lie to gain “advantage” for themselves and favorite friends or family members
- Little to no respect for court orders or the law
- Constant “crazy-making”
- the tendency to commit the psychological mistake of “projective identification”
- circular argument style that prohibits progress
- employs word salad conversation techniques
- makes “Ad Hominem” style attacks predictably and regularly against any and all perceived competitors or attention rivals
- chaos manufacturing
- gaslighting
- constant rewriting of revisionist history or public promotion of lies that can be factually proven to be smear campaigning of honest people while engaging in the false promotion of deceptions
- sabotaging behaviors (pulling the rug out from under someone’s feet, deliberate refusal to play an appropriate social role)
- undermining
- backstabbing
And the list goes on… you name it.
Mental Health goes on to note the following about how people with Narcissistic Personality Disorders are clinically diagnosed. They shared the following notes based on the DSM-5 criteria for NPD with a disclaimer note to consider symptoms but seek consultation with a licensed, trained personality expert before throwing in the towel on yourself and others based on an armchair diagnosis. Here’s what they had to say about narcissistic people who have mild to extreme spectral personality disorders:
Individuals with Narcissistic Personality Disorder grow up feeling superior and needing to be admired. They have a longstanding pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy.
The core feature of this disorder is antagonism (grandiosity, attention-seeking, callousness) which repeatedly puts the individual at odds with other people. This disorder is only diagnosed if:
(1) it begins no later than early adulthood,
(2) these behaviors occur at home, work, and in the community, and
(3) these behaviors lead to clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder should not be diagnosed if its symptoms can be better explained as due to another mental disorder, Substance Use Disorder, or another medical condition.
Interpersonal relations of individuals with Narcissistic Personality Disorder are typically impaired because of their feelings of entitlement, need for admiration, and callousness. Although these individuals are usually very ambitious and confident; vocational functioning often is impaired because of intolerance of criticism or defeat.
Like all personality disorders, Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a deeply ingrained and enduring behaviour pattern, manifesting as an inflexible response to a broad range of personal and social situations.
This behavior represents an extreme or significant deviation from the way in which the average individual in a given culture relates to others.
This [their] behaviour pattern tends to be stable [meaning predictable].
If you feel you have been targeted for social, emotional, physical, or psychological destruction by a person, family, or peer group exhibiting Narcissistic Personality Disorder tendencies, be careful.
Narcissists very seldom work alone. Most run in packs or have an aggressive group of “easy to manipulate or con” enablers who are ready to jump in and lie for them or work together against a target to launch coordinated smear campaigns and/or Flying Monkey attacks.
If you feel you are being abused on a consistent basis, you probably are — it’s that simple. Reach out to your local Domestic Violence shelter advocate or social services in YOUR area to discuss your issue and devise a plan to flee abuse or be able to more comfortably depersonalize the social and emotional impact of a Narcissist’s cruel target or scapegoating attacks.
