Narcissistic Personality Disorder is the medical phrase used to describe people who diagnostically score high symptomatic correlations for Narcissism as the personality type is described in the DSM5. For anyone unfamiliar, the DSM is the diagnostic manual used by medical and mental health care professionals worldwide. The number of the edition any person or peer group uses to assess a patient or problematic thinker’s behavior is relevant, as mental health care diagnoses tend to change and evolve with human psycho-social progress and science.
But regardless of “verified” or more obvious symptoms that are discussed directly in the manual, learning how to comprehend narcissistic people’s garish behaviors and to be able to [for lack of a more accurate, descriptive phrase] “spot narcy people in the wild”, are two key learning points, noting education truly is key to Narcissistic Abuse recovery.
With that said, and making little further ado about nothing, please consider the following obvious — yet, still, not that obvious — truths about people who score high on the NPD rubric the fine folks at the DSM5 make a subtle reference to in their literature but fail to consistently or adequately describe. It’s important to note the following behavioral evidence tend to represent unilaterally in all people who are either extreme narcissistic thinkers or who have NPD personality types:
- People with NPD are in love with their own false sense of self.
- People with Narcissistic Personality types are considered untreatable because what they have is an egocentric and grandiose sense of self — not an “illness”.
- People with NPD are not “difficult” to have to deal with; what they actually are is dysfunctional, caustic, socially toxic, and abusive.
- You simply cannot love the CLUSTER B temperament out of people. Visit FlyingMonkeysDenied.com to learn how to heal and deal.
- People with Cluster B personality disorders lack the ability to comprehend what it means to truly have social respect for other people.
- Give up hope. Malignant Optimism about changing another person’s personality type is a form of co-dependent Narcissism.
- Appreciate where Cluster B people are coming from; in their mind, they truly believe self-promoting is the right way to live their life. Unable to see the value in social relationships or the human collective, their emotional, psychological, and personal greed leaves them pigeonholed into constantly striving to compete (rather than to respectfully collaborate) with other people.
- You simply cannot remain socially or physically around narcissistic people and expect you will not be harmed. Most often, it’s ENABLERS (mild, co-dependent Narcissists who think they are making their own lives better in some way by remaining involved with abusive people) that end up spending a lifetime being covertly abused themselves while they actively support toxic people.
- Provocative communication and button-pushing by tone or implication is the forte of the Covert Narcissist, Sociopaths, and most socially sadistic people.
- The point of enacting Narcissistic Abuse is to cause a targeted victim or social subgroup distress. The more pain an abusive person can inflict on a target, the bigger the rush of the Narcissist’s, Borderline’s, Histrionic, or Sociopath’s pleasure spike.
- Trying to alter the emotional state of people with narcissistic personality disorders is a potentially dangerous and bad decision. Best to let them think, say, do, and believe what they want — make mental note of their words and behavior — and take at least a few psychological and emotional steps away in order to avoid getting sucked into being an Abuse Enabler.
- The more attention you pay to a Narcissist, the more you feed their personality disorder.
- Pseudo-stupidity is a distraction tactic used by narcissistic social predators. They play stupid and constantly strive to change the subject during arguments in order to frustrate and engage targets.
- Seek to limit contact with narcissistic people. Go GRAY ROCK to their attention-seeking behaviors. Depersonalize the abuse and learn to observe (rather than reacting) to their toxic and emotionally provocative behaviors.
- If you HAVE to communicate with a narcissistic person, keep communication short, to the point, and NEVER let them know personal information that could be used to smear campaign against you or to push your buttons later.
Once you really take time to hold an image of people in your mind who you fear or suspect might be narcissistic, take a few clear and level-headed, mindful, non-triggered moments to really think things through about the person who (for whatever reason) you suspect might not be an average or healthy personality type. Think through the elements in this way — first, considering egocentrism as a key, core value diagnostic criteria. Then, ask yourself secondarily about whether or not grandiosity is present in that person (or your own) psychological profile.
Oddly enough, many people who are born and raised by narcissistic parents and who have conformed with toxic peers tend to develop core belief systems about the way the world works, how human beings left to their own devices will act, and that helps them blend in with narcy factions (in essence, allowing them to survive alive). If you see yourself in any of these red flags or warnings about Narcissistic Personality Disorder and it upsets you rather than making you proud, chances are you do NOT have NPD.
People with NPD are considered untreatable by most professionals for a reason. They are not SICK. The choices and actions they make while self-promoting at the expense of others make those closest to them sick. There is a huge difference.
People with NPD are compulsively grandiose and socially competitive. They are absolutely convinced that self-promotion at the expense of others they care about as well as the collective whole of humanity is the only way to succeed in life or to feel (at least to them) like a win.
Unable to process the full range of human emotion, they are forever limited to a narrow range of shallow emotional and psychological conception. They are the bare-bones version of a feeling or thinking human being, the kind easily dazzled by shiny objects and perpetually confused by other people’s discussion of personal reflection or sharing emotion.
Narcissistic people are foolish enough to think holidays like birthdays and Christmas are celebrations related to status-seeking. Compulsively striving to fit in but never quite getting it, they are the individuals who, like the Who families the Grinch lamented were truly responsible for ruining St. Nick’s world-famous Christian celebration, compete (rather than collaborate) with neighbors when displaying holiday lights.
Narcy people — those who strive to emulate or socially compete with people who actually have full-blown NPD — are the Narcissist’s fan club and most loyal Flying Monkey Supporters. Such people, born and raised to be true Enablers, are typically co-dependent, co-narcissistic, and believe the rhetoric Narcissists and Sociopaths unilaterally put out.
Their claim is, “Get real!” — inferring that life, as Sir Thomas Hobbes once asserted, is of poor quality, solitary, nasty, “brutish”, and short. Believing the hype that helps keep Cluster B people in control of the government, business industries, and toxic families, it is their free-will choice to actively engage in supporting the Leviathans that rise to power over those who choose to live such socially and morally deficient lifestyles that actually define their own unique family cultures and lifestyles.
But here’s the thing. Life is crappy for people who surround themselves with abuse.
Abusive people tend to have Cluster B personality disorders. Those who support abusive people tend to be willing Enablers.
Eliminate both psychological types from your inner circle immediately without remorse or hesitation if and when you wish to heal. If you come from a toxic family who lied and told you fairy tales like “Till death do us part” with an Abuser was a noble, healthy, or spiritually success-oriented ideal, all you are likely to do is live out your life absolutely miserable but with Stockholm Syndrome, died in the wool Narcissistic enabling and socially supporting zeal.
The light at the end of the Narcissistic Abuse recovery tunnel is not the oncoming train most narcissistic and sociopathic people who are desperately afraid of losing their preferred scapegoats and abuse targets would like you to fear. Once people disconnect from toxic family members, abusive romantic partners, and egocentric or clueless friends, there is a period of adjustment time, yes — but after 18-24 months of NO CONTACT the mind, body, and soul finally start to push a human reset button.
People raised by toxic families tend to all develop C-PTSD issues that plague them throughout life unless the origin of their own toxic thinking patterns can be exposed. Once recognized, any person — Abuser or abuse victim — has a choice whether or not to heal mindfully and learn how to deal.
Those with NPD, ASPD, BPD, or HPD are the least capable human beings on earth with regard to productive self-reflection. They are also the most insistent that life is a competition, and claim those who fail to live according to that standard of success measurement are “losers”.
We respectfully proffer this post as a negation of their claim. How do we know that narcissistic people are full of shit and socially manufacturing chaos in the minds and lives of any person who listens to them then decides to willingly, actively engage in promoting gaslighting?
Because in the dumbing down of the sheeple populous, fear mongers and narcissistic predators strive to place themselves in positions of power and authority. It is only through human beings’ willingness to engage and show respect for their subjective opinions and ridiculously illogical assertions that they, the socially blood-thirsty beasts, ascend to their respective thrones as Scar did in the Disney movie “The Lion King”.
If you pray to a false god or worship a golden idol, your life is likely to FEEL nasty, poor, brutish, and LONG (not short). Those who opt to view the world through a different set of eyes tend to love love, to value human companionship, to enjoy things like sensory stimulation, and to revere things like love and friendship.
People who figure out that collaboration and healthy thinking is key to both health and psychological well-being tend to place less value on extending life than they do actually on living it to the fullest. There’s no YOLO sentiment in a healthy person, driving them to compulsively self-indulge or over-indulge in order to win some status-seeking, by the numbers social competition.
How many shots you did at the bar last night is not likely to impress a normal, non-narcy, pro-socially wired human. Neither is the size of your mortgage, the cost (rather than quality) of a frock, or how big the token compensatory car payment.
Understanding that Narcissistic people value different things and hold a core belief that socially speaking, all life is competitive, they (meaning Cluster B people) create the illusion that they are in the lead and are socially powerful. Take away their psychic street cred people in toxic families were trained to believe as children and suddenly they appear to be nothing more than carnies, circus monkeys, and ringleaders who truly are nothing more than pompous hucksters in shiny hats.
In order to gain a true perspective on life — embrace the notion that we all have the power individually and collectively to socially create and manifest our own personal reality. If you are stuck-stuck living in a culture where it’s difficult to move away from mean people, understand that keeping your mind (and the minds of your children) thinking with hope and optimism for world healing is the simplest way to take back power and control over your life.
Are you likely to be able to change the current generation of Cluster B people? No. But what you can do is remain vigilant for signs an Abuser is behaving irrationally, making illogical statements designed to manipulate other people’s emotions for their own gain, or that they are actively devolving [i.e. escalating]. You can also learn to keep abusive personalities out of your inner circle, your private life, and certainly out of your thoughts.
Never rent space in your head striving to respect the subjective opinion of people who are a toxic mess. Be the change you want to see. Speak frankly with your kids about toxic thinking patterns that are commonly held as true beliefs. And get yourself to the point where when and if you use educated discernment to compare and contrast personality types that you don’t stop or feel guilty about doing so because some egocentric Abuse Enabler tries to tell you that you cannot use reason and logic to socially protect yourself from THEIR crap.
It’s not being “judgemental” in a narcissistic way to notice other people’s behavioral or psychological patterns. It’s healthy to set and enforce boundaries that use RATIONAL COMMON SENSE (redefining judgment) to protect themselves from harm, including exposure to toxic or traumatizing influences without feeling bad.
Hopefully, after reading this article, that specific point — arguably more than any other — should emerge as an obvious truth. It’s a fact.
You are who you decide to be…
In a perfect world, our staff writers and Facebook Fan Page mod ask that you strive to STOP EMULATING OR ENABLING ANYONE NARCY. If you are functionally impaired and cannot psychologically suspend your disbelief in the fact that there are other human beings on the planet who are diverse in heritage as well as talent but who are interested in collaborating with you rather than competing, chances are you have Cluster B.
If you CAN entertain the notion that maybe… just maybe… our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents might have been wrong about the way the world and human minds really work without thinking that statement means you are disparaging their honor, then you have found the right web page and social support network to follow.
