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Sometimes, Jay Spring is convinced he is “unmatched in his abilities”. As a diagnosed narcissist, his grandiose moments often turn “detached from reality”, he admits. “You are on cloud nine and you think, ‘People will see that I surpass everyone else … I will achieve remarkable feats for the world’.”

For Spring, these times of heightened ego are usually succeeded by a “sudden low”, where he feels overwhelmed and self-conscious about his behavior, making him highly sensitive to disapproval from those around him. He came to wonder he might have NPD after researching his symptoms on the internet – and was later diagnosed by a professional. Yet, he questions he would have agreed with the assessment if he hadn’t previously arrived at that conclusion personally. “If you try to tell 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 feelings of superiority. “They’re in a delusional world that they’ve constructed. And in that mindset, I am superior and {nobody can question me|no one should doubt me|my authority is absolute.”

Understanding Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Though people have been identified with narcissism for more than a century, it’s not always clear what people refer to as the diagnosis. “Everyone calls everybody a narcissist,” says a psychology professor, who believes the word is “overused” – but when it comes to a professional assessment, he suggests many people conceal it, because of so much stigma associated with the illness. An individual diagnosed will tend to have “a heightened sense of self”, “difficulty understanding others’ feelings”, and “a pattern of manipulating others to enhance their social status through behaviors including displaying material goods,” the specialist says. Those with NPD may be “deeply egotistical”, 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 states.

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

Gender Differences in The Disorder

Although a significant majority of people diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder are males, research points out this figure does not mean there are less female narcissism, but that women with NPD is typically appears in the covert form, which is often overlooked. Male narcissism tends to be somewhat tolerated, as with everything in society,” explains a 23-year-old who shares content on her co-occurring conditions on social media. Frequently, the two disorders are comorbid.

Personal Struggles

It’s hard for me with receiving negative comments and being turned down,” she explains, “because if I hear that the problem is me, I either go into a defensive state or I withdraw entirely.” Despite having this response – which is known as “narcissistic injury”, she has been working to manage it and accept input from her support system, as she doesn’t want to slip into the negative conduct of her previous life. “I was very emotionally abusive to my partners during adolescence,” she states. Through dialectical behavioural therapy, she has been able to manage her condition better, and she notes she and her significant other “have a dynamic where I’ve instructed him, ‘If I say something messed up, if I say something manipulative, point it out {right then and there|immediately|in the moment’.”

Her upbringing mostly in the care of her father and says she lacked healthy examples during development. I’ve had to teach myself continuously which behaviors are suitable or harmful to say during a fight because I never had that growing up,” she comments. There were no boundaries when my family members were criticizing me in my early years.”

Origins of The Condition

Conditions like NPD tend to be linked to early life adversity. Genetics play a role,” notes a mental health specialist. But, when someone shows signs of narcissism, it is often “tied to that individual’s particular early environment”. Those traits were “their strategy in some ways to cope in formative years”, he states, when they may have been overlooked, or only shown love that was conditional on meeting particular demands. They then “continue to use those same mechanisms as adults”.

Similar to other of the NPD-diagnosed people, one individual thinks his parents “might exhibit similar traits. 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, keep your distance.” When their focus was on him, it came in the form of “a great amount of pressure” to achieve academic success and professional advancement, he recalls, which made him feel that if he didn’t meet their standards, he wasn’t “worthy.

In adulthood, none of his relationships were successful. “I’ve never cared about anyone really,” he says. Therefore, I never treated relationships seriously.” He felt incapable of forming deep connections, until he met his present significant other of three years, who is diagnosed with BPD, so, in a comparable situation, finds it hard to manage feelings. She is “highly empathetic of the stuff that goes on in my head”, he notes – it was surprisingly, she who initially thought he might have NPD.

Pursuing Treatment

After a visit to his doctor, an assessment was arranged to a mental health professional for an diagnosis and was given the NPD label. He has been put forward for psychological counseling through national services (extended treatment is the main intervention that has been demonstrated to benefit NPD patients, experts say), but has been on the waiting list for an extended period: The estimate was it is probably going to be early next year.”

Disclosure was limited to a small circle about his NPD diagnosis, because “prejudice is common that the disorder equates to toxicity”, but, personally, he has come to terms with it. The awareness assists me to understand myself better, which is beneficial,” he comments. Each individual have come to terms with NPD and are pursuing treatment for it – leading them to be open to talk about it – which is possibly not the norm of all people with the disorder. But the existence of individuals sharing their stories and the expansion of online support communities point to {more narcissists|a growing number