saucygirl31 wrote:interesting that u say clinical narcissists can slide a scale and are more obviusy insecure than someone with healthy narcissism
although i guess it depends on how well you can spot these ppl to know which is more insecure
but in regards to the scale i think the change isnt as big as it seems like most people w npd probably stick more to their roles but just regroup in their alone time? instead of literally becoming "vulnerable" in all aspects?
I was reading a book by Greenburgh who has been treating and specializing in NPD, BPD, and Schizoid personality disorder. She really breaks things down into very simple terms. It’s a decent read, I have her book but she does free comments on quora I’ve interacted with her via email. Very interesting person, she says the easiest way she spots the difference between real self confidence and NPD is someone who is truly confident doesn’t need to knock someone else down to feel better about themselves, this is a classic sign of low self-esteem.
When I say slide along the scale what I mean is, the grandiose self, the feeling special is like a fantasy that seems real to the Narcissist, it’s a lie they tell themselves and believe atleast for alittle bit but as soon as something challenges that fantasy and they are faced with reality narcissist can go from thinking they are great (grandiose fantasy) to thinking they are a complete useless POS because the mind isn’t completely developed and NPD lack ‘whole object relations’ which is like splitting so they cannot see someone as basically good but have a bad trait, the person is either great or a scumbag loser and this applies to themselves as well. I’ve heard it described as a disease of the self esteem. Narcissist have very low actual self worth so they turn to others to define them. It’s a terrible existence