Difference between narcissism and NPD?

twistednerve, I do believe that, speaking for myself, my narcissism is 'genetic'; inherited from my mildly narcissistic father, and influenced to some degree by him.

If GettingAdvice's son does have npd, I make no comment on whether he may have been born with it, or why her other children don't have it. My observation is that she does seem to have some traits of narcissism herself, in my opinion. If this is indeed the case, then I believe that her son will have been affected by that, whatever his genetic inheritance.

And again, I am not blaming GettingAdvice for any narcissism that she may have. Nobody chooses to have it. I posted originally because I was irritated by GettingAdvice's tone; I'd already deleted a post in another thread. For posting for that reason, I apologize.

The NPD is more likely to be the middle-aged chubby guy in the board room than the hot movie star. The NPD's actions are motivated by his own internal torture, and they come out in ways that are subtle so that they remain unidentified by most people. That's why so many people are turned into emotional wrecks by NPDs. If the NPD was just a silly overgrown spoiled child, they wouldn't have the ability to do the real psychological damage that they do.

This statement is absolutely elegant. I love it. It defines why it is hard to discover.

NPDs are every day people, most actually fall as under achievers.

Usually their good aspects are nothing more than acting or exagerated masks and traits.
NPDs are emotionally disordered and cognitively, too. A lot of them have trouble mantaining good careers, that pay well and have a stability to them. Their fall downs with people or submitting to a system gets on the away often. Many actually dislike obeying rules, bosses or having to deal with colleagues. They like supremacy and freedom to rule.

They usually seek out fields where they can fly under the radar. Aka: not show goals and production, because many are too wreckless, unstable or careless about their duties to others. It's like having to report to people anger them.

I've noticed many psychotherapists are Cluster Bish. Want a better professional for a Cluster B than a pretend-doctor who rules your emotions and has a gigantic amplitude to be a phony/charlatan and get away with a abuse? Doctors, too.

A lot of psych majors and medical students in my college show cluster B signs all over. Awkward looking or attention seeking with their looks, prone to emotional outbursts, extremely calous, manipulative, hide behind masks, pretend to study and try to cheat the system, are very arrogant, abuse drugs (more than the average college student), have the odd cognitive distortion and difficulty here and there. Man, I check their Facebook and I see how paranoid they are about information and how they just feed people exactly what they want to be fed. And they don't wanna look nice per se.

NPDs, as well as other Cluster Bs, are usually shells of a human being, very tormented inside by their dysregulations and little malfunctions. Some turn evil, some turn rageful - I guess this can be decided by intellect. NPDs are nothing more than BPDs minus the emo stuff and extreme axis 1 symptom that only some BPDs show.

Most are very driven, but I think they never put their effort into really constructive stuff. They simply must have an outlet for destruction and disorder. Maybe hiding the turmoil inside gets to be too much.
I really don't think they do it all by preference - NPDs are really limited and hurt by dysregulated emotions, social unpleasantness and complying/flowing nicely.

And many NPDs aren't good looking, smart, rich, well educated. These usually suffer tremendously in an never ending search for status. Many con artists are NPDish. "I deserve more, but I can't do as good as the others to achieve. So why can't I break every rule to get what i deserve? I WANT IT!"

And amidst that, NPDs usually have SO MANY masks and false beliefs about themselves, that in the end, I don't think himself can keep up with all the masks. One can pretend only for so long...

So yeah, narcissism is just excessive vanity, to my understanding. NPD is a complex disorder, where an individual will exhibit many traits of cerebral differences, hormonal dysregulations, difficulty in complying socially and the narcissism is often a farse - he is just egotistical and suffers from a need to be praised to escape emptiness/low self worth.

twistednerve wrote:prone to emotional outbursts, extremely calous, manipulative, hide behind masks, pretend to study and try to cheat the system, Have the odd cognitive distortion and difficulty here and there. Man, I check their Facebook and I see how paranoid they are about information and how they just feed people exactly what they want to be fed. And they don't wanna look nice per se..........

I really don't think they do it all by preference - NPDs are really limited and hurt by dysregulated emotions, social unpleasantness and complying/flowing nicely........

"I deserve more, but I can't do as good as the others to achieve. So why can't I break every rule to get what i deserve? I WANT IT!"

Sorry that I haven't shown the above as separated quotes from your post.

Re the emotional outbursts, yes, it's a major pain when my irritation or frustration at work break through. Those breakthroughs are usually quite minor, but they can tarnish the reputation that I work so hard to maintain, and it takes effort to restore it.

And cheating the system......in a target driven culture, that may be widespread, but again, yes, I've been pretty lax with the rules at times. Not always to get results in the sense of hitting targets, but to save time or effort, or out of that general narcissistic sense that the rules don't apply to me.

This got to our main newspaper:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-08/osu-jos073014.php

I only skimmed the first few paragraphs, but if I were asked if I were a narcissist, I'd probably be evasive about. Of course I still question the concept of narcissism so for that reason alone I couldn't really give a direct yes-or-no answer. It all depends of what the definition of "is" is.

I've only just joined, and this is the first thread that caught my eye.

Like a lot of people, after reading Joanna Ashmun's site, a light bulb went on. I'd say my wife has narcissistic traits, but I'd hesitate to say she has NPD; at least, not without a professional diagnosis.

To my mind (and recalling my psychology degree of 30 years ago), something becomes a "disorder" when it interferes with a person's ability to conduct their everyday life. In my wife's case, we have been married 30 years and she can generally hold down a job and maintain friendships. That looks a lot like maintaining a normal life. OK, she was made redundant a week ago, and has been made redundant once before - but this isn't unusual in her field.

Although it does seem that she is the one selected for redundancy because she picks fights with her seniors. She is right and the company is wrong.

Why do I think she is a narcissist?

If it is our house, why is my stuff in the attic?
Why am I always wrong?
Why do we always do what she wants (choose where to go on holiday, etc)?
Why can't she seem to put herself in other people's shoes? (the closest she can get is to put them in her shoes, whereupon lo and behold they think the same way as her and "ought" to agree with her)
Why is she always complaining - about me, about other people, about random people in the street?
Why does she treat me and our son like pieces of furniture - admired and treasured pieces of furniture, perhaps, but still pieces of furniture?
And of course, she gaslights.

I have suffered from depression for the last thirty years. I wondered why I kept getting depressed again and again. When the light bulb went on, I knew it was the constant negativity, the criticism and emotional abuse (she has not spoken to me for a month now - I'm getting the "silent treatment" after an argument).

Yet she has a career and a marriage that (sort of) works. So I tend to agree with previous posts like Pat's - " We all have some Narcissistic traits - a healthy person will. But the number of traits becomes dysfunctional. " Not just the number, but the severity as well, though. Or Tauran - "I think that personality disorders in general are pretty much things that everyone does sometimes, but what makes them disorders is that you do them to the extent that it screws up your daily life."

There was also a discussion that if it harms no-one isn't it just a coping strategy? Sure but in my case I have attempted suicide twice so I don't think it is a healthy coping strategy.

So, my wife has a successful career and a marriage that (sort of) works. But she has gnawed away at my personal boundaries and keeps me in depression, with the risk of suicide. Does she have NPD or is she "merely" a narcissist?

I'm still struggling to understand narcissism/co dependence. I first 'discovered' N. when I went on line to try and work out what had gone wrong in a relationship I was having with a very beautiful (but insensitive/manipulative) woman some 10 years ago. What came up was a link to Sam Vaknin's malignant self love 'site. I thought I'd gained some information on narcissism but, again got caught out by another beautiful but cruel woman - ticking nearly every one of the boxes for the N. personality disorder. I behaved more like a door-mat than a matador and after a year or so of her 'living in my head,' her situation changed dramatically and the next thing I see a "new man" on her facebook page with her posting her admiration/lovebombing and lots of sexual overtures which she used to do to me, just in a private and more personal way. I just can't believe she'll treat the next man so badly, especially if she thought he was worth advertising on facebook. He's younger, more handsome and comes from her country of origin so she won't have the communication problems she had with me. i feel even more inferior and inadequate now I've seen his pics on her page. What if she was just being cruel playing cat and mouse and isn't a narc at all? Or if he is strong enough to keep her in check? Or do you think the mask will slip after a few months like it did with me? I can't work out if I would feel better if she was a narc. or not and if the new relationship will prosper. And if I'm jealous - does that bring out the 'covert' narcissist in me?

This gentleman does quite a bit of work in this specific area - I believe he also has a book. There are some youtube videos as well...
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2 ... rcissists/

Hi, I am new to the forum and got a lot out reading this thread, thank you for what you shared here.

I have few thoughts on this topic to add of my own. I come from a large family where NPD is a problem afflicting my mother and two of my siblings. The rest of us suffer from under developed narcissism, and I have one brother I would have to call a psychopath due to his lifelong lack of conscience and criminal activity. I grew up loving these people and have consequently had romantic relationships with people with similar personalities.

I think of narcissism as a healthy and natural feeling of entitlement, leading to personal empowerment. I think people can feel overly entitled, but that is not NPD, not in my experiences.

Every NPD sufferer I have loved has a major problem living with the empowerment of others, even the people who love and care for them deeply. They are driven to undermine and harm others and their sources of personal power. People close to them usually eventually feel abused and if loved ones tried hard to appease them, they wind up without resources they might otherwise have possessed.

So anyway, I think going through periods in life where you feel especially entitled is not a problem. Most people go through that. But if you can't stand the thought of the person who loves you the most feeling good about themselves in any way,and you are driven to cut them down, thats when you know you have NPD .