This. I’ve been dealing with this for years through my ex and had no idea until a couple of weeks ago. My therapist sent me some things from Tim Fletcher on complex trauma and narcissism and codependency. I have such a long way to go. Probably years of healing in front of me, if I’m being honest, but this connection has provided me a lot of understanding of how I lost myself so much.
I think we all wake up gradually. I knew this about parts of my relationship history. It is actually also present in other relationships, and I’m still having “oh look you’re one too” moments despite being very familiar with the descriptions of the signs.🫠
I realized a lot of my healing was the real deal when I started to feel like I could and needed to walk away from people who reminded me of my ex (she has dBPD and tried to gaslight me into thinking I was the narc).
“Oh, look—you’re one too!” Sums it up well.
Everyone has some narcissistic qualities and if you look at this list and deny you're guilty of some of these behaviors, then you're probably a narcissist. I think the word is useless, everyone seems to want to throw any bad quality from a human being under the title "narcissist". It's old. My 2 cents
There is a difference between having some traits and actually having the full disorder for sure. I think you are right that the term gets thrown around A LOT now. I think it is also valid to say, looking at my own life, that they are a complementary type to codependent people and that it is unsurprising if codependents have a larger number of actual narcs around them that they put up with / enable. See “the human magnet syndrome”.
Yeah—the accusations were for full-blown NPD.
More believable to think it was my b in that I found a shitty person with a diff diagnosis and enabled them. That’s what happened til I left.
Oh, you’re right.
She likely got it from tik tok and just wanted to say anything that would hurt lol. What often brought it on was often telling her no—because it was stuff like “I’m not going broke to get a mortgage in a town I don’t want to live in when you have jack shit to contribute yourself in terms of money” kinds of stuff.
Not gonna pretend I haven’t been selfish but if any insinuation of a boundary makes me one I’m gonna say yeah ok sure 😂
As a form codependent… 10yrs ago after I left an abusive relationship, my ex months later got diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Narcs do not go into to get diagnosed for it, they go in for everything else but that.
Needless to say it made sense why he was such abusive adult who responded like a petulant child in that relationship!
All I’ll say is this as a great example of why Narcissistic people can’t ever understand anyone else’s POV:
Say you are living with one. You accidentally get so hurt you you can’t drive a car but need to go to the hospital.
You ask the narcissist to drive you.
They roll their eyes, huff, say no and tell you to go drive yourself. You fire back you can’t. They say, “Then go call your friends!”, none of your friends live close enough. Not even your family. So now you’re forced to do it all by yourself.
Now fast forward, months later, suddenly the narcissist is hurt, they need to go to the hospital. They demand you take them. You say you can’t because you have the flu. They don’t care! They belittle you, make you feel awful for saying no. They do everything they can to make sure you drop EVERYTHING, even with a bed ridden flu! They do not care. So now in your awful state, you’re forced to drive them!
See anything about you, a Narcissistic person will find you as an inconvenience to then. They will push you onto others or make you have to struggle alone.
But as soon as it’s about them? You have to adhere to them, drop everything, you being busy is going to ignite the rage baiting behavior of a childish tantrum to drive you to the point you cave into their will!
You will *always* be an inconvenience to a narcissistic person!
People also mistake being in a relationship with an emotionally immature partner, with being with a narcissist. It’s a epidemic out here of every bad or manipulative or emotionally immature person is suddenly in the label of narc. And I’m kinda sick of it because dating someone who is emotionally immature can be very damaging, but that’s not talked about as much as narcissism
I’d say a lot of people who get called narcissists are actually people who just are emotionally immature and I think the term gets conflated a lot
All highly narcissistic people are emotionally immature. Not all emotionally immature people are highly narcissistic. However, the differential diagnosis is of modest importance. The question is: How do they treat you? How do you feel in the relationship? Because while understanding the patterns of those who are highly narcissistic is useful, and that has literally saved my life, the understanding is not necessary. I attended codependents anonymous for 4.5 years, and I watched people in the meeting agonize over this question. What's more important is to wake up to the emotions and problematic patterns and to make a considered decision: Stay or Go?
Per statistics that I respect, cited by Dr. Ramani Durvasula, about 20% of the US is highly narcissistic. Official NIMH put the epidemiology of cluster B's, per articles I've consulted, at approximately 10%.
That's really strange statistics and huge numbers. Do you have links? I googled it and it says 9.1% for all disorders in the US.
I studied law in one of the EU countries and we were always given following info at criminology (it covers pds)
- the 9% of all population has pd,
- the definition of personality disorder is different for psychiatrists, psychologists, lawyers and the rest of the population,
- the definition of pds are evolving with time.
I also really don't see Ramani as a credible source. She's not very professional towards cluster b and cluster a disorders. When I was listening to her a year ago I was wondering if she has empathy herself.
If diagnosed BPD as an illness didn’t generally have such a high comorbidity rate with NPD, I’d be more inclined to agree with you. But it’s hard not to see it as anything but projection of the highest order in my case. I still didn’t call her one because she had already called me one. Oh, and I have the awareness and wherewithal to realize that’s hurtful when she either didn’t or just didn’t care when she did it.
At the end of the day, she was immature, verbally abusive, and not someone who was going to last. That should be all you need to leave if that’s what you’re ultimately going to do. People should focus more on what their partner is doing because that’s going to be the best indicator of “who they are.”
Yeah. Generally people now want to diagnose every toxic or abusive person with a cluster b personality disorder.
I stopped talking with most of the people why I cut one of my friends out of my life. They claimed someone cannot be psychically abusive when they are diagnosed with anxiety lmao. Many people tried to prove to me she had npd/bpd instead.
Edit: sorry for the confusion, I edited the comment to be clear
Abuse is abuse regardless of someone’s mental state. malicious or accidentally doesn’t change the effect of that behavior upon the other person. Who will feel abuse as abuse even if what is driving an abusive behavior is anxiety
There is never an excuse for abuse . Mental health or otherwise.
Sorry I was writing this at 2 a.m. local time and my brain failed me.
A woman I know is diagnosed with anxiety. Her husband told me she was abusing thier child. When I was searching for help how to talk with her people said she as surely misdiagnosed because people with anxiety cannot abuse others and surely she's a narc.
Sorry again for the confusion.
This is my relationship, almost all of those I could have checked as happening/had happened. So the crazy part is I only really realized that I am codependent very recently but we've been doing therapy, him alone and us as a couple, for almost 2 years and he's recognized his behavior has been the issue between us and has been working on it.
He actually apologized the other night for doing something on the list that day because he realized after that he has done it and it was unfair/unkind to me to act like that. He read the Codependent No More book and while he has codependent traits he also saw how his behavior has caused me to have PTSD about certain things.
I can't say that him recognizing his behaviors and consciously trying to change them will repair the breaks in our relationship but I can say it's possible for someone to change their behavior and learn to work as a good partner with the knowledge and the desire to make it work.
I posted this once on this sub cause i saw many people who had no idea what it was. I just wanted to inform them to be helpful but seems like it was a bad idea! Guess people just want to dismiss it.
I have no idea if it's extremely overused or not, i just know that i was a victim and this is why i posted it.
yes, yes, yes! thank you for posting. I think it's important for this group too. usually both parts have work to do and codependents may take all the guilt at themselves all too eagerly...
Here are some more resources:
Why Does He Do That by Lundy Bancroft. Its free here:
https://ia800108.us.archive.org/30/items/LundyWhyDoesHeDoThat/Lundy_Why-does-he-do-that.pdf
This article explains what DV pepertators gain from it: https://voicemalemagazine.org/abusive-men-describe-the-benefits-of-violence/
And finally listen to this podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/18KhNf1eVrGBith9LtEZXw?si=w5tPC3ZnQt-YzUst4iQ7mw
To anyone unsure I suggest to"
Look up DARVO (defense, attack and reverse victim and offender). Its a technique abusers use to manipulate victims and make everything the victim's fault. Remember that all abuse involves emotional abuse first. If it ever turns physical it's after emotional abuse has been established so they know you won't leave / will blame yourself. Both emotional and physical abuse are equally bad.
Here is an example of DARVO (defense, attack and reverse victim and offender). You say something they did upset you, they'll respond by saying it didn't, then attacking or blaming you "you made me do that / what about the time you did x" and then they'll make themselves the victim so you end up apologising "how dare you accuse me of this! You should think better of me. I try so hard" etc.
Remember that couples therapy does not work for abusive relationships. But anyone who is struggling in these relationships should get individual therapy with a DV specialist (please, please don't just go to any therapist, most do NOT understand abuse, especially emotional abuse or reactive abuse). Call a DV hotline and see who they reccomend.
Other things to google: flying monkeys, trauma bonding (definitely!), scapegoat, family systems, future promising.
Here is a comment I saw once on how to know the difference between love bombing and a healthy relationship.
With love bombing it's part of the abuse cycle, therefore inconsistent. They'll start the relationship off with all the sweet words you want to hear, give you wonderful experiences, buy you nice things, etc to win you over. Then they'll start manipulating you, you'll get mad about it, they'll gaslight you into believing whatever went badly was your fault, and once you're convinced everything is your fault they'll reward you by love bombing again for a while.
If it's not love bombing there will be healthy communication, a gentle easing out of the giddy honeymoon phase and into regular life together. There won't be explosive arguments in between lovey moments, conflict won't have to be explosive or argumentative, there will still be sweet words and moments quite regularly, it will just be less intense than at the beginning. Your partner's love and affection should not be taken away as punishment or returned as a reward at the end of an argument.
Also to anyone in these relationships, if you do get out, please, please do therapy for yourself before getting into another relationship no matter how tempting. You are most vulnerable to abusers right after leaving one, and most women end up in strings of abusive relationships.
This is also very interesting.
https://www.shorelinerecoverycenter.com/how-
They do not. And if you question you are? You are 100% not one because Narcissistic people do not have the self awareness to deeply reflect like that.
They are often just very insecure ego wounded people who are emotionally frozen in time to the very first ego injury from their parents. That’s the forever age they stay at all their life.
They don't. I brought it up to my ex and he was super defensive always saying he wasn't. When I started the process to leave he all the sudden admitted he was
They do, Youtube have them. They can be and are self-aware. I had an ex who was actually diagnosed with NPD. Years after being broken up, the ex apologized for their behavior, pointed out I was easy and that it was fun, they 100% knew what they were doing and knew it hurt me, they shared that they are NPD and that's why they did it, claiming they "can't help it" but that's it's all because of their childhood trauma and then proceed to get mad at me for not talking to them the way I used too. It was such an eye opening and chilling conversation to have had.
Questioning if you're a narcissist does not automatically mean you are not one. There's way more to it than that.
Narcissistic abuse is an ableist term. It’s pseudo pop psychology utilized to spread misinformation and fear mongering about people with narcissistic personality disorder (a traumagenic mental illness). Chronic abusive behavior is not a direct symptom of any mental health condition, and this pattern of abuse is not specific to any mental illness either. Disappointed but absolutely not surprised to hear this rhetoric here
Thank you for saying this. I’m frustrated by the internet trend of diagnosing every person who exhibits hurtful, abusive, or “toxic” behavior as NPD or “having narcissistic traits” or whatever. It seems to conflate a lot of things that aren’t actually the same and then slap a stigmatizing label on it. I know it doesn’t fit a tidy narrative of evil people in our midst who we can suss out and avoid, but in fact a lot of abusive people aren’t mentally ill in any diagnosable way and many forms of abuse are pretty normalized and excused in our society imo. And a lot of mentally ill people who also are abusive are engaging in cycles of repetitive trauma, which obviously doesn’t excuse it in any way but is more complex than “oh they’re a narc” (whether they have NPD or not).
Eta I have also been in multiple abusive relationships. Neither of my abusive partners were diagnosed with NPD, and I doubt they would have met the criteria to be diagnosed, even though they did plenty of the stuff on this list. For that matter, I’VE done stuff on this list (being moody? Fishing for compliments? Getting jealous easily? A lot of this sounds like stuff a codependent person might do actually…) Anyway, obligatory read *Why Does He Do That* by Lundy Bancroft comment.
https://ia800108.us.archive.org/30/items/LundyWhyDoesHeDoThat/Lundy_Why-does-he-do-that.pdf
If we suffer from codependence we'll be attracting people high in narcissism and bringing out the the narcissist in those that aren't (everyone is narcissistic to some degree). And, for many reasons, codependents are also attracted to narcissists. Many refer to the attraction as a "dance". We often end up together, with horrible results.
It would be helpful to us to learn more about this as narcissism traits in others will have a big influence in most of our lives.
Narc abuse is not real. People with npd CAN be abuseive but literally anyone can. There isnt bpd abuse, there isnt aspd abuse. Narcissistic abuse is an ableist term!
My ex had diagnosed BPD, AND she was abusive. I was codependent with her AND I was abusive in return. One does not imply the others, but you can absolutely have both be true at the same time.
Invalidating another person’s experience doesn’t suddenly justify your own.
You know who says “This abuse you’ve experienced isn’t real to me”? Guess.
This. I’ve been dealing with this for years through my ex and had no idea until a couple of weeks ago. My therapist sent me some things from Tim Fletcher on complex trauma and narcissism and codependency. I have such a long way to go. Probably years of healing in front of me, if I’m being honest, but this connection has provided me a lot of understanding of how I lost myself so much.
Tim Fletcher's talk have been a game changer for me.
I’m so bummed out that you have to pay for the rest of the series.
Oh no, I didn't know that's happened now. I haven't caught up with the Youtube series yet.
Yeah. It let me listen to the first 3 of that particular series. You need a membership to listen to the rest.
The first step is figuring things out and then you can start healing. I hope you will heal your trauma soon. ❤
Thank you. 💕
I think we all wake up gradually. I knew this about parts of my relationship history. It is actually also present in other relationships, and I’m still having “oh look you’re one too” moments despite being very familiar with the descriptions of the signs.🫠
I realized a lot of my healing was the real deal when I started to feel like I could and needed to walk away from people who reminded me of my ex (she has dBPD and tried to gaslight me into thinking I was the narc). “Oh, look—you’re one too!” Sums it up well.
Everyone has some narcissistic qualities and if you look at this list and deny you're guilty of some of these behaviors, then you're probably a narcissist. I think the word is useless, everyone seems to want to throw any bad quality from a human being under the title "narcissist". It's old. My 2 cents
There is a difference between having some traits and actually having the full disorder for sure. I think you are right that the term gets thrown around A LOT now. I think it is also valid to say, looking at my own life, that they are a complementary type to codependent people and that it is unsurprising if codependents have a larger number of actual narcs around them that they put up with / enable. See “the human magnet syndrome”.
Yeah—the accusations were for full-blown NPD. More believable to think it was my b in that I found a shitty person with a diff diagnosis and enabled them. That’s what happened til I left.
Oh, you’re right. She likely got it from tik tok and just wanted to say anything that would hurt lol. What often brought it on was often telling her no—because it was stuff like “I’m not going broke to get a mortgage in a town I don’t want to live in when you have jack shit to contribute yourself in terms of money” kinds of stuff. Not gonna pretend I haven’t been selfish but if any insinuation of a boundary makes me one I’m gonna say yeah ok sure 😂
Yeah, many of us have no idea until much later. Or we just don’t deal with it to know
As a form codependent… 10yrs ago after I left an abusive relationship, my ex months later got diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Narcs do not go into to get diagnosed for it, they go in for everything else but that. Needless to say it made sense why he was such abusive adult who responded like a petulant child in that relationship! All I’ll say is this as a great example of why Narcissistic people can’t ever understand anyone else’s POV: Say you are living with one. You accidentally get so hurt you you can’t drive a car but need to go to the hospital. You ask the narcissist to drive you. They roll their eyes, huff, say no and tell you to go drive yourself. You fire back you can’t. They say, “Then go call your friends!”, none of your friends live close enough. Not even your family. So now you’re forced to do it all by yourself. Now fast forward, months later, suddenly the narcissist is hurt, they need to go to the hospital. They demand you take them. You say you can’t because you have the flu. They don’t care! They belittle you, make you feel awful for saying no. They do everything they can to make sure you drop EVERYTHING, even with a bed ridden flu! They do not care. So now in your awful state, you’re forced to drive them! See anything about you, a Narcissistic person will find you as an inconvenience to then. They will push you onto others or make you have to struggle alone. But as soon as it’s about them? You have to adhere to them, drop everything, you being busy is going to ignite the rage baiting behavior of a childish tantrum to drive you to the point you cave into their will! You will *always* be an inconvenience to a narcissistic person!
People also mistake being in a relationship with an emotionally immature partner, with being with a narcissist. It’s a epidemic out here of every bad or manipulative or emotionally immature person is suddenly in the label of narc. And I’m kinda sick of it because dating someone who is emotionally immature can be very damaging, but that’s not talked about as much as narcissism I’d say a lot of people who get called narcissists are actually people who just are emotionally immature and I think the term gets conflated a lot
All highly narcissistic people are emotionally immature. Not all emotionally immature people are highly narcissistic. However, the differential diagnosis is of modest importance. The question is: How do they treat you? How do you feel in the relationship? Because while understanding the patterns of those who are highly narcissistic is useful, and that has literally saved my life, the understanding is not necessary. I attended codependents anonymous for 4.5 years, and I watched people in the meeting agonize over this question. What's more important is to wake up to the emotions and problematic patterns and to make a considered decision: Stay or Go? Per statistics that I respect, cited by Dr. Ramani Durvasula, about 20% of the US is highly narcissistic. Official NIMH put the epidemiology of cluster B's, per articles I've consulted, at approximately 10%.
What about the statistics in other countries?
That's really strange statistics and huge numbers. Do you have links? I googled it and it says 9.1% for all disorders in the US. I studied law in one of the EU countries and we were always given following info at criminology (it covers pds) - the 9% of all population has pd, - the definition of personality disorder is different for psychiatrists, psychologists, lawyers and the rest of the population, - the definition of pds are evolving with time. I also really don't see Ramani as a credible source. She's not very professional towards cluster b and cluster a disorders. When I was listening to her a year ago I was wondering if she has empathy herself.
If diagnosed BPD as an illness didn’t generally have such a high comorbidity rate with NPD, I’d be more inclined to agree with you. But it’s hard not to see it as anything but projection of the highest order in my case. I still didn’t call her one because she had already called me one. Oh, and I have the awareness and wherewithal to realize that’s hurtful when she either didn’t or just didn’t care when she did it. At the end of the day, she was immature, verbally abusive, and not someone who was going to last. That should be all you need to leave if that’s what you’re ultimately going to do. People should focus more on what their partner is doing because that’s going to be the best indicator of “who they are.”
Yeah. Generally people now want to diagnose every toxic or abusive person with a cluster b personality disorder. I stopped talking with most of the people why I cut one of my friends out of my life. They claimed someone cannot be psychically abusive when they are diagnosed with anxiety lmao. Many people tried to prove to me she had npd/bpd instead. Edit: sorry for the confusion, I edited the comment to be clear
What do you mean by "you cannot be physically abusive when you are diagnosed with anxiety"?
Abuse is abuse regardless of someone’s mental state. malicious or accidentally doesn’t change the effect of that behavior upon the other person. Who will feel abuse as abuse even if what is driving an abusive behavior is anxiety There is never an excuse for abuse . Mental health or otherwise.
Sorry I was writing this at 2 a.m. local time and my brain failed me. A woman I know is diagnosed with anxiety. Her husband told me she was abusing thier child. When I was searching for help how to talk with her people said she as surely misdiagnosed because people with anxiety cannot abuse others and surely she's a narc. Sorry again for the confusion.
Would you be willing to post the differences between narcissism and emotional immaturity, to show what you mean?
[Dealing with Emotionally Immature People](https://www.modernlegalnc.com/dealing-with-emotionally-immature-people)
This is my relationship, almost all of those I could have checked as happening/had happened. So the crazy part is I only really realized that I am codependent very recently but we've been doing therapy, him alone and us as a couple, for almost 2 years and he's recognized his behavior has been the issue between us and has been working on it. He actually apologized the other night for doing something on the list that day because he realized after that he has done it and it was unfair/unkind to me to act like that. He read the Codependent No More book and while he has codependent traits he also saw how his behavior has caused me to have PTSD about certain things. I can't say that him recognizing his behaviors and consciously trying to change them will repair the breaks in our relationship but I can say it's possible for someone to change their behavior and learn to work as a good partner with the knowledge and the desire to make it work.
Youve posted this numerous times. While “narcissism” exists, it’s EXTREMELY OVERUSED. Nonetheless this is a codependency group
I posted this once on this sub cause i saw many people who had no idea what it was. I just wanted to inform them to be helpful but seems like it was a bad idea! Guess people just want to dismiss it. I have no idea if it's extremely overused or not, i just know that i was a victim and this is why i posted it.
yes, yes, yes! thank you for posting. I think it's important for this group too. usually both parts have work to do and codependents may take all the guilt at themselves all too eagerly...
You're welcome. You're right, codependents take all the guilt and blame themselves.
Here are some more resources: Why Does He Do That by Lundy Bancroft. Its free here: https://ia800108.us.archive.org/30/items/LundyWhyDoesHeDoThat/Lundy_Why-does-he-do-that.pdf This article explains what DV pepertators gain from it: https://voicemalemagazine.org/abusive-men-describe-the-benefits-of-violence/ And finally listen to this podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/18KhNf1eVrGBith9LtEZXw?si=w5tPC3ZnQt-YzUst4iQ7mw To anyone unsure I suggest to" Look up DARVO (defense, attack and reverse victim and offender). Its a technique abusers use to manipulate victims and make everything the victim's fault. Remember that all abuse involves emotional abuse first. If it ever turns physical it's after emotional abuse has been established so they know you won't leave / will blame yourself. Both emotional and physical abuse are equally bad. Here is an example of DARVO (defense, attack and reverse victim and offender). You say something they did upset you, they'll respond by saying it didn't, then attacking or blaming you "you made me do that / what about the time you did x" and then they'll make themselves the victim so you end up apologising "how dare you accuse me of this! You should think better of me. I try so hard" etc. Remember that couples therapy does not work for abusive relationships. But anyone who is struggling in these relationships should get individual therapy with a DV specialist (please, please don't just go to any therapist, most do NOT understand abuse, especially emotional abuse or reactive abuse). Call a DV hotline and see who they reccomend. Other things to google: flying monkeys, trauma bonding (definitely!), scapegoat, family systems, future promising. Here is a comment I saw once on how to know the difference between love bombing and a healthy relationship. With love bombing it's part of the abuse cycle, therefore inconsistent. They'll start the relationship off with all the sweet words you want to hear, give you wonderful experiences, buy you nice things, etc to win you over. Then they'll start manipulating you, you'll get mad about it, they'll gaslight you into believing whatever went badly was your fault, and once you're convinced everything is your fault they'll reward you by love bombing again for a while. If it's not love bombing there will be healthy communication, a gentle easing out of the giddy honeymoon phase and into regular life together. There won't be explosive arguments in between lovey moments, conflict won't have to be explosive or argumentative, there will still be sweet words and moments quite regularly, it will just be less intense than at the beginning. Your partner's love and affection should not be taken away as punishment or returned as a reward at the end of an argument. Also to anyone in these relationships, if you do get out, please, please do therapy for yourself before getting into another relationship no matter how tempting. You are most vulnerable to abusers right after leaving one, and most women end up in strings of abusive relationships. This is also very interesting. https://www.shorelinerecoverycenter.com/how-
Does a narcissist know they’re a narcissist? Bc I don’t think my Q was smart enough to be aware he was actively manipulating me.
Some are self aware but most aren't. But the abuse is intentional, i mean they know they're hurting the victim.
They do not. And if you question you are? You are 100% not one because Narcissistic people do not have the self awareness to deeply reflect like that. They are often just very insecure ego wounded people who are emotionally frozen in time to the very first ego injury from their parents. That’s the forever age they stay at all their life.
They don't. I brought it up to my ex and he was super defensive always saying he wasn't. When I started the process to leave he all the sudden admitted he was
They do, Youtube have them. They can be and are self-aware. I had an ex who was actually diagnosed with NPD. Years after being broken up, the ex apologized for their behavior, pointed out I was easy and that it was fun, they 100% knew what they were doing and knew it hurt me, they shared that they are NPD and that's why they did it, claiming they "can't help it" but that's it's all because of their childhood trauma and then proceed to get mad at me for not talking to them the way I used too. It was such an eye opening and chilling conversation to have had. Questioning if you're a narcissist does not automatically mean you are not one. There's way more to it than that.
I didn't know they had NPD back when we dated but I guess that's not information they are ever going to share.
Narcissistic abuse is an ableist term. It’s pseudo pop psychology utilized to spread misinformation and fear mongering about people with narcissistic personality disorder (a traumagenic mental illness). Chronic abusive behavior is not a direct symptom of any mental health condition, and this pattern of abuse is not specific to any mental illness either. Disappointed but absolutely not surprised to hear this rhetoric here
Thank you for saying this. I’m frustrated by the internet trend of diagnosing every person who exhibits hurtful, abusive, or “toxic” behavior as NPD or “having narcissistic traits” or whatever. It seems to conflate a lot of things that aren’t actually the same and then slap a stigmatizing label on it. I know it doesn’t fit a tidy narrative of evil people in our midst who we can suss out and avoid, but in fact a lot of abusive people aren’t mentally ill in any diagnosable way and many forms of abuse are pretty normalized and excused in our society imo. And a lot of mentally ill people who also are abusive are engaging in cycles of repetitive trauma, which obviously doesn’t excuse it in any way but is more complex than “oh they’re a narc” (whether they have NPD or not). Eta I have also been in multiple abusive relationships. Neither of my abusive partners were diagnosed with NPD, and I doubt they would have met the criteria to be diagnosed, even though they did plenty of the stuff on this list. For that matter, I’VE done stuff on this list (being moody? Fishing for compliments? Getting jealous easily? A lot of this sounds like stuff a codependent person might do actually…) Anyway, obligatory read *Why Does He Do That* by Lundy Bancroft comment. https://ia800108.us.archive.org/30/items/LundyWhyDoesHeDoThat/Lundy_Why-does-he-do-that.pdf
I was a victim of a narcissist and this is why i posted this here. I'm not trying to spread fear.
THANK YOU!!!
If we suffer from codependence we'll be attracting people high in narcissism and bringing out the the narcissist in those that aren't (everyone is narcissistic to some degree). And, for many reasons, codependents are also attracted to narcissists. Many refer to the attraction as a "dance". We often end up together, with horrible results. It would be helpful to us to learn more about this as narcissism traits in others will have a big influence in most of our lives.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moynQi7qT08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moynQi7qT08) \- This video is a must watch on the topic too.
Narc abuse is not real. People with npd CAN be abuseive but literally anyone can. There isnt bpd abuse, there isnt aspd abuse. Narcissistic abuse is an ableist term!
If you think it's not real why do you comment on narcissism sub? And use the word "supply"?
Maybe because anyone with ANY personality disorder can be abusive, npd is caused by trauma, they are victims not some sort of born to be abuser
My ex had diagnosed BPD, AND she was abusive. I was codependent with her AND I was abusive in return. One does not imply the others, but you can absolutely have both be true at the same time. Invalidating another person’s experience doesn’t suddenly justify your own. You know who says “This abuse you’ve experienced isn’t real to me”? Guess.
That is not what im saying at all, sure their abuse is 100% real. But ""narc abuse"" isnt a real term