What Narcissism Is:
- holding yourself to extremely high standards (if I’m not perfect at it, I’m a failure)
- being incredibly sensitive to criticism (becoming suicidal if you think someone thinks you’re bad at something)
- having a very brittle sense of self-worth that’s heavily reliant on what others think of you
What Narcissism is Not:
- being uniquely abusive
- having no morals
- being a bad person
ETA: this is not an exhaustive list of NPD traits! more traits than these are necessary to have NPD! I chose these particular features to emphasize things that aren’t often talked about outside of dedicated NPD communities and to highlight the fact that NPD is a disorder based in the internalized fear that you are never good enough.
Okay bet, here’s a more comprehensive (if not exhaustive, because it’s nigh impossible to list every NPD experience) list of NPD traits. In addition to the above:
- feeling slighted by “insufficient” praise for your achievements (even if the achievement is really basic, such as completing a load of laundry, or the person did praise you, they just didn’t praise you “enough”)
- feeling like the only people who are good enough for you are others with NPD
- being willing to betray your own moral code to avoid being emotionally vulnerable
- prioritizing your own wellness above all others, to a harmful degree; being willing to actively cause harm to people you are close to and care about to protect yourself
- having recurrent episodes of suicidality, depression, feeling inadequate, feeling unloved, or otherwise being severely and disproportionately upset in response to criticism or failure
- having recurrent episodes of euphoria to an almost manic degree in response to successes or achievements
I’ve tried to make these as clear as possible, but if you’re confused about anything, instead of being like “well ☝️🤓 anyone could behave / feel that way” try asking me for examples of such a thing in an NPD vs. non-NPD kinda way
reblog this version actually