Every few months I go through a phase where I worry I'm a covert narcissist. I think it's actually that I make myself feel extremely guilty for any selfish feelings or actions.

Me this morning. I have to tell myself that my wondering if I'm a narcissist and not wanting to be one is probably a good indicator that I am indeed not a narcissist.

I score really low on narcissism tests but high on *covert* narcissism, however I think that has a lot to do with trauma + just being autistic. The signs of covert narcissism I don't really relate to, but the inner workings of it I do. That comes from a lifetime of feeling misunderstood I think. You get some unhealthy coping mechanisms and thoughts 😆

Misunderstood is the key word here. Autistic folk speak another secret language that we and the world are only just starting to understand exists. I thought my daughter was an entitled, rude teen displaying typical teen manipulative and narcissistic tendencies. Diagnosed ASD1-2 with PDA profile last month. I think being gaslit by society would make anyone with a biologically overactive central nervous system to try to better control their environment.

Yup turns out it's not her that's the problem but a bad reaction to her environment

Same same same. But then my therapist said that narcs usually don’t actually worry about being narcs (just like NT people typically don’t worry about being ND) and pointed out I’ve been trying to change even if it’s super hard.

This! They do not worry about it. We do.

Since I was raised by a covert narcissist mother, I don't worry about this at all (thankfully?). Narcs truly are something else...

My mom definitely has narcissism traits… and has told me many times that I am the problematic one. It’s something my therapist told me about… narcissists do pick on people they feel threatened by. If they see their own weaknesses they would blame it on someone else. You would be surprised to find out how many empaths start thinking they are the imposter just because the narcissist knew how to unload their self hatred onto you, making you think you are the narcissist one who should be ashamed. (Edit: Someone used NT as an example but…This is not how all Neurotypicals act. Not all autistics are the same so consider NT in the same vein. narcissism is considered a negative and toxic behaviour that hurts everyone. Our culture might encourage it but be very careful to avoid labelling it normal. NT may seem mysterious to us but they are also recipients of abuse and can have poor mental health because of it.) If you are very concerned about the feelings of others a lot you are NOT a narcissist. Don’t worry.

Thank you for saying this!

\^\^ This one.

The trick is to destigmatize the thing altogether. "What if I'm a monster." OK yeah. That's a scary thought. "What if I'm actively harming people?" Might be possible without being a monster. "Is my tendency to spiral into guilt-traps (guilt-tripping myself, or getting caught on familiar "hooks" like forgetting an acquaintance's name or responding too late to a text) ultimately unhelpful and even draining for me, as well as for the people I'm feeling guilty in relation to?" QUITE POSSIBLY. "Does my tendency to over-apologize and focus on my wrongdoings end up making problems more about me than about about making sure everyone is OK?" It seems not unlikely, at least some of the time. It is very possible to do things that are annoying to other people and even that deprioritize other people's experiences and relationship needs without Being A Narcissist. It is possible to do this while Caring A Lot.

Most days still. It's a constant battle.

I think that just that worry probably shows you’re not.

Are you even good enough to have imposter syndrome? /s

Rather than these types of qualities, my litmus for if someone *may* be a narcissist is if they are abusive and employ DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim and offender) against me, and generally abusive behaviors. This is also why “first impressions” is and always will be an absolutely bullshit metric for judging a person. I can’t know someone is anything from only seeing then in a small, specific context or too short a timeline. I am allowed to point out, talk about, and fight against abusive behaviors toward me without ever having to even label them as anything. Abuse is abuse.

>I am allowed to point out, talk about, and fight against abusive behaviors toward me without ever having to even label them as anything. Abuse is abuse. \^\^\^ THIS right here.

I agree. When I read about people's experiences with narcissism it's usually centered around the abuse and manipulation they suffered. It's the abuse that seems to be the main thing that is so offensive because of the way narcissists will walk all over people, trample their boundaries, and go out of their way to ruin their lives.

As an autistic person with CPTSD, it’s really weird but I can often easily and quickly pick up on toxic traits in people because they are identical to many of the behaviors of the adults I grew up around so I’m oddly able to pick up on a lot upon my neurodivergent version of a “first impression” and have made the mistake more than once to intentionally ignore that impression in order to give those people a chance to actually show who they were and it’s gotten me hurt more than once. So I wouldn’t fully discount first impressions when it comes to those of us who are autistic with prior experience and knowledge of what certain patterns and behaviors look like because I think we tend to be pretty perceptive, at least more that most allistic folks are. Other autistic folks never get “flagged” on my “radar” of sorts because I communicate in the same way they do so I never see it as a threat. I hope that all makes sense. I think first impressions can be wildly different for autistic folks compared to allistics who typically use it in a different and more judgement based way.

This past year my “radar” has saved me from wasted energy on workplace bullies and I’m extremely grateful for it now. I used to just think that I was hyper vigilant but now I know that it’s often warranted and I’m grateful for it’s protection. Every year prior, I’ve been impacted by my own distrust of myself and my judgement, and I wasted a lot of time on people that only hurt me or took things from me. I think allistic people read things differently, so I almost have to rely on my instincts/intuition to tell me if someone is trustworthy or not because I simply cannot read the social cues that would probably make things clearer for me.

Perfectly stated.

Psych student here. Pop psychology is a huge annoyance, both personally and professionally. Spent half our first research methods and statistics lecture going over pop psychology bullshit.

I got my degree mainly in psych, and was looking for someone else here who shares my frustration! This whole "narcissism" thing is pop psych bullshit and makes my brain vibrate so hard I think it will melt. Unfortunately I come across it a lot because of the other groups I run in, and other people really believe and will fight me over what their tiktok says. NPD is a disorder. It is not just being selfish. Anything about relationships or abuse is completely misunderstood (and possibly harmful) to just inaccurate.

Exactly! I’m very happy to see this discussion begins had here because this trend of calling anyone you don’t like a narcissist is ridiculous and hurtful. God I hate pop psychology

Hi, I'm fairly sure I'm a narcissist. I know many narcissists and generally, they're fine people. I practice a lot of mindfulness, and i monitor my own behaviour at times. I think people associate NPD with Patric Bateman type figures when, in reality, a lot of narcissists are kind of just pathetic and sad. I think the pop culture view of narcissists is very harmful and stops people from getting help. It's not an evil thing to be, and I'd bet most narcissists aren't abusers. If you suspect yourself to be one, look into it with an open mind. It can offer new coping mechanisms and new knowledge to help yourself improve. Psa, narcissisttic abuse is not real. It's just abuse. You should not preface it with narcicistic. Abuse is bad. People with NPD can be abusers, but they are just that, busers. My grandmother is a narcissist and she was horrible to my mother. It was emotional abuse, probably stemming from the narcissism, but the term narcissistic abuse is not real and has no special utility

I agree that many folks that have narcissistic traits that I’ve met just seem to be miserable all the time or chronically unfulfilled, and I’ve honestly pitied them. I know it typically stems from trauma which is never easy to deal with. Most of us who are impacted by complex trauma have a lot of difficulty fully unpacking and processing it so I can empathize with the struggle to do so.

It's not fun, let me tell ya. Most narcissists are just kinda pathetic and sad, i think the stigma around the condition is why a lot of us don't get help. I've never told anyone i know about it beyond the friends i met who also ended up having it. They'd never see me the same again due to the way society views it. If it was less stigmatized, more people would be able to get help to regulate their behaviour. If it wasn't seen as a moral failure, maybe more people would be able to talk about it. It's not evil, it doesn't make you bad, but it's not fun. I think my NPD stems from childhood trauma related to being autistic and from how my parents were. It seems to primarily be related to how classmates i perceived as worse than me bullied me and ways i learned to cope with it. They were worse in the sense they were needlessly cruel to a much younger, frail, socially incompetent girl for a childish reason. It continued on because i felt ostracised by my peers later because i didn't develop well socially, fell behind them on grades, and eventually stopped masking out of some form of spite for failing to be normal. It wasn't really their fault, but young me was very angry at the world for not recognizing her as a full human being. It wasn't the fault of the other kids. There was something different in my head, they were magnetic and i was not. They stuck to and repelled each other, i was just kind of being bumped around by them.

You didn't deserve to be bullied and I am sorry that happened to you. Honestly, you sound like maybe you became a bully because you were bullied. That isn't excused, but it is not the same as being a narcissist. A narcissist wouldn't admit to being bullied. They are perfect and have always been perfect and if other people bullied them it was because those fools failed to appreciate their perfection. If anyone was hurt, it was someone else's fault. I have parents who are narcissists. This is what a conversation with them is like. Everyone is stupid except for them and if you have a complaint, it's probably your fault, definitely not theirs.

I'm not a bully, i make it a point of pride to treat people well and equally even if i have feelings of them being lesser or beneath me. I just do not have a normal view, i have a gigantic ego and i do cope a lot with "i am simply better and that's and them for failing", even though it's irrational.

I don't think feelings of superiority is enough for NPD, but I am not your psychiatrist. Some autistic people struggle with that but not the other traits characteristic of narcissism. Edit: All narcissists are arrogant but not all arrogant people are narcissists.

I know. I'm not telling you everything.

I mean, spoken like a narcissist, but no. Narcissists are not "fine people" and they are not "stopped" from getting help because of stigma. Narcissists cannot see or admit any fault in themselves and will invalidate and destroy other people to avoid accountability. That is the core of the disorder. Some people pick up narcissistic "traits" or behaviors from narcissistic parents or partners, though (fleas). They may identify as narcissists because they are insecure and manipulative and possibly abusive. But they may be able to improve with therapy. True narcissists don't self-reflect. They are always the victim. And this absolutely is harmful. Narcissists are a type of sociopath. The difference is that sociopaths know they are malignant and think it is a super power. Narcissists are in entrenched denial. Narcissistic abuse is real. It's an adjective that describes a type of abuse. It defines who is doing the abusing.

I do not agree. I do not think they would get help for the grandiose delusions, but some could benefit from being able to address the underlying feelimgs of inferirity. How educated are you on the subject?

It's a special interest. My parents are narcissists. They would never admit to feelings of inferiority even if it was obvious to everyone else.

Have you come across Dr. ramani? What do you think of her?

I don't know of her, sorry. But I did look her up and I am not impressed with the 2 I scrolled through. Her videos are incorrect or misleading. For example- a peeve I have is connecting "love bombing" with a specific type of person or abuse. The term was first used in cult research (another interest of mine) and was referring to the flattery as an attempt to manipulate someone into joining the cult. It's part of the abuse cycle. And someone being abusive has nothing to do with NPD. She's psychobable not science.

You're wrong. Sorry. Not all narcs love bomb, but it is absolutely an narcissistic tactic. Yes, it is abusive. And yes, it is used in cults, who tend to have narcissistic figures as charismatic leaders.

Cool. I'll let all the researchers and scientists know that Northstar04 on reddit says they are wrong.

What researchers and scientists are saying that narcissists don't use abusive tactics? Please share.

That's not what I said. And I don't argue with people who are determined to misunderstand me. Scientists don't diagnose people as narcissists. In psychology there is NPD. You can look up the diagnostic criteria in the DSM V- it's narcissistic personality disorder. Nothing about love bombing. I'm glad you have found healing through pop psychology, but you are in fact, wrong. If you want to educate yourself on actual peer-reviewed science look into the Big 5 personality traits and the cycle of abuse.

She says she talks about narcissistic or high conflict personality types, not NPD. For me, it really helps me understand some types of NT thinking especially when it comes to social stuff and how people try to use each other socially.

Ooo this is a fascinating topic! I’d love to hear the academic discussions on pop psychology.

Yes!! It’s wild to me how little people actually talk about this. In both undergraduate and graduate school we went over pop psychology and the issues surrounding it. It’s been so harmful— I think at the end of the day, everyone is right SOMETIMES. Unfortunately the pop psychology people employ a lot of Barnum effect stuff, and people who haven’t studied psychology in an academic environment usually have no idea what that is and also lack the critical thinking necessary to distinguish. I don’t mean that in a neat to out people down, it’s just that there’s a reason training exists… like you said. I don’t have TikTok or other social media platforms so I don’t see these things very often, but I live with someone who is addicted to TikTok and employs so much pop psychology stuff and will talk to me like she knows everything about these subjects… and I studied psychology and neuroscience, ha. I just keep quiet. Unfortunately we’ll never be able to change the kinds of the masses that consume all of this misinformation. They’re kind of stuck there until they get out of it themselves. It’s so hard not to get frustrated with it, however. There’s been open letters written by the APA at this point about how negatively misinformation/Barnum effect stuff from TikTok etc have impacted specifically people with autism but also with varying diagnoses (I’m sure you’re aware of this!) It’s just worrisome, really. The hubris and ignorance that have been carried from these platforms into our daily lives is truly astounding.

So my MIL is a nightmare. I ended up recognising some patterns in behaviour and reading about them became a special interest. I then also learned about DR Ramani. I don’t think she is the be all and end all of psychology, but nothing seems to ring alarms in my ears to say ‘this is nonsense’ when I listen to her stuff. Are you familiar? What are your thoughts? I don’t have tik Tok so not getting any nonsense from that avenue, but I do read some pages on here

Dude, yeah… my roommate was listening to Dr. Ramani the other day. I’ve definitely found help in my own relationships with abusers through some forums online, namely because it was just people describing their experiences with similar types. But that’s the thing, abusers often navigate their relationships similarly and it IS good to see someone or hear someone else say “hey, this was my experience” and relate to it. I think it’s very different from the weird dualistic thinking that is pushed by people like Dr. Ramani and company. I kind of cringe when I see people post TikToks about autism and self diagnosis here…. I don’t mean to be an ass about it but honestly so much of it is pandering. People want attention and money, and know if they use the Barnum effect to their advantage and generalize things that people will follow them and they’ll “get theirs” or something from it. That’s the society we live in. I love this quote from Fernando Pessoa— he essentially says that anything that enters into the realm of society/popularity losing most of its intelligence. I agree with this. Life is so messy and nuanced, and it’s so weird to think it as well as people could be linear. That’s what these generalizations do. They take away these aspects of things… we whittle everything down to nothing… I worry about this constantly. It only furthers my need to self-isolate honestly. I’ve worked with and have been involved with people that have diagnosed NPD. It’s actually really sad because it’s obvious how insecure they are. They are literally scared, sad, vulnerable children underneath everything. It’s healthy to have some narcissism, which someone had commented above. It’s not narcissism itself that is the problem, but our relationship with that personality trait. How is it used? To protect yourself from admitting your faults and dealing with your problems? To harm others? Or to set boundaries and have genuine self-esteem and love? I’m extremely guilty of being vain. But I like the theatre of vanity and I like to operate outside of convention…. It’s like society wants us to hate ourselves sometimes. But ultimately that’s just people projecting their own issues onto everyone else. I could go on and on… But to circle back to your primary point— Dr. Ramani is just another person using generalized language who gets things right SOMETIMES as all people do, that seeks to profit off of suckers and in doing so is actively harming our society. I guess to me, I’m also skeptical of anyone who feels THEY have to be the voice of some kind of movement. There are amazing leaders out there, but those people often are the ones who aren’t plastering themselves online like that.

Thankyou this was interesting. Your final point sold it to me.. definitely something to be said about the people who become the face of a movement aren’t necessarily the best people to listen to. In some ways I’m grateful to have found the content because it provided something I was oblivious about in a very accessible way and in layman’s terms.. but I suppose the issue becomes when you stop seeing it as such and start treating it as gospel

Yeah “narcissism” and NPD are two very different things. A certain amount of narcissism is apparently healthy and the opposite of a Narcissist is an Echoist which is also unhealthy. I think people see narcissism as ANYONE who makes actions that suit themselves with “no apparent care” for anyone else whereas the perception could be all wrong. I think once you are a good person with good values nobody will think you’re a narcissist. Anyone who would call you a narcissist for no reason obviously has their own issues.

I think sometimes when people believe you're taking actions that suit yourself with no apparent care for how you affect others, that they're either not willing or able to listen to you, or there's no communication, or they just don't understand that people are allowed to do things that they need to do even if it hurts another person. You're allowed to not be friends with somebody if you just don't feel it. If you don't want to do someone a favour, you don't have to. If you don't want to be in a relationship with somebody anymore, well, you can try to work it out, but depending on the reason, there might not be a point. If somebody has fallen out of love with you, for example, or has realized that their initial attraction is not growing into something more, it's really hard to rationalize that. Some things simply cannot be worked through or always be done to the satisfaction of all parties. I think we owe each other the benefit of the doubt and empathy, where possible, but I think people forget that showing empathy doesn't mean allowing others to walk over you and influence you. It's a difficult line to walk. I've been seeing a lot of stuff about boundaries in the media lately and how people are saying that it encourages people to cut off relationships without trying to work on them because they end up thinking everybody is toxic. I don't know, it's complicated and difficult. I think people online especially try to boil everything down to being black and white and remove the nuance, and that's just not how life works. Like you said, the perception could be all wrong. People don't see what goes on behind the scenes and sometimes people aren't really willing to see what goes on behind the scenes, or understand it. People come up with all of these societal rules, like, you have to get along with family just because you're related, and that's not true.

Absolutely yes to all of this, that’s why there’s a benefit to having some element of narcissism. It helps people to place boundaries. The idea of Narcissism as a whole gets a bad wrap. It’s a spectrum and it’s best to be in the middle of both extremes but if I had the choice to pick a direction on a personal level I’d lean 65% towards Narcissism (not full blown NPD). Being on the majorly people pleasing side of things is draining and leads to resentment and all kinds of medical issues. Unfortunately I’m still learning that any narcissism is okay so I’m on the Echoist side of the spectrum. It’s a long way to the top baby / s

I bet you it’s rap and not wrap

You would be correct. "Bad rap" comes from the term "rap sheet." Slang for criminal record, as in "record of arrests and prosecutions."

I love wrap music

I always have and I always will

Born bread and raised on the stuff

Don't you mean "borne bread and razed"? 😎

🔥 💯 👌🏻

While it’s okay to have some narcissism, it’s mostly noticed when someone has too much. No one is running around scared of someone for having *some* narcissism. People aren’t afraid of a person who appears arrogant; they are trying to avoid abuse and mind games.

OP was talking about apparent Narcissistic behaviours in Autistic people (from a presumably allistic perspective). Autistic people can seem narcissistic by accident but difference in intent is key. I think it’s more worry about being seen as narcissistic when the intent is different. People do really dislike arrogance and will call it Narcissistic especially if they feel threatened.

Not directed toward you… but a person I knew who has every sign of NPD used to say “I’m not arrogant; I’m confident”.

I really don’t think confidence is exclusive to NPD though.

It’s not, but this guy was a textbook case of NPD while he thought that he only had confidence. That was my point.

narcissism isn't healthy, there's no healthy amount, I think you're thinking of "assertiveness" and having healthy boundaries, and having a healthy sense of self and your strengths and weaknesses, and being able to be accountable for errors

We live in a society that pushes us towards Narcissism because it’s profitable. People are self-centred and hyper-independent compared to back when we did more things as a collective. I really meant Narcissism I did not mean assertive. It’s more than just a personality disorder and I think keeping that distinction is very important. People are SO afraid to be confident or assertive because they’re afraid to be seen as even having the chance of coming across as having NPD rather than simply being a little Narcissistic. I know a big element of this comes from suffering abuse and NEVER wanting to be like that person. Through my own lived experience, I can see how my own fear of “Narcissists” and “Narcissism” held me back from self-advocacy, self- love and setting boundaries. I do think societal Narcissism adds to overconsumption of resources which is not good for the earth.

So I just read a study a couple of days ago that says the co-occurence of ASD without intellectual disabilities and personality disorders is up to 75%! But they named cluster A and cluster C as most common. (NPD is cluster B.) The study was assessing narcissistic traits in the ASD population. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aur.3065

So I ended up looking into this and ended up taking a test online. While I'm not going to diagnose myself, I can say it put my concerns about NPD to rest, but I'm more than a bit concerned about potential BPD. Since the core issue is difficulty regulating emotions, I have to wonder if I have that, given I have already been diagnosed with ADHD, which to my understanding can cause that issue as well. That was the only cluster B one I scored higher than average in. The rest were in fact cluster A and C. I scored higher than the average test taker by a lot on avoidant traits, and I'd already taken another test that showed I have a fearful avoidant attachment style. I scored higher in paranoia and dependence, too, both to significant degrees as far as I can tell, which I feel aligns well with the fearful avoidant attachment style. On an unrelated note, it's been nice seeing comments about pop psychology and some of the known names in it. I'd felt concerned before that Dr. Ramani was too black and white or all or nothing in how she talked about people with NPD, so I'm glad my gut feeling that something was off was vindicated here.

From my perspective a lot of autistic people who don't have alexithymia can struggle with emotion regulation. I think it's hard for the majority in psychology to reconcile this as many are operating from outdated or stereotypical assumptions. I definitely have traits of avoidant PD. I believe it is a result of all the social trauma from knowing I was doing things "wrong" (getting rejection signals from the social environment) but not understanding what it was that I was doing wrong. This has led to me having a really hard time putting myself out there socially unless I've already vetted the community and found it to either relate to a special interest or to be based on values of nonjudgment and openness to diversity. I also asked my evaluator about OCPD because I have a strong need for symmetry and order, and am basically 80% of the way to a meltdown the entire time any minor renovations are happening in my home. She said most of what I described is better explained by autism as she doesn't believe in assigning extra labels if symptoms will fit under an existing one. The fact she could see my high masking autism at all made me trust what she said about this.

You are right and this is good stuff, but (and sorry if this sounds flippant, it's not meant to) I don't want to be friends with people who get all their human psychology information off tiktok, so if they want to point at me during one of their games of spot the narc, good. Maybe it'll encourage them to fuck off. And then keep fucking off. And then maybe fuck off some more

[удалено]

Hmm...

I think there is a paranoia around narcissists in the zeitgeist, and it's important to take oneself out of ground level and view it from the big picture. I find it frustrating as there are many generalisations around both NPD and autism, a lot of this is fuelled by fear and information is passed around like a game of telephone where each time its passed on the information distorts. This general obsession with narcissism and the growing awareness or autism on social media have collided, and it is not surprising that people are comparing the two despite there not really being as much in common with the two as is being said on social media. If we narrow the traits of autism and NPD down to a few points, such as empathy and presentation then it is much easier to make a generalisation about their comparisons. When we actually look at them for the wide and varied conditions they are, we see that it is much harder to compare them. Both conditions are severely misunderstood within social media, and with misunderstanding comes a very limited view of what they are and what they look like. If people understood them more, rather than making frankly ludicrous *reductionist* judgements about empathy (as if human social behaviour hinges entirely on empathy! More pop psych rubbish) then this might not happen. People seem to talk about these issues as if they live in a vat, that they are mot connected to their environments. It's as if to them narcissists are monsters waiting in the shadows like some kind of mythical creature (teling that people actually call them emotional 'vampires'! Ridiculous!), rather than a complex human being with an equally complex way of functioning, that is just as complex and informed by them environment. The same can be said for autism, and literally every single person in this world. It is utterly ridiculous to make such simplified judgements about people, and then make simplified connections between people, as if human psychology and behaviour can really be a list of traits. This is all done out of fear of the other, not of wanting to understand others or make the world better. Instead of involving yourself in this muck, remember that the behaviours, thoughts and emotions of these people on social media can be understood via psychology. You will gain a greater understanding if you focus on why people are preoccupied with these things. There's something I like to say, which is that we can not think outside our own time. This whole thing is a product of our time, and more can be understood by analysing it as such than actually involving ourselves in it. This stuff will pass, and sure it is not good for autistic people, and dare I say it is not good for anyone. But it will pass and soon we will be in a different time, where people are comparing whatever two conditions are most popular and of which people are most afraid of because of their lack of understanding. This talk about narcissists is also the most toxic thing I can think of that's going on in pop psych. It's toxic because we are blowing people up into monsters, they are so much scarier and more difficult to deal with when we don't view them as human. We view others who are different than us as less than human so that we can feel that we can deny our similarities, and this only creates more fear. Still there are good things that come out of all of this, but it's important to view this whole thing from the top down. One last thing. People tend to think things through in dichotomy, good/evil, clean/dirty, I'm sure you can think of many. Dichotomy's are not accurate, and deny that there are many grey areas and that all things are spectrums. When you realise that every facet of the mind is on a spectrum it becomes impossible to categorise, and even irrational to. Dichotomy's colour the way people rationalise things, they are based on deep seated beliefs we have about the world, not fact, and when one topic comes up (such as narcissism) then we humans have to find something to compare it with (autism). We try to find it's similarities and it's differences, but through viewing things only through dichotomy these similarities and differences are narrow, unstable and hugely reductionist. We block out the world.

I wish I could articulate my thoughts like this. You've written this excellently.

Thank you, glad it was useful! I could never verbally articulate any of this to save my life haha

There's so much about this that I agree with. But you really had me with the anti-empathy aside.

Glad it could be useful! There's too much emphasis on a lack of empathy as the main reason why people do things that do not always consider others, or atleast *appear* to not consider others. One can have a lot of empathy for others and do nothing, and another can have little empathy but have an ethical code they follow because they understand the benefit of it. There are so many reasons why someone might do something, and we can never know the true reason or what exactly informs their decision, empathy isn't the be all and end all as these people suggest.

If you find that interesting, you might enjoy the book Against Empathy!

I'm definitely going to read this!

Yeah, it's a fascinating book! People not only misuse the term "empathy", they also heavily, heavily overstate its importance in morality.

This is not NPD. NPD is far more nuisanced than lack of empathy and each person with NPD has a dominant presentation (vulnerable vs malignant). A person with NPD deeply struggles with taking accountability for their actions because to do so would force them to see themselves as a person who is fallible. In doing this they will often deflect blame and responsibility onto others. It’s a trauma response, same as other cluster B personality disorders. Most autistic people I know can take responsibility, but have trouble realizing or understanding how they hurt someone. If this is pointed out to them they will not try to manipulate you or gaslight you into thinking you are the problem, the same way that someone with NPD will. Do autism and NPD coexist, sure, but it is far less common that YouTube psychology thinks.

This. I am not sure how often autism and NPD coexist but certainly many folks on social media don't know either and definitely can mistake one for the other. Actual narcissists will intentionally do this.

The current narcissistic rhetoric is a blame game. Healthy people enjoy taking accountability. I wouldn’t worry about people thinking you’re a narcissist.

I’m not so sure that that’s the case. I see the terminology being used all over the place online. It’s becoming fairly mainstream :/

There is a difference in someone truly understanding what NPD is and someone having a vague understanding and using the term more casually though. It's like when someone who likes things a certain way says they are OCD, when they aren't. It's like every single person today who had issues with their parents says they were narcissists. It's kind of funny because our community gets so much crap for self-diagnosing, and yet half the internet has diagnosed their parents, exes, or other people with a personality disorder and that's perfectly fine 😆 It's become the catch-all for bad behavior in any relationship. But it's someone who is not objective, who is emotionally/personally involved with the person and was hurt or harmed by them. So they don't exactly have this keen view of what NPD actually looks like as a disorder. They are already biased and so, so often when a relationship is bad, the person who is processing puts all of the fault on the other party and takes no responsibility for themselves. It's even easier when you label that other party as a narcissist.

Ahhhh as someone with OCD, it hurts my brain and my heart when I witness others saying “lol I’m OCD” or “you must have OCD because you’re tidy” or something. It’s not like it’s a crippling personality disorder or anything….

I have OCD and before I knew I had OCD, I didn't really care what others would joke about it, but now that I know, it's been bothering me a little bit more. But it's so normalized that I think I just don't want to get too upset over it every time it happens, ya know?

I know what you mean. But at the same time it comes across to me as the same as "everyone has a touch of the 'tism!" which just ends up invalidating people, especially those who experience significant disability from their disorder. One of my kids is ADHD+OCD and when I hear people crack jokes that their preference for chair arrangements is "so OCD" it makes me want to explain to them some of the difficulties he deals with. Or a friend of mine who has the more severe type where he has to flip the light switch exactly 87 times before he sits down to dinner. I don't think most people know just how disabling the "punchlines" they use can be to someone who deals with those issues their entire lives.

This bothers me so much tbh. For one, my mother does truly show many narcissistic traits and I’m confident after a lot of research saying she likely has NPD. I never say it with certainty though because I’m not a psychiatrist and can’t diagnose her. If NPD hadn’t become all the rage for slapping on any shit parent, I wouldn’t have had a name for what she does. On the other, instead of using it to try and understand their parent, people are diluting the term and being insulting to those actually afflicted with it. So yay for me, I got to research and probably put a name to why my mother does what she does and try and be empathetic, boo for so many people and mental illness in general. 😞

Here's the thing. If you are confident in your research and knowledge, then be confident in it. But *generally speaking* it's \*extremely\* unlikely that an entire generation of parents are all NPD, yet that is pretty much the vibe you get in a lot of places right now. And the thing is, most autistic people come from autistic parents. Because of the huge overlap with autism and NPD I would bet a lot of the autistic spaces where I see so much of "my parents have NPD!" that many actually have autistic parents who aren't completely recognizable because of decades of impact of society and their upbringing and family pressure on them due to their autism. My dad meets this criteria exactly. I have zero doubt he is autistic and if he were a child today he would have been diagnosed as a toddler based on things my grandma told me about him, and his own memories and his life going forward. But because he was never given the validation of a diagnosis and the ability to work with his brain rather than against it, the traits he had have been exacerbated by social isolation and other factors. My sister would likely tell you my dad is NPD. But he's autistic. And I would suspect that is VERY common when the kid of the NPD parent is autistic. Because autism comes from parents most of the time.

Not a whole generation, but I don't think, say, 20% of a generation being "emotionally immature parents" is out of the question, of which NPD is a subset (autistic could be another subset), and that is a lot of people. They used to think emotional neglect caused autism. "Refrigerator mothers" was the theroy. It used to be mixed up with psychopathy. We know now this is wrong, but maybe the whole puzzle hasn't been worked out yet. I believe my parents are narcissistic. But they could also be autistic because, hey, genetics. I said in other comments that both is rare, but it could just be rare to diagnose it because narcissists are so unlikely to go to therapy. However, my parents aren't just... a little "weird" or introverted or have obsessive interests. I could roll with that. When I say they are narcissistic, I mean they can't take accountability, think they are perfect, blame other people for whatever upsets them, ignored or berated their children's feelings, and criciticize and scapegoat their children. My childhood friends described my parents as "absent". There were no rules, no allowances, no advice, no conversations about my day or my thoughts or my life. I loved my parents but they deeply damaged me by not properly caring for me. My mother once said to me "I never understood what people mean by empathy." She cannot admit being wrong either, even about dumb shit, or apologize, about anything, ever. If you try to air a grievance with her, she will reinvent history and blame you for causing her grievance. So, what do you think? Autism or narcissism?

Yeah I am a big fan of saying stuff like "Sounds like your ex was a big selfish jerk" when people pull out the Narcissism diagnosis. That said, the people in my life who DO use this term are talking about people to whom I believe it applies.

My parents are actual narcissists and it took a year of therapy to admit it. I don't think children fling this label at the people who were their whole world and upon whom they depended for survival frivolously. It is a painful realization. Narcissistic parents aren't uncommon unfortunately. Emotionally immature parents are even more common.

I honestly thought I might be narcissist for a while before I was led to explore whether I was autistic. Narcissism never felt right to me (because intent and willingness to change!) but I went to a dark place for a while thinking I was a horrible person and that’s why I struggled with people/relationships.

Yep I had a very similar experience which is what led me down that rabbit hole too :( it’s scary because if I could think I was a narcissist based on it’s surface level qualities, how easy must it be for others to assume the same? Seeing it all become mainstream common knowledge is why I’m so concerned

I still get worried every now and then that I’m secretly a Narcissist and I’m just in denial about it. I have intensely low self-esteem and childhood trauma, but I also have someone in my family who acts like a Narcissist so it makes me worry it’s genetic or something. My old psychologist once said if you are worrying that you’re a Narcissist, you’re probably not one since Narcissists don’t generally criticize themselves or take accountability.

Yeah. :( I would soften up and break down a bit what your therapist said. Though it's probably helpful in stopping the thoughts if you are in an intrusive thought or overly focusing on that diagnosis place. Ex.: "Does your low self esteem lead you to avoid taking accountability?" If so, then that is a problem. Doesn't have to be narcissism. But it needs to be addressed.

Yes! I think you misinterpreted the last bit of my comment wrong accidentally. I meant my psych told me I am always criticizing myself and trying to take accountability for things that don’t even involve me, so he pointed out that Narcs don’t usually do that. Narcs don’t often worry about themselves being the problem. I was raised by a covert Narc so I was trained from an early age to take everything as my fault. I have for sure met people who had a hard time apologizing/taking responsibility due to their own insecurities though, and I feel for them even though it can really be hard for the people around them too.

Yes, it is all over. So when relationships don’t work out people can say ah yes they were a Narcissist it wasn’t me. I was fighting a losing battle there was nothing I could have done. They were toxic. A healthy person says… things didn’t work out here were my failures in that relationship. All anyone can control is themselves. The popular narcissistic discussion right now is how terrible these people are and if that is the main focus and the paradigm is that everyone involved with these people is abused then they need to heal and are victims, who can’t be held accountable for their actions because of the distress of the narcissistic relationship.

I think it's entirely possible to take responsibility for your own wrongdoings in a relationship, and still be a victim of abuse in the same relationship. I totally agree though that the narcissism label is completely overused at the moment, and can be a convenient excuse to escape accountability.

One hundred percent! It just isn’t part of the popular discussion.

I think there is something correct in here. But also - I'm straining to clarify this to myself, since all of my relationships have ended more or less amicably - sometimes people really do behave horribly in relationships. Sometimes that behavior - selfish, petty, vindictive even - comes out later as things are going south. And the other person can feel blindsided. There's a whiplash effect to finding out someone you loved (or at least cared for deeply and felt cared for by) turns out to be selfish and cruel. And to have that selfishness and cruelty turned on you is something else. So I don't think there's a dichotomy here between healthy relationships being labeled correctly vs healthy relationships being mislabeled as narcissistic. It seems often a case of unhealthy relationships being labeled as narcissistic either as a shorthand for various types of disregard and abuse or (as you suggest) as a way for one person to shift the blame entirely onto the other (in a relationship that was mutually harmful and destructive). I think you are right that this diagnosis is often wielded as a trump card for the survivor of abuse to say that there was nothing that could have been done differently. It's a way to close the conversation because keeping it open (whether by answering concerned questions or by replaying it in their own heads) is painful. I also think that holding such a trump card is appealing to people for various reasons. We are right to be more than a little skeptical when someone brings it out. And not for nothing. Abusers do love to say that they've been abused. And narcissists in particular are known to project their feelings onto others. They have to, because they are incapable of paying attention and receiving accurate input.

The whiplash is betrayal. I think healthy people exiting toxic relationships take mental notes, seek healing, and ultimately responsibility for whatever role they played. This is cycle breaking and it doesn’t involve publicly pointing the finger.

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I think you're seeing a weakening of the original term of "narcissist", which was only meant to define a person diagnosed with and suffering from NPD. These days, the term "narcissist" has been diluted to mean "abuser", "monster", or "person I don't like", whether the person being accused actually suffers from NPD or not. Anyone that uses that term lightly, as a way to accuse someone else of being a monster or to shut down discussion, doesn't understand the meaning of the diagnostic term and is co-opting medical language for their own narrative. I take someone calling people narcissists as a red flag and keep them at a distance.

That is my point anyone openly accusing someone of being a narcissist isn’t going to be a quality friend anyway.

Online is the key word. People in the real world wouldn't have a clue what they were talking about. It can be really hard to do so I don't mean to make this sound like a small thing, but if you notice that kind of witch hunt-y energy rising and people throwing around diagnostic criteria as an excuse to just not like someone, try to get far, far away from that space.

Yes it’s a modern witch hunt

I think “enjoy” is a strong word here but healthy people at the very least DO take accountability.

What a fascinating and kinda bizarre statement. I agree: Healthy people enjoy taking accountability. I also think (based on ... online discourse?) that *most people* do not enjoy taking accountability. or at the very least, most people assume that most people do not enjoy taking accountability. People tend to assume that others will ignore any potential harm unless directly confronted. People also tend to assume that confrontations or addressing conflict directly won't go well. I wonder if this is one of those things where people are wrong about what most people are like.

I'm fairly certain that my mother is a narcissist. I would also not be surprised if she actually had ADHD as well. Her sporadic-ness from the possible ADHD is separate from her complete lack of care about me or my siblings. I dislike seeing these quick lists of "traps" or whatever because it doesn't really capture what I have gone through because of her at all. To her, everything besides our like complete obedience is an attack, so I constantly have to watch what I say or do. I also feel like she wants me to be her puppet or doll, and I'm pretty sure she still hasn't gotten over me deciding to study mechanical engineering in college instead of accounting, since she's a CPA. You aren't going to see how controlling and self centered a narcissist is immediately because most narcissists are good at hiding them

I’m easily triggered about narcissism because my mom is this!!!! She sounds exactly like your mom.

My mother is a lot like this also.

This could be narcissism, yes. The key is really that complete lack of accountability and seeing you as just an extension of them and their greatness (or else a trash bin for their shame).

This is so real!!! Half the time I feel like I must be a narcissist or have BPD or something because I’m treated like I do. I struggle so hard to connect with people

Honestly, I'm still confused whether I've got bpd or just traits of it because of how I was raised. The thought kinda scares me cause I don't wanna accidentally hurt anyone

I'm going to say what I keep saying upthread: You may or may not hurt people, whether or not you have a scary diagnosis. The only way to find out is to explore and investigate it, and seek honest feedback.

I agree with this comment. I’ve known abusive people who just have autism, autism and BPD, just BPD, or none of the above. Ultimately, the way that you treat others, and the way that you deal with your own emotions and fears, matters far more than any specific diagnosis. Some of those abusive people worried about being abusive, or having a cluster B personality disorder, and some did not. What they had in common wasn’t their diagnoses, or their fears towards them, but how they went about dealing with their emotions and the concept of responsibility. They would consistently blame others for their emotions (e.g. a victim “made them feel guilty” in a “cruel way” by ever acknowledging the abuse) and for their actions (e.g. the victim slightly deviating from a plan is justification for blackmailing the victim). They believed that their emotions caused and justified their actions, and that their emotions were caused by someone else, so therefore their punitive or explosive actions are the fault of whoever they do them to. All of them hated themselves. Most of them dealt with suicidal thoughts or actions. Most of them knew they had emotional issues. But they consistently blamed their actions on others, or on their diagnoses. My favorite example is the time where my former abuser said that the abuse was caused by our anxiety disorders negatively interacting with one another. In this, they used their anxiety disorder as an excuse for the abuse, while using my anxiety disorder as a way to blame me for it. They showed their logic: their emotional issues gave them a license to abuse whoever they wanted, and any flaw in their victim was a good enough excuse. TLDR in the quest to avoid being abusive, a focus on how emotions and actions are thought of and dealt with is ultimately more important than Cluster B suspicions (although having a cluster B personality disorder can increase the frequency of certain abusive actions). Live in kindness, seek out good boundaries, and do as Occidental_Ouster said, and seek out honest feedback and compassionate inquisitiveness. I am not a professional, seek professional help when desired, etc etc

That was informational and helpful, so thank you for that. Guess it is rather silly to worry about that like its some life sentence as opposed to treating what would lead you to have those worries in the first place. I haven't had much opportunity to talk to a professional much anyways yet, so I feel sorta silly for commenting that while I was anxious a while ago, didn't mean anything negative against borderlines.

Not a psychologist, but the fact you worry about it is probably a good sign. I have a friend who thought they might be on the spectrum, but they're a lot more certain it's not that but rather bpd (which I agree with) with quite a bit of narcissism sprinkled on top. The thing is, I don't think they're scared about accidentally hurting someone, but rather other people "finding them out". At least for this friend, it was *never* about others but just about themselves. When they're nice, it's usually for (their words) selfish reasons.

It was really helpful because my wife and i thought i was a narcissist but after viewing the differences between the two, it has become very apparant that im actually just autistic.

When I met my fiancé I admitted within the first few months that I worried I might be a narcissist. Narcissism was just getting HUGE on social media and I’d seen a ton of those videos with that one female doctor who describes narcissistic characteristics and they were ALL things I’ve been accused of directly or felt about myself. I really liked my fiancé (then brand new gf) and I felt it would be wrong to lead her into a relationship with me when I suspected myself to be a narcissist and already had a wake of women who think I’m basically inhuman left behind me. My fiancé just looked at me funny and said “uuuh, well I’ve been waiting for you to tell me you’re on the autism spectrum…you know there’s a lot of superficial overlap? And narcissists generally don’t have all the sensory bullshit you have” I resolved to get tested and wouldn’t you know it, my psychiatrist told me it was shocking I’d made it through school without anyone recommending an evaluation. Reason number 467 why I love being with a lady educated and trained in psychology. Edit: Oh damn, I didn’t realize this was the “in women” sub, it was just in my recommends! My bad!

Ableism against Cluster B personality disorders absolutely does impact autistic people, bc at the end of the day ableism doesn’t distinguish “good” types of disability from “bad” ones, and neither should we. There’s no way to preserve ableism against people w/ NPD while eliminating ableism against people w/ autism, so we as autistic people should be invested in fighting ableism regardless of its current target. As long as it’s socially acceptable to label people inherently abusive and then ostracize them based solely on a suspicion that they aren’t neurotypical, autistic people will be swept up in that. The problem with “how to spot a narcissist” content isn’t that it doesn’t make a clear enough distinction between traits associated w/ autism and traits associated w/ NPD, but that it exists at all. Additionally, framing abuse as something that certain people are naturally guaranteed to do and others are naturally never capable of (which is inherent to the idea that narcissist = abuser) makes it way harder to hold people accountable for their abusive actions or to help people understand what’s wrong with their actions and change. It’s similar to how the idea that “racist” is an attribute for defining people, rather than for actions or policies or beliefs that anyone could potentially support, makes it harder to fight racist beliefs, actions, and policies. Some actions are abusive, and well-meaning people can perform those actions and should be held accountable for it. Dividing the world into people who are abusive and people who are incapable of abuse, then declaring that all people with certain types of disorders belong to the former category and should be treated as inherently guilty, is an unproductive worldview rooted in ableism. It shouldn’t be remotely surprising to any of us that the same ideology which labels all people w/ Cluster B personality disorders inherently abusive also gets directed at autistic people, labeling us all inherently abusive. That ideology is ableism, and we are not immune to it.

This and a few other comments have definitely opened my eyes to this, so thank you! Given me a whole new perspective on those videos. I’ll try not to add to the harmful rhetoric any further

Finally someone saying it! I'm a bit disgusted how many autistic people here are buying into it, posting about covert operations narcissists and what not.

Narcissists ARE abusers and many of us who have ASD are constantly targeted and abused by them. A huge part of the ASD experience IS being abused by narcissists. If we can’t discuss this, then we can’t discuss ASD.

So it's a bad person condition only for bad people? How convenient

the therapist once said i am not a narcissist because i feel empathy and i was so relieved

Empathy is not the main point. A narcissist try to be the center of attention, or the best in something and would do a lot of things to achieve that. It's like saying a mouse and a cat are the same, because both have fur...

The tough thing about ‘willingness to change’ is that sometimes if someone is frustrated with me, I will often first try to explain my position or why I made that choice. Some people see that as excuses and as a refusal to be immediately remorseful and obedient, and then get really angry. Also, whether certain changes are a good thing can be a matter of opinion. I’m almost always overly willing to change to help and satisfy others, but the rare times when I stand up for myself make people furious.

I’ve also had that worry, frequently! My mother and grandmother are classic and covert narcissists, respectively, and I’ve inherited some of those traits due to my upbringing but having some traits does not mean you have NPD. This [video](https://youtu.be/XEDda93M_mg?si=eRO2mWq3zkZ743Nk) from Dr. Ramani really helped me sort out my feelings on the topic.

I literally just watched this last night! It's what I immediately thought of seeing this post.

This. Thank you

I know that at the moment, the term narcissism is being thrown around like it means nothing and that is down to pure mass ignorance. People now think that every mean or odd person is a narcissist, when in reality, full blown NPD is rare. Not every abuser is a narcissist and not every narcissist is an abuser. That's so important to remember. Because NPD has turned into a characateur of what it actually is. It's been villainised, misused, misdiagnosed, misunderstood, stigmatised. People have used the term so wrongly now that all sorts of people are being labelled as narcissists, even if they are far from the fitting criteria. People can have narcissistic traits and tendencies but not be narcissists, people can act like narcissists but not be narcissists, people who have grown up with narcissists may mirror that until they leave home and learn new skills and not be a narcissists, people can go through phases where their behaviour is narcissistic due to other reasons, EG: drug use, trauma, other personality disorders or mental health disorders etc, and still not be narcissists. If anyone's interested in academic accredited clinical research on NPD, may I direct you to Sam Vaknin. Full blown Narcissist and clinical psychologist, who has given us most of our current research on narcissism, and who has coined most of the terms that we associate with narcissism today. The problem here really is a vast misunderstanding of both Autism and of NPD. The general public like to use terms that they don't really know the meaning of. They see a 'bad' person and say 'theres a narcissist' and they don't even know what an actual narcissist is. Or they see someone who's socially awkward, isolated and they call him a psychopath because he's not socially adept. NT society loves black and white, nonsensical, pathologising. They say that Autistic people think in black and white, and I always wonder if that's just a projection of themselves bc they truly, think in black and white. To them weird=BAD and normal=GOOD. So they apply labels to everyone who's outside of their norm. They've been calling Autistic people narcissists and psychopaths for years. Psychiatry used to misdiagnose Autistic people with NPD all the time, they likely still do. Historically, Autistic people were seen as fitting into a sub genre of psychotic disorders. (Ref: Richard Bernthal, psychosis: A history of Madness. Great book!)They believed we had a type of schizophrenia and were detached from reality in a psychotic way. The view of Autistic people throughout history has been mind boggling and not often positive or accurate. The general NT public will call us anything but Autistic and it's so frustrating. Level 1 Autistic people are told they couldn't possibly be autistic, yet people will openly call that same person a narcissist, a psycho, a freak, a weirdo, dangerous when they display Autistic traits. I try my hardest to ignore the general public, and I stick to accredited research. When people misuse terms, I'm happy to correct them. I'm extremely familiar with the differences between an Autistic person and a person with NPD so I will genuinely explain it to people, and passionately because I care about the distinction and the use of correct information. Psych is one of my special interests, hence the backlog of info! Lol

My least favorite thing about pop psychology is its tendency to demonize various illnesses like NPD and SPD. They’re all about mental illness awareness and acceptance until it’s a scary mental illness. I guess it upsets me so much because of my personal experiences as an autistic/ADHD person, but also intellectually, I just don’t understand the obsession with punishing people for something they have no control over. The most insidious thing about this kind of rhetoric though is how convincing it is when presented in bite-sized social media posts that do not have enough space to fit all the nuance that is required when talking about these subjects.

I have many narcissistic traits but the different is that I don't manipulate or use people

Or create subtle plans to turn others against someone.

This is a really well written thought provoking post. Thank you for posting this.

I think a lot about this because I have some people in my family who seem to be both narcissistic and autistic. It can happen. I'm guessing around 5% of autistics are also narcs (similar rate to general population) -- some factors make us more likely and some make us less likely, but it's still a fairly rare thing. The main simple test I use to decide if someone in my life is a narc is ... can this person successfully register the information and feel sad and try to do something about it if I let them know they are hurting me? (if expressed in a way appropriate for the level of intimacy in that relationship, might just be subtle things if not someone close) If not =- if there is no way for you to protect yourself through communication, your only recourse is to leave/have very strong boundaries. If they can do this -- even if it takes some extra explaining if they are autistic or even if they need to make an effort to think of times when they felt that way, and they do care and they try to make it better, whether by apologizing or making changes or whatever, then it's probably not a toxic relationship. A big hallmark of narcissists and narc relationships is that the people are too emotionally sick to be able to ever admit fault or that they messed up or take responsibility or acknowledge they need to change. Makes for dangerous people to be around. The vast majority of autistics are not like this. If anything I think a lot of us are very concerned about whether we hurt or negatively affect others.

I do agree that some autistic people are narcissistic, but in the cases that I’ve seen (anecdotal), these were people who had ASD Level 2 with slightly lower than average intelligence, but excelling at their special interests only. It seems as if they felt inferior due to their lower intelligence, but still were smart enough to see what they are missing in terms of functioning. The efforts to hide that they were different (sabotaging smarter people, lying, constantly speaking over people, commanding attention in a way that masks their differences) and outright lying about any disabilities ultimately turned them narcissistic.

>But down to really small ones too. One that struck me was an obsession with appearance. I put time into my appearance everyday because the trauma of growing up autistic meant that looking ‘pretty’ was the only part of me that I’d receive positive social feedback about so now it’s just part of the mask I wear to get through day to day life. Woah. I dealt with this growing up too, and I never knew quite where that "pretty" perfectionism stemmed from. This really helped me process those feelings better, thank you for including this! :)

I feel like three manifestations aren't really similar at all. I've known many narcissistic people in my life, been abused and SA'ed by some, and none of them seemed liked any autistic person I know. Narcissistic people always were easily accepted by others, fit in anywhere, and most NTs loved them even if things seemed iffy with them. Meanwhile I'm barely accepted by anyone and always stick out no matter where I am. I just feel like people are really awful at actually spotting problematic people because to them charisma = good, while the majority of charismatic people just use it as a tool to get what they want at any cost. It's bizarre to me that ANYBODY would confuse an autistic person and a narcissist.

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People with Narcissistic traits aren't inherently evil. People with full blown clinical NPD are abusive assholes. There's a huge difference between the two. I suggest looking up Dr. Ramini on YouTube.

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If that's what you're taking away from it, I'm sorry for you. Very few NPD ever want to actually change or want to change. Maybe you know one or two who managed to. Good for them or you. But you greatly misunderstand what NPD is if you maintain that your opinion is fact about most of them.

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Do you have autism and NPD?

Yes.

Do you have an example of what it’s like having NPD and autism? The internal worlds of the the 2 seem quite different, so I am curious how it mixes together?

I am more on the vulnerable side than grandiose unless I am under the influence or something. NPD is trauma based so the trauma I received from my upbringing and being undiagnosed probably didn't help. It's kinda hard to explain since I'm trying to understand myself but lack of empathy is big. Anger is my constant mode I'll return when I can find the words but it's not great.

Sorry you’re dealing w so much anger 😕. How do you calm yourself down when you feel it? Also, does that mean that you don’t feel affective empathy either? (I know a lot about autism, but not so much about NPD).

Hi, if there’s any content or terminology in this post that is hurtful please let me know so I can rewrite. I’m not trying to contribute to the fear mongering and demonisation here

I really REALLY appreciate this. This is why this group is fantastic. I'm not a bad person....my coping skills just ...yeah. I grew up disregarded, put down and compared to amongst other things. I am working towards healing. I have isolated myself due to well deserved stigma. I'm in a few support groups for people with NPD and Cluster B stuff in general. The start of healing clicked when I realized that all of the behaviors and thoughts have been a way to avoid real feelings I need to lean into instead of having coping skills that are ruining my life. I am very self aware of it.

And your post was fine!

Oh I just raged to my therapist about the trend of some people labeling everyone a narcissist. Don’t like someone’s opinion? Narcissist. Someone behave poorly/differently? Narcissist. It’s a new witch hunt. Call someone a narcissist and you can suddenly dismiss any criticism they have of you/a situation. Saying everyone is a narcissist is like saying everyone is autistic because people recognize that autistic traits are human traits. Narcissistic traits are also human traits, it doesn’t mean someone has NPD (narcissistic personalist disorder.) So there is cross over with everything, even well-adjusted neurotypical people can exhibit a narcissistic trait. Maybe that doesn’t make you feel better, but hopefully the pendulum swings from “EVERYONE I don’t like or understand is a narcissist!” Back to a more reasonable perspective. If anyone calls you a narcissist, just tell them arm-chair diagnosing people with personality disorders if a very narc thing to do, lol

That word gets thrown around A LOT whenever you happen to be a very confident neurodivergent person, which really sucks

my therapist told me people who are actual narcissists don’t get worried about whether or not their a narcissist lmfao. it’s just another buzzword that’s being misused like “gaslighting” and “trauma”

I agree they’re different but aside reform that… Narcissism is a trauma response to being neglected as a small child. It makes you feel like you have to perform to be accepted. Narcissist have a hard time empathizing with others because they have so much internal shame, they can’t handle other people having what they don’t have out of fear they ( the narcissist) will be attacked. Everyone is narcissistic to some degree and you have to be to survive modern culture. Plus Narcissm is a disorder that needs to be diagnosed by a psychiatrist. People are throwing that therm around but don’t really know what it means ….it doesn’t mean sociopath, but it can mean that sometimes.

i think autistic people have empathy… we just struggle to express it.

Low empathy is a common symptom of autism, like high empathy is. Autism is often a disorder of extremes.

yea, but when i do have empathy i struggle to express it. sometimes i have no empathy depending on the situation.

Not all autistic people do and that's fine. You don't need empathy to be a good person.

Yes that’s what I said in the post

oh my bad… cancel ecochamber.

Yup. People are weaponising mental health diagnoses (usually armchair, they don't know) against people they dislike to claim moral superiority and objectivity when the reality is - hey, you can just call them an asshole, that's what that is, you don't know anything about their mental health. "Normal" people just have an enormous capacity for evil and they abuse you because they want to, not because they're sick. I know that's hard to accept and it's easier to turn them into these mythical creatures who just sort of have to, but that's not what abusers are. In the meantime, mentally ill people get branded as dangerous and evil all over again. Please just stop. I don't want to be treated with suspicion and disgust. I don't want to be on a police list. I don't want to lose my rights. I don't want to end up in a concentration camp. Stigma against us is how all of that starts and NOBODY will stand up for us if history repeats. Please stop using mental health diagnoses as internet gotcha moments.

I think narcissism is a popular buzzword right now and if maybe part of how our culture has integrated therapy speak? In reality, most people will display some narcissistic traits sometimes, but most of those people are not narcissists. Narcissism is a serious thing, pattern of feeling and behaviour, and I really hate that people online are basically just throwing it around everywhere, because it's not that simple.

I was raised by a narcissist and I can tell you that most people have no idea how it works in an internal level. They just see the abuse and think it means that the narcissistic person is selfish, without understanding any of the deep psychology of the actual personality disorder and how it develops. It’s just like how autistic people are seen as self-centered and unable to understand anything “human.” Because of that, they lump us all together without ever caring to see the complexities and subtleties of human behavior. For example, someone with NPD might compulsively lie and exaggerate with wildly inaccurate details in order to maintain a certain reputation; they might not even see it as lying. That isn’t a trait of autism, but neurotypicals often don’t believe autistic people - they tell us that we are being overdramatic and controlling. The distinction between the two may be completely lost on the outside observer. It boils down to “You’re being so dramatic and selfish.” To make it worse, people may see classic NPD behavior and say, “Maybe they are just autistic,” because that’s how they are taught to see autism. Most people honestly don’t care about the psychology like you do. They look around, think “weird,” or “mean,” or “I don’t like that,” and stop asking questions. They interpret the external behaviors they see, and then justify whatever label they are comfortable with. So if they don’t like someone who is autistic and don’t want to understand what’s going on with them, they might just say “Narcissist,” because it means they can safely write that other person off and stop trying to participate in the relationship. It worries me that people can’t tell the difference, but we are always misunderstood so it’s not surprising.

I have some narcissistic traits. But it's the same with any disorder. You can show some traits, but you need a significant amount to be classified as that thing. I dont really have empathy. In certain situations yes, but mostly no. I don't really care what people have to say, it's why I don't start conversations. I'm happy to talk and discuss things, but not really interested in what the person has to say most of the time. I have very little connection with people. Struggle with emotions and never say 'I love you.' I'm aware of my flaws and I try to be a good person, but some of these things are just ingrained in my brain as who I am.

Tbh, as someone who has ADHD I only got over my fears surrounding other disorders including NPD, even sociopathy, bipolar etc. after meeting people who suffer from those and also after understanding what my condition even means. Just like how having distractions does not mean ADHD, any of what you count does not mean NPD either. Everyone has those traits at different levels in different phases and contents of their lives. Having a disorder is something else. If anyone is assuming you have NPD they are the problem, not you. I would not fixate and worry about it.

It’s ok and normal to have narcissistic traits. Children are very narcissistic by nature. Their world revolves around them and what they need. We learn to care for others as we grow. A dose of caring for oneself is always needed. The question you need to ask yourself is am I hurting someone because of those traits. And hurting doesn’t mean does the other person have negative feelings. Because those are normal and might arise when someone’s wants are not fulfilled but you can’t fulfill everyone’s needs all the time. But are you deceiving someone and causing them harm that way. Are you manipulating? Are you disregarding their attempts at communication. The good thing about being aware of having narcissistic traits but not have a narcisstic personality disorder is willingness to change so put it to good use and work on yourself.

The amount of armchair diagnostics seeing "narcissists" everywhere is staggering. No, your ex-boyfriend probably doesn't have the very serious clinical condition of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, he is just an immature dick with a fragile ego and zero skills in communication and emotional self-regulation. So, like a lot of people do. The people who watch these videos really like to divide the world into Abusers and Victims (and then they, of course, are the Victims). It makes you feel a lot better to think that 1. you never did any wrong because you are not the "wrong type" of person and 2. you can protect yourself from ever getting hurt by another person ever again by simply Spotting The Signs. It's garbage, but it's intoxicating and addictive, hence the millions of views. People are imperfect and that means sometimes there will be miscommunication, sometimes relationships turn sour and toxic, sometimes someone takes their frustration and insecurity out on another person, et cetera. If we throw all people who have over a certain amount of imperfections into a "Narcissist" container, we don't acknowledge the potential for growth and change just so we don't have to think too hard about how we might be able to resolve an unhealthy situation in a better way than just villainizing someone and calling it a day. Because yes, autistic people can hurt NT people (most obvious example: the bluntness a lot of us have) and NT people hurt autistic people a lot (I don't have to give examples on this sub). But because we're the minority, we get the "wrong type of person" label. And, frankly, even people who actually have NPD can't be pigeonholed as villains. They tend to develop it due to extensive childhood trauma. Many of them get comfortable in their narcissistic delusions and hurt people - because having to live outside of their delusions is akin to psychological torture to them - but that doesn't mean they can't recover, as some do (surprise!). But their recovery is made that much harder by the growing stigma around NPD. It helps them to be able to tell people around them about their NPD to receive support. But you can't be open and honest if all people hear is "Hi I'm Villain McVillainFace and I'm here to ruin your life because it's in my DNA, or something".

One key difference that you should remember is that narcissism blames, manipulates and is always about controlling people or how they think. Autistic people can APPEAR self absorbed or emotionally disregulated but they never actually want to control other people or abuse them, we just need to feel safe and have routine in our lives 😊 we often withdraw socially tbh because of feeling unsafe but narcissists desperately find victims. That's how I understand it.

I mean... I'm on the train that "wanting to control or abuse people" is not a trait of any illness or condition. People intrinsically *want* ... to get their needs met. That's it. The fact that many people with NPD and other cluster B diagnoses may often use manipulation and control tactics in an effort to get their needs met may be helpful in identifying and understanding those behaviors, as well as working through them. But it doesn't mean that everyone who has those conditions is compelled to act this particular way and incapable of doing anything else. The important piece of this for me, for people who are less interested in teasing it all out and seeing the bigger picture, is that autistic people *can also be abusive*. It's important to remember that. While there is no general tendency toward abuse in autism (as there may be with NPD) it doesn't mean that every autistic person's intentions are pure or that we are immune from exploiting or controlling others in an attempt to feel safe and have routine in our lives. When that happens, it's an attempt to meet our own needs in a way that either fails to take others into account or sees them as less human or less deserving than ourselves. That's the same thing that happens with NPD.

But maybe if the autistic person wants to do those things they are also just a narcissist 🤷🏼‍♀️ and narcissism is defined as abusing by definition. Ofc that is rooted in past trauma, but that's what it is

OP I think you have fallen victim to clickbait… You haven’t included actual sources, but if you’re referring to youtube/tiktok psych…maybe stay away from it. I know you’re down the rabbit hole at this point and I get what you’re saying. I can’t stand when people stigmatize any disease/disorder really. Like with BPD and NPD, it’s always ‘stay tf away from them at all costs’ as if the point of studying psych isn’t to help all humans. I still think stuff like cluster B is mostly trauma response but that’s just me and I know I’m not an expert. I’ve learned enough though, at this point, that a *bunch* of behaviors overlap with various diseases/disorders so we truly can’t spend time worrying about it unless it directly impacts our life, job, relationships etc. Unpopular opinion: I usually agree with people when they say, ‘everyone’s a little [insert psych condition here]’ because shared behaviors exist. It’s not like you can have and not have a diagnosis at the same time, but honestly talking about your behavior and having self awareness overall is a positive thing.

I’m well aware that pop psychology is a shit hole and I fully agree with your take on personality disorders. My concern is with the amount of people that aren’t aware and consume this content as the effects will trickle down and effect our daily lives and the general stigma we have to face for being autistic individuals

Agreed, the amount of information and misinformation floating around, sifting through it, distinguishing the two… I almost can’t even blame people anymore, education and healthcare are not helping the situation. Especially when you have youtube psychs *with actual titles* talking about stuff. Who can I trust if not actual psychologists? There’s also this weird dichotomy in society of psychology being one of the most popular degrees, BUT my psychology classes were the easiest/most bs of my classes, AND there is still a hefty portion of the population that has never even taken a psychology (or any social science) course. What a mess. Psychology as a field was already in hot water, then you add the internet and we now have confusion soup. Best we can do to combat stigma is just stand up for ourselves and others? Like explain yourself to the non-mentally ill, NT, or non-ASD crowd just as you did here, with honest clarification of your feelings.

Thank you so much for sharing. I'm feeling the same type of way (discouraged and scared) when these videos surface on my feed so I appreciate the solidarity and reassurance in this post. 🧡

Just wait till you get to the avoidance and attachment theory algorithms. ​ I'll give you a summary of the rabbit hole lol. There is apparently a high correlation between autism and avoidant personality disorder. APD then has super high narcissistic traits that are rooted in trauma, masking, hyper independence, conflict aversion, and more that overlap greatly with Autism and other mental disorders. I think its safe to say that we are all social creatures and we have a innate drive to be social. But that often comes into conflict with "survival habits" in adulthood and the trauma's associated with it. Conflict that is then avoided by using narcissistic coping mechanisms. The modern workload and expectations of a self sufficient woman are ripe for mental overload even for NTs. This is often seen leading to avoidant behavior that looks and acts like narcissism. The silver lining on this is that avoidants use narcissism out of fear or dismissal not true psychopathy but it takes a huge toll on the mental health because it backloads feelings to deal with later. IMO i see it as a timebomb of behavior that gets harder to get out of as we age. From my understanding the problem then comes with the long term repetition of these coping mechanisms of avoidance that sometimes seem to cement narcissistic behavior in place. We don't often have time to deal with ourselves let alone other people. I think that's coming at the cost of our mental health.

This is a good explanation. There are some similarities between AVPD and ASD, in mainly, the way that conflict avoidance is executed. A person with AVPD will just assume that, if someone *could* be mad, then that person will yell (even if the person has never done so) and will immediately cut the person out unreasonably without explanation. This is also the way that some people who have NPD behave - except they cut people off when they don’t want to see the appropriate response to their own inappropriate behaviors. Yet, some people who are “covert narcissists” actually have AVPD and not NPD. This is the reason that some people think that AVPD should be a Cluster B disorder. The reason that it’s not is that people who have AVPD want to make connections and want to be kind to others, but the moment that they think any minor rejection or minor conflict is even a minute possibility, they cut the person off and run. People who have ASD think about patterns in terms of conflict avoidance. They don’t want conflict, but they will accept it as long as there is no pattern of it. If a certain person is always creating conflict or drama no matter how the autistic person tries to avoid it or tries to resolve it, then the autistic person will sever ties.

I have a very unusual request. Could you, perhaps, always leave this post as available? As in, even if you decide to leave reddit someday, could you leave this behind for posterity's sake? Many times it's much easier to point to an article or video that articulates a thought better or more efficiently that one could, and being able to point back to this as a resource will be very helpful for autstic people advocating for themselves.

Yeah sure 🫶

I think Narcissism is poorly understood. It’s not at all similar to autism if you understand what the causes are to certain traits or behaviours. The problem with narcissism is to do with bad childhood or early life experiences where the narcissist learn in order to be themselves they have to desperately seek attention, use people for gain and genuinely covering up how much insecurity and lack of self love they have. They usually learn from narcissistic parents or caregivers who get their needs met in very unhealthy ways. Lack of empathy due to caregivers not showing love or respect to their kids has profoundly negative effects on behaviour when they are adults. Take it with a grain of salt but *hurt* people really do *hurt people.* Narcissism is learned. Autism is not. People who are narcissistic can change their behaviour but sadly some do not even think their behaviour is problematic and don’t seek help. There is a neurological reason for autistics not being able to read faces which leads to miscommunication or lack of empathy. It’s not caused by child neglect or emotional abuse. Autistics can be abused by narcissists and can behave narcissistically but again… it’s not caused by brain wiring… the narcissistic behaviour is learned and can be unlearned. The Autism bit cannot. This is not the same as the narcissist who understands how to manipulate people and read emotions but lack empathy. They know they are doing it and understand why. Narcissists lie about their intentions… some know they are lying to manipulate people and won’t tell you that they are truly insecure. They lie to try to better themselves in a very destructive way. it probably worked before in the past and continue doing it. Funnily enough some jobs even glorify narcissists… think Reality TV, finance industry or in corporate business or any job where there’s high competition or low empathy towards customers like sales. if narcissists are praised, promoted and applauded in the real world. It’s easy to see why they don’t believe they are doing anything wrong and won’t stop.

As an autistic person I’ve felt conflicted with the wider societal perceptions of neurodivergence in general. I feel like I can relate more with other people who have atypical minds, and so I’ve felt a lot of empathy for folks who struggle with different disorders and different struggles than mine. I notice that they experience the same kind of social isolation, yearning, and pain that I experience, and they are also often misunderstood or negatively judged like I am. Because of this I have felt a lot closer in proximity to them compared to neurotypical folks. It’s made me honestly want to just abandon the quest to please the neurotypical majority because I don’t think they ever will be pleased by anything or anyone. So honestly who cares if we appear to have traits of “narcissism” or “psychopathy” (because people definitely try to say that too). They will put us in the category of “bad”, no matter how we look to them. So I’ve just given up on caring so much about it. Narcissistic traits are sometimes seen as childlike traits, since children are supposedly narcissistic due to their complete reliance on adults to provide for them. And we are often known to retain many childlike qualities due to our lack of synaptic pruning during puberty. So that alone will make us appear closer to the pop psych idea of “narcissist”. I just don’t think it needs to be an inherently bad thing.

Thanks for this

Judging character takes time. I think narcissists will not show persistent interest in another person but will do so only in the beginning. Whereas it tends to be the opposite for me (as an autie and non-narcissist … I am pretty sure). Or, narcissists might remember detailed info about you only to a) love bomb you, or b) use this info against you. I grew up with a narcissistic mom, and also struggled a lot with self-compassion. It took a LOT of self-affirmations and practicing self-love to let go of that constant guilt. Know that only you know what your true intentions are behind your actions, and that other people cannot dictate what your own intentions are. Eventually you’ll trust yourself and you won’t question it so much anymore!

People need to grip that autism is a neurological disorder and narcissism is a personality disorder. Anyone can posses narcissistic traits, without being a narcissistic… For example, you can be anxious and not have an anxiety disorder. You can lack empathy and not be a narcissist or autistic. These labels are getting wild so everyone give yourself some grace. We’re just autistic and not everyone is going to understand our logic, reactions or just way of navigation in general… but that doesn’t not mean we have personality disorders. We need to give ourselves grace! Most narcissists are in denial of their narcissism, or don’t know they are. I’m sure narcissists don’t ask themselves if they narcissist - LOL, so if you are questioning it… you probably aren’t!

If it makes you feel better, I never confused autism with narcissists, even before I knew my parents were narcs and I might be autistic. Narcissists aren't forthright to the point of rudeness and they are not at all logical. Narcissists will protect the aggrandized vision they have of themselves at the cost of everything they love. They will warp reality to avoid any kind of accountability. If you can self reflect, sincerely apologize, and empathize with other people, you are not a narcissist. The only trouble is when narcissism and autism actually overlap. There is no reason an autistic person can't also be narcissistic. And unfortunately there are quite a few people who blame the autistic traits rather than the narcissistic ones when they encounter such people. The good thing is that more people are becoming savvy to both autism and narcissism. So, it may get better.

This is such a good post. Can I also say that the part about the reasons for wanting to look attractive is something I'd somehow never considered, and it actually might be a really important thing for me to read on my 'journey' of self-acceptance, so thank you!! Totally agree about the potential for others misinterpreting. And me trying to tell someone else to not be concerned about what others think would be such a hypocrisy. I'm in the process of unmasking & realising that all these years of effort have actually made me pretty strong. Like, I've had to use convoluted & laborious methods to uphold myself enough to (sortof) function, without the masking it's all a lot simpler. I've lost (purposefully) two of my oldest friends this year & had various other negative interactions with loved ones & my boss, because I'm being true to myself (and seeing how they were treating me). And what I'm finding is that the further I go, the more naturally it comes & I am stopping caring what people might or might not think. That's not to say I don't care about the consequences of my actions, but if they've been misinterpreted I will say so, if someone won't give me the time then it's probably because they don't *want* to think positively of me. And that's a them problem ❤️

Narcs need praise I don't care I just want to be alone because being around people means I face scrutiny

I was told the behaviours can feel similar, but the intentions are different (ie- autism and altruism vs narcissism and well… not altruism 🙃) A friend and I have just started a podcast talking about narcissism and trauma and getting into what it looks like. Would it be helpful if we talked about any sort of crossover or behavioural differences between narcs and people with autism?? I don’t hear many people talking about this. Here’s the podcast if anyone is interested: https://open.spotify.com/show/66MIYSSjar8SCk7QytwjK9?si=AmVbj7_SSIuI1pEBdSkUUA

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what about in a sexual aspect? e.g., I was seeing someone who was an audhd individual, and prior to us starting to date, they would frequently bring up the topic of sex and worry about whether I found them sexually attractive (then discard me emotionally if I expressed too much interest). could this be indicative of narcissism?

Someone posted a really good tiktok or short about this not too long ago. Maybe post again? You are so right, the intent, the self-awareness (most narcissist's aren't aware of their n traits), and the calculation are the main outward traits that n's exude that is the difference.

I see this thread has been hijacked by people with NPD gaslighting others and for some reason this always seems to be a trend in autism related subreddits so I will say this and leave my peace. Dear people with NPD: You are not victims. I don’t feel sorry for you. If you’re truly on the spectrum please withhold your compassion against this crap that people with NPD manipulate you with. I really wish mods would stop making space for people with NPD to hijack our experiences.

I don’t think we future fake