Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Sukanya Singh
Today, we will discuss an important matter that needs your attention. It is about a disorder in human beings.
As the name itself reflects disorder, it means something that is not right. Do you agree?
There are an uncountable number of disorders. They happen to grow in the human body at different times due to different reasons. Each carries a separate set of signs, symptoms, and causes.
Most of them are treatable. Without stretching, let us dive straight to the point. We are discussing Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Are you familiar with this term? Have you heard this expression before?
What is Narcissistic Personality Disorder?
Well! Before you land on this, you should get some idea of what is the meaning of narcissist?
What is narcissism?
What are the signs of a narcissist?
What are the narcissistic traits?
What is a narcissistic personality?
Who is a Malignant Narcissist?
What is narcissistic relationship?
These questions might frighten you and force you to stop here and leave. But trust me; you will extract an ample amount of valuable information in the end. Let us learn them one by one without further delay.
Narcissists are the ones who keep themselves above everyone. According to a set of clinical psychologists, narcissism is a self-esteem disorder. They add that narcissists are those who are very insecure. But they present themselves in a way that they are very confident. It is nothing but to hide their emptiness from the rest. In India, narcissism is very common among men and women. It is reported that men suffers more from this disorder more than women.
Narcissism develops mainly due to
- Bad childhood memories or
- Bad parenting.
There are many signs of a narcissist. Some of them are mentioned below.
- Superiority: A narcissist is one who always keeps himself above everyone. They are so self-obsessed that they forget about others around them. In simple, they think the world revolves around them.
- Admiration: A person with narcissism always looks for validation. They are forever thirsty for receiving praises and admiration from others. They need attention.
- Manipulative nature: One of the signs of a narcissist is their manipulative way of delivering words to others. These are individuals who try to grab people’s attention towards them first. And then meeting their goal is the destination.
- Rudeness: Narcissists always feel that they are superior. Everyone should remain passive in front of them. If a person carrying narcissistic behavioural traits is not treated divinely, they behave rudely or become aggressive towards people. It is because they think they deserve special treatment.
- Lack of empathy: One of the vivid signs of a narcissist is the lack of empathy. A person with narcissistic behaviour does not put himself in somebody’s situation and feel and act accordingly. They do not think about others. They are unable to empathize with people’s feelings, needs, wishes, desires, interests, and so on.
“Narcissists are the ones who keep themselves above everyone. According to a set of clinical psychologists, narcissism is a self-esteem disorder. They add that narcissists are those who are very insecure. But they present themselves in a way that they are very confident. It is nothing but to hide their emptiness from the rest. In India, narcissism is very common among men and women. It is reported that men suffers more from this disorder more than women.”
Therefore, if we happen to investigate the narcissistic traits, the chain of words that we could extract is that
- Narcissists exploit others for personal gain,
- People with narcissism lack empathy towards the rest,
- Individuals with narcissistic behaviour are rude to people, arrogant, and manipulative.
- Narcissistic traits also include one craving for admiration, special treatment all the time, seeking validation from people, exaggerating self- abilities to a greater extent, and the chain grows long.
- She/he bullies others. They use words and actions to manipulate their partner’s behaviour and emotional state. This is called narcissistic abuse. It is a type of abuse that includes different forms like mental abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, financial abuse, and many more. To be precise, narcissistic abuse consists of sarcasm, criticizing, threatening, shaming, blaming, demanding, and ordering, to name a few.
What is Narcissistic Personality Disorder? Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a mental health condition that makes a person rude, arrogant, self-obsessed, demanding, dominating, and extremely self-loving. They are the ones who love to possess materials that would reflect a successful life to the world. People with Narcissistic Personality Disorder become extremely self-centered. There might be other reasons except the few mentioned at the very beginning of the content. One might be a victim of this kind of disorder when someone is being over praised. When there is a family history. When children at a young age were not provided with a good sound environment, etc.
There are mainly two distinct types of Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). They are-
- Overt narcissism, and
- Covert narcissism
Overt narcissism is the type of NPD where a person is extremely outspoken about everything in any situation in front of anybody without caring for anybody. It is the opposite of the covert narcissism. They do not care about others. People with such a disorder act aggressively and behave rudely. People with this kind of condition are unable to put themselves in the shoes of others and feel the situation. They exploit others for personal gains. Such narcissists love to be in their fantasy world all the time.
Covert Narcissism is the one where a person might be silent, characterized by hypersensitivity and defensiveness. She/he might seek approval, and withdraw from certain social activities.
The destination for both types of individuals is the same only their way of approaches are different. The overt narcissists shout whereas the covert one remains silent. But their goal is to win appraisal. They create arguments to prove themselves right by blaming or bullying each other.
One another sub-type is the malignant narcissist. It refers to the condition where one turns out to be extremely aggressive, and abusive. These are treatable but it takes time. Long-term counselling sessions might heal these.
Narcissistic relationship refers to a bond between two individuals, where both the partners bears narcissistic personality. Many psychologists state that partners with such behaviour go through a lot of ups and downs due to their same behavioural aspect. Most find it very difficult to sustain in alike kind of a relationship.
Conclusion: We all should try to stay away from activities that invite disorders, because these conditions impair us. It ruins our body, mind, and the environment in which we dwell. The piece above discusses one of such disorders called Narcissistic Personality Disorder which describes how an individual develops unwanted narcissistic behavioural qualities such as aggressiveness, moody, dominating, demanding, self-centered, self-obsessed, and many more. It looks at the signs, causes, and narcissistic traits of the disorder. Therefore, all of us need to abide by certain rules and regulations to lead a healthy life. So that no such conditions can harm us as well as our surroundings. People are requested to take help of counselling sessions and other prescribed therapies to mitigate such kind of disorders out of someone’s life. Daily exercise, healthy thinking, balanced diet and positive approaches allow one to lead a beautiful and hurt-free life.
(The above-constructed piece has been crafted by Sukanya Singh on 27-04-2022 as an assignment assigned by one organisation. It discusses Narcissistic Personality Disorder and related terms like narcissism, narcissist, narcissistic behaviour, narcissistic traits, narcissism types, malignant narcissist, etc, descriptively. It observes the different types of behaviour that an individual develops when one falls prey to such a disorder. The mentioned write-up aims to convey a message to the youth and the adults (from 18 years and above) about what this personality disorder brings to them and society. What are the causes, how can they be treated and contribute to building a healthy and developed nation.)
03-05-2022
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