Everything You Need to Know About Narcissistic Personality Disorder
There are many diseases that are not popularly known or usually ignored by people as they don’t treat it as an illness and thus its seriousness increases. a narcissistic personality disorder is one of those. The rate of people suffering from narcissistic personality is estimated to be 5% by experts. It comes in one of the 10 personality disorders. People suffering from narcissism feel extreme in every situation, they have a tendency to do something which will hurt themselves or others. Now, this must be something confusing, right? So, to get everything clear let’s get deep into it and understand everything you need to know about narcissistic personality disorder.
Firstly, we need to understand that what does a narcissist means? what is the definition of a narcissist? Narcissism meaning extremely self-centered with an exaggerated sense of self-importance. They are basically a person with a mental condition in which they think excessively about themselves, they have a deep need of attention and the other things which is somewhat related to themselves. This condition makes them feel extreme in situations whether it is good or bad. Usually, such people are given a term of a covert narcissist. People don’t take this condition seriously but it is a point of matter and there are things that we should know about narcissist abuse, as it is a serious problem.
A covert narcissist will be a normal person like me and you. You would treat them as they are more concerned about their things, their needs, their wants. So, how can we differentiate a person having narcissistic personality disorder from a normal person? In order to have a clear understanding of this let’s look at the narcissistic traits or how narcissistic abuse look like.
Symptoms of Narcissist Personality Disorder:
* Excessive feeling of self-importance.
* Arrogant behavior and attitude
* Want for taking advantage of others to achieve goals
* Lack of understanding
* Craving for being smart, intelligent, successful, and attractive than others
* Hunger for complements
* Feeling of superiority
* Overthinking about other’s achievements
* Sense of entitlement
* Feeling jealous and behaving as if others are jealous of them.
* Sudden and excessive mood swings
* Aggression
* Sense of shame and humiliation
* Suspicious
* Social withdrawal
NPD is a wide spectrum disorder so the symptoms can range from mild to severe depending upon the cause and how we treat the person.
Now we can better answer the question define narcissism. And now the point is how a normal healthy-minded person gets affected by NPD? And for the answers, we need to know the causes of narcissistic abuse syndrome.
Causes of Narcissistic personality disorder:
Though the exact cause of NPD is not known to date, still there are several factors that may result in Narcissistic behavior and they are-
* Any physical, mental or sexual trauma in childhood.
* Previous relationships with friends and family.
* May also occur genetically.
* Personality and temperament
As we now know the signs of a narcissist, we can relate that we have seen many people around us who have the same behavior. So, a question will hit our mind and that is, are all of them suffering from a narcissistic personality disorder? The answer is might be possible that they are having NPD but it can be cleared by a diagnosis.
Diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder:
A psychologist can determine the disease by examining it through the key symptoms of NPD. There are many personality disorders whose symptoms overlap with NPD and it may be possible that a person might be having other personality disorders along with NPD. So, the problem is how it can be diagnosed then?
Diagnosis of NPD is based on five criteria as follows:
* Sense of entitlement and unreasonable expectations from others
* Arrogant behavior
* Fantasies of unlimited success and happiness.
* Hunger for attention and compliments
* Unwillingness to identify other’s feelings and needs.
* Excessive sense of self-importance
These symptoms are also common to other mental and personality disorders. So, how can I exactly diagnose whether I am suffering from NPD or not? Is there any particular test or any other way to identify it?
Well, your psychiatrist may perform a personality test of yours by asking some of the questions. Your honest answer to these questions can help your doctor to better identify the problem.
The tests that psychiatrists may include are:
· Personality diagnostic questionnaire-4
· Millon clinical multiaxial inventory -3
· International personality disorder examination
We now know that how can a narcissistic personality be diagnosed and with this we may have a question in our mind, that is if NPD has a common symptom then is there any permanent treatment of the disease?
Now this brings us to the next part of our discussion and that is how to treat narcissistic personality disorder or is there any possibility of a narcissist becoming better?
Treatment of Narcissistic personality disorder:
There are medications available that psychiatrists may prescribe but it is mainly for anxiety and depression caused by NPD. There is no permanent treatment of narcissistic personality, only long-term treatment is a primary treatment that helps you to get greater insight into your problem and learn what changes you can make to develop a relation to others in a positive way. Having proper counseling is a way to fight this battle and can be easily treated if done properly.
Apart from this the medications that may include:
· Mood stabilizers: It helps to reduce mood swings.
· Antidepressants: It is to treat depression. Serotonin reuptake inhibitors are commonly prescribed as it has fewer side effects.
We have generally seen that if we suffer from any kind of disease in our lifetime then it gives us some complications and that may persist even after treatment, if not taken care of properly. The same is with a narcissistic personality disorder.
Complications of narcissistic personality disorder:
* If not properly treated then cause a problem in maintaining a healthy relationship with others or can say narcissistic relationship gets more difficult.
* May also make you a drug addict and provoke excessive alcohol consumption to deal with emotional outbursts.
* May cause depression and have suicidal thoughts.
Hence, proper and regular treatment is required unless you completely come out of this phase.
Now coming to the most important part, is there any way to prevent it? How can we prevent us from becoming a narcissist?
Prevention measures to avoid becoming a narcissist:
* Feel free to share your feelings and thoughts with someone in your family or friends.
* Be social
* If facing some issues or have any of the symptoms of NPD then talk to a mental health professional.
* If your parents had NPD then the risk is high of you becoming a narcissist hence see a psychiatrist if you have any symptoms.
Now we have gone through all the things that one should know about a narcissistic personality. So, let’s jump into some data that we have which tells about the age groups diagnosed with NPD and the other important points that we should have an idea of in order to understand the current scenario and the advancement.
In recent years it has been seen that there is a great increase in narcissism among the students. The reason behind this is excessive use of the internet. Internet is all about constantly promoting ourselves through social media posts, blogs. Even the parents have also encouraged self-esteem in their children and all this has been a major cause of excessive unhealthy competition among the teens. If we monitor the behavior and values of youths then we will have a clear idea about why and how they are getting into narcissism.
The increasing number of NPD patients in youth is a topic of discussion until a clear and definitive study is conducted.
Still, the major reason that has been observed for people being narcissistic is the increasing level of obsession with status, power, appearance, and many more. Acting like being superior, with a mentality to only win, not involved in maintaining a good and healthy relationship with others or having a narcissistic relationship with others. If proper treatment is not provided to the malignant narcissist, then society will slowly and gradually get towards crime and violence.
The step that we can take at our level to help a narcissistic trait or to control the excess of such behaviors around us, is to maintain a healthy relationship with the people in our surroundings. We all have a mentality of being competitive with others.
So, we need to remember a healthy competitive environment always leads to the development of society but on the other hand, unhealthy competition will always lead to destruction in the social and mental wellbeing of society. Hence practice healthy competition, contribute to the development of your society and make others aware of narcissism.