I think I'm narcissistic, help?

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It took me a while to admit this to myself, but I think it's true. Perhaps not full-blown narcissistic personality disorder but it's certainly not good, and I'd like to see if I can make it go away. Or maybe it's just insecurity...?

I definitely feel empathy (but then there are times where people/friends have problems and I just can't care) and I don't think I manipulate people, but I can be condescending/mean/insensitive (mostly when correcting/helping people) and I've been told I am arrogant. I think I can control it pretty well in that I appear to be a nice, humble person and I can reason with myself but that doesn't influence how I feel. I'm always fantasizing about being massively successful/liked/respected and instinctively think people are focused on me (ex: if I'm around people I assume everything I do/say is noticed/judged. I get over-sensitive to any criticism (I don't show it) and desire praise/admiration quite strongly (but again, I don't show it) and whenever doing something I always think about how other people would feel about it, as if they're watching/judging me. I tell little "white-lies" fairly frequently because I'm afraid I'll appear abnormal/embarrass myself even just slightly. I immediately envy/dislike people who are smarter than me, more attractive than me, etc... I'm not satisfied with myself unless I'm the best. There's more but I can't recall it right now. Doesn't matter much anyway I suppose.

Anyway, it's causing problems and I want to know if there's anything I can do (without help, preferably) to not care so much about what people think of me and be more secure/independent and empathetic/caring/genuinely nice.

We can give support here, but not diagnose, especially not something like a personality disorder. I would really recommend that you share your concerns with a mental health professional.

I know. I'm too young to get a personality disorder diagnosis anyway. I was just hoping some people had ways to combat narcissism or insecurity or whatever it is.

Well I think it's amazing (and impressive) that you can recognize those signs in yourself, and want to change!

I've read that it's normal for everyone to be a little narcissistic in certain ways (without having full-blown NPD). I know when it comes to my own creative efforts, at times I've overestimated my own talents, and had a lot of trouble taking criticism.

But I didn't like feeling that way either, so I've learned to adopt a more realistic view of my abilities, and accept that I'm not as amazing as I wanted to believe. I think being aware of your problem is a huge step, and that if you work at it, you can develop a healthier attitude!

Adolescents can be narcisstic, definitely. The edge gets taken off as you move into adulthood, usually.

I don't know how to combat narcissism, but what helped my insecurity was the book, "the self-esteem companion" by fanning, McKay, et al. that and learning that all human beings have equal worth.

If you're narcissistic then why didn't you post a picture of your awesomazingness face or body for your avatar pix? hmmm?
And how come your "signature" isn't telling the world about your wonderousness?

Maybe because you're not narcissistic? Maybe.

Is my answer naive and trite? Ignorant?
Maybe.

Or maybe engaging a serious consideration of whether you're narcissistic is proof that you're not.
Otherwise, wouldn't you be just way too cool to have such major flaws?

The symptoms of many mental health issues overlap like crazy. =P
Just because you could make an argument for having some or many of the symptoms doesn't make any specific Dx valid.
It might be better to look for the few deal-breaker symptoms, the one's that if you don't have in a really massive everyone-can-see-it-no-matter-what-you-think way, then you don't have it.

Subjectively probably anyone looking at a bare list of unexplained ASD symptoms, and really trying to spin it, could argue that they are ASD.
But shyness or, "one time I did something really stupid in a social situation and I was -like- totally embarrassed forever!" is nothing the same as 'everyone' noticing the 'dumb thing we did' that causes the life crushing damage of the social train wreck that happens repeatedly to those of us with ASD or related.

Or.
Most importantly, does it significantly adversely affect your (or someone's) daily life activities?
If it's not ruining your life (or someone else's) then it's probably simply normal human behavior that hasn't risen to the level of disability or disorder.
Normal.
-ish
Or something.

Or maybe you just really are that awesomely cool and you're not narcissistic, you're realistic!

My first thought when I read the thread title was that if you think you're narcissistic you probably aren't. It sounds to me like you're just self-conscious.

Thanks for the replies. It very well may just be self-consciousness or I may grow out of it. I'll probably look into that book cathylynn mentioned.

To me it sounds mostly like self-conciousness, not narcissism.

I've heard that a narcissist can feel shame but not guilt. I'm not sure if that's true or not. I've also heard from many different places that a narcissist can be self-aware.

I don't really know much about NPD but I wouldn't be surprised if someone with NPD wanted to change because ze needs to be perfect and having any personal flaw including Narcissism is unacceptable. The fact that this thread exists doesn't prove that the OP doesn't have subclinical narcissistic tendencies or a personality disorder.

Then you're probably fine.

Obviously, we can't diagnose. A lot of personality traits with being autistic can show signs for just about any other disorder out there, I could personally diagnose myself after reading a wikipedia article on many other disorders. I know it all boils down to asperger's syndrome though, really.

I'm not sure if I have Asperger's either though, so I didn't want to write it off as that. But it could be.

I'm just curious about whether it's reasonable to think I may be narcissistic, and then I'll pursue it further if I can't fix it myself.

Also, one of the main reasons I somewhat suspect narcissistic PD, or at least undesirable narcissistic tendencies that I forgot to mention in my OP is that I define my worth on how I compare to other people. I think of things that I think would be really cool to do and immediately think of what people would think of me for doing them. I've realized that if I was completely alone in the world, my main problem would be that there would be no people to be impressed by me, not loneliness or anything. I often imagine that we would give presentations on ourselves or aspects of ourselves in school and of course (sarcasm) everyone would so interested in mine, relative to other people's. Fortunately I realize now that that's utter bullcrap, but I still can't shake those thoughts of imagining myself presenting my accomplishments/anything I happen to be feeling proud of at the time to people and impressing them. It's rather paradoxical, I guess. I'm quiet and introverted (I think this is what keeps me from being perceived by most people as the self-absorbed jerk that I am), not really into close relationships, often embarrassed by affection/compliments, desire to be independent and not care what people think (of course I imagine people being all awed at my strong self-reliance), but then there's these tendencies that go against all that. Very bothersome. I want to do something for my own sake for once and be happy with myself without imagining how good I'll look in the eyes of others.


Hmmm... I think I may actually feel shame rather than guilt. I regret doing things that most people would feel guilty about because they make me feel like a jerk/idiot/whatever when I desire to be a nice, wonderful person that everyone looks up too, not so much because someone was hurt somehow. There is empathy there when I hurt someone though. Maybe that's guilt.

Last edited by UndeadToaster on 15 Feb 2014, 10:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

My primary school teacher used to say "always treat others the way you want to be treated". I do think it's that simple. Simply imagine what it would be like to be the other person, look at things from their perspective.

If someone gives you criticism, try to understand where they are coming from. It will be either that they are giving you some information that might help you, or else they are criticising you because they are feeling insecure.

I do try to do that but my main problem isn't in how I actually treat people (I don't think... not that I'm a saint), it's how I feel about myself and how I feel about people. I can realize that people don't care about me nearly as much as I used to ignorantly think they did and want them to, but that doesn't help me get rid of the need to be perfect and be better than everyone else at everything.

I once took one of those online tests about narcissism and scored higher than I would have liked.

So I read all I could about it and did some self-examination, just as you have done. Just raising my awareness of what narcissism is and how my beliefs and actions may tend toward that was a big help. I found it much harder to think, feel, and act in those ways after they were exposed for what they are. In that way self-awareness resulted in some degree of self-correction.

It also helped that on more than one occasion when I was a bit too full of myself life gave me a big fat smack of reality check. A heaping helping of humble pie was distasteful, but it helped me get myself right-sized in my head.