Why Are Everyday People Diagnosing Narcissistic Personality Disorder?
If you have a TikTok account or watch Instagram reels, all down your feed are unqualified people diagnosing others with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It’s like not going to the doctor because you googled symptoms.
Let’s look at the definition of Narcissistic Personality Disorder:
Narcissistic Personality Disorder — one of several types of personality disorders — is a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence lies a fragile self-esteem that’s vulnerable to the slightest criticism. (definition provided by Melissa Burkley)
Under this definition, everyone without a Ph.D. diagnosing people is guilty of having an inflated sense of importance. Though, I know they are not narcissists. I also understand how extreme the diagnosis is. Most cereal killers, psychopaths, and social paths are diagnosed with a narcissistic personality disorder, which is only 1 percent of our population(according to Melissa Burkley, Ph.D., and 5 percent of our population has narcissistic personality disorder as documented by Cleveland Clinic.
So, all these people saying they are running into individuals with this disorder can not be accurate.
Let’s take it one step further and break down the symptoms of having this disorder.
The first is having an inflated sense of importance. I will ask you to find who doesn’t suffer from this infliction in this social media era. We eat and believe people want to see what we are eating. Go dancing and think people want to be in the club with us. We walk down the street just staring at the camera and posting it. All of us believe we are a brand. In my era, it was described as “faking it to you make it.” Now, it is called having a social media presence. Either way, most of us have an inflated sense of importance. Are we all narcissists? No! Yet, people choose who fits this criterion without looking in the mirror.
What are some of the reasons people are saying others have Narcissistic Personality Disorder:
They married, dated, or befriended someone that only thought of themselves. Being an Accountable Relationships Builder, my question to these people would be, how long did you know they only thought of themselves? And won’t believing you can change them classify you as being complicit? “I was tricked, manipulated, and controlled.” Where is the accountability in knowing but not acting? Relationships are about “give and take,” so if you aren’t getting anything from the relationship, why do you stay long enough for the relationship to fracture your identity?
Who is the Narcissist? The person who’s insecure enough to mistreat people who Love them or those who believe they have to power to endure the mistreatment! Who is the person that has an inflated sense of their importance? An actual Narcissist plans to hurt you from the beginning and gains power from following through. Most people hurt others because they are selfish, not because they get pleasure from doing it.
The second symptom is “an excessive need for attention and admiration.”
I am revisiting social media and all the self-interests feeding our feeds. I, I, I! We all can’t be “Narcs,” can we. So, when discussing a person with a Narc Disorder’s need for excessive attention. We are talking about them not caring who they deceive, hurt, or kill to get that attention. They have no connection to people, only their desires.
Now, go back and listen to ten people on your social media page (that are not a psychologist or psychist) describe their encounter with a person they believe has this personality disorder. See how many of them are talking from a place of hurt, anger, and disappointment. I would guarantee 95% of them didn’t encounter the 5% of the population. They met a person looking out for their self-interest, not a person with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
The third component of the diagnosis is trouble with relationships.
Don’t we all have a past of problems with relationships! Relationships are all about chemistry. People are coming together to honor agreements. At least that describes healthy, supportive, and accountable relationships. Most people have toxic relationships because they build them on emotions instead of principles. Narcissists have trouble with relationships because they don’t even see people; they see pawns without telling anyone they are playing chess.
They can’t build bonds with other human beings because they are more focused on getting excessive attention and admiration and feeling great from being so damn vital to the human race. Narcissists see Love as a weakness and power as Love. As long as any person we encounter Loves someone in this world, they aren’t narcissists. They just didn’t Love us or misused us until they found someone they could Love.
The fourth and final symptom of Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a Lack of Empathy for others.
Again most of humanity suffers from this inflection. The main reason is they believe empathy is about the emotion instead of listening and putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. In our Blog Post “What’s Your Top Four Core Values,” we explain empathy like this “I can talk to a person and see it from their vantage point. When I listen, I listen to understand, not from one side, but in search of validity. I am impartial, even if the outcome does not suit me personally.”
What makes a Narcissist’s Lack of Empathy more glaring than Joe Smo. They don’t care to be empathetic, whereas the “normal” human tries. They never intend on working together, bonding, or being a healthy exchange. Their focus is on masterminding the plan to misuse individuals just because they can. They are feeding the beast born in them.
So, let’s revisit the question, Why Are Everyday People Diagnosing Narcissistic Personality Disorder? It’s because they read, watched, or listened to a professional describe the characteristics of this disorder and decided they are in a relationship with Narcissists. But my question remains, did they take this person to get diagnosed, or are they allowing their pain, disappointment, ego to render the diagnosis?
And the fact that a person can wake up one day and play doctor (psychologist or psychist), what does that make them?
The LoveSnobs
