Why Are Everyday People Diagnosing Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

If you have a TikTok account or watch Instagram reels, your whole feed is unqualified people diagnosing people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It’s like skipping the doctor because you googled your symptoms.

Let’s start with the actual definition. Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a mental health condition in which a person has an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others — while behind that mask of extreme confidence often sits a fragile self-esteem that’s vulnerable to the slightest criticism.

By that definition, nearly everyone confidently diagnosing others online is themselves guilty of an inflated sense of importance. I know they aren’t all narcissists. And I understand how serious the actual disorder is. NPD affects about 5% of the population (Cleveland Clinic). Use that single figure, cite Cleveland Clinic once, and drop the contradictory 1%.— so all these people claiming to keep running into individuals with the disorder simply can’t be accurate.

Let’s break down the symptoms one at a time.

Symptom 1: An Inflated Sense Of Importance

Find me the person who doesn’t suffer from this in the social media era. We eat and believe people want to see what we’re eating. We go dancing and assume people want to be in the club with us. We walk down the street staring into a camera and post it. We all believe we’re a brand. In my era they called it “fake it till you make it.” Now it’s called having a social media presence. Either way, most of us carry an inflated sense of importance.

Does that make us all narcissists? No. Yet people assign that label to others without ever looking in the mirror.

So why do people say someone has NPD? Usually because they married, dated, or befriended someone who only thought of themselves. And as an Accountable Relationships Builder, my question is: how long did you know they only thought of themselves? Doesn’t believing you could change them make you complicit? “I was tricked, manipulated, controlled.” But where’s the accountability in knowing and not acting?

Relationships are give and take. So if you weren’t getting anything back, why did you stay long enough for the relationship to fracture your identity?

An actual narcissist plans to hurt you from the beginning and draws power from following through. Most people hurt others because they’re selfish — not because they take pleasure in the harm. There’s a difference.

Symptom 2: An Excessive Need For Attention And Admiration

Back to social media, and all the self-interest filling our feeds. I, I, I. We can’t all be narcissists.

When we talk about a person with NPD needing excessive admiration, we’re talking about someone who doesn’t care who they deceive or hurt to get it. They have no real connection to people — only to their own desires.

Now go listen to ten people on your feed — none of them psychologists — describe their encounter with someone they’ve labeled. Notice how many are speaking from hurt, anger, and disappointment. I’d guess the overwhelming majority didn’t actually encounter the small fraction of the population with NPD. They met a person looking out for their own self-interest. That’s not the same thing.

Symptom 3: Trouble With Relationships

Don’t we all have a history of relationship trouble? Relationships run on chemistry and on people coming together to honor agreements — at least the healthy, accountable ones do. Most people have toxic relationships because they built them on emotion instead of principle.

A narcissist has trouble with relationships for a different reason: they don’t even see people. They see pawns — and they never tell anyone they’re playing chess. They can’t bond, because they’re too focused on attention, admiration, and feeling essential. They see love as a weakness and power as love.

But here’s the tell: as long as a person loves someone in this world, they aren’t a narcissist. They just didn’t love you — or they misused you until they found someone they decided to love.

Symptom 4: A Lack Of Empathy

Again, much of humanity struggles here — mostly because we think empathy is about feeling the emotion, instead of listening and putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes. In our post “What’s Your Top Four Core Values,” we describe empathy like this: I can talk to a person and see it from their vantage point. When I listen, I listen to understand — not to win, but to find validity. I stay impartial, even when the outcome doesn’t suit me.

So what makes a narcissist’s lack of empathy different from the average person’s? They don’t care to be empathetic, while most people at least try. They never intend to work together, bond, or build a healthy exchange. Their focus is masterminding a way to misuse people simply because they can.

Why Are Everyday People Diagnosing Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

Because they read, watched, or listened to a professional describe the traits, then decided they must be in a relationship with a narcissist. But my question stands: did they take that person to be diagnosed — or are they letting their pain, disappointment, and ego render the verdict?

And if someone can wake up one day and play doctor, what does that make them?

The LoveSnobs

Learn More: What’s Your Top Four Core Values