People with NPD require an excessive need for praise
If someone is classified as NPD for a mere excessive need for praise, your beef is with someone else, not me.
Anyway, some context is required I suppose.
My husband sought therapy for multiple reasons, but because he had this sneaking fear he was a narcissist. He had issues with anger and criticism from others. It’s not the only reason he sought out therapy, and that wasn’t the totality of his struggles, but that’s saying enough, I think.
The psychiatrist diagnosed him with cPTSD. He told the therapist about his fears about what his supposed narcissistic traits. His therapist told him those with NPD typically never have the ability to self reflect enough to have this worry, and basically there was no reason to worry at all.
He asked me to help him tell his mother about his diagnosis, that it was important to him, and I did.
His mother told him his psychiatrist was a hack. All psychiatrists do is label you so they can continue to make money off you, and she should know. She’s been to around a half dozen of them. They all keep telling her she has something called NPD, a fake and made up disorder. Anyway, it’s impossible for my husband to have cPTSD, that’s for abused people, and my husband wasn’t hit all that much. And those times his step dad broke his arm or something, he deserved it because he was a terrible child, always causing trouble.
Anyway.
It made me think of my own father, who was diagnosed with Bipolar. He would emotionally manipulate my mom and myself and my siblings when he was in one of his phases. He controlled her financially. He did other things that I will not name here. I wished she would leave him for years, and I even had huge arguments with her in highschool. I told her he was a shitty person and she should leave him. She said it’s not his fault. He’s sick. In sickness and in health, right? He can’t help it, he’s sick.
She only left him after he became physically abusive in my late teens. Even then she insisted we maintain a relationship with him and couldn’t understand why I would refuse.
We no longer talk.
I don’t blame her, but I can’t maintain that relationship. I am deeply regretful of this, but I don’t know how else to live.
The person who you are imagining, who believes themselves to be perfect and believes others should see them that way, and also doesn’t do deeply shitty things to other people, lives alone. Sometimes it’s OK to call a spade a spade. Eventually, it stops mattering whether someone can help it or not when they are doing terrible things.
I have read that medium article in the past. While interesting, one medium article (honestly, a blogpost) does not change how that word has been used for years.
Anyway, thank you for taking the time to read all this. I don’t expect to change your mind, I just feel the need to give you context as to why I felt this way.
Honestly, drag agrees with your mother in law on one thing: the psychiatrist who told your husband he doesn’t have NPD wasn’t following professional standards.
Lack of self reflection is not a diagnostic criteria of NPD. That psychiatrist was not following the DSM, they were following their own preconceptions. That’s not ethical. And it’s not supported by the research, either, because the current research actually shows that people with NPD struggle with self doubt a lot. That’s where the “excessive need for admiration” comes from. They need to be told they’re not a failure. Your husband needed to be told he’s not a bad person. Drag isn’t saying your husband has NPD; he probably doesn’t. Drag is saying the psychiatrist’s reason was wrong.
Maybe your psychiatrist is actually competent, and was telling a comforting lie to soothe your husband’s fears. Or maybe they were letting their preconceptions and stereotypes compromise their professional judgement.
If someone is classified as NPD for a mere excessive need for praise, your beef is with someone else, not me.
Anyway, some context is required I suppose.
My husband sought therapy for multiple reasons, but because he had this sneaking fear he was a narcissist. He had issues with anger and criticism from others. It’s not the only reason he sought out therapy, and that wasn’t the totality of his struggles, but that’s saying enough, I think.
The psychiatrist diagnosed him with cPTSD. He told the therapist about his fears about what his supposed narcissistic traits. His therapist told him those with NPD typically never have the ability to self reflect enough to have this worry, and basically there was no reason to worry at all.
He asked me to help him tell his mother about his diagnosis, that it was important to him, and I did.
His mother told him his psychiatrist was a hack. All psychiatrists do is label you so they can continue to make money off you, and she should know. She’s been to around a half dozen of them. They all keep telling her she has something called NPD, a fake and made up disorder. Anyway, it’s impossible for my husband to have cPTSD, that’s for abused people, and my husband wasn’t hit all that much. And those times his step dad broke his arm or something, he deserved it because he was a terrible child, always causing trouble.
Anyway.
It made me think of my own father, who was diagnosed with Bipolar. He would emotionally manipulate my mom and myself and my siblings when he was in one of his phases. He controlled her financially. He did other things that I will not name here. I wished she would leave him for years, and I even had huge arguments with her in highschool. I told her he was a shitty person and she should leave him. She said it’s not his fault. He’s sick. In sickness and in health, right? He can’t help it, he’s sick.
She only left him after he became physically abusive in my late teens. Even then she insisted we maintain a relationship with him and couldn’t understand why I would refuse.
We no longer talk.
I don’t blame her, but I can’t maintain that relationship. I am deeply regretful of this, but I don’t know how else to live.
The person who you are imagining, who believes themselves to be perfect and believes others should see them that way, and also doesn’t do deeply shitty things to other people, lives alone. Sometimes it’s OK to call a spade a spade. Eventually, it stops mattering whether someone can help it or not when they are doing terrible things.
I have read that medium article in the past. While interesting, one medium article (honestly, a blogpost) does not change how that word has been used for years.
Anyway, thank you for taking the time to read all this. I don’t expect to change your mind, I just feel the need to give you context as to why I felt this way.
Honestly, drag agrees with your mother in law on one thing: the psychiatrist who told your husband he doesn’t have NPD wasn’t following professional standards.
Lack of self reflection is not a diagnostic criteria of NPD. That psychiatrist was not following the DSM, they were following their own preconceptions. That’s not ethical. And it’s not supported by the research, either, because the current research actually shows that people with NPD struggle with self doubt a lot. That’s where the “excessive need for admiration” comes from. They need to be told they’re not a failure. Your husband needed to be told he’s not a bad person. Drag isn’t saying your husband has NPD; he probably doesn’t. Drag is saying the psychiatrist’s reason was wrong.
Maybe your psychiatrist is actually competent, and was telling a comforting lie to soothe your husband’s fears. Or maybe they were letting their preconceptions and stereotypes compromise their professional judgement.