A Greek hunter,Narcissistic Personality Disorder is that one appreciated his beauty and was sworn away by it when he saw a reflection of himself in a water puddle. With this obsession, he lost the will to do anything else and as a result died. This Greek mythological story has lead to the evolution of a personality disorder known as narcissism.
Narcissists have a higher level of self-importance and believe that they are the most important human on earth. This condition prevails in about 0.5-1% of the population. Among the people affected by this disease, 50-75% are men. The effects of this condition can range from being mild to drastic depending on the intensity of the personality disorder.
The most common symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder:
Symptom #1: Lacking Empathy
Showing empathy is a natural human phenomenon, however narcissists lacks empathy. They do not feel bad for someone else and are very unlikely to sympathize with people. They are very self-centred and do not show empathy when the other person is upset. Moreover, narcissists are also very unlikely to feel bad even when their actions affect the other person and they are the reason for the other person to be sad.
Symptom #2: Conversation Hogger
Narcissists have a habit of dominating conversations and want all conversations to be centric around them. They like talking about their achievements all the time and give little or no value to the other people to present their point. They do not like being corrected in conversations and want everyone to agree with them. They are even capable of interrupting a conversation and changing it according to their interests.
Symptom #3: Self-Importance
Narcissists always feel that they are the most important people on earth. They feel that their contributions in all things are absolutely necessary and that people cannot manage without their presence. They want others to know of their importance and want everyone else to adhere to their views. They want to be treated in a special manner and be given royal treatment, even though they don’t reciprocate it.
Symptom #4: False Image Projection
Narcissists always want to be projected in good light and want others to perceive them as successful individuals. For this, they tend to wear the most fashionable and in style clothes, accessories; travel in expensive cars and go to the best hairdresser. They also become friends with people who belong to the elite class to lay an impression on the public.
Symptom #5: Rule Breaking
Rules are for everyone to abide by, however narcissists feel that they are above the normal people and thus rules are not made for them. This thinking leads to the breaking of a lot of rules, be it social or traffic, by narcissists as they feel rules are not made for them.
Symptom #6: Strives for Perfection
Narcissists want everything they do to be perfect and have unattainable expectations from themselves. This behaviour tends to make them unhappy throughout as they are unable to fulfil the unreasonable expectations they have for themselves. They also want other things around them to be perfect.
Symptom #7: Charming
Narcissists can be increasingly charming when they wish to do so. They can become very affectionate and loving when they want to do so and can immediately, without any warning turn to becoming aloof when they feel things are not working out for them, or when they are tired.
Symptom #8: Manipulation
Narcissists have a tendency of manipulating people in order to extract personal gains. They tend to influence the minds of people to get something done that they wish for. They can go to any limits to get personal benefit.
Symptom #9: Desire for Control
Narcissists always want to have a strong control on things as they have an urge to keep everything under their control. They expect everyone to act according to them and want supreme authority.
Symptom #10: Blame
Narcissists tend to blame other people when things don’t go well and tend to take sole credit for things that are perfectly fine. They do not own their mistakes and find different people and institutions to blame for things that go wrong because of them.
Comments