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I want to break down a common point of conflict when addressing NPD stigma.

A lot of hangups people have tend to be along the lines of "but I DO see a lot of people with actual NPD who are acting in toxic or abusive ways".

This will be kind of long, so bear with me.

Point #1: People are way more likely to be diagnosed if they exhibit "stereotypical" symptoms.

There's this image of NPD as a disorder that is only present in those with patterns of destructive behavior towards others. Many therapists have this conception. (Shockingly, the mental health field is not perfect & without stigma.)

Gonna copy-paste this here from my other blog (so forgive me if you've seen it before), because it's a good example.

Three people are criticized at work. Their boss yells at them for their performance in front of everyone. Person A gets mad and defensive. They yell back, using cutting remarks as a way to try and ease the distress they feel. Person B acts really mature and responsible the whole time, nodding along and agreeing and promising to do better, just desperate to maintain and improve their status. Desperate to be liked. Later they go home and handle their distress through self-destructive means, and spend the next few months overworking themself to the point of illness. Person C doesn't seem to respond much at all. They go quiet and seem distant. They don't lash out or lash in, but for the next month or so, their productivity drops. They simply aren't able to focus on work or self-care, no matter how hard they try. The stress is overwhelming. All three of these people have the same root issues, but only the first would be labeled a narcissist. Outwards behaviors and presentations don't reflect the pain, distress, and difficulties with life that are underlying them.

So, three main things happen.

There ends up being a higher rate of people with destructive behaviors who are diagnosed with NPD

The people who don't particularly exhibit behaviors and are considered ""too nice to have it"" are overlooked entirely (and never get any sort of help for their underlying issues, yayyy)

People are more likely to be more honest about "ugly" symptoms / symptoms that are frowned down upon than they are in other mental health communities.

(Also some people decide to act super edgy about it, which is annoying but here we are. Some of them are trolls.)

(And while I'm at it, some people are misdiagnosed with NPD because a psych sees someone who committed a violent crime and is like "uhh slap them with the Evil Asshole™ disorders!! no further thought given.")

Point #2: People who have messed up are not inhuman monsters who deserve no help or support

While I do think it's important for people to understand that patterns of toxic behaviors aren't the ONLY way NPD can present, I'm not going to let the conversation stop at "some of us are nice though!!"

Human beings aren't RPG characters who can be sorted into "monster" or "ally". Every single person has done something hurtful, has messed up, exhibits some sort of behavior that puts strain on their relationships sometimes.

So I'll bullet point some aspects of this that need to be talked about.

People without NPD also commonly exhibit toxic behaviors, but people ignore that nowadays. Either they armchair diagnose anyone who's slightly rude, or they only focus on it in pwNPD and ignore it in themselves or others. NTs can be jerks too, and they're probably less likely to acknowledge it than pwNPD who are constantly watching and checking themselves and analyzing their behaviors and attempting to do better.

Assuming that NPD makes someone abusive doesn't help anyone. Can it impact behaviors, and make it more difficult for people to be self-aware? Of course. But an important step in healing from any mental health condition (especially personality disorders, ime) is realizing that you're not inherently ""bad"", and that you can take responsibility for your actions and learn to deal with things in constructive ways. Just going "NPD makes people bad, full stop"- other than being a mean shitty thing to say- absolves people of guilt and asserts that there's no reason for them to try and improve.

Yes, it's okay for people to hate their abusers. Their abuser. Not an entire community of people who happen to (maybe) share a trait with them.

Building on the above point, people tend to go in defense mode when they hear things like "pwNPD who have acted in toxic ways can learn to improve their behavior", "people shouldn't be saying awful things about folks with this condition", etc. because they automatically try to apply this to their abuser. Interpersonal situations are very different from society-wide mental health access. No, don't stay with your abuser expecting them to change, and don't hold onto the hope that they will. No, don't censor yourself or your hatred or anger towards them. Just don't make blanket statements about a disorder that they may or may not have- blame their abusive actions, not their mental health.

"I hate you for your abusive actions and the harm that you caused me." =/= "I hate a group of people because of an inherent unchangeable part of them that's tied directly to severe childhood trauma they suffered. Because of it, they're evil and unlovable and are incapable of change. They're inhuman and will never experience real connection with others." ..........See the difference??

Even if there were a disorder with a 100% rate of toxic douchey behaviors, I'd want the conversation around it to be changed. I'd want different words to be used to divide up the spaces and conversations and resources, so that survivors of abusive or toxic behavior can get help, but that the disorder still has space to be treated. Otherwise, there are zero resources for healing. Nothing is being done to help these people or solve the issue. They're just told they may as well not try. They're blocked from healthcare entirely, despite how the entire point of being diagnosed with a condition is supposed to be to treat it.

There's a wide range of people who have NPD- it presents in many different ways, a person who has it may or may not exhibit harmful behaviors- but no one deserves to be denied treatment or told they're unlovable because of a condition they have that was formed from trauma.

Speak out against abusive behavior. Don't destroy healthcare for a medical condition.

to the disabled person who needs to hear this:

you don't have to earn or "deserve": resting, sleeping, taking your medications (including OTC meds, cannabis, creams, etc.), using your mobility aids, eating, declining to go to an event, choosing to stay home, having a self care/lazy day, or taking care of yourself in any other capacity. you can be good to yourself today.

Begging begging begging leftists... "leftists" to stop using ableism to attack fascists and people who are threats to humanity and the Earth

White supremacist #57 is not "smooth brained" or "psychotic" or "a sociopath" he is anti-human, violent, and a fascist

Stop making jokes about old politicians having strokes or having cancer or catching x y or z life-long illness because disability is not a punishment, it is a morally neutral state of being

Stop and actually think about disabled people for once. We exist. And we're not in greater leftist circles because nondisabled people never include us, never think about us, never wonder what a perfect world would be like with us in it unless they're also disabled

Please, if you can, take a moment to read and share this because I feel like I'm screaming underwater.

NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) stigma is rampant right now, and seems to be getting progressively worse. Everyone is using it as a buzzword in the worst ways possible, spreading misinformation and hatred against a real disorder.

I could go on a long time about how this happened, why it's factually incorrect (and what the disorder actually IS), why it's harmful, and the changes I'd like to see. But to keep this concise, I'll simply link to a few posts under the cut for further reading.

The point of this post is a plea. Please help stop the spread of stigma. Even in mental health communities, even around others with personality disorders, in neurodivergent "safe" spaces, other communities I thought people would be supportive in (e.g. trans support groups, progressive spaces in general), it keeps coming up. So I'm willing to bet that a lot of people on this site need to see this.

Because it's so hard to exist in this world.

My disorder already makes me feel as if I'm worthless and unlovable, like there's something inherently wrong and damaged about me. And it's so much harder to fight that and heal when my daily life consists of:

Laughing and spending time with my friends, doing my utmost best to connect and stay present and focused on them, trying to let my guards down and be real and believe I'm lovable- when suddenly they throw out the word "narcissist" to describe horrible people or someone they hate, or the conversation turns to how evil "people with narcissistic personality disorder" are. (Seriously, you don't know which of your friends might have NPD and feels like shit when you say those things & now knows that you'd hate them if you knew.)

Trying to look up "mental health positivity for people with npd", "mental health positivity cluster bs", only to find a) none of that, and b) more of the same old vile shit that makes me feel terrible about myself.

Having a hard time (which is constant at this point) and trying to look up resources for myself, only to again, find the same stigma. And no resources.

Not having any clue how to help myself, because even the mental health field is spitting so much vitriol at people with DISORDERS (who they're supposed to be helping!) that there's no solid research or therapy programs for people like me.

Losing close friends when they find out, despite us having had a good relationship before, and them KNOWING me and knowing that I'm not like the trending image of pwNPD. Because now they only see me through the lens of stigma and misinformation.

Hearing the same stigma come up literally wherever I go. Clubs. Meetings. Any online space. At the bus stop. At the mall. At a restaurant. At work. Buzzword of the year that everyone loooves loudly throwing around with their friends or over the phone. Feels awesome for me, makes my day so much better/s

I could go on for a long time, but I'm scared no one will read/rb this if it gets too much longer.

So please. Stop using the word "narcissist" as a synonym for "abusive".

Stop bringing up people you hate who you believe to have NPD because of a stigmatizing article full of misinformation whenever someone with actual NPD opens their mouth. (Imagine if people did that with any other disorder! "Hey, I'm autistic." "Oh... my old roommate screamed at me whenever I made noise around him, and didn't understand my needs, which seems like sensory overload and difficulty with social cues. He was definitely autistic. But as long as you're self-aware and always restraining your innate desire to be an abusive asshole, you're okay I guess, maybe." ...See how offensive and ignorant that is?)

Stop preventing healthcare for people with a disorder just because it's trendy to use us as a scapegoat.

If you got this far, thank you for reading, and please share this if you can. Further reading is under the cut.

NPD Criteria, re-written by someone who actually has NPD

Stigma in the DSM

Common perception of the DSM criteria vs how someone may actually experience them (Keep in mind that this is the way I personally experience these symptoms, and that presentation can vary a lot between individuals)

"Idk, the stigma is right though, because I've known a lot of people with NPD who are jerks, so I'm going to continue to support the blockage of treatment for this condition."

(All of these were written by me, because I didn't want to link to other folks' posts without permission, but if you want to add your own links in reblogs or replies please feel free <3)

Thinking about the dichotomy of "I feel uncomfortable/triggered in the presence of x/y/z environments I would like to be someplace without that" that I constantly see online and when I tell my therapist I really get uncomfortable when people raise their voices around me even if they aren't actually mad and her response of "you can only control your own reactions and emotions, it's not really fair to police others on how they should exist in your presence" and honestly it sucks to hear but she's right.. it's good to have people be conscientious of what triggers you but really it's up to us to do the hard work of building that emotional resilience. The idea of people around me having to be hypervigilant of what they say and do lest I start getting dysregulated does not sound fun at all, I want people to feel comfortable being themselves around me and that means training my dumb lizard brain to chill tf out. Living in a constant state of avoidance sucks ass for everyone involved.

Recently saw an insta vid where a musician was singing lyrics that described their intrusive thoughts as a person with OCD, and in the comments every so often there would be people writing like "bro what is this 🤨🤨" and "keep this between you and your therapist dont post it on the internet" and it just further fueled my belief that OCD symptoms and intrusive thoughts need to be talked about more because a majority of the struggle with the disorder is the shame surrounding its symptoms. OCD is not able to be easily romanticized or 'quirky'fied like other disorders or neurodivergencies have been*, and as a result its symptoms are more quickly met with disgust or repulsion.

Other people in the comments were thanking OP because it captured the struggle of real intrusive thoughts instead of impulsive ones. Impulsive thoughts are more of the 'I'm gonna dye my hair randomly on a thursday night' thoughts vs the intrusive 'what if I drove my car into that family and suddenly killed us both' thoughts, the latter of which make OCD as a disorder truly debilitating. And the people that immediately assign bad morals to intrusive thoughts? They only further condemn people with OCD to never wanting to talk about the symptoms they've already been struggling with shame about.

I feel it needs to be made more blatantly explained to the public that OCD intrusive thoughts aren't desire based. They're fear and disgust based. You fear hurting anyone so badly your mind can't stop thinking about what if you hurt someone. You fear molesting anyone so you never want to even touch anyone. Your mind fixates on the 'what ifs' and distorts them into the idea that, because you think this way, you must want to act this way--when the reality is the exact opposite.

If a person with OCD ever confides to you one of their intrusive thoughts and you feel a knee-jerk reaction of disgust towards them, it needs to be reiterated that:

1. the person does not want to be thinking about this, their brain is legit hardwired to make those thoughts pop up

2. the person themselves also feels this disgust, often intensely, and they very likely resent themselves for ever thinking it

and

3. they have no desire to enact the intrusive thought, because its intrusive nature hinges on the person's fears and dislikes.

*And to clarify what I mean by romanticization and 'quirk'-ifying, I do not mean to imply that romanticizing any disorder or condition is inherently a good thing. It's only to state that conditions like anxiety and ADHD have been made such common/'trendy' topics recently that they're less taboo to speak about--leading to more people talking about their struggles with it, and helping others realize they might have it too and aren't alone. Because certain OCD traits aren't as marketable (obviously) a lot of those with it are left rather isolated.

Happy disability pride month to:

Physically disabled people

Mentally ill people

Mentally disabled people

Neurodivergent people

Psychotic people

Multiply disabled people

Visibly disabled people

Invisibly disabled people

Mobility aid users

People with chronic pain

People with chronic fatigue

People with neurodevelopmental disabilities

People with neurocognitive disabilities

People with intellectual disability

People with neurogenic disability

People with cognitive disability

People with motor disorders

People with rare disabilities

People with common disabilities

People who were born with disability

People who acquired a disability/disorder later in life

People with bodily differences

Nonverbal people

Semiverbal people

People who experience speech lose

AAC users

People with ‘gross’ symptoms

People with sensory disabilities

People who aren’t sure if they are disabled

Disabled people who don’t know they are disabled

Disabled people who want treatment

Disabled people who do not want treatment

Disabled people with disorders that ‘don’t match’ their assigned gender

Zebras

Spoonies

Cripples

Happy Disability Pride Month to all disabled people!

May your tomorrow be kinder than today.

Shout out to the ten year old who just got diagnosed. Shout out to the housebound fourteen year old. Shout out to the eighteen year old who can’t go to the university they wanted. Shout out to the twenty two year old who can’t get a job. Shout out to the twenty six year old with a caretaker. Shout out to the thirty year old who can’t buy their own house.

Shout out to young disabled people. We exist.

Medical condition: gets worse without sleep

Medical condition: makes it harder to sleep