Bipolar 2 From Inside and Out

Posts tagged ‘Narcissistic Personality Disorder’

The Narcissism Trend

Gaslighting was the most recent trend in pop psych. Now it’s narcissism. I even wrote a post called “Is It Narcissism or Gaslighting?” Just recently, I’ve seen posts titled “Why Are Narcissists So Cold Hearted?” “5 Clear Signs You’ve Beaten Your Narcissist,” “Narcissists Hate These 5 Weird Tricks,” “The Narcissist’s Game of Twisted Loyalties,” and “How Narcissists Disconnect from Reality and Logic.”

So, why are gaslighting and narcissism so “popular,” at least for writers and those who have a personal experience they attribute to people with those conditions?

First, let’s acknowledge that the two conditions have certain similarities. Narcissists and gaslighters both tend to have large egos and look down on their victims. Both can be users and abusers. Both use techniques that create learned helplessness, the state in which the victim doesn’t know how to appease their partner. They both rely on intermittent reinforcement, where they go back and forth between solicitous love and breaking down their victim.

Many of the techniques they use are the same. They will isolate their intended victim from friends and family. The abuser will limit their ability to act independently by limiting their finances and outside activities such as work. They will trap their victims in a net that impairs their ability to envision a means of escape.

The difference comes with the ultimate result. The person who is abused by a narcissist gets used to the abuse. They doubt their ability to appease the narcissist—because there is no way to do it. The narcissist escalates the abuse, often from psychological and verbal abuse to physical abuse. The victim is often unable to leave because of fear of further abuse, whether to themselves, their children, or even their pets. They are chained to their abuser by believing that the abuse is evidence of love and that it’s their own fault.

The gaslighter’s specialty is making the victim doubt their own sanity. They will deny things that actually happened. They will say that their victim isn’t remembering things correctly. They will say the gaslit person is upset over nothing. They may even be blatant: “You’re crazy. You need to have your head examined.” One gaslighter I knew agreed to go to couples therapy, then made a big show of presenting his partner as the “sick” one and casting himself as a sympathetic helper.

Another difference is that narcissism is an actual psychiatric diagnosis (Narcissistic Personality Disorder), while gaslighting isn’t. Some therapists work with narcissists and their victims though, as with any personality disorder, improvement is not very likely. Gaslighting is not a “diagnosis” but rather a pattern of behavior. The victim recognizes and diagnoses themself: “I have been gaslit.”

That may be one thing that made the term “gaslighting” so popular. It didn’t require seeing a therapist to identify it, though, of course, you could well need a therapist to untangle the aftereffects.

Narcissists, however, are often “diagnosed” by the layperson. They identify someone who has hurt them in whatever way as a narcissist. Most of them don’t have access to the DSM to compare an abuser’s behavior to the actual criteria for diagnosis. Narcissism is classed in a category of personality disorders that feature “dramatic, emotional, or erratic features.” The Manual lists nine criteria for a diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder: grandiosity, fantasies, specialness, need for admiration, entitlement, exploitation, lack of empathy, envy, and arrogance, which are relatively stable over time and pervasive. The layperson may see only entitlement, exploitation, and lack of empathy, while not realizing that a narcissist’s traits also include fantasies and envy.

What the layperson identifies as a narcissist is sometimes just a garden-variety abuser or jerk who doesn’t have a personality disorder. Not all abusers are narcissists, and not all narcissists are abusers. Some narcissists do very well in life, becoming successful business leaders and prominent public figures. Their narcissistic tendencies are interpreted as positive attributes like drive or aspiration rather than entitlement or grandiosity.

So, back to the original question: Why is “narcissist” the go-to, trendy label for troublesome partners or bosses? It is possible they truly are narcissists and would be diagnosed as such by a psychiatrist. But it’s more likely that the supposed narcissist merely has the perception that they are better than their partners, whom they see as deserving bad treatment. It’s a common enough problem in society. But attributing a psychiatric diagnosis to them elevates them to a degree that ignores the harm an ordinary person with bad qualities can do.

It’s more dramatic to think that you’re the victim of a person who has NPD than to realize that you are being abused by a regular person who just doesn’t care about you and your feelings.

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Is It Narcissism or Gaslighting?

We know that narcissism and gaslighting both lend themselves to abusive treatment, but they are actually two different things. They’re both extremely destructive. They both have serious negative effects on the people around them. And people who are victims of narcissistic abuse or gaslighting face similar problems in determining what to do about it. Let’s take a deeper dive.

Narcissism is a psychiatric condition—a personality disorder—that’s included in the DSM and has been recognized for years. The DSM says that NPD involves “a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), a constant need for admiration, and a lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts.” Diagnostic criteria include a need for excessive admiration, a sense of entitlement, interpersonally exploitive behavior, a lack of empathy, a belief that others are envious of them, and arrogant and haughty behaviors or attitudes. Narcissism is a personality trait, while clinically, Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a psychiatric condition.

(I will not now be discussing politics. Diagnosis-at-a-distance is not valid or desirable. Diagnosis can only be made by a mental health professional who has actually spoken to the person in question.)

Gaslighting, on the other hand, is a form of psychological manipulation that narcissistic abusers sometimes use to control another person by making them doubt their own reality and sanity. But people other than narcissists use gaslighting as well. They could simply have narcissistic tendencies but not be diagnosable or diagnosed with NPD.

In other words, narcissism focuses on a sense of grandiosity and superiority, while gaslighting focuses on the way one person manipulates another in an abusive manner.

Gaslighting gets its name from a movie that showed a husband who tried to convince his wife that she was insane, for personal gain. The term has entered the non-psychiatric discourse and is used very loosely to mean any kind of abusive tactics rather than the specific one of causing another person to doubt their own reality.

Gaslighting can be one tactic that people with NPD use when they do abuse others, but there are a number of other toxic behaviors they demonstrate as well. Someone engaging in narcissistic abuse can use a variety of techniques to emotionally manipulate another person. They may belittle and demean their victim, isolate them from friends and family, and use intermittent reinforcement (in which they sometimes praise and show love for the victim, then take any opportunity to insult and blame them).

A gaslighter denies the victim’s perception of reality. They may explain their abusive behavior as “just a joke.” They may deny that their victim’s memory of an incident is true. They create a sense of cognitive dissonance in which the victim’s lived experience is at odds with what the abuser says really happened. There is obviously a great deal of overlap between gaslighting and narcissistic abuse.

The effects of narcissistic abuse or gaslighting can be severe. Victims can feel low self-esteem, internalize the abuse and believe they are to blame for it or brought it on themselves, feel alienation from friends and family, have difficulty trusting others, be unable to make decisions, and not feel able to maintain a sense of self. They frequently stay with the abuser, unable to recognize what is happening. They may feel they can change the abuser. They can’t.

The best way to counteract the harmful effects of narcissistic abuse or gaslighting is to get away from it. Admittedly, this is difficult to do. The victim may have been conditioned to believe that the abuser loves them and not want to give up on the relationship. Even if the victim does leave, it may take a long time and most likely therapy for them to realize what actually happened and define it as abuse.

Setting boundaries can help, though an abuser is not likely to respect them. Seeking support from friends, family, a psychologist, or group therapy may well be necessary. Couples counseling is not likely to help. The abuser may not admit that they need help. Education can be empowering. Once you learn about the dynamics and techniques of abuse or gaslighting, you’re less likely to be susceptible to them.

But the best thing to do is not to get involved with a narcissist or a gaslighter in the first place. It’s a situation that’s a lot easier to get into than to get out of. Watch for red flags, then keep your distance. They may seem attractive at first, but they’re trouble waiting to happen.

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