Comment by nickysielicki | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nickysielicki | Hacker News Reader

There's a general tendency among the broader population to label anyone and everyone that has slighted them as a narcissist. /r/raisedbynarcissists has 800k+ subscribers and thousands of posts by people who believe that because their parent doesn't see things the same way that they do, that their parent is definitely a narcissist and self-centered and feels no empathy and so-on and so-forth. It's especially dumb because, well, we only get one side of the story -- from the aggrieved -- so they are free to paint the motivations of other side as inaccurately as they would like. When the behavior or motivations of the other side crosses the point of believability, you don't have to justify or explain it because we're talking about a fundamentally-broken narcissist that by definition behaves in unbelievable sociopathic ways. In fact, the more unbelievable you make their behavior, the better case you make that you're dealing with a true narcissist.

It's a mechanism to rant online about your life without the risk of someone calling you on your bullshit. I'm not saying that all of the stories on there are bullshit, I'm just saying that it's (ironically) primarily a label that comes out to describe someone when you are looking to find a narrative that protects your own ego -- because you've experienced trauma and you are looking for a mechanism to not put an ounce of blame on yourself.

Are there narcissists in society? Sure. Is a large percentage of the population narcissistic? No.

When someone "collapses" in the way that the article indicates and/or slights you, does that probably make them a narcissist? Absolutely not.

Calling someone a narcissist lets you freely claim that the other side is incapable of sincere emotion and lets you get away with believing whatever the hell you want. It's popular because sometimes you need to do that to move on. But it's not a healthy way to look at the world.

/rant

> 800k+ subscribers and thousands of posts

Are you suggesting that the 800k subscribers indicate an over- diagnosis of narcissism? Because I don’t think that follows.

I don’t know what my parents are, but they’re not narcissists. However I have a good friend whose mother is definitely a covert narcissist. When you’re trying to help friends and family you end up reading about disorders that don’t affect you directly. There is even a whole genre of help books for people who live with someone who has a problem. Addiction, depression, autism, narcissism… you name it, there’s a book for people in the blast radius.

There seems to be an increasing trend of self-diagnosis or amateur diagnosis of others. There was recently an article about a trend on TikTok where people present their "alter egos" claiming to have multiple personality disorder, which is not only incredibly rare but may not even be real (at least in the way people presented it, usually exactly as its portrayed in popular fiction).

You also see it with countless of people claiming to have ADHD, bipolar disorder or other actual diagnosable diseases which are not common in the general population.

Not to dispute your overall point, buy my understanding is ADHD is actually pretty common in the general population, as far as psychiatric problems go.

NPD is likely an illness that is underdiagnosed voluntarily. Narcissists tend to avoid therapy and therapist tend to dislike working with them.

https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.1...

Read this for the other half of the story: https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-mis...

> "the story"

But it's not a singular story, it's many thousands of independent stories. That link only provides the other side of some of them.

You described an estranged parent who professes no awareness of why they were cut off, while at the same time demonstrating they do have an idea.

The comment you reply to describes people who label others as narcissists for frivolous reasons (they disagree with people, want to dehumanize or blame, want to protect their own ego).

We haven't established that they're the same people or correspond with one another. I think both groups simultaneously exist. I know I've witnessed the second group in real life, though I wouldn't dare claim it's everybody who says they've been abused by a narcissist.

> though I wouldn't dare claim it's everybody who says they've been abused by a narcissist.

To be very clear, neither would I.

> Read this for the other half of the story: https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-mis...

There's zero indication that the GP as approaching this from the perspective of an aggrieved narcissistic parent. There are certainly some people who were actually "raised by narcissists," but the point is that it seems like a lot of people weren't use that concept as cover for validation and to air unrealistic complaints on social media.

The post you're talking about very specifically mentions parent-child narcissistic relationships and how we don't get the other side of the story. The post said that this was "especially dumb."

I love helping dumb people! So I posted that link, which explores this very issue.

I was calling the practice of one-sided storytelling dumb. You're just calling me dumb.

I implied that you were dumb. You posted a self-victimizing rant about people posting self-victimizing rants.

It is definitely true that there are narcissists out there who call others narcissists.

A famous one in our sphere is the YouTuber "TechLead", who referred to his wife as a narcissist while unwittingly revealing his own clear cut narcissism by describing many of his behaviours in that relationship (like having her have a GPS tracker on her phone, demanding she did certain things for him because he said she should, like investing his money when she had no interest in investment, and making out he did nothing but right in the relationship). Turns out his braggadocios personality in his videos wasn't much of an act -- he was merely exaggerating his natural thinking, which is why his "character" came so easy for him.

In my own case, my mother was especially fond of hissing that everyone else was "selfish", while being herself a profoundly selfish and self-centered human being in every interaction she had with anyone (she was severely damaged due to a nasty childhood).

This is because narcissists project, transferring all responsibility onto others, in order to keep the pain of feeling shame away from their fragile senses of self. This includes projecting the mental illness itself, which is where their tendency to gaslight comes from.

But I think a narcissist using the very specific word "narcissist" to describe others is quite rare, because it's a bit too close to home. It has a very specific definition and presentation, and a narcissist is scared of anything that could affect their sense of self -- and an undiagnosed mental disorder is a particularly severe example of that, so it's dangerous for them.

I'd say for the most part that subreddit is a force for good. Even if there's people in there who themselves refuse to accept responsibility, its reach gives those who are still in the dark a chance to discover the truth as to where they've come from.

You are right, a lot of people who think everyone around them are horrible narcissists are actually likely to be narcissistic themselves. They project their inability to hold other viewpoints or be vulnerable on others.

To anyone who has had prolonged contact with this style of personality, then you’re also well aware that the first thing they’ll do is say someone else is the problem. Think about Trump’s repeated bald-faced accusations that his opponents are doing what he is accused of.

If you can’t see things from someone else’s perspective, then it seems to you like other people can’t see things from your perspective. If you are completely absorbed with worrying about yourself, then people who aren’t constantly worrying about you seem self-centered (i.e., centered on “not you”!)

A good way to tell the difference is to see how much detail a person goes into when describing a conflict with another. If they describe the conflict from both sides and in detail, then things are probably ok. If they describe conflict in very vague terms and vilify their opponent, then run for the hills.

800k+ people is in line with expectations from the population and incidence rates of narcissism.

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