Narcissism

[Martin Hash]

“Narcissism” is one of those words thrown around to insult high self-esteem people, and there’s even a psychiatric definition that’s so vague that it could be interpreted to classify anyone into Narcissistic Personality Disorder, especially if only 5 of the 9 criteria have to be met:
• Grandiose self-importance.
• Fantasies of infinite success, control, brilliance, beauty, or idyllic love.
• Thoughts of being extraordinary and exceptional.
• A desire for admiration.
Those are symptoms of euphoria which everybody experiences occasionally, or should. Criteria as general as that is like saying a man lusting after a woman he just met is a pervert.

People who actually have lived around a narcissist are the best diagnosticians, and their list of symptoms is much more specific:
• Feel superior & entitled
• Exaggerated need for attention & validation
• Perfectionism
• Great need for control
• Lack of responsibility: blaming & deflecting
• Lack of boundaries: cajoling, demanding, rejecting & pouting to get what they want
• Emotional reasoning that places their desires first
• Splitting: take credit for the good and blame the bad on others

The most concerning thing about true narcissists is that they are incapable of changing.

[DBTrek]

• Fantasies of infinite success, control, brilliance, beauty, or idyllic love.

Makes you wonder what the psychiatrists compiling this list fantasize about. Failure, helplessness, idiocy, ugliness and divorce? What?

• Thoughts of being extraordinary and exceptional.

Yeah, that one pisses a lot of mediocre (and below) people off.

• A desire for admiration.

... because healthy people crave being despised.

• Perfectionism

Are we really collectively suffering from the mass ill-effects of too many perfectionists these days?

• Emotional reasoning that places their desires first

Uhhhhhhh ... emotions are fairly personal, aren't they? Do healthy people really use the emotions of others (which they can't possibly know) when reasoning?

I don't want to say that list sounds like 50% voodoo bullshit or anything. . . but . . . as I emotionally reason it ... that sounds like bullshit.