To be diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, the person must display at least 5 of the following 9 criteria, which includes: a grandiose sense of self, pre-occupation with fantasies of unlimited success and power, a belief they are special and unique and can only be associated with other special or high status people, require excessive admiration, have a sense of entitlement, exploits others, lacks empathy, are envious of others or believes others are envious of them, and are arrogant. The person can have any 5, or more, of those criteria. The combination of criteria the person possesses does have an impact on how they appear to those around them. Regardless of which criteria ultimately leads to the diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, you can easily see that each of the criteria explain why the narcissist presents as all-knowing and superior. They firmly hold on to these beliefs and it is a part of their personality. This means it is unchanged across settings. But that is the diagnostic criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder and how professionals define the narcissist. Do narcissists really believe those things? How does a narcissist see themselves?
According to the DSM-5, which is the diagnostic manual for mental health professionals, Narcissistic Personality Disorder is considered a Personality Disorder, which is a specific category of disorders in the DSM. A personality disorder is a mental health condition where the person’s way of thinking, feeling, and interacting with their world is a part of who they are. This means that their way of experiencing and acting in situations is pervasive across a variety of situations. The condition is lifelong and to be diagnosed with a personality disorder, the symptoms must have been present since adolescence or adulthood. Someone doesn’t ‘grow out’ of a personality disorder because it is a part of who they are. They may learn how to better manage the symptoms, but they will always have the traits of the personality disorder.
So, whether the narcissist does or doesn’t believe the traits which have led to their diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, doesn’t matter. They are a narcissist and that is how they interact with their world. They have no other choice because this is the personality they were given.
What happens, however, is they are aware that reality doesn’t support their grandiose views of the world and their inflated self-worth. They can see there is a mismatch between their beliefs and how others act around them. But due to their personality disorder, they can’t consider themselves as wrong and this is where they blame others. They are acutely aware that others don’t live in their altered reality, so they try their hardest to bring people into the world they have created for themselves.
The narcissist lives in a fantasy world which is maintained by distorted beliefs and manipulation of others. They carefully craft a stage play of their life and everyone becomes an unknowing actor; enacting their idea of what the world should look like. The narcissist is self-centered and reality revolves around them in order to maintain some sense of stability in their lives. They lack object constancy, and this means they cannot effectively respond to any changes that happen around them. They have a tight hold on everything and everyone because they can’t manage any obstacles which might present themselves. And an obstacle can be as small as someone saying something they don’t like. This can trigger shame and then a narcissistic injury, which can lead to narcissistic collapse.
At their core, the narcissist is insecure, with a fragile ego that can be punctured and permanently scarred at any moment. They use their narcissist supply reserves to heal any punctures to their fragile ego, but that is only effective if they have supply in the reserves. And then, they must refill their supply tank once they lose supply. This is exhausting to the narcissist and is also a constant reminder to them that others don’t truly understand who they are.
The narcissist wants you to believe they see themselves as better than others and someone people want to be like. But that is an act. The narcissist is oftentimes delusional in their thinking, and they are unwavering in their views, demonstrating dead fast resistance to change. But that resistance isn’t because they truly believe they are better than everyone else. Rather, it is because to not believe it would lead to a collapse of who they are and then they are left with nothing.