narcissistic personality disorder

Ok, so that last entry was a temporary down.

Loz is back in my world again, and so is the housemate. It frustrates me sometimes, how emotionally reliant I am on people, more than I think. I am. No, reliance is okay. Dependence is another.

StepSister and I have met up a few more times and sorted some things out. I'm also helping her with ways to deal with her grandmother.

Started reading more about developmental psychology and personality disorders, and realised that StepGrandmother and my Father both have strong Narcisstic tendencies.

There are nine diagnostic traits of people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (or NPD):

1. An exagerrated sense of self-importance. - All conversation revolves around her. Any attention paid to others is met with passive-aggresive language until the attention is diverted back to her. Mostly ignores contributions from the people she is talking at.

   The world itself also revolves around her which she manipulates very well using her age, gender, race and standing. Her children and grandchildren are well-trained co-narcissists. Those who were strong enough to recognise the unhealthy behavious have fled to all four corners of the world to avoid her shit. Failing that, they have moved at leat 30 min away, leaving my poor stepsister alone. Always finding excuses to not help.

2. Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love - she has very black-and-white ideas of right and wrong, good and bad. Is also very disparaging of anything that doesn't conform to her ideals and has at least tried to emotionally bash her children and grandchildren into submission.
3. Believe they are "special" and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)- she boasts about being among a rare select few without any sense of irony. Sure she's special, we're all bloody different in our own unique ways. Difference is, she demands respect and doesn't give it. She is extremely concerned about class status and is disparaging of people she considers as 'lower class'
4. Require excessive admiration - Needs to be told all the good stuff before she reponds to you as a human being
5. Have a sense of entitlement - as mentioned, she demands respect and attention while not giving back. She believes that as Christian, she's a precious child of God and deserves the world. And as Chinese, she's superior to all other races.
6. Selfishly take advantage of others to achieve their own ends - doesn't do this with direct stupidity, but cleverly manipulates and pushes buttons till it works her way
7. Lack empathy - Talk about a lack of empathy! A good friend of mind died in a car crash a few years ago. After receiving the news, I walked into the living room where Stepgran was watching television. Visibly upset, I relayed the info and all she did was glance briefly at me and grunt.
8. Are often envious of others or believe that others are envious of them - always trying to keep up with Joneses, very concerned about external opinion. Is convinced that her uni-grad children are the gems of the world and makes a point of rattling off every qualification and success in every conversation.
9. Show arrogant, haughty, patronizing, or contemptuous behaviors or attitudes. - Always always always. Talking to her is a pain. No one is better than her.

Shamelessly ripped off this website.

Both stepgrandmother and my father qualify to varying degrees for most of the traits. In stepgran's case, a lot of them are sneakily masked by false self-deprecation, where we are obliged to protest against otherwise she gets bad that our silence is affirmation of what she has said. Sneaky social shit.

As for my dad well.... I don't know if he's toned down. Do NPD people suffer a lapse as they get older? Then again, I"ve only seen him a handful of times in the past 8 years.

Ok tired now.

2006-12-21 - 1:18 p.m.

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