Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a lifelong disability and one of the most hated disabilities there is. Subjected to the most brutal stereotyping, which claims that narcissists are inherently evil or abusive. The mechanism of NPD is that without unconditional love from one’s parents, one cannot develop unconditional self-love, which is part of a healthy ego. Narcissists were abused by our parents, and as a result have false, fragile, and unstable egos. The inability to withstand normal ego damage such as constructive criticism or friendly banter, is socially isolating and transforms a narcissist’s perception of social life. Worse, hateful stereotypes lead to abuse of narcissists by the public in the form of harassment, social isolation, intimate partner abuse, villification, and ego attacks intentionally designed to take advantage of a narcissist’s disability.
The term “narcissism” entered the public vernacular with Christopher Lasch’s 1979 book The Culture Of Narcissism, which claims that clinically diagnosable narcissism (NPD) is becoming more common and more acceptable in american culture. This kickstarted a wave of self-help books which sold the idea that all your struggles in life are caused by evil disabled people trying to abuse you. Today, websites like Quora continue to sell this narrative, and it is used by politicians to attack their opponents. Throughout all of this nearly 50 year process, anti-NPD propaganda has seeped into the public, leading to common use of the word, including by people unaware that the villification they hear is of disabled people. Many attack “narcissists” without realising the narcissists they’ve been warned about by these books or other zealots are mentally disordered. Others gleefully state that they are fully aware of the connection, and that they do intend to attack the mentally disordered as they believe NPD causes evil.
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I think the caveat “Child abuse causes NPD if genetic and neurological factors align” to be obvious and irrelevant. Of course child abuse results in different presentations depending on the individual child, that’s why there are 10 personality disorders instead of 1. But I don’t think the fact that I happened to have the genetics that make me respond to abuse with grandiosity instead of with antisocial behaviour is interesting or important. The mechanism I have described holds true for people of my genetic and neurological mechanisms, and it is easy enough to understand without overcomplicating it.
The only reason I can see that someone would pay attention to the genetic component of NPD in a sociological or political discussion is if they wanted to make the argument that narcissism is racial.