Are you a narcissist? 8 common traits of narcissism

Every time I create a video or talk about

narcissism

, I always have people in the comments asking wait, maybe I'm a

narcissist

today we're going to delve into if you are a

narcissist

, what the

traits

are, and how you can tell if this is a thing. are struggling if you're new here and would like to subscribe, we'd love to have you. I'm Katie Morton, I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. I talk about everything related to mental health, whether it's

narcissism

. disorders depression anxiety and everything else. Hopefully, you'll learn something new and have some useful tips that you can apply to your life today.

When it comes to narcissism, it is important to know that someone who is a narcissist has what is called narcissistic personality disorder and I do. A previous video that I will link below will walk you through all of the diagnostic criteria because it is important to know that people can have narcissistic

traits

without having full-blown narcissistic personality disorder, in the same way that I can have some symptoms of anxiety. Let's say that without having a diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder, we can have some of the traits but not have the full-blown disorder, so today I will explain some of the most

common

traits of a narcissist so you can see if there are any.

This aligns with what you are going through or maybe someone in your life is going through and if you think any of these traits apply to you it is very important to consult a professional to get a proper diagnosis, do not think of this video as a way to diagnose or not diagnose yourself it is very important that you consult a professional to receive the appropriate treatment the first trait of someone who is a narcissist is superiority and this means that he thinks he does things better, that he is better than everyone else. around him and if you do something that they don't approve of or point out something in his life, let's say you walk into his house and say, oh, I think it could be a blue wall instead, they'll burn it down, they can uh, they want them to They may talk badly about you, they may tell other people how bad you are, they may unleash their anger on you, anything to make you disappear or appear discredited, make you look less serious so they can continue to maintain this facade of superiority.

The next trait is entitlement, which I think stems nicely from superiority, but people with narcissistic tendencies will feel entitled to your respect, whether they have earned it or not, they will also feel entitled to an apology because you are completely mistaken. they are not wrong at all they feel entitled to maybe a raise or a better position or their seat on a plane someone with narcissistic tendencies will feel this sense of entitlement throughout their life the third most

common

trait is the need for attention I'm going to do reference to my notes because I don't want to forget any of these weddings, other people's birthdays, any great success for the people who are in the narcissist's life will be incredibly difficult for them and they will do everything they can to change it. paying attention to them because they may have a hard time not being the center of attention of a day or an event, when someone who is a narcissist doesn't get the center of attention, they may start a fight, they may talk about the person who let's say it's their birthday. and they will toast, they will stand up at the same time and try to talk over them to regain attention, they might put someone down, they might start a fight with other people or cause some other kind of Drama anything to change the focus towards them and away from the person who is supposed to be the center of attention.

The next trait that a narcissist may have is the need for control and the reason for this intense need is because they want to maintain this facade. right to be perfect and superior and if they don't have full control they can't do it, so they will use many different forms of manipulation, one of them is gaslighting, right, you don't remember correctly, that's not what happened or we love to bomb when we They shower you with attention and affection, they can make it confusing, we may think you know it, but they are a great person and they do these things as a way to get us to do what they want and if that's not the case Then they bring up what many people online called the flying monkeys, who are essentially people who participate in their smear campaigns.

These will be what I would call casual people in their lives who have not yet realized who they are, but you will listen to their side, agree with them, and then engage in shaming and blaming other people for the problem and why the problem. People do this because people with narcissistic tendencies are really fragile, right, it's often born from trauma and that's why we put up this false facade. to protect that soft inside and so if things don't go our way it can feel out of control and that can be scary, it could reveal that soft inside so we will manipulate and try to control to maintain that facade to that we feel safe and good, another important trait is the complete lack of boundaries again because a narcissist will need a lot of control and wants to have everything perfect, they will have a hard time seeing where we end and they start and this can happen a lot when our parents are narcissistic and we we are their children, they may feel that we are just an extension of them, we are not independent, nothing we do is representative or shows bad o Well, they are right and they will want to intervene and pay attention to them when we are successful and they will want to disown us, call us disrespectful and all kinds of names when we do something they don't want and So this lack of boundaries makes it really difficult to be in a relationship with a narcissist because, again, there's no independence there and if you try to maintain the boundaries or put them in place, usually He will attack, throw a tantrum, or at least back away. against them and act like you never had that conversation with them in the first place, another key trait is that they never take responsibility.

Someone who is a narcissist is incapable of offering a true apology if something doesn't go as planned, they never will. realize that they are always looking outside of themselves for some kind of scapegoats or other ways in which they can blame, shame, and displace any part of the responsibility that they really have because if they had to admit that they did something wrong, that whole façade of that I have been talking about will fall apart the next trait is a lack of empathy and this is incredibly difficult for people to understand because it is difficult for those of us with empathy to imagine someone without it empathy is the ability to feel for someone otherwise , it's like, if you see someone trip and hurt themselves or drop their stuff on the sidewalk next to you, someone who has empathy would say, "Oh my God, I'm so sorry, let me help you and they would help you because they can imagine what that would feel like." like watching a TV show or news segments, especially in the last couple of years, the news has been incredibly difficult.

You can watch the news and cry because you can feel for those people like someone with narcissistic tendencies or someone with a narcissistic personality disorder. it doesn't. They don't feel like they're actually incapable of empathy or putting themselves in someone else's shoes and instead what they do is they tend to assume or expect us to think and feel like them and when we don't they can get really nervous. . getting angry and lashing out and the final trait I'm going to talk about today but I'm sure there are many more feel free to leave them in the comments but this trait is splitting now that I've talked about splitting in relation to bpd or The Split Borderline personality disorder is when we believe that people are all good or all bad, it is a way of thinking very similar to all or nothing in black and white, but this also happens in NPD or people with narcissistic traits, we can think that If someone does something that is just a slight, say someone pointed out something we didn't do right and we are the ones with narcissistic tendencies, we may automatically assume that person is the worst, doesn't belong in our life, isn't good enough, I should never do it. have been around us and we can shame and blame them or we can make other people in our life remember those flying monkeys, we can shame and blame them to prove that we are better and that everyone is bad or we can have people that we often put on pedestals , the newer people in a narcissistic life will be like these amazing people, they will think everything is great, everything they do is amazing because, again, there are no limits, they are so closely connected to us that if we think that person is successful, maybe they're kind of a celebrity in some way or very important in their work, uh, maybe the structure of their work or whatever we can look at in that connection and think, well, that's just my fault, right? connected to that person so we can classify them as completely good or completely bad if you are still wondering if I am a narcissist or is that person in my life a narcissist, here are some quick questions to help you, maybe you will answer that the number one idea is to be one . a narcissist makes you feel bad for those around you think about it yes or no number two you worry about how others feel would it bother you if you knew you were bothering someone number three you apologize quickly when you hurt someone else Feeling number four, too much attention do you get Does it make you nervous or anxious?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, chances are you are not a narcissist. I mean, think about what we just talked about. That means you show empathy, apologize quickly, and don't. You're not likely to like the attention, but here are a few more questions to consider if you're still having a tough time. Number one. Do you see your friends or children as extensions of you? Do they represent you and live your life? Number two. you often think that other people are not good enough to associate with you number three, you have a hard time apologizing or you often think that any disagreement is someone else's fault and number four, you have a hard time seeing things from another person's perspective or you find it hard to imagine how anyone else might feel as a result of what just happened now if you answered yes to any of these questions you may have some narcissistic tendencies again it is very important that we see a professional and be properly evaluated so that we can I can make sure that that's what's going on, but those are some things that align with some of those traits in general if you're watching this video and you're really worried about whether you're a narcissist or not, you probably are.

No, I think there's an incredible overlap with a lot of people who have a lot of empathy for others and this worry about being narcissistic and I think it's just because we feel a lot and hear things that might resonate with who we are. maybe that's me omg but you have to remember a narcissist can't put themselves in someone else's shoes, they don't have empathy, they don't care how other people feel, they honestly wouldn't care about being a narcissist. If you told them yes, they'd probably blame you for it and tell you that you're remembering things differently, so just consider some of those traits and symptoms, maybe go back and look at them again because that's probably not the case, but I hope this was helpful and allayed any fears or concerns you had about this.

Thank you very much for watching and we'll see you next time.