What to do when someone (who isn’t qualified) tells your friends or lovers that you have a mental disorder (usually narcissistic PD)?

As I start writing this, I have very little idea what to say except that people may say this about you. Narcissistic Personality Disorder is something that a lot of people are worried about, and, Precious Soulmate and True Emotion Mirror relationships resemble it A LOT on the surface. A LOT. Why? Because NPD’s mimic these relationships, some of them quite effectively. Love bombing, for instance, crazy strong emotions, even supernatural elements, are all True Emotion Mirror and Precious Soulmate -feelings, but ALSO present in relationships with an NPD.

What does a narcissist do before they’re “caught”?

• There are OTHER signs in addition to love-bombing and fantastic coincidences to look for:
  • They virtue signal. Their morals are superior.
  • They exaggerate their accomplishments. They act like they’re a CEO at a Fortune 500 company but work at a grocery store. Their self-expression DOES NOT MATCH reality. Note that a non-narcissist can be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company and act like they worked at a grocery store.
  • They can make self-contradicting statements: “I used to sleep with men for money back in Sydney, but I wasn’t a prostitute.”
  • Narcissists demonstrate their superiority in any way they can. A normal person can be impressive, without actually constantly pointing it out in somewhat “weird” ways. The way a NPD points out their superiority feels “woven into the conversation” without the note needing to be there.
  • They don’t like losing competitions, even playful ones. Neither debates nor board games.
  • They can reject gifts with a very dismissive manner.
  • They praise you for giving them the correct gifts.
  • They praise you for desirable behavior… Loudly. Often as if talking to a dog: “Oh, good boy, what a handsome man you are!” “What a gorgeous woman  you are!” With that hyper excited tone one uses to praise a dog.
  • They buy gifts that are “off brand” for you, trying to guide your style decisions to their own liking. (Difficult to tell if you happen to have the same sense of style.)
  • They can sound very salty at people whom they know. Not reflective. A normal person can talk about a hurtful past with someone whom they trust without a reason, but a narcissist will talk about hurtful pasts in a tone that it is always the inferior person, the insignificant other person, whom they no longer love. And yes. Normal people can have fallouts too, but their expression of them is not an instant “I hate Hollywood”. NPD’s are nurturing an embarrassment of a failure to do something, such as impress Hollywood people, so now all Hollywood is shit. Narcissists do not sound fair in their description of the event, either, and won’t ever try to see the other perspective in the situation.
• If there’s another person in your life, a narcissist should react to it in one way or another. They’ll try to drive a wedge between their lover and the threatening third party, one way or another. Their go-to moves are trying to make the other party act jealous or irrational so that the bond between the threatening other party and their lover will break.

What is used against a person who isn’t a narcissist?

• Your genuine anger, justified or unjustified, your anger is often seen as a sign of a “bad person.”
• Having emotional reactions of any kind, being sad, looking for sympathy in any way, can be seen as narcissistic manipulation.
• Falling in love at first sight can be branded narcissistic.
• Anything enviable can be labelled as a narcissistic attempt to “act superior,” including, but not limited to, the way a person looks.
• NPDs come in both genders, in all gender identities, all religions, all social classes, all shapes, and sizes, btw. Beautiful women and handsome or successful “powerful” men are most likely to be branded NPDs even when they’re not. There is no “look” or “identity” that is not possibly used as a narcissistic cover-up.
• NPDs like to blend in, but what they blend into is another matter. Don’t mistake an ability to blend in as a sign that a person is not narcissistic, or the courage to stand out as a sign of histrionic personality disorder, mind you.
• Motivations to brand a person narcissistic when they’re not one include: genuine worry, envy, jealousy, and a sense of inferiority toward a person.
• Gray area: When a person responds to narcissistic manipulation with narcissistic manipulation as a form of payback and strategy (knowing that narcissists do not speak normal person.) Is it narcissistic in itself? I don’t think so, but you decide.

When you are being talked about behind your back (and you don’t even know)

You’re an impressive person, with a lot to brag about, but you’re not a narcissist. You may be even humble and modest, but you’ve done so much that everything that comes out of your mouth sounds like bragging. You’ve met your True Emotion Mirror, you fall in love at first sight, you love-bomb each other like two mad people. Then, your new partner excitedly tells their friends they’ve met this larger-than-life person, who then, quite justifiably, expresses concern that this person, you, might be a narcissist.

How are you supposed to defend yourself when the love of your life pulls away, worried that you’re just lying to them and trying to bamboozle them into a relationship with you to manipulate and use you as they like? Add to that, the person in your lover’s ear might just as well be the narcissist in this equation for all you know.

You’re out of the loop of your own relationship.

The worst part of being labelled a narcissist behind your back is that it happens behind your back. How do you defend yourself against talk you don’t even know for sure is going on… You felt the air shift, like a ton of emotion had been removed, but you don’t know why. Nothing weird happened between you two, the last time you spoke, all was golden. They come back, and something has changed.

You ask about it, and they deny anything being wrong. If you choose to dig, you add to their concerns by “being paranoid.” You express your discomfort with your lover talking to this person, and you’re “possessive and jealous” and “want to control your reputation.”

My usual move in this situation is to just leave it.

I am not saying this is the best way to deal with it. I usually just walk away when I feel narcissistic manipulation is ruining a relationship of mine. How I feel is that “OK, if you just decide to believe ill talk of me without even asking me about it, the price of it is to lose me.”

That is certainly one way to deal with it, but if you are impressive, you’ll be walking away a lot.

Maybe another idea is to confront them; if you’re already ready to walk, you might take a few risks in this situation.

What would a narcissist do this situation?

A narcissist would anger, and reclaim their position shouting profanities and declaring their right to your ass. Some people call this “caring”. I call it narcissistic rage. I don’t see how a normal person could declare ownership over someone they’ve potentially only recently met and act like they just broke out of jail. A normal person would also take into account things like maybe something is going on in their life that they don’t want to share with a practical stranger. Maybe their mom is dying and they need some time, who the heck knows? A normal person cannot launch into a self-indulgent rage without knowing what is the real reason for the behavior of a person they don’t know that well yet.

But the crazy thing is, “concerns” about your mental health can be spread to people who know you really well, too. People who know you better than to believe it. And THAT is very offensive, to me, irreparable.

Become famous.

Here’s my solution: Become famous. Stop acting modest. Start expressing your thinking, your talent, your skillset, and your personality under a spotlight. Start a YouTube Channel, force people to see you for who you are, and wait for the people who can handle your awesomeness to come running. Become famous for who you are, and then show people how you can live up to your own public image when they meet you in person.

And don’t close the door on people whom you love. But know to keep the wrong ones out, no matter how well you know them.

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