17 Insights About a Narcissist (Part 1 of 3)

This world is filled with a variety of personality types. While no single personality is easy to be around all of the time, one particular personality type can be particularly difficult: the narcissist. A narcissist is defined as a person who has an excessive interest in or admiration of themselves. While this seems like it would be a fairly easy personality to spot, it can be surprisingly tricky.

6 Tips for Recognizing a Narcissist

1) They make a likeable first impression and can actually be quite charming, funny and personable.

2) They can be loud and proud or quiet and shy.

3) They can often be found in leadership roles and high positions in business or hold power in high places.

4) While engaging initially, they always manage to turn the conversation around to talk about themselves, their accomplishments and achievements and typically don’t ask about you and your life or interests or accomplishments.

5) They like to name-drop and talk about important people that they know. They will exaggerate that who they know is “world renowned”, or the “best in the field”, or graduated from the top schools.

6) Whether stories they tell are ones of victory or failure, there’s an air of entitlement in the victory story and of victimization blame in the failure story. This is key to seeing through the narcissist facade, as they never take any responsibility for anything negative.

Interacting with a narcissist on a regular basis can become exhausting very quickly. In order for relationships to be healthy and thrive, it is imperative to have a balance of each person taking care of their own needs and genuinely caring about the needs of others. Narcissistic personalities greatly upset this balance and challenge the healthy relationship paradigm. Be sure to check back for Part 2 of this series!

Adapted from the article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/08/14/signs-of-narcissism_n_4696772.html