Letters to the Editor
-
Link and More: NPD
http://samvak.tripod.com/npdglance.html
Give this page a shot and then click on all the links offered by this page. It isn't difficult to research NPD; you just have to be motivated to do so. I think wiki answers and yahoo answers will also come up when you google questions about narcissists.
And for those offering the favored colloquial term for male NPDs - asshole - yes, they are but much much more.
However, when meeting for the first time the narcissist who nearly ruined my life, after 20 minutes I said to myself "What an asshole."
He was that and much more, I was sad to discover later.
Never underestimate a narcissist, btw. They have no empathy for others; we are here to be in service to them. When we aren't, they can be ruthless in how they deal with us. For me, they are one short of sociopathy and just as dangerous to our well-being.
In therapy situations, much like sociopaths, they will glean what they can from the therapist and then become what they think the therapist wants them to be and wants them to say. They can be charming to the extreme (mine was not only charming, but devastatingly handsome) and will have built up a fantasy personality.
As time progresses, as people slowly recognize who they are dealing with, the narcissist discards these people and picks up new ones who fall for the charm/fantasy all over again, and so on and so forth. They can easily maintain superficial and/or business relationships based on the fantasy person they have created; they have more difficulty maintaining long term, intimate relationships.
Indeed, even their so-called intimate relationships are not intimate at all - all parties in the household must provide the narcissist with supply. It's all about them; never about anyone else.
Narcissists at no time think they are at fault or have faults; you will notice when dealing with a narcissist that they always have excuses, and it's always someone else's fault. But make no mistake: They will crawl over your dead body to get what they want, whether it is your friends, your groups, your job, your relatives, or your limelight for the moment.
And if you cross them or if they think you have crossed them, they will attempt to destroy you until you are a smudge on the landscape.
In doing research on NPD, the advice I have repeatedly come across is once you recognize a narcissist, run as quickly as you can in the other direction.
Sorry, there is no good news when dealing with the narcissist.