What is a Narcissist?

You've heard the terms "selfish," "self-centered," and "self-absorbed." These are part of the everyday vernacular. Anyone can exhibit these traits at any given time without them defining their existance. Sometimes I act selfishly, but I am not a narcissist. Chances are, you aren't either, as approximately 1% of the population is diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder requires 5 of the following symptoms to be displayed consistantly for a diagnosis to be met:

• Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
• Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
• Believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
• Requires excessive admiration
• Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
• Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
• Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
• Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
• Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.

It's a heavy diagnosis. Sure, there are definitely worse illnesses out there. Antisocial Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder have scarier symptoms. Bi-polar is also scary, and much more common. But, when your father is diagnosed with clinical Narcissism, it still sucks.

Specifically, my family and I have been able to attribute all of the above list to my father except for "is often envious of others...". Not that he isn't envious of others, we just don't know this firsthand.

For years, I've been telling my family that my father is depressed. He was always so withdrawn from us! He spent more time on the computer than doing anything else. If he wasn't working that day (he is a truck driver with an unpredictable schedule), he would spend upwards 8 hours on the computer. What would he be doing? Well, we thought he was playing video games, online games, whatever. That's what we saw him doing, anyway. Until last November.

Turns out, my brother, poor thing, caught my father on pornographical websites. Plus, there was a ton of them listed on the computer's history. Well, my father tried to pass it off as a virus, or something that he accidentally clicked on, *lie lie lie* etc. My mom knows nothing about computers and may have believed him, if it weren't for my brother being present at the time of confrontation and being able to discredit the lies he would have fed my mother.

Oh, my father would never have admitted to being a sex addict. But, my brother caught him, and told him to tell my mom. Nope- wouldn't do it! So, my poor brother went to the clergy at our church to ask for help. They told him that if my father wouldn't admit to his problem, then my brother would have to be the one to tell my mother. And he did.

My father came home from work and was confronted with my mom and brother. He admitted that he had been sleeping with random women he met online for the past 6 years. 6 years ago he had been laid off from a computer job at a company that fell apart. Because of his experience and expertise, he was too qualified to be hired anywhere that had an opening. He didn't get one single call-back. WELL, this was TOO much for a narcissist to handle. Yes, he got a job as a truck driver, but it didn't make as much money, and he didn't have any employees working under his direction. So, he began with porn and chat rooms and escalated to full-blown sex scandals with many women.

More later, I guess.