“He once quit a job because he got a poor performance review, but we found out later that he told them (falsely) that he had cancer, and that’s why his work was subpar.”

As a Senior Editor at BuzzFeed, I cover stories about health, home, politics, and relationships, with a special focus on work and money.

Note: This post contains mention of partner abuse and animal cruelty.

According to researchers, between 1-2% of adults in the US have narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). People with NPD typically think about themselves in grandiose terms, lack empathy for others, and require lots of admiration in order to feel secure. 

"Zero empathy. When his mother was dying, he hardly visited her because 'It taught me life is short and I need to put myself first.'

He loves to put others down, but can't take even light comments about himself. He's also extremely petty and vindictive, so if you hurt his feelings, he'll find a way to get back at you."

"Honestly, my sister is the type of person with a personality disorder that is far more likely to be taken advantage of than take advantage of others because she self-polices her own behavior to the point where I’ve seen her be easily manipulated by people who can convince her that if she just does what they suggest, she’ll be a 'good person.' 

It’s been a struggle to make her see that there are no good or bad people. Just people, and we’re all doing our best, including her. But she’s not lovely all the time. 

She’s very argumentative and has a lot of really confusing opinions that she is very defensive about. And she’s not very good at making friends. You honestly have to know the person under the NPD to really tolerate her for long periods of time. But if you can stick it out, she’s very loving, kind, and generous with her time."

"I broke off our friendship the night she woke me up to scream at me over the phone because I didn't answer her text messages (I was sick with a 102 fever.)

Once I told her I didn't fuck with her, she became somewhat obsessed with me and, by turns, would try to charm me and destroy my reputation. She followed me from fringe friend group to fringe friend group because I never accepted her back and never trusted her. To this day, she tries to find out how I'm doing from mutual friends, even though we live half a country away, and still talks badly about me. She was offended that I didn't make her a bridesmaid in my wedding, even though we hadn't spoken for two years."

"Their sense of self is very underdeveloped, almost like parts of them haven’t grown past 2 or 3 years old.

They struggle a lot but can’t admit to themselves that they’re struggling.

As a professional, I have a lot of compassion for them. I would not want to be in any kind of relationship with them, though."

"It’s a constant state of unease. Of never knowing if what you’re doing is correct or not. It weighs on you for years after you even cut the person out of your life."

"It was a tumultuous relationship and very emotionally abusive. I ended it and went back probably 10 times before I learned my lesson. He was great at apologizing, but never saying he was sorry. 

You become very familiar with manipulation and gaslighting.

I have reached a point where I pity him deeply. He wants love and to be loved, and it’s this ethereal thing that he will never grasp, because he simply lacks the ability to be authentically and vulnerably human. 

It has definitely coloured my relationships since. I am very, very slow to trust and have limited patience for unkindness and words not matching actions."

"He just does not understand it. That doesn't mean he won't listen to me, or let me vent, and then try and cheer me up; it just means that I've had to explain a lot of basic human interactions to him and why they're important to the people he cares about. Turning it around as to how he would feel if someone did something to him or about him that makes him feel bad or unworthy in any way, and then he remembers it for the future. 

It's not that he truly feels empathy, but if he wants to maintain close relationships, he has to understand that others feel and see things differently than he does. The same goes for things that are positive. Because when his friends are happy, he's happy.

In all honesty, he's one of my best friends because we can be extremely candid with each other without worry about judgment. I always know exactly where I stand with him, and he appreciates having a friend that can explain basic human decency.

It sounds extremely transactional, and it is, but I think it's one of my strongest friendships because we're so open about it."

"It became obvious that he was envious of me because I have a relationship. It is hard to describe the sabotage actions he made; everything was kind of hidden, but in the end, he poisoned our pets, and we moved out very fast. He is a very tragic person living a very tragic life."

"Everything needs to be on his terms. He won't leave his house; you have to come to him. He decides what everyone is doing. He picks the food, the entertainment, etc. Everyone else is wrong about everything, and everything is everyone else’s fault.

He LOVES to project this tough guy attitude: guns, military, steak, more guns, skulls, motorcycles, but he is the biggest pussy in the world. He’ll get into big fights with his son and me, get in your face and put his fists up (sometimes he’ll even try to throw a sucker punch), but the second he sees that you're ready to throw down, he starts screaming, 'Do it! Hit me! I’ll sue you! I’ll call the cops and press charges against your ass!'

He also lies constantly about anything that he thinks makes him look good. When I first met him, he was EXTREMELY proud of being a former Navy SEAL. He’s covered in SEAL tattoos, SEAL decals on his truck, etc. His entire family believed he had been a SEAL. 

I have some friends that are former team guys. They got me an invite into an online forum with a bunch of current/former team guys, and I put up a post asking if anyone from his group and years had any photos they would like to trade. I was putting together a photo album for him for Christmas. Nobody had ever heard of him. Eventually, someone recognized him from a photo and said he wasn’t a SEAL, he just worked on the crew that maintained the mini subs."

"She starts out by acting like you're just soooo mean. The self-pity party goes hard for a while. When that doesn't work, she gets VERY mean. I've been called all sorts of names, but upon reflection, I believe her favorites are all projection: self-centered, selfish, entitled, ungrateful, unhelpful, spoiled brat, etc.

She also has what appear to be moments of clarity. She will give seemingly genuine apologies. She'll cry in regret of how she's treated me or things she's done. She seems to actually have a real understanding of her own actions and how and why they were wrong and hurtful, and expresses great remorse and self-loathing for her behavior. And she'll change. And it'll last for a while. But that nasty side always comes back eventually.

I never truly know if she's someone fighting her inner demons, or someone fighting to hide them. But I can tell you, my mom had an extremely fucked up childhood, and it explains literally everything about why she is how she is. That, and the fact that I can't exactly go pick out a different mom, are why I give her some grace. A lot of it. But with extremely firm boundaries. It's not easy, and it's affected me massively. Thank God for therapists."

"I’ve known very egocentric people since him, and honestly, it was very apparent that this guy was doing the things he did from compulsion, not because it made him happy. He did not seem like a person capable of feeling real happiness, to be honest. The need and the void in him were pretty visible."

"He is really into tabletop gaming and basically treats everyone in his life like he's the game master and they're all characters he's moving around the board to his liking. He visibly struggles to connect with anyone who doesn't buy his shtick, and that's the only time I've seen him lose his facade (besides when he's actively abusing someone)."

"His closest friends are all men who cannot hold jobs, have domestic abuse charges, or severe mental health and drug problems. This is because my ex needs to be worshipped by the people who surround him. 

A typical guy who loves his partner and cares about his kids would be able to figure out that my ex is empty and only says he is doing those things because it makes him look good. My ex might be acquainted with someone like that, but he would never be part of his inner circle. 

My ex will never apologize. He was high and crashed his car into a woman, but still thought it was her fault, and if the heroin had not had fentanyl in it, he would have been okay to drive. He even told me that if I had not been a bitch, he would not have gone out to get heroin from a dealer he didn’t know and then get fentanyl and overdose while driving. It would never truly occur to him that any of it was his fault, but at an NA meeting, he would make it into a powerful story about losing himself and finding sobriety. It’s bizarre. He knows that other people need to hear him say these experiences changed him. So he lies and says they did.

Being with a person with NPD made me feel scared all the time. I did not trust my memories. When my daughter was a baby, he would not pay bills, so our electricity would go out. I’d call him, and he would pay the bill, and the lights would come back on. He wanted me to know that he controlled every aspect of our lives and that he could take everything away."

"He may ask me a question about my life or my children's or husband's, but will revert the conversation back to himself within a sentence or two. As a result, he doesn't know what I do for a living, he can't remember where my kids go to school, or how old they are, or what my husband does or cares about. He never calls anyone on their birthday unless my sister reminds him. He talks endlessly and can't pick up context clues about people's desire to get away from him.

His ego is profoundly fragile. He cannot take responsibility for anything and is a pathological, uncontrollable liar. Anytime anything goes well, it is probably due to his extreme heroism, intelligence, or accomplishments. Anytime anything goes poorly, it's never his fault and only a series of terrible events of which he was an unwitting victim, even about tiny things that no one cares about. Like if he forgot to stop at the store and get something as asked, he would claim that he was mugged. Or that the store was closed due to a power outage when it wasn't.

Anyone in a position of authority eventually becomes an asshole to him because he can't stand any negative feedback AT ALL. He once quit a job because he got a poor performance review, but we found out later that he told them (falsely) that he had cancer, and that's why his work was subpar. He likes sympathy and attention and praise and profoundly dislikes anything else, including people that just aren't very impressed by him. He is very charming when you first meet him, but eventually, people catch on to his lies, and then he loses friends. His brothers and sisters won't speak to him.

He is extremely materialistic about weird things and likes everyone to think that he is rich and successful, and spends money he doesn't have to make it look that way. If I do something, he has to do it too. When I got engaged to my husband, he got engaged to a woman we'd never met a month before my wedding. When I bought a car he particularly admired, he bought a similar one a month later. He is profoundly broke now and living on VA disability because he squandered his money on poor choices, and it eventually became a hoarding disease.

He is obsessed with the looks of his children. It's nice that we are reasonably attractive, but it's gross the way that having pretty daughters and grandchildren is clearly important to him, like we're things that he can brag about instead of people with feelings and value beyond our looks or jobs or ways that we make him look good."

"I have trouble when people do better than me at things, and I used to try to dismiss their success and even go as far as to bully them. I can now acknowledge the discomfort and not react negatively. I hate myself, but I also think I am the best. Rejection felt and sometimes still does impact the way I see and feel about myself. 

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t use people, and I don’t enjoy hurting people for the fun of it. I am reactive, I hurt when I hurt. I can now internalize the hurt instead of hurting other people, but that took a long time to do. I also don’t just care about myself; I have people that I love deeply, and I do the work so that I don’t hurt them.

It is possible to change, or at least challenge, the way you think and behave. It is a lot of work, but it is possible."

Comments have been edited for length and clarity.