Am I a narcissist?

@BillR

Self awareness is important, sounds like you are giving it deep thought and wanting the best for them. You are looking as honestly as you can at controlling behaviours you might be choosing. Questioning your own behaviour isn’t a very narcissistic thing to do. Maybe they are really just trying to say they want more autonomy over their own decisions.

Hi @BillR

Welcome to the forums. I'm one of the peer moderators here at SANE. To be honest, the fact you are reaching out and have expressed yourself in such a caring way, suggests you are not a narcissist. Of course I'm not a psychiatrist nor can I diagnose anyone but as we all know, narcissists have no empathy and you sound like you absolutely do. To get a proper psychological diagnosis you would need to see a gp to get a referral to a psychologist or psychiatrist of course.

Perhaps you and your partner would benefit from relationship counselling? Going together would show the professional how you both interact with each other and indicate any narcissistic tendencies. Relationships are tough, no doubt! And when you throw kids into the mix plus growing cost of living....well, fights and fractures can happen easily.

I hope others reach out and offer you some wise words.

Warmest wishes

Hanami

Thanks for the reply Hanami, yeah my peer support said the same thing. It's getting the thoughts out of my head when my wife still says I am.

Hopefully with the PS assistance, and maybe the couple therapy I'll stop thinking she's right and get myself sorted out.

cheers

Aw, that's totally understandable @BillR . I would be the same if I was in your shoes. If someone tells you something often enough you start to believe it.

Please feel free to keep reaching out here. I'm so glad you have a one to one peer worker too. Peer workers are the best!

😃

Hi @BillR
I feel like flippantly throwing around pop psychology "Narcissist!" claims is so common at the moment. Does she mean Narcissistic Personality Disorder? Or just narcissistic traits?
If somebody told me they thought I was a narcissist, i would perhaps ask a few more questions about the behaviours and address and discuss those, as opposed to the label.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwoHeRvgx_Q&ab_channel=KatiMorton

I am in the exact same situation. I am being told that I am a narcissist by my partner and I have taken online tests and definitely have narcissistic traits. Where I am confused, is that I never intend to hurt anybody and am usually the person trying to resolve any conflicts. I can definitely self reflect (after an incident) and understand how my behaviour or actions has made others feel which I then feel bad about and remorseful, as it was not my intent. I am very controlling and like to take on alot of responsibility, otherwise I cannot keep track of what has been done, what needs to be done, if anything has been missed, and my partner is quite flaky and will often say they will do something, then not do it, but I go on with the assumption it has been completed. So unless I can confirm that things are done, by either doing it myself or monitoring or confirming if others do something, I will have doubt and fixate. I have recently realized that I railroad conversations or arguments, without knowing that is what I am doing. When others have a different interpretation or opinion of something, my genuine desire is to understand how they got there, in case I have not considered something that they have, which may change my mind. So I will go through the sequence of what was said by whom asking yes or know questions as we go to determine the point where we have deviated. I then explain my thoughts on that point and ask the other person to explain their thoughts. I will continue to question how the other person came to each conclusion they have made until it makes sense to me or I can at least see how they got there. Then I’m happy to go on either with differing thoughts or I might change my mind. However, I can’t let a conversation continue or won’t give the other person the opportunity to explain anything further on until we have both clarified, otherwise, in my opinion, you may end up defending a subjective point of view that is based on a completely different truth, which does not promote effective communication.
although this (very long) explanation makes perfect sense to me, I have been told that I am actually railroading people into having my opinion by asking leading questions and steering them towards my predetermined result.
if narcissists don’t know they are narcissists, how do I know that all of my thoughts that legitimize my actions and actually make me believe I am being open minded and a bigger person in most altercations aren’t just clever little tools my brain has created to disguise a narcissistic agenda?