Is AS somehow linked to Narcissistic PD?

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I'm fairly certain that my mother has narcissistic personality disorder...and I've been reading around the internet that some people believe that people with NPD actually have AS but have been misdiagnosed. Others believe that those with NPD also have AS. I really don't know what to think about this possible link. Some days I feel like I can see AS in my mother, others I feel like she's purely NPD, others I feel like she's both. I was wondering if anyone knows anything about this?

No, they are very different, and Personality Disorder's develop into your adolescence, and need no history of mental problems in your family to develop one.

AS is genetic and comes around early childhood when you're old enough to show signs. Some people are missed though obviously, and never diagnosed, or diagnosed as adults.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fourth edition, DSM IV-TR, a widely used manual for diagnosing mental disorders, defines narcissistic personality disorder (in Axis II Cluster B) as:

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
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 others are envious of him or her
Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

All that I've listed in bold, are what people with NPD have. The ones not in bold, are found in both NPD and AS. This isn't something you'll find in someone with JUST AS.
People with NPD see other's as tools, instruments, not people and friends. This is from experience with an NPD I met anyway. He would always pretend he cared for me and asked me questions about what's going on with my life, because he would then want to use me for something. It didn't work.

Last edited by MightyMorphin on 23 Jul 2012, 7:17 am, edited 2 times in total.

Thanks for responding...do you know if a person can have both? I know that a person can have AS along with a PD, but I don't know about AS along with NPD specifically.

Well, that certainly describes my mother, ugh.

I think you can have both. There are some people with AS who also seem narcissistic, seem to feel superior and have a sense of entitlement to special treatment. Not most, but some. I don't know how official diagnosis works however, sometimes having one disorder doesn't allow you to be diagnosed with another one, but I don't know if this is the case with these two.

Deficits in empathy is something they share. That's where any link ends though, as said deficit manifests entirely differently in each disorder.

You can have both in the same person; not a good combination for those around said person.

Thy can look a lot alike too. People with NPD talk a lot about themselves and their interests. So do people with AS. People with NPD lack empathy for others, some people with AS lack empathy or appear to lack empathy for others.

The big difference is that someone with NPD will manipulate the heck out of epople and use them to get what they want (narcissitic supply). Someone with AS likly would not be able to do that nor would they need to.

NPD is a LOT more than just being a little narcissitic or a little vain. They are emotional vampires.

Does being paranoid thinking everybody's thinking of me and watching me all the time and observing whatever I do count as narcissist?

Last edited by Joe90 on 23 Jul 2012, 7:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

If you have an ounce of concern that you might be a narcissist, than you definitely aren't one! These people think that they are absolutely perfect and can't fathom that anything could be wrong with them. Don't worry about it, you're not.

Yes, this is exactly why I don't want my mother to find out that I'm being tested for AS. She would call everyone on the planet and tell them each about it 5 times so that she can hear herself say it over and over again. I know everything negative and dramatic about everyone she ever met, and I don't even know these people!

Oh, well, I must be the complete opposite then. I am always ashamed of myself, always find fault in myself, always think I'm the cause of other people's problems, always think I am a target, and always pessimistic and distrustant of people but I still don't blame them if they are horrible to me, I always blame myself for other people's offensive behaviour towards me.

I think my friend might be a narcissist though, She's always saying that every friend she has ever had in her life has emotionally treated her like a God, saying she is perfect in every way and that she has all the answers, when sometimes when she's telling me these sorts of things, I sometimes wonder if she is just making it up, to make herself out to be more of a wonderful person than what she really is. OK, she's nice enough, and she's nicer than a lot of other friends I've had in the past, but I can still find a lot of faults in her, and other people who know of her often tell me she thinks she is the greatest.

This might be the key difference that I'm looking for here. Are people with AS typically capable of manipulating people? I'm pretty sure that I have it, and I don't think that I know how to manipulate people. I can drop hints, but I don't think that's the same thing exactly. I also don't feel like I would never have a reason to manipulate anyone even if I could.

To manipulate on purpose would be needing social ability that's in excess of your typical person with an ASD.

This is different to people with an ASD figuring out cause and effect, which is often something people with LFA use to get things; it's not "manipulation" though.

As it turns out, the man who wrote that book (Malignant Self Love, Sam Vaknin) is not actually a narcissist. He's a psychopath, and has been diagnosed as such on a documentary called "I, Psychopath." His description of malignant narcissism is also questioned as actually being a description of what NPD is like. My understanding is that it describes psychopathy.

He also claims to have a Ph.D. Which is technically true. However, he got it from a non-accredited school that is widely known to be a diploma mill.

He spams his writing everywhere on the internet so his articles will come up if you try to google narcissism, but that doesn't reflect the accuracy of his writing.

Autistic people can be manipulative. Being socially impaired does not prevent one from being manipulative, it simply impacts how good/convincing you can be. My sister and niece are not autistic, but are pretty socially inept for other reasons, and they try pretty hard to be manipulative. They only really know two ways: "Try to be nice to get someone to do something for them" and "Start screaming to get what they want under the assumption that someone will give in for the sake of quiet." It's also weird how and when they try to pull it. My niece, for example, wanted me to build her rat cage, and so she tried to flatter me before asking. It was transparent as heck, and if she just asked "Would you do this?" I would have done it.

There might be a link, but there is a link discussed to nearly every psychiatric diagnoses.

But NPD is something different. It is also espessially very common in peoply with borderline or psychopathy.
Narcisstic traits in autistics are possible, of course, but not that common.