Narcissism or Aspergers? My friends are confused.

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I tend to agree with you.
I have to be honest I find the the concept of narcissism, rather problematic.
I think the key thing is that narcissism is defined by variety of criteria, which can be pretty situational.

I think the key component here is that both may be applicable I guess to a person.
Depends how experts set emphasis on various criteria of personality.


I feel/think that if for instance autism explains more of my problems then narcissism or seems easier to understand and relate to as condition than narcissism then I would use this framework.
If it were reverse Id use that.
Technically though both frameworks might be useful.

The last book I read, there were pretty obvious things that happened in my life that seemed to correlate strongly with autism.

For me the clear defining factor here was, in Autism, they said, suicide and death themes, and general overall negativism were sometimes part of autism. I had that a lot in my former years.
Anxiety in social situations. Which I got over to some degree.
Communication and masking my natural self since early years.
Interpreting language in wrongs ways, reading with less than normal comprehension, therefore reading and not understanding intent.

I definitely did learn to lie. Though I am not sure how successful I was with lying.
I prefer honesty over lying though.
I just used lying as coping mechanism to get over social situations.


Reduced theory of mind.

That's the key isn't it! The socially elevating goal!

I meant 'harming' as in being a bit spiteful and putting down other people, I didn't mean anything major like stabbing, abusing. Just so I'm clear.

I was using harm in the broadest sense possible, so we were on the same page it seems.

Most people who enjoy hurting others don't do so in major ways, those tend to carry consequences.

Yes, I've learned that much of the time, people don't have a personality that is set in stone. They tend to react in a certain way to certain situations e.g. if person A gets pushed aside in a queue, they get angry. If person B gets pushed aside in a queue, they burst into tears.

I agree both narcissism and autism can apply to a person. It's complicated, argh!

I agree about lying. I've learned that people prefer me to be subtle and vague about anything remotely personal. They don't like my clear, blunt assessments of situations and people. They get terribly offended.

And I learned to lie when people ask me 'what do you think of Jane/Tom/Chris/their behaviour?' If I say what I really think of Jane/Tom/Chris, the people will run back to J/T/C and tell them what I said about them. So I just mutter vague platitudes.

Yes, the nasty subtle ways of harming that are everywhere.

Nothing here sounds like asperger's IMO.

We live in such a polarised, this v that world, where If one thing exists the other is brutally disqualified. I know many people with ASD and Narcissism.