Narcissism or Aspergers? My friends are confused.

Post Reply New Topic

Can anyone help me determine if I have Aspergers or narcissism? My friends sometimes have this debate and are split all the time. They say I have Aspergers because I am very honest and I talk about fringe topics while laughing and showing no emotion. Fringe topics include topics like crime and murder. They think that I am pretty open to talk about my life and generally dont lie to them so I have to have Aspergers syndrome. They also say I am a little quirky but not too much. At the same time, they say I can still maintain eye contact and can have a good conversation with people if I am interested and in proper mood.

Let me tell you a little more about myself. I was born in the 1990s. When I was young, I liked to get attention from people in school saying things like "oh I eat glue" when I didnt actual glue. I used to get in fights with people. The only thing stopping me was criminal or disciplinary actions but I had a decent chunk of minor disciplinary action for strangling kid that pissed me off in school and mouthing off to teachers. I once got upset at a girl in school that made fun of me somehow so I hunted her down and threw vinegar in face as kid and I also threw paint at the door of her house. That incident got unpunished. I tried to throw a cat out of the window from the apartment complex.

One time I was friendly fighting a friend and broke his head and he had to go to the ER and made me feel upset for a little cause I never meant to break his head. My grandfather wrote my parents a letter when I was young saying that I was undisicplined, an a-hole, and had a violent view toward any animals. The teachers at school told my parents I may have ADHD but never suggested autism spectrum or narcissism or anything else.

My parents would get very mad at me over slights as I was growing up. For instance, if I accidentely spilled water on the floor, my mom would start yelling for a long time and if I got a B- on a test, my dad would get very mad.

Growing up, I was also a love/hate character. I could network with a lot of people but didnt get very close with most/all people only a few. I always wanted to act out and be different. I liked negative attention and I also liked to beat the system. I would learn how to pass classes without being in class by taking tests. I began to hack everyone's computer and was actually fairly good at it. People characterized me as fairly smart. Some people however saw me as purposefully annoying. I had a habit of torturing cats but wouldnt seriously hurt the cats.

I liked to experiment with very hard and dangerous drugs and tell people "guess what I have experimented with high dose IV cocaine", often intentionally shocking people who werent as reckless. I would drive cars at 150 miles per hour and engage in other thrills. I would also do unusual things like tell girls I would kill myself or call their parents to tell dirt on them if they didnt date me.

I knew a lot about topics like military history, foreign countries, drugs, law, science, and other topics to a great extent and could learn a lot about various topics. I always knew a lot about some topics but people also saw me as fairly ecletic. When I used to party too hard, people said I obsess over drugs sometimes and people said I get obsessed over issues like respect and victory. I always need to win contests and win medals and tell people about how I won and how I am better.

I ended up dating several women but all of them for some reason had similar or related issues like dissociative identity and borderline personality disorder. I do not know if this is coincidental.

In middle school, I made troll videos where I would harass stores with friends and film it and also blow things up and set things on fire. We would hand out these videos to people at the school.

I used to have empathy while growing up but I always had selective empathy. There were people who I had a lot of empathy for like people who were unfairly treated by police and I had 0 empathy for other people who I wanted destroyed like people didnt say good things about me (a lot of times people didnt say good things about me cause I was a class clown sort of).

Most recently, my friends asked me questions about my life to determine if I have Aspergers and Narcissism and couldnt figure out. Some people told me "you must have Aspergers syndrome. You seem to do weird things socially like purposefully try to make people uncomfortable for your entertainment and you are brutally honest if you had narcissism you wouldnt be as honest and wouldnt say things like 'I used to hack computers' you would keep it secret. also you are one of the most intelligent people i know and intelligent people have Aspergers. you also have very good manipulation skills and can read people well but you dont have the best people skills. you are not patient with people and dont care much for many peoples' problems" Other people say "no its narcissism and you can be honest and have other liimited characteristics of Aspergers and not be diagnosed with Aspergers". It is true that I am generally honest but I do not think that me saying things like me hacking computers is a bad thing or will get me in trouble. It happened a long time ago and I think it actually shows that I can beat the system. I actually think that there are more criminal or more severe things I have done before that I wouldnt announce to even my friends and I think the stuff that I do mention is cool. I also like the company and the attenton of mentioning these things. I enjoy saying triggering things to some people (but not all people in all situations) cause I find it entertaining. I cannot be by myself adn always need consistent social interaction. I also sometimes do lie. For instance, I create elaborate stories to my parents and family sometime. However, I prefer not to lie unless there is a great benefit to it. I would rather be 99% honest and lie 1% of the time about something big.

Based on this, am I more likely to have Aspergers syndrome or narcissism?

I'm sensing more "ADHD" than Aspergers or narcissism. Or perhaps you were just a teenager? Do you still do those things nowadays?

Obviously, we can't "diagnose" you based upon an Internet post-----but we can sure speculate.

Talking about "fringe topics" doesn't make you Aspergers (actually, in a technical sense, NOTHING makes you Aspergers because it's not a diagnosis any longer).

I feel like you think doing all these things will make you "cool," somehow. I used to think that way, then I saw the foolishness of my ways. Why destroy yourself just to be "cool"?

I still do some of these things but I do not do the things that can get me in serious professional or criminal trouble (I sense out limits to see what risk is appropriate now). I am not looking for formal diagnosis. I feel like a lot of the things I did were to give myself excitement but I also always liked both negative and positive attention. And I agree with you that it is not technically "Aspergers" anymore. I used the term colloqually for "autism spectrum" because my friends referred to it as "Aspergers".

I actually think the main reason some people suggest I have "Aspergers" and not other stuff is because I am highly educated and have a high IQ. They seem that as a feature for some reason. I dont think it actually is.

I often can't tell if people are narcissists or autists (e.g. my in laws), but I don't think you'd be asking us this question if you were a narcissist because you wouldn't care. You'd go on your own merry way regardless.

One question I'll ask you however: in what ways do you think you need to grow, improve yourself, evolve?

People with "Level One" autism can be "geniuses"----but they can be of "average" intelligence as well.

There are many people who are intelligent, who have "fringe" interests, and who are eccentric----but they are not the least bit autistic.

People tend to associate Aspergers with "Sheldon Cooper" types. Sheldon Cooper is a "genius" who has absolutely no regard for anyone else other than himself. To me, Sheldon Cooper is a negative caricature of someone with Aspergers.

I figure, as long as you're not antagonistic towards me, you don't take drugs, you don't sell my stuff to get drugs, you don't badger me for money, that you're probably mostly okay. But I certainly wouldn't want to carry you up a couple of flights of stairs because you're too drunk to climb them yourself.

Some autistic people are narcissistic a***holes. But not all a***holes are narcissistic autists.

I struggle to understand how people can get the two confused.

P/w NPD are f*****g hideous.

You seem confused.

Narcissism doesn't only refer to NPD. Narcissism is a trait, not everyone who possesses that trait meets the criteria to be diagnosed for NPD.

Narcissism is a normal trait that all people possess to some degree or another. It isn't inherently pathological as many here often appear to insist.

To OP:

Diminished theory of mind is associated with more pronounced vulnerable narcissistic traits as an adult.

It's possible that whether or not you meet the criteria for NPD that you might display more narcissistic traits than others. It's also possible that they might be projecting.

Regardles, it doesn't mean that you're intentionally doing anything wrong. On some level you're expected to be mindful of toes that we can't even see and that's a task that's always going to have a rate of failure. All you can do is reduce that rate to the best of your abilities.

I also have a hard time understanding how people can get those two confused.

With me it's the 'self centredness.' Narcissists are self centred and want everything their own way all the time. Autists can APPEAR to want everything their own way all the time.

But if autists are clearly informed that they are upsetting/hurting other people, they'll be shocked and try and make amends.

Narcissists will just get angry if they are clearly informed that they are upsetting/hurting other people. And often repeat the behaviour because they get a kick out of upsetting/hurting other people.

Well that's my view of it anyway. It's all down to awareness of themselves and others.

That self-centredness is narcissism.

How it's dealt with is the core factor in whether or not it's pathological.

Those with narcissistic personality disorder develop coping mechanisms to block out the blame they should bear for self-centred behaviours. Often a strong tendency towards black and white thinking contributes, at least with vulnerable narcissism. One receives a criticism, one doesn't wish to be labelled as bad (even if the criticism is minor, black and white thinking makes it hard to consider the scale of the criticism) so they implement a defence mechanism instead of considering the criticism.

^Thanks, I need to try and work out what is wrong with my in-laws in this case. I think my brother in law is autistic, my sisters in law are narcissists.

They are a bloody tiring lot of people.

I have to disagree. Somewhat important to know that both narcissism and autism display in some situations in similar ways.

Autistic people might persist in doing the "wrong" thing after they have been told its wrong.

To put this in simple terms.

Imagine an Autistic person always stopped when someone was upset with them.
If this were taken literally you would struggle to do anything. You would either became a complete saint or a doormat.
Or both. Or you would become catatonic and stuck.

Generally I think there are lots of issues in autism that might be sort of like narcissism.



Also reading literature recently I have to disagree with the sentiment its easy to tell them apart.

Autism is continuum.
Narcissism is continuum.

Autism is marked by strong ego-centrism.
Sometimes its more obvious and other times it can be masked.

Not all autistic people are extremely egocentric. But lack of social awareness, and inability to put empathy in the first place sometimes causes problems and in really bad combination they might in psychology/psychiatry be regarded as
just as narcissism.

There are variety of issues.

I think if you really want help its easier to just skip the part about asking people, and go to a psychologist.

Best way to solve a problem is address it the best you can and find feedback.

Unfortunately your issues are pretty extreme in some ways. They might have solutions, even easy ones.

Personally I still find some of my issues overlap with narcissism, but I decided to simply work from autistic framework and find a solution there.
However even in autistic literature "its case by case."

Yes, if you read my first comment above, you'll see that I struggle to tell them apart. I was just trying to find some way of doing so.

I think it could also be intention. Narcissists love deliberately hurting others because they think they're not getting the amount of admiration they think they deserve.

I think autists hurt people just as a side effect. They have their own goals and needs, and if people get hurt, it's just one of those things. I am sure autists don't think they should get vast amounts of admiration. That thread about Histrionic Personality Disorder suggests that autists hate to be the centre of attention.

For both of those categories (and where they overlap), inflicting harm likely isn't the direct goal. Instead it's fixation on the goal that causes harm to others to become an accepted cost of pursuing that goal. What that goal is likely to be might be the biggest difference. Narcissists are more likely to have a goal that socially elevates them, autists are far less likely.

Someone who makes harming others the primary goal seems like they'd have more than just narcissism going on, supposing narcissism is even a consideration. Some people who enjoy harming others have motives beyond building themselves up.

There's autists who also, through their formative experiences are prone to very aggressively defensive strategies of protecting their egos. Those sorts who are always holding on to grudges, always looking to lord their intellect over someone they view as intellectually inferior, always seeking to correct others and have the last word, etc; they might well qualify for both ASD and NPD diagnosis.

We have a few posters here who demonstrate those traits pretty consistently and they can be pretty caustic to interact with.