In today's podcast, I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper about different types of narcissism. I suspect that my wife of 22 years, almost 22 years, is a covert narcissist, but I always warn people to to kind of not throw around labels. My wife is a narc. My boyfriend is a borderline because, really, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, these people who engage themselves in abusive behaviors are engaging themselves in abusive behaviors, and it doesn't matter under which moniker they are doing it. But today, I've kinda wanted to go into narcissism since I constantly always say that I suspect that my wife is a covert narcissist.
It's a very complicated spectrum. It's a very complicated personality disorder as is borderline, and that's why they tend to throw them under cluster b. And that's why I talk about cluster b abuse because it could be borderline. It could be narcissistic. It doesn't matter. So as a personality trait, narcissism can be overt, covert, antagonistic, communal, or malignant. But as a mental health condition, there's only one diagnosis.
When you look in the book, the DSV, I believe. And we all know that the overt narcissist is the one that we traditionally think about. That would be the one that we are most familiar with. The person who comes in and basically lights up the room with their own self confidence and over the top behaviors. So I did want to address something that a lot of people ask me. And I also wanted to address the question that I see on the bulletin boards posted out there. Am I a narcissist?
We are gaslit so much by our abusers that we begin to think, am I borderline? Am I narcissistic? So there's adaptive narcissism. We're gonna get complicated here. Let's break it down. Adaptive narcissism refers to aspects of narcissism that can actually be helpful, like high self confidence, self reliance, and the ability to celebrate yourself. That doesn't mean if you think that you've done a good job doing something that you're a narcissist.
Or that if you tell somebody that you're good at something that you're a narcissist. Having self esteem and confidence is healthy. As long as you don't overinflate yourself with esteem and confidence, and as long as you don't use that self esteem and confidence to hurt other people. Then there's maladaptive narcissism. That's connected to traits that don't serve you and can negatively impact how you relate to yourself and others. For example, entitlement, aggression, and the tendency to take advantage of others. This would be associated with symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder.
So when most of us talk about we usually refer to the types of narcissism under the maladaptive umbrella. So researchers and experts typically work around 5 types of narcissism. There's overt narcissism, which, of course, we all know and kind of understand. There's covert narcissism. There's antagonistic narcissism, communal narcissism, and malignant narcissism. So let's let's delve a little bit deeper. We all know about overt narcissism.
Someone with overt narcissism may come across as outgoing, arrogant, entitled, overbearing, having an exaggerated self image, needing to be praised and admired, exploitive, competitive, and lacking empathy. Okay. So that's overt narcissism. That's something that we are all familiar with. Okay. We all know about an overt narcissist and we can all basically probably put our finger on 1 or 2 people that we've known or more that we've encountered in our lives.
But what about covert narcissism? That's also known as vulnerable narcissism and closet narcissism. And covert narcissism is the contrast to overt narcissism. While many people think of narcissism as a loud and overbearing trait, people with covert narcissism don't fit this pattern. Instead, some common traits of someone with covert narcissism include expressions of low self esteem, a higher likelihood of experiencing anxiety, depression and shame, introversion, insecurity or low confidence, defensiveness, avoidance. Okay? So that's that's when we're talking about covert narcissism, which I suspect my wife of almost 21 years to be.
But am I sure? No. Because at the end of the day, it has to be clinically diagnosed by somebody who's a professional and who's experienced with that. They also covert narcissists also tend to tend to play the victim. So while someone with covert narcissism will still be very self focused, this is likely to conflict with a deep fear or sense of not being enough, low self esteem. They possess that too. We possess that too as empaths.
As people that are involved in a relationship with a cluster b, we don't think of ourselves very highly when it comes down to it. We're trying to rescue people. Then there's communal narcissism. Communal narcissism is another type of overt narcissism and it's usually seen as the opposite of antagonistic narcissism. Someone with communal narcissism values fairness and is likely to see themselves as altruistic. I know that my wife exhibits some of this the these traits of communal narcissism, and it is my belief that people can be comorbid with different types of narcissism. Again, each narcissist is unique in and of itself.
But someone with communal narcissism values fairness and is likely to see themselves as this altruistic person. People with communal narcissism might become easily morally outraged. Describe themselves as empathetic and generous. React strongly to things that they see as unfair. So what makes communal narcissism different from genuine concern for the well-being of others? Well, the key difference is that for people with communal narcissism, social power and self importance are playing major roles. So for example, while communal narcissism might cause you to say and believe you have a strong moral code or care for others, you might not realize the way you treat others doesn't match up with your beliefs.
Does that resonate with you? And then we come to malignant narcissism. Okay. Let's talk about malignant. This is pretty bad. Narcissism can exist at different levels of severity, and malignant narcissism is a more severe form. It can also cause more problems for the person living with it.
Malignant narcissism is more closely connected to overt than covert narcissism. Someone with malignant narcissism may have many common traits of narcissism like a strong need for praise and to be elevated above others. But in addition, malignant narcissism can show up as vindictiveness, sadism or getting enjoyment from the pain of others, aggression when interacting with other people, paranoia or heightened worry about potential threats. Someone with malignant narcissism may also share some traits with antisocial personality disorder. This means someone with malignant narcissism could be more likely to experience legal trouble or substance abuse. In a small study involving people with borderline personality, otherwise known as BPD, those with malignant narcissism had a harder time reducing anxiety and gaining a better ability to function in day to day life. People with covert or vulnerable narcissism usually seem quiet, humble, and shy.
That's my wife, basically, in a nutshell. That attitude creates a sharp contrast with the outward confidence and self importance persistently projected by people with overt grandiose narcissism. So going back to covert narcissism which I suspect my wife is, someone with covert narcissism may seek attention and admiration indirectly by putting their own work down, performing acts of kindness or complimenting others to get compliments back. Spend a lot of time fantasizing about earning the recognition they feel they deserve. Expect special treatment and feel slighted when they don't receive it. Ignore people they believe have wronged them. And hold lengthy grudges and fantasize about revenge.
And they move on quickly to the next relationship without saying why. So these are all different types of narcissistic behaviors, NPD. They kind of all fall under the same umbrella, communal narcissism, malignant narcissism, covert narcissism, antagonistic narcissism. They're all the same animal in a different skin. And so remember, when you question yourself and they may actually accuse you of being a narcissist yourself, you have to remember the difference between adaptive narcissism and maladaptive narcissism. Adaptive narcissism is healthy. It's okay to believe in yourself, to have some self esteem.
Maladaptive narcissism, well that's a different story. So I hope this helps and resonates with you to kind of take away some of the confusion that you may have regarding narcissistic personality disorder, the different genres, there's a spectrum. And I've always talked about this in previous podcasts about narcissists and how they behave, whether they're covert or whether they're overt, whether they're malignant. I wasn't familiar with communal or antagonistic narcissism. But if any of those strike a chord with you, I would definitely encourage you to do some more research, to read some more books on it, and to understand it. Understanding these people is probably the best antidote in dealing with them and shielding yourself from further hurt and also shielding yourself from being drained of your own self esteem and identity. And I can speak from experience.
I am trying to rebuild my identity. I am rebuilding my self esteem through understanding that the faults of this relationship, this marriage that I'm in, do not entirely fall squarely on my shoulders. Now I will say that I am complicit, that I am participating in this relationship. I am not a victim. I am a survivor. I understand what's going on here now. I see the lay of the land.
It doesn't make it any easier. In fact, in some respects, it makes it a lot harder because I understand my wife a whole lot better than I did, let's say, 10 years ago, 12 years ago, 20 years ago. Her behaviors are definitely fall within the realm of narcissistic behavior. And in fact, she has been, observed as being or having narcissistic tendencies in a psychological report that was done many years ago before I even met her. So that all lends credence to my belief and feelings. But when we get down to the brass tacks of it, the relationship is abusive. The relationship is not meeting my needs.
There are no boundaries. Or if they are, they're always violated. And what's my part in it? New episodes uploaded each and every Friday at 10 AM Eastern Standard Time. I do appreciate your listenership, and I do appreciate your emails at my inner torch atgmail.com. Till next time, be well. And in whatever you do, be good.
This has been my inner torch.