All Our Exes Can’t Be Narcissists…Can They?
How to spot the real narc in a crowd of ex-lovers
“It sounds like you dated a long line of narcissists.”
I heard this from an acquaintance recently, when we shared some horror stories from my romantic history. I didn’t think much of it, however. I’m a little wary of that word. When people say “narcissist,” what they mean is “someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.” That’s a genuine mental health issue. And I think those of us who are not mental health professionals need to be careful about making a diagnosis that we are not qualified to make.
Secondly, I can’t help but wonder if we aren’t overusing that word just a tad. If you scroll through social media, it’s amazing the amount of content you find on narcissistic abuse. It seems somewhat unlikely to me that if only about 5% of the population falls into the category of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (that’s an estimate on the high end) all our exes are narcissists. There are some folks who have actually done the math on that and I’ll at least give them a slightly dubious maybe, but realistically, it just doesn’t seem possible.
Therefore, I’ve never considered my exes to be narcissists. There might have been some telltale signs with several of them, but I felt using that word might be beyond my pay…
