Toxic Relationships — Narcissist or Sociopath?
The two signs that differentiate a narcissistic from an anti-social personality disorder.
Before you’re in a toxic relationship, you assume it's simply two people that clash. Even when you’re in it, you stay, convinced it's probably you, they keep telling you it is, and of course, they do change, after every unforgivable act.
Research suggests that narcissistic (NPD) and anti-social (ASPD) personality disorders are so similar in their impulsiveness and exploitation of others that they may actually be a spectrum of one disorder. This indicates how difficult it is to distinguish personality disorders, particularly when you include potential physiological or neurological causes.
Those two similarities, impulsiveness and exploitation, contribute to toxic relationships and the tendency for the demonization of cluster B personality disorders.
In time, you learn to find a healthy balance between feeling compassion for the disorder and making sure you never EVER in a million years date, befriend, work with, side with, or stand next to, another narcissist/sociopath for the rest of your life and any afterlives. It’s not that easy, but one can hope.
