Am I the Narcissist? When Someone Else's Story Becomes Your Own

For a long time, I questioned myself. Or rather, I scrutinised myself under a microscope. Basically, I had unleashed a criminal profiler to investigate my own behaviour, and I left no stone unturned. I replayed conversations from years ago, analysed the tone of my voice, the words I had chosen, the expressions on my face and even the occasional glance that might have been interpreted as a deadly glare. Had I made someone feel bad about themselves? Or shouted in their face? Was I selfish? Had I manipulated somebody for my own gain and somehow wiped it from my memory? Was I actually the person I had been relentlessly accused of being?

It became an exhausting exercise in self-interrogation. Perhaps some of it was trauma and the hypervigilance that comes with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Perhaps some of it was simply my brain disappearing down an ADHD rabbit hole at a hundred miles an hour. Whatever the explanation, I became remarkably skilled at putting myself on trial.

There is something that happens when you are accused of toxic behaviour often enough. Eventually, the accusations begin to seep under your skin. You start wondering whether the person pointing the finger might actually be right. Perhaps you really are selfish, cruel and difficult. Perhaps you really are the problem.

And that brings me to the question behind this blog.

Am I the narcissist?

What actually is a narcissist?

The word narcissist has become so familiar that it is now part of everyday language. We hear it used to describe difficult partners, selfish friends, demanding colleagues, controlling parents and anyone who behaves badly in a relationship. Sometimes the description may be appropriate. Other times, I think we have become so comfortable with the word that it has become a hook for anyone who has hurt us. There is an important distinction between narcissistic behaviour, narcissistic traits and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, or NPD.

NPD is a recognised mental health condition and belongs to the Cluster B personality disorders. It involves a persistent pattern of grandiosity, a strong need for admiration, and a lack of empathy, alongside other characteristic patterns of thinking and behaving. These aren't simply traits that appear during one bad relationship or one particularly ugly argument. They form a pervasive pattern that affects a person's relationships and functioning.

Diagnosis is also complex. It isn't something that can accurately be determined by reading an article online, watching a few videos or recognising a handful of traits in somebody who has made you angry. A diagnosis belongs with a qualified mental health professional.

Years ago, when I was struggling with this very question, I asked my psychiatrist, "Am I crazy? And am I the narcissist?"

"If you were, you wouldn't be asking me that question."

His response stayed with me and sent me disappearing down one enormous rabbit hole into the subject of narcissism.

Narcissistic traits are not the same as NPD

Perhaps the more useful question isn't always "Is this person a narcissist?" but "What narcissistic traits are present in their behaviour?"

Narcissistic traits exist on a spectrum, and there is probably a little bit of narcissism in most of us. We enjoy praise. We like recognition for something we've done well. We can become defensive when criticised, feel proud of an achievement or occasionally put our own needs ahead of someone else's.

Even a little manipulation can creep into ordinary human behaviour. We persuade, negotiate, charm and sometimes present ourselves in the best possible light because we want something. There is a difference between ordinary human behaviour and a deeply ingrained pattern of exploiting others for personal gain.

Pride isn't automatically narcissism. Confidence isn't narcissism. Having boundaries isn't narcissism. Putting your needs first after years of neglect isn't narcissism either. The concern arises when certain patterns become persistent, extreme and damaging.

So, what might those traits look like?

A lack of empathy

One of the recognised features associated with NPD is difficulty recognising or responding appropriately to the feelings and needs of other people. At its most damaging, another person's suffering can become almost irrelevant compared with the individual's own needs, desires or sense of entitlement. Imagine being deeply hurt by somebody and watching them carry on with their day as though nothing happened. There is no genuine curiosity about your distress, no meaningful attempt to understand the impact of their behaviour and no sense that your emotional experience matters.

That doesn't mean every person with narcissistic traits deliberately enjoys hurting others. The reality is more complicated. But when empathy is consistently absent, relationships can become deeply damaging because one person's emotional reality is repeatedly ignored.

For the person living through it, the confusion can be devastating. How can someone witness your pain and still somehow believe that they are the victim?

The need for control

Control can become another significant feature of an unhealthy relationship. For someone who needs to maintain control, vulnerability can feel threatening. Your decisions, friendships, movements, finances, appearance or even your thoughts may gradually become areas they feel entitled to influence. Control doesn't always arrive looking like control. Sometimes it wears the clothes of concern.

"I'm only saying this because I care about you."

"I'm only trying to protect you."

"If you really loved me, you would understand."

That is part of what makes controlling behaviour so difficult to recognise when you're living inside it. It can begin subtly, disguised as affection or protection, until your world gradually becomes smaller.

Grandiosity and the hunger for admiration

Grandiosity is more than simply having confidence or thinking highly of yourself. It can involve an inflated sense of importance, superiority or entitlement, accompanied by a strong need for admiration and recognition.

For someone caught in this pattern, being ordinary may feel intolerable. They need to be special, exceptional, successful or superior. Criticism can feel like a direct attack, while being second-best may feel like humiliation rather than simply losing.

There is an interesting contradiction here. What appears to be great confidence can coexist with a fragile sense of self that relies heavily upon external validation. The admiration has to keep coming because without it, the carefully constructed image begins to crumble.

Lying, manipulation and gaslighting

Lying can become a destructive tool when it is repeatedly used to manipulate somebody else's perception or protect a carefully constructed image. Sometimes the lies are insignificant; sometimes they are huge. The important question isn't necessarily the size of the lie, but what the deception achieves. Then there is gaslighting, a term so widely used that its meaning can sometimes become blurred.

Gaslighting refers to a pattern of psychological manipulation that causes someone to question their own memory, perception, judgement or understanding of events. It may involve repeatedly insisting that something never happened, telling someone they are imagining things, dismissing their recollection or suggesting that their emotional response proves they are unstable.

"That never happened."

"You're imagining things."

"You're too sensitive."

"You're wrong."

When this happens repeatedly, you stop trusting your own memory. You second-guess conversations that happened only hours ago and may begin asking other people what they remember because your own recollection no longer feels reliable.

Eventually, you begin questioning the only person you should be able to trust.

Yourself.

The inability to accept responsibility

Another damaging pattern is the persistent refusal to accept responsibility. Whatever happens, there is always an explanation for why it wasn't really their fault. Somehow, the conversation turns back towards what you did, what you said, how you reacted or what supposedly forced them to behave the way they did.

"I wouldn't have done that if you hadn't..."

"You made me angry."

"Look what you made me do."

Trying to hold somebody accountable under those circumstances can feel like running endlessly on a hamster wheel. You explain what happened, they challenge your version, you defend yourself, and suddenly something you did months or years ago has become the subject of the conversation.

Eventually, you are exhausted.

Sometimes that exhaustion is enough to make somebody surrender, not because they believe the other person, but because they simply don't have the energy left to keep arguing.

When the grudge becomes a weapon

Some people with strong narcissistic traits can respond particularly badly to criticism, rejection or anything that threatens their self-image. What began as charm can become hostility when the person feels exposed, rejected or humiliated.

Stories may change. Blame can shift. Other people may get dragged into the conflict. Someone who challenges the individual's version of events may find themselves portrayed as unstable, cruel or abusive. I've experienced what it feels like to have your character discussed, questioned and judged by people who weren't there. It is incredibly difficult to defend yourself against a story that has already travelled further than the truth.

The term flying monkeys has become popular in discussions about narcissistic abuse to describe people who become involved in carrying messages, accusations or hostility on behalf of another person, whether knowingly or unknowingly. Whatever terminology we use, the effect can be deeply isolating when people accept someone else's version of events without ever asking for yours.

There are few things more painful than discovering that people you once trusted have decided who you are without hearing your side of the story.

So, am I the narcissist?

This is a question I think many survivors eventually ask themselves.

I certainly did.

When you have spent enough time being told that you're selfish, dramatic, difficult, toxic, unstable or the cause of somebody else's behaviour, self-doubt becomes almost inevitable. Eventually, you start investigating yourself because you no longer know whether your abuser might actually be right. I walked away from my entire family. I had to begin again on the other side of the world, almost from a blank canvas. But leaving doesn't mean everything stays behind. You can physically remove yourself from a situation and still carry its echoes inside you.

For a long time, I carried those echoes.

I questioned my memories, my reactions and my whole personality. I probed every corner of my mind, wondering whether my compassion was genuine or whether I was secretly manipulating people. I even wondered whether my need to understand everything was evidence of some hidden narcissistic trait. Perhaps that is one of the cruellest consequences of psychological abuse.

It can make you suspicious of your own heart.

When other people (the flying monkeys) are repeating the same accusations, it becomes easy to believe the numbers must mean something. Surely all these people couldn't be wrong. There are all of them, and there is you. Outnumbered, isolated and surrounded by people who have already decided what kind of person you are.

But numbers don't determine truth. Neither does volume, confidence, or the fact that somebody tells their story more convincingly than you tell yours.

The danger of turning narcissism into a label

There is something else I have come to feel strongly about. I think the word narcissist is being overused.

We need language to describe abusive and manipulative behaviour. Survivors need words for what they have experienced. But there is a danger in turning every selfish, cruel, immature or unpleasant person into a narcissist.

Someone can behave horribly without having NPD. Someone can be selfish without being narcissistic. Someone can lie without having a personality disorder. Someone can be emotionally immature, controlling, inconsiderate or dishonest, or simply be a complete arsehole without meeting the criteria for NPD.

Conversely, having narcissistic traits does not automatically mean someone is an abusive monster.

Human behaviour exists in shades of grey. That doesn't make harmful behaviour acceptable. It simply means we should be careful with diagnosis. We don't need a psychiatric label to justify leaving a relationship that is hurting us.

Sometimes "this behaviour is damaging me" is enough.

Perhaps the question isn't who the narcissist is

After everything I've learned, I'm not sure the most useful question is "Who is the narcissist?"

Perhaps a better question is:

What is happening here?

Is there genuine empathy? Can responsibility be taken without immediately finding somebody else to blame? Is an apology followed by changed behaviour, or merely another cycle of promises? Can boundaries exist without punishment? Are both people allowed to have different opinions, needs and emotional realities?

And perhaps the most important question of all is:

Can you be yourself without being afraid of what will happen?

Those questions can tell us far more about the health of a relationship than a label ever could.

What I've learned about myself

After all those years of putting myself under the microscope, I've finally come to understand something important.

I don't have to be perfect to prove that I wasn't the problem.

I've made mistakes, been angry and said things I wish I hadn't said. I've been selfish and got things wrong. I've hurt people unintentionally and reacted badly when I was overwhelmed.

I'm human.

The difference is that I can look back and examine my behaviour. I can feel uncomfortable about something I've done and take responsibility for it. I can apologise and listen when somebody tells me I've hurt them. I can try to do better.

That isn't perfection.

It's accountability.

And perhaps that is one of the most important things I have learned during my own healing journey. The goal isn't to become a person who never makes a mistake. It is to recognise those mistakes without collapsing beneath the belief that they define who you are.

So, if you've ever sat alone and quietly asked yourself, "Am I the narcissist?", perhaps you don't need to keep yourself in the courtroom.

You don't need to prove that you were the perfect victim. You don't need to prove that you never behaved badly. And you certainly don't need to find another label to wear.

Allow yourself to consider the whole picture. Behaviour matters, but so does accountability. Empathy matters. Boundaries matter. So does the way you feel within your relationships.

Most importantly, allow yourself the possibility that you can have flaws without being fundamentally flawed.

For me, healing began when I stopped asking:

"What's wrong with me?"

The question slowly became something else:

"What happened to me, and what do I need now?"

There is a world of difference between those two questions. One keeps you trapped in the courtroom. The other opens the door. And perhaps that's where healing begins.