#people with npd are welcome to offer their input but i dont want to hear any 'well im gonna say narcissistic abuse because blah blah blah'

[dissociativedoe]

hi!! wondering if u had any insight or thoughts about why “narcissistic abuse doesn’t exist” ?

i saw ur reblog and i’d love to understand! my childhood trauma was i thought it to be believe even more intense bc both my parents were narcissists etc

Hello, thank you for asking!

I'm really bad at phrasing things on my own, but this post explains it pretty well!

Basically though, even though the word "narcissist" existed before the diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder was a thing, it's become very hard to separate the two, and the word "narcissist" is generally used to refer to someone with NPD.

Calling a family member a narcissist when they don't actually have NPD is sort of in the same vein as saying someone is "so bipolar," or describing someone as "psychotic" when they don't actually have psychosis.

Narcissists, people with NPD, are most often victims of abuse themselves (quite a lot of PDs stem from trauma). Not all people with NPD are abusive (just like not all people with any other disorder are abusive), and continuing that narrative of "narcissist = abusive" furthers the stigma of NPD and does a lot of damage.

I work best with examples so... It's like, I was abused by a man with bipolar. But I'm not going to call it "bipolar abuse" because not only does that create stigma against bipolar and make it seem like people with bipolar are inherently abusive, but it's also because the bipolar itself isn't what made it abusive, it's just because he was a shitty, manipulative guy. Not all people with bipolar are going to be abusive like he was (especially if they're in treatment), so it's unfair to push that narrative, right?

We have a whole disctionary full of descriptors at our disposal. If it was emotional abuse, call it that. If you were neglected, call it neglect. If your family member was self-centered, manipulative, or just an asshole, then just call them that. There are lots of other words you can use without further stigmatizing personality disorders.