NPD /ASD what's the relationship?

[Leers]

Hi all,

I am struggling to distinguish the differences between NPD and AS. I have spent the last six years reading everything on NPD and I am 99.9% sure that it is my fathers condition, but now I have read a bit about AS am wondering if I have got it wrong. The questions I want to ask are:

1) Is being a bully an NPD or AS trait? I have read that Aspies are generally on the receiving end of bullying.
2) Are Aspies obsessed with their appearance (especially in clothing)?
3) When Aspies rage at people have they been known to threaten a person with a knife to get their way, or threaten to kill themselves?
4) Are Aspies obsessed with status and power.

I believe these are all NPD traits but would like to be sure.

I look forward to your replies.

Leers:help

 

[IContainMultitudes]

No, none of those are common aspie traits. Of course, it's entirely possible for aspies to be bullies, but they are generally much more likely to be on the receiving end of it, and they are generally more likely to be victims of violent crimes rather than perpetrators.

 

[Jesse]

@Leers
Here are my responses to your questions/statements:

1) Is being a bully an NPD or AS trait? I have read that Aspies are generally on the receiving end of bullying. Aspies are normally the onces bullied but it might be possible to be both an Aspie and a bully. Can you describe the bullying in more detail for us?

2) Are Aspies obsessed with their appearance (especially in clothing)? You're joking - right? I don't know any aspies who are obsessed with their appearance. Most of us don't seem to care much at all as we are too focused on other more important things

3) When Aspies rage at people have they been known to threaten a person with a knife to get their way, or threaten to kill themselves? This is not something i have ever heard of. I have been known to get aggressive during some meltdowns but I have NEVER directed that violence towards the person who has done their best to aggravate me and I never would.

4) Are Aspies obsessed with status and power. Are you serious? In my opinion these are firmly NT traits.

I hope my answers help you a little.

 

[Leers]

Hi Jesse,

Thanks for your reply, it has confirmed my beliefs in my fathers condition. I only asked these questions because my mother told me he had been listening to a conversation about AS on the radio which made him think it was his condition. I think this is because he is very much a Cerebral Narcissist who has always believed that he is far more intelligent than every body else.

You asked me to describe the bullying in more detail. He has always been very verbally abusive and it has always been the old "My way or the highway" attitude. He absolutely can not take any form of criticism, even if you can prove that he is wrong, and always tries to justify his reasoning by saying "What qualifications have you got to tell me?".

But it is the threatening remarks he uses to get his way as soon as he feels that his superiority is being threatened. He often tells me or my mother "If you don't do as I say I'm going to come over there in a minute and smash your [deleted] face in". The last time he tried this line with me I put down what I was doing, (trying to correct a mistake he had made on my mothers laptop), stood up in front of him, with my mother present, and said "Come on then big man!". Me standing up for myself obviously threw him and he rose up in front of me and then said "Ill call the police on you". I then told him to do so and I would wait for them myself. What was he going to tell them? "My son came in to my house and wouldn't allow me threaten or intimidate him". It ended up with me leaving the house and I was banned from going round for about a year.

He must have seen the error of his ways and I was eventually allowed to visit once again (mainly for my mothers sake) but this was not to last for long. On the last occasion I had gone to visit my parents, as I did on most weekends, to return a gardening tool my mother had lent me. I had gone up through the back garden, as I had done so countless times, opened the back door and shouted "Hello, anybody home?". My father came to the door glaring at me and saying "I thought I told you not to come up the back garden, I don't want people doing it because I want my privacy". By this time my mother had come into the kitchen and explained that I had phoned earlier to return the tool.He had told me once about two years earlier but had forgotten and had been doing it for quite a while without anything being said. I replied by saying that I wasn't just anyone, that even though he didn't give a [deleted] I was family. I had by then got so fed up with walking on eggshells around my father all of the time that I suggested that maybe he should go and call the Police if it upset-ted him so much. He then threatened to punch me in the face and when I stood up to him once again he turned round, picked up a carving knife and tried to intimidate me with that instead. Again I just called his bluff knowing that he would never do it and he just stormed out off the kitchen in a rage. Least to say,
I have not been back to the house since and my mother has to visit me all off the time.

I have opened my mothers eyes too my fathers Narcissism, and she has become a much stronger person herself. She no longer takes grief from the old man as it has gone on all of our lives.

Many thanks for listening to my rant.

 

[Ste11aeres]

I was watching this video about how Aspergers can be misdiagnosed as Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I was wondering if the opposite ever happens, if Narcissistic Personality Disorder is ever mistaken for Aspergers. If so, could it explain part of the internet phenomenon of multiple women talking about how heartless their "Aspie" husband is? acs_foe:

 

[King_Oni]

I'm quite sure the opposite happens as well.

The thing with diagnosing and misdiagnosing people i that it's at times still a pretty limited scope. A professional can only diagnose on the information provided by me or by how other perceive me. If you're skilled to mask empathy and emotions you can easily trick even people like your parents as a narcissist. And besides; since most people aren't mental healthcare professionals and they are often asked for extra information (parents and/or friends), they can just as well be clueless what exactly is going on.

I always feel that whenever I read some women ranting away how heartless their husband is and how he's probably an aspie... but might just as well be heartless by choice... if you can't deal with him being heartless, regardless if it's on purpose or "by accident", then get out of there.

What I wonder is, can people who fit the Aspie profile perfectly, but learn social skills, at some point get re-diagnosed as having narcissistic personality disorder? Since at that point, they know how to "act" it can very much be assumed that you, because you know it, should always act accordingly, even if you might have good reasons to act differently (like for instance; tell a little lie, which for a lot of people on the spectrum is a matter of principle). The issue I see with it, is... even if someone knows how to show certain emotions and have a certain attitude, there's no exact way to be sure someone understands the implications of his/her actions, and I think with someone with a aspie brain, it's a lot harder in general.

That all being said; Before I got my diagnosis, the initial diagnosis of a therapist was NPD (amongst some other personality disorders; antisocial, avoidant, schizoid and then some). Amongst the reasons he thought so, was because I was egocentric, focused on what I want (and just that), but compared to a lot on the spectrum, I have under certain circumstances, excellent communication skills. I wasn't as socially and communicative impaired as what the general idea of aspies and/or autistic people is. Truth however was, in the case of that (and other therapists) is that I go through a lot of theory, arguments and counter-arguments in my mind, thus that's why I'm well-versed in having conversations about psychology and my sense of being with these kind of mental healthcare professionals. Perhaps it's sort of an obsession to "defend" myself and not let myself get trapped by any argument they throw at me.

 

[Spinning Compass]

That is why I tend to avoid those kinds of therapists as much as possible. I have enough trouble finding out who I am and what I want out of life as opposed to what others want for me. I don't need to pay someone to invalidate my feelings and thoughts, I get enough of that for free, thank you.

 

[Loomis]

I was watching this video about how Aspergers can be misdiagnosed as Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I was wondering if the opposite ever happens, if Narcissistic Personality Disorder is ever mistaken for Aspergers. If so, could it explain part of the internet phenomenon of multiple women talking about how heartless their "Aspie" husband is? acs_foe:

Very interesting and thought provoking video.

 

[Historianthomas]

I'm quite sure the opposite happens as well.

The thing with diagnosing and misdiagnosing people i that it's at times still a pretty limited scope. A professional can only diagnose on the information provided by me or by how other perceive me. If you're skilled to mask empathy and emotions you can easily trick even people like your parents as a narcissist. And besides; since most people aren't mental healthcare professionals and they are often asked for extra information (parents and/or friends), they can just as well be clueless what exactly is going on.

I always feel that whenever I read some women ranting away how heartless their husband is and how he's probably an aspie... but might just as well be heartless by choice... if you can't deal with him being heartless, regardless if it's on purpose or "by accident", then get out of there.

What I wonder is, can people who fit the Aspie profile perfectly, but learn social skills, at some point get re-diagnosed as having narcissistic personality disorder? Since at that point, they know how to "act" it can very much be assumed that you, because you know it, should always act accordingly, even if you might have good reasons to act differently (like for instance; tell a little lie, which for a lot of people on the spectrum is a matter of principle). The issue I see with it, is... even if someone knows how to show certain emotions and have a certain attitude, there's no exact way to be sure someone understands the implications of his/her actions, and I think with someone with a aspie brain, it's a lot harder in general.

That all being said; Before I got my diagnosis, the initial diagnosis of a therapist was NPD (amongst some other personality disorders; antisocial, avoidant, schizoid and then some). Amongst the reasons he thought so, was because I was egocentric, focused on what I want (and just that), but compared to a lot on the spectrum, I have under certain circumstances, excellent communication skills. I wasn't as socially and communicative impaired as what the general idea of aspies and/or autistic people is. Truth however was, in the case of that (and other therapists) is that I go through a lot of theory, arguments and counter-arguments in my mind, thus that's why I'm well-versed in having conversations about psychology and my sense of being with these kind of mental healthcare professionals. Perhaps it's sort of an obsession to "defend" myself and not let myself get trapped by any argument they throw at me.

The problem with psychology and diagnosing someone with a particular psychological issue is that diagnosing someone is still rather crude. Despite all the advances, diagnosing someone is really a matter of opinion of the psychologist analyzing the result.

 

[Cyanide Lollipop]

Diagnosing conditions in the DSM seems to include a whole lot of guesswork. I'm reading "The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry" by Gary Greenberg at the moment and it's a worry. Conditions are listed in the DSM where field trials have existed of low numbers of subjects and some are listed without any scientific rigour to the process. A friend of mine has a Masters degree in Psychology and told me that it is easy to convince a professional in the field that one has a mental illness where none exists. Then it is extremely difficult to have the wrong diagnosis overturned. Greenberg refers to an experiment where a group of medical students presented to hospitals faking mental illness and their experiences were consistent with what my friend told me.

 

[Sparticus]

My ex-wife has NPD. :mask2: She's the opposite of my autistic son & I. She's very un Aspie like per verbal violence, is more charismatic than most Aspies I've known & her social Chameleon like talents are far beyond the skill level of most Aspies.

 

[Ste11aeres]

My ex-wife has NPD. :mask2: She's the opposite of my autistic son & I. She's very un Aspie like.

Maybe some NPDs can have aspie-like characteristics, and others can be very neurotypical, just because of being individuals with individual personalities

 

[Ste11aeres]

My ex-wife has NPD. :mask2: She's the opposite of my autistic son & I. She's very un Aspie like.

Were there warning signs...or signs that were warning signs that could only be seen in hindsight...or was there no way of knowing until you were deeply into marriage?

 

[Sparticus]

That could be. She doesn't socialize a lot so I see how that can be mistaken for Autism or other. I don't know enough about NPD and Autism to add to this. I can't watch your video as my speakers don't work.

Maybe some NPDs can have aspie-like characteristics, and others can be very neurotypical, just because of being individuals with individual personalities

 

[Ste11aeres]

That could be. She doesn't socialize a lot so I see how that can be mistaken for Autism or other. I don't know enough about NPD and Autism to add to this. I can't watch your video as my speakers don't work.

The guy's message was that superficially AS and NPD can seem like each other, but that at a deeper level they are actually very different.

 

[Sparticus]

Oh well, that's sounds like a very interesting video! My bad...sure she doesn't socialize a lot & in the beginning she finds out what your psychology is [emotional weaknesses] are so she can be charming & appear to be an honest Aspie. Perhaps that part, the questions asked in an honest way [played out by the NDP to extract info] can appear aspie?.

Then she mirrors you...what hurt you in your childhood she suddenly remembers the same thing was an issue for her. She wants to identify with you for emotional bonding & so later the NPD person knows how to use you for her advantage.

The guy's message was that superficially AS and NPD can seem like each other, but that at a deeper level they are actually very different.

 

[Sparticus]

If anyone can rewrite the above in a more legible way, have at it! Interesting thread Ste11

 

[Sparticus]

Great question They say there always are warning signs but those of low self esteem ignore the warning signs. It was a bad time in my life...let's see I moved in too quick with her. She wanted to get married quickly. When I got home from work a guy was in the hallway painting our furniture? I asked my fiance why she didn't ask me to paint the furniture? Another time I got home & her son didn't open up the keychain.

When I finally got inside her son stood in my way. I pushed past him & my fiance opened up her bedroom door-behind her was my brother who has a reputation for being a womanizer. They said he was "fixing the clock." Another time I had a photo job to do. Went to work & photographed a baby's Christening. When I got home all my stuff was outside the door. I asked her why? She said because of the lady's voiced on the answering machine.

I said yeah that's the customer who hired me for the baby's christening. There were more...I ignored them all and was in denial.

Were there warning signs...or signs that were warning signs that could only be seen in hindsight...or was there no way of knowing until you were deeply into marriage?

 

[Verum]

My ex-wife has NPD. :mask2: She's the opposite of my autistic son & I. She's very un Aspie like per verbal violence, is more charismatic than most Aspies I've known & her social Chameleon like talents are far beyond the skill level of most Aspies.

You hit the nail on the head there, Sparticus: they are our complete opposite... a sort of dark, twisted reflection. My mother is a pathological narcissist, I know them intimately as well.

 

[Ste11aeres]

You hit the nail on the head there, Sparticus: they are our complete opposite... a sort of dark, twisted reflection.

It's reassuring to hear that because the way some ignorant persons speak of us is as if we are heartless, incapable of caring for others. But, while I don't know NPDs, I have known many Aspies besides myself. The people I became closest to in recent years, my best friend, a small child I cared for, and that child's parents, were all Aspies and they were wonderful people. But while my friend is well-liked (although still "odd" of one evaluates him by a standard determined by typical people) the members of this family were disliked by other people. However, they were wonderful. They understood each other, each was extremely lucky to have the other, and, if one understood them, as I did, one could see their genuine love.