Asklemmy

I spend a lot of time mulling this over, since my therapist thinks that both my SO and MIL have malignant narcissism.

What I can say about both of them is that they really find doing emotionally disruptive things absolutely vital to their lives. MIL likes to pit her kids against each other so she can watch them fight, and she smiles like a vampire who just had a delicious blood feast when she sees it. Her only grandchild develops an eating disorder? Nothing will do but to run out and buy her some size XXL pyjamas to make her feel worse. Everything for her is a provocation and meant to trigger a negative reaction, because that's what she gets off on. It's beyond being an asshole, it's pathological and emotionally disturbing.

My SO, one of the biggest examples is the gifts he buys me. They're usually highly thoughtful and unique, but they're also really for him (it's several times been a piece of art), and part of it is so he can take pictures of them for Instagram and display his fine taste in things to everyone. If I tried to move out and take those things with me, he'd probably break my arm. Nothing is really a gift with him, it's just a way for him to get himself something he can show off with. Or he'll spend a long time taking pictures of things we've bought on trips just to show what interesting and unique tastes he has and how therefore he's better than anyone else. It's really tone deaf and it really reflects how he doesn't actually enjoy anything, but rather what doing something or buying something will help to elevate his status in his mind. It's tiresome and tone deaf. It isn't that I don't like the gifts, but the whole point is that they're not really gifts at all, and my birthday or whatever is just an excuse to acquire something that makes him feel important. He really has no friends, and I think this is a desperate way to make the few people who try to be nice to him at least superficially on social media think he's important, but really nobody can stand him beyond the superficial.

I think an asshole would just not be bothered with anything so deliberately manipulative, but just be really careless with your feelings and react badly when they get angry. I think that's the difference is the deep rooted pathological nature of it.

Sam Vikins... "Malignant self love" explains everything. Or check out his yt.

I am not a narcissist. I don't think I'm better or more important than anyone else. I don't think I'm the center of the universe.

I am however, an asshole. Knowing you are not the best or smartest, doesn't mean you can't be arrogant and insufferable.

Functionally, not much I can see , the former's slur for people with NPD (or whom person saying it thinks has NPD)

Narcissism, like all personality disorders, is a trauma response and also not indicative of someone's moral character as you can get help and learn not to act on your worst inclinations.

Asshole is a behavior.

Narcissists lack something that makes them whole. They desperately try to fill that void that fits in the current moment. They tend to truly believe a story to fit their needs and completely change it when the situation changes. You won't be able to correct their story based on your own memory. Sociopaths are whole, their memory is stable, their deeds are purposefully malignant.

There's gotta be a vin diagram for this one

My layman’s understanding is that clinical narcissism is a pathological obsession with the perception of self (vs. sociopathy which is pathological obsession with self-interests, explained in a moment), and being an asshole is a transient state.

A narcissist will constantly have in mind what others think of them, and obsessively make sure other people believe they are good, socially better, morally superior, high status, etc. at any cost, and will topple and tear down other people to ensure that perception. Anyone who challenges that is a threat and will be treated with active hostility. They care what you think because it feeds their sickness.

A sociopath generally does not care what you think, unless you believing something is useful to them. They are typically equally focused on others’ perception of them but for a different reason. People are simply tools; means to an end. Reputation is an asset in their toolkit to get what they want, at whatever cost. Lack of remorse at a pervasive, chronic level tends to characterize sociopathy.

An asshole doesn’t necessarily mean either. I can be mean to you, or hurt someone to get my way, and that would make me an asshole. I don’t necessarily think I’m better than you and I do have the capacity to feel remorse. Asshole is a changeable behavior, or an attitude, and not a severe disorder.

TL;DR: Narcissists are specifically mentally sick, and can be assholes. But anyone can act like an asshole ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Every narcissist is an asshole, but not every asshole is a narcissist

The asshole is an asshole on purpose.
The narcissist couldn't stop acting like an asshole even if they tried.

a narcissist is self-absorbed

an asshole actively enjoys the suffering of others

One of them narrowly made it into the DSM-5 and the other never will.

The Politics of Sociopathic Narcissism

It is thus plausible to consider “narcissism” and “sociopathy” as really two poles on a continuum of overlapping traits (and indeed, the newly-revised DSM V, which considered subsuming narcissistic traits into sociopathy, has moved in this direction).

Youtuber Sarah Z has a whole video about how this online "Narcissist" obsession is dumb.

Narcissist believes they're right. Assholes just think you're wrong.

Depression

anyone performing actions that hurt others where its not really about themselves. being mean for no particular reason or reward, especially to themselves.

NPD and BPD are both driven by an eternal sucking void of insecurity and negative self-esteem that can never be filled.

Narcissists try to fill it with praise and social status, or failing that, power and subjugation.

Borderlines try to fill it with limerence and victimhood or failing that, revenge.

But it can't ever be filled - it's worse than addiction, worse than being underwater in some shitty MLM scheme. It takes and takes and takes because fuck you, pay me.

So they don't have friends or loved ones, they have hosts. They suck out all the goodness until there's nothing left to give, then they start in on the pain.

Assholes, in the other hand, are just driven by simple greed, callousness and lack of consideration. They can and do still hurt people of course, but it's not an all-consuming obsessive need.