Cluster B personality disorders tend to be the sort of personality disorders that are obvious to those around you. (To anyone who has done any serious study on the topic of personality disorders, it’s likely those around you (at least the ones you’ve interacted at all sufficiently with) already know you have NPD. To those around you who haven’t, I’m sure they’ve still identified aspects of your behavior that are much different from how most people behave, and stumbling across the Wikipedia page for NPD is likely to bring you to mind.)

I do say “tend to” on purpose. There is such a thing as a “covert presentation” of NPD that can be less obvious.

I’ve done enough study on the topic that I know a bit about what the term “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” means. If someone I knew mentioned to me that they had an NPD diagnosis, I think just how that would affect my view of them would depend on a few things:

I think if I hadn’t known them very long and there wasn’t any particular reason for them to bring it up, I’d likely see bringing up their NPD diagnosis as an attention-seeking behavior. (This would be true no matter what the diagnosis was. If someone I didn’t know well just lead with “I have histrionic PD” or “I’m autistic” without a specific good reason to be bringing it up (and I’m not saying that there aren’t cases where leading with a psychological diagnosis is appropriate), I’d similarly feel they were seeking attention. Of course with NPD, “attention seeking” is even one of the diagnostic criteria, and so there is a certain difference with seeking attention by airing your NPD diagnosis vs airing your schizoid PD (or whatever) diagnosis.) If I’m honest, OP, just interacting with you a couple of times on Lemmy, this is kindof the way I view you. That said, I don’t see your behavior on Lemmy as “bad” in any particular way. You’re getting some of your needs filled and also contributing to the community here by starting what I see as interesting and engaging conversations. But I do think a big part of why you’re writing so much about NPD is to get validation from strangers on the internet.

If I had known them for a while and had already seen them exhibit a lot of narcissistic behavior, it would probably be a bit of a relief to hear them say they had an NPD diagnosis. I’d see them as more self-aware than I did before and that would increase my respect for them. I’d probably suspect their awareness of their condition means they may have a genuine interest in managing it and they may be in treatment. I’d suspect they probably knew a bit about the terminology. And if their behavior became unacceptable and I needed to ask them to tone it down, I might be able to break through their defenses to get them to actually listen to me by speaking to them about their behavior in terms more closely associated with PD theory. I’d also feel a bit honored to have been confided in.

If I had known them for a while but the fact they had an NPD diagnosis took me by surprise, it would definitely make me reevaluate my view of NPD a bit. As I said above, covert NPD does exist but I’d be surprised I didn’t pick up on it myself even their presentation was covert.