Am I a Narcissist?
Updated: Jun 23
There is a particular worry that brings people to my counselling room. It often gets brought up after months, sometimes years, of feeling confused in a relationship. You have probably read the articles, watched the videos, and lain awake replaying conversations, trying to make sense of what has been happening in the relationship. Somewhere in the middle of trying to understand someone else's behaviour, the question quietly turns inward: Am I the narcissist? What if it’s actually me?
If you have asked yourself this, I want you to pause for a moment. The fact that you are sitting with the question at all is significant, and not in the way you might fear. This is one of the most common things I hear from people who have been on the receiving end of unhealthy relationship behaviours, and it deserves more than a quick reassurance.
Why This Question Shows Up
People rarely ask themselves whether they might be a narcissist out of the blue. It usually appears after a long stretch of feeling unsettled in a relationship. You may have been told you are too sensitive, too dramatic, or too much. You may have raised something difficult and somehow walked away feeling like the issue was you. Over time, those moments build up. The question stops feeling like an accusation from someone else and starts feeling like a possibility you need to consider.
Social media has amplified this enormously. The word "narcissist" is now used so freely that many people have absorbed long lists of traits and started measuring themselves against them. You read about lack of empathy, manipulation, needing to be right, and somewhere in there, you remember a moment where you snapped, withdrew, said something sharp, or did not handle a conversation well. That is often where the self-doubt begins.
In my work with clients, I see this pattern again and again. The person doing the most reflecting, questioning, and worrying is almost never the one causing the harm. They are usually the one being harmed.
What Narcissistic Behaviour Actually Looks Like
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