Asking because not only did I suspect my (now former) boss to be like that, there was also a massive meltdown in a specific content creation space where an otherwise extremely kind CC was exposed as… being a bit special. So I thought I should try to get better at spotting ppl like that in order to not burn myself
Edit: Thanks everyone. I guess I didn’t word it correctly but my goal wasn’t to “diagnose” someone. I’m Autistic & am working in a field that allegedly attracts lots of hyper-competitive/toxic ppl, so I want to protect myself. That’s why. I already saw tons of useful comments so
I’m not a psychiatrist, so this is all observational for me, but my father is a narcissist so I can at least tell you what he’s like.
In conversation, or any interaction, if the topic veers into anything that my father can’t relate to or isn’t aware of from his own personal experience, he immediately reframes the topic so it’s about him. This consistently happens in the middle of a conversation, and it usually interrupts someone speaking. The interruption is always unrelated to what the person was actually saying, so after he interrupts you can always see the person he cut off deflate and shrink away from the conversation. Because it’s clear he wasn’t participating in a two-sided conversation, he was just waiting his turn to cut in and take over.
He manages to come across as caring, but that’s only because he knows exactly how to act so he appears that way. But his motivation is only to be praised for his apparent empathy, because if you probe his behavior even a little bit, it’s like a switch is flipped and he goes into a full on angry defensive mode.
For example, a close family member is dying, and he is the only one available to care for them. And he is taking care of them physically, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that, but whenever another family-member asks for an update on their condition, his framing is always about what he has done and how he has learned what to do in a particular situation, it’s never about the condition of our dying family member.
He takes credit for every idea and new concept he comes across, even if the person who gave him the idea is in the room with him. It sometimes even happens in the same conversation.
Anyway, those are just my personal experiences living with an extremely difficult and selfish father who is incapable of thinking genuinely about other people. I learned a lot about myself and him by reading Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. Worth a read even if you’re not thinking about a parent.
Sounds like my mom.
I’d also add when something goes wrong it’s ALWAYS somebody else’s fault. Generally, if someone were to accidentally bump into something and break it, most would apologize, and at least offer to help fix or replace it, but my mom would get angry at whoever “put that there where it would get broken.”, or at the company for making such a shoddy product, or claim “you should thank me because that thing was ugly/ needed replaced.”
Also, she knows more about medicine than any doctor, more about cars than any mechanic, and if anyone implies otherwise, they just hate women and won’t listen to them.
Oh yeah, that last point rings true for my dad too. My family hired a health aid to assist with our relative who he’s helping care for in home hospice, and we fought with him for weeks to defer to the aid’s expertise. He believes, despite the fact that this is literally her career, that he knows better how to take care of someone on their deathbed. Despite not having gone through it before, or having any medical or healthcare experience. He would snap at the aid for showing him how to do something.
We ultimately had to have a heart-to-heart with the aid to apologize for his behavior and to teach her how to use his own narcissism against him so he would do things the right way.
Recently came across the terms “grandiose narcissism” and “vulnerable narcissism”. The way I understand it, a grandiose narcissist knows they are the best and gets angry if anyone dares to challenge this idea. A vulnerable narcissist knows that they have flaws but they work really hard to maintain a perfect facade.
Do you think that your father would be either one of those types?
I think he’d be a grandiose narcissist. He truly believes he’s the best and can’t be wrong. And when someone calmly and carefully explains why he is wrong about a particular thing, his mood flips 180 degrees and he blows up and gets super defensive. If we don’t give up trying to convince him, his mood gets even more sour and he essentially mopes like toddler. This can be for anything, even the most trivial bullshit that wouldn’t phase anybody else.
And he does all that while bragging to anyone that will listen that he’s open-minded and loves being proven wrong.
Then don’t enable OP
He just sounds autistic to me.