The manic phase of Bipolar I Disorder is often misdiagnosed as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).
read here by Sam Vaknin
http://samvak.tripod.com/journal71.htmlhi Poetprose, I wouldn't take 'Pathological Narcissism' as a gospel on mental illness or personality disorder, it's a collection of interesting ideas that's all.
Neither condition should be 'diagnosed' as a result of one episode, it's a pattern over time. And as someone else points out- every person is in any case individual in their manifestation of either condition.
Labels aren't always helpful I don't think, and it's stereotypes which mean people assume all bipolars must be grandiose and violent for example.
I have been thinking and writing more and more about this, and especially violence. Very little violence is due to short-term chemical imbalance outbursts-it's much more about faulty thinking and attitude.
Violence happens in a pattern too- and the precursor is what the violent person believes about how they are entitled to behave.
As a bipolar if I were ever violent ( which I never have been ) I would see it as unreasonable and my responsibility to fix and prevent it recurring; in some ways the stereotypes give people a 'let-off' by assuming that person's self-control is impaired or norms of expectations on behaviour should not be applied to them. That's simply not true.
Anyone who is so out of control that violence is a norm for them needs to be taking that behaviour to a psychiatrist or psychologist and if it truly cannot be controlled then they are the small minority of people who are unsafe to be out of hospital.
Unfortunately so many social norms exist around violence that many kinds of violence are tolerated, encouraged and excused.
If abuse is the systematic use of a behaviour to manipulate or control someone else then any person who is violent more than once and is aware they have been violent- they need to take responsibility for that and recognise their element of choice and abusiveness in what they are doing.
Being drunk/ drugged/ mentally ill or impaired is no longer a 'get out clause' for bad behaviour, in the same way that other disabilities or inequalities aren't.
:oops:Here endeth the lesson...sorry, obviously I have been feeling more strongly about this than I realise!
When that guy said to me a few weeks ago 'I wouldn't want someone ( ie me ) calling drunk late at night and making demands' it's made me feel like I should be more proactive about bipolar and what it really means, it's not adequately represented by the handful of out-of-control people who seem to have created the public image.
