Dear Anonymous As espoused in my previous articles emotional abuse is a form of abuse that is recognised under the Domestic Violence Act Cap 28:05. The said Act however implicitly acknowledges narcissism, it does not explicitly enunciate on narcissism. A narcissist is someone who has been diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). Narcissists may either be covert or overt. Narcissistic personality disorder is one of several types of personality disorders - it’s a mental condition in which people have an exaggerated sense of importance, a bottomless need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships and a lack of empathy for others.
It is noteworthy to mention that we may occasionally exude one or a few qualities of a narcissist. However, that does not make us narcissists. A narcissist is someone who radiates the narcissistic qualities described herein on a frequent basis. There are many theories that purport to explain how narcissists got into being. For purposes of this article we will focus on three of such theories namely; the grandiose narcissist, vulnerable narcissist and the narcissist by birth. The grandiose narcissist is the narcissist who came into being as a result of being given too much love and affection when they were growing up with little to no respect for boundaries, in a layman’s terms, we may call them ‘an extremely spoilt child’. The vulnerable narcissist is the narcissist that became due to child neglect when they were raised.
