I apologize if this has come across as victim blaming; that most certainly wasn’t my attention. My mother and my partner both came from relationships of narcissistic abuse, and they both read this piece before it was published—I don’t want to discredit the experience of anyone in an abusive situation.

It’s as the quote in the piece said, though, the narcissism itself isn’t the problem; the abuse is.

My point is more that by calling someone who is “selfish” a narcissist, we’re discounting the experience of people who have actually suffered narcissistic abuse. Basically, selfishness or having an ego is not equal to having NPD, and we need to stop carelessly using the word narcissist for every person who we don’t like.

I wanted to be fair to people on both ends of this: It’s bad to carelessly use the word narcissist because it damages both the victims of narcissistic abuse and people who have NPD because it contributes to a stigma that makes it harder for them to seek help.

I don’t want to insinuate that anyone should ever stay in an abusive relationship. I’ve seen firsthand the damage it can cause.

I am sincerely sorry if that’s the message you took from this, but thank you for bringing it to my attention. In the future, I’ll do better about disclaiming these things.