Anna Fothergill examines our culture’s growing tendency to label difficult people as “narcissists,” questioning whether ordinary selfishness is too often mistaken for psychological disorder. Blending personal experience with a Christian perspective, she reflects on the difference between clinical narcissism and the universal problem of human sin.
The word “narcissist” gets thrown around today with alarming ease. Spend ten minutes online, and you will likely encounter a video diagnosing an ex-boyfriend, difficult parent, disappointing church leader, or emotionally unavailable husband with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. The term has become a cultural catch-all; a convenient explanation for relational pain, particularly among women who have been hurt repeatedly by men.
Of course, some people really have experienced deeply manipulative and emotionally damaging relationships. There are women carrying genuine trauma from controlling, abusive, or psychologically destructive partners. I myself went through one such relationship in my early 20s, and it took me years to fully name the relationship as abusive.
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This pain should not be minimised. Nor should the reality of Narcissistic Personality Disorder itself be ignored, which is a legitimate and serious psychiatric condition. But therein lies the problem: the more casually we use the term, the more meaningless it becomes.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, true clinical Narcissistic Personality Disorder affects only a small percentage of the population, roughly between 1-6%
According to the Cleveland Clinic, true clinical Narcissistic Personality Disorder affects only a small percentage of the population, roughly between 1-6%. Yet online, it can feel as though every failed relationship now involves a narcissist. A selfish husband? Narcissist. A boyfriend who struggles to communicate? Narcissist. A man who does not reciprocate romantic feelings? Probably a narcissist too.
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We have entered an age obsessed with labels. Once upon a time, rebellion sounded like, “I’m not into labels, man.” Now identity itself seems built upon them. Everyone and their TikTok account is diagnosing themselves and others with something. In the frenzy of self-identification, words like trauma, ADHD, anxiety, toxic, and narcissism have all become strangely flattened; stretched so broadly they lose their precision and weight.
I was reminded recently that genuine narcissism is something far more unsettling than ordinary selfishness. I found myself sitting across from someone who seemed incapable of grasping even basic empathy. At one point, I was literally explaining human feelings; carefully laying out how their behaviour affected others. I was met with a blank expression, quick verbal agreement, and then an immediate return to discussing themselves. It was baffling.
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Later, during a frustrating text exchange, I noticed something strange. Every message from them began with “I”.
“I feel…”
“I think…”
“I need…”
The further I went down this wormhole of a conversation, alarm bells started going off. I recognised the behaviour, it was identical to that abusive relationship of my 20s. It struck me then how disorienting genuine self-obsession can feel when encountered up close. And yet, even with that experience, I remain deeply hesitant to assign diagnoses. Because most difficult people are not clinical narcissists. Sometimes people are immature or selfish. Sometimes they are wounded, sinful, emotionally stunted, proud, inconsiderate, or simply unkind.
The Christian understanding of humanity actually leaves plenty of room for this. Scripture hardly paints an optimistic picture of the natural human condition. We are repeatedly told about pride, vanity, selfish ambition, hard-heartedness, and lack of love. In 2 Timothy 3:2, Paul warns that people will become “lovers of themselves”, proud and abusive. The Bible does not need modern psychology to tell us humans can be profoundly self-centred.
But Christianity also offers something our online culture often does not: humility about our own capacity for sin.
But Christianity also offers something our online culture often does not: humility about our own capacity for sin. The danger of constantly labelling others is that it subtly casts us as entirely innocent. The narcissist becomes the villain; we become the enlightened victim. Yet Jesus consistently turns the spotlight back toward the human heart, including our own.
This does not mean tolerating abuse or remaining in destructive relationships. Boundaries are biblical. Wisdom is biblical. Seeking help is biblical. But casually diagnosing people from Instagram infographics or viral videos is not wisdom; it risks trivialising real disorders while also reducing ordinary human sinfulness to psychological categories. There is also a spiritual danger in over-pathologising everything. If every selfish action is a disorder, then personal responsibility begins to disappear. Sin becomes merely a symptom, and repentance gets replaced with self-analysis. But the Gospel insists humans are morally accountable beings, capable of both great evil and genuine transformation.
Perhaps that is the better question to ask, not merely “Are they a narcissist?” but “What kind of person are they becoming?” And equally important: what kind of person am I becoming? Because while true narcissism exists, ordinary selfishness exists too. And if we are honest, most of us will encounter both not only in others, but within ourselves.
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