Published: March 14, 2025

ADHD and Narcissism

Personality disorders are diverse in their manifestation and unfortunately, they are not as rare as we wish them to be. In recent years, the diagnosis of ADHD has been on everyone’s lips due to its extensive diagnostics in kids and adults. Being a person with ADHD is tough, as you experience multiple issues with concentration, empathy, self-organization, and memory. Yet, the results of this disorder can often be perceived by other people as egoism, selfishness and even Narcissism.

Today, over 5% of Americans have ADHD [1], but are ADHD and Narcissism related and how are they related to one another? Let’s consider it.

Symptoms of ADHD and Narcissism

What is ADHD? This term is used for attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, a condition which can occur in children and often is diagnosed in adults. Narcissism or officially Narcissistic Personality Disorder is another diagnosis which is used for people with unexpectedly and irrelevantly high self-estimation and sense of self-importance.

What can be said first about ADHD or Narcissism? The causes and mechanisms of these two issues are different, and they are only partially comorbid.

It is enough to inspect the core symptoms of each disorder to understand they are not the same.

The Core Symptoms You Have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

For ADHD, the hallmark feature, as you can guess, is lack of focus and concentration which impact various life routines from schooling to work or building healthy relations. Other symptoms of ADHD are as follows:

Hyperactivity which makes people restless and unable to relax;
Excessive impulsivity which often makes ADHD persons act first and ask questions later;
Issues with self-organization and time management. Often, in ADHD, even casual routines seem unnecessary or tough to perform;
Difficulties with emotional management and stress tolerance due to attention deficit are also common.

The combination of these symptoms often makes ADHD persons act specifically. Some people may decide they lack empathy and their behavior is attention-seeking. At once, bad emotional management frequently causes ADHD people difficulties in building relationships with others.

Psychiatric Criteria for Narcissism

NPD can manifest in multiple ways, it can be of different severity and intensity of symptoms. Typically, you can distinguish an NPD person by the following criteria:

Extremely high levels of self-importance without any reason;
Constant need for admiration which can even sometimes transform into the need to worship an NPD person;
Constant feeling they are worth special attitude, privileges, and bonuses in their lives without any effort or achievement;
Emotional deafness and lack of empathy are characteristics for Narcissistic people;
Excessive criticism of other people and the sense of unimportance of others;
Extreme aggression and anger when there is no admiration or recognition of their superior state;
Difficulties with emotion management which lead to major problems with interactions with other people;
Abusive behavior patterns towards their partners or family members.

At once, NPD people often have hidden feelings of insecurity, shame, fear, and anxiety about themselves.

Similarities in ADHD and Narcissism

As you can see, the pack of symptoms in ADHD vs Narcissism is diverse enough. Some of them really overlap, namely as follows:

Emotional management difficulties. Both disorders make people experience low empathy and misunderstanding of what they feel and what other people may feel in a certain situation.
High impulsivity is also an overlapping symptom. Yet, its causes are different in ADHD and NPD. While an ADHD person acts impulsively due to attention issues and short memory, NPD patients’ impulsivity is typically boosted by their dissatisfaction with the attitude of other people toward them.
Attention-seeking behavioral patterns. There are also differences as ADHD seeks someone’s attention due to neurobiological factors and their specific brain activity, in NPD, these patterns are caused by the persistent need for admiration, approval, and love by others.

Differences Between ADHD and Narcissism

The core difference between ADHD and Narcissism is the cause of the disorder. ADHD has recently been considered to be more prone to genetic and neurobiological causes. NPD can be a complex result of genetics, early childhood relationships with parents or caregivers, a coping post-traumatic mechanism, and some neurological issues as well. One more difference is the time of manifestation. While ADHD is a congenital disorder, which often manifests in childhood and adults, it can be diagnosed due to a lack of preliminary diagnostics earlier, Narcissism manifests typically in young adults and adults.

Other symptomatic differences that may help not to mistake ADHD with Narcissism are as follows:

Differences in motivation. While ADHD persons’ actions are caused by their brain specifics, in NPD, the roots of their behavior are in constant need of social admiration and delight.
Differences in emotional control. Not all ADHD people show a lack of empathy or emotional deafness while for NPD people, this is characteristic.
Differences in self-perception. Narcissists are always thinking about themselves as superior people, while ADHD has no such thoughts and their self-esteem can vary from fully self-esteemed to dramatically insecure.
Differences in relationships. ADHD may have problems with relationships because of their lack of focus on them, while NPD people tend to manipulate, be toxic and abusive to retain their partners in a dependent and submissive position.

That’s why diagnostics for both these disorders need a complex evaluation of medical history, genetics, age of manifestation, severity and intersection of symptoms, and neurobiological background.

Treatment for ADHD and Narcissism

The differences in treatment for ADHD and NPD also exist. For ADHD, the most pivotal is to combine three main methods:

Medication management to reduce inattention and emotional destabilization;
Behavioral therapy methods like CBT to develop coping strategies;
Lifestyle changes and maintenance of everyday routines are a must for ADHD to get compensated.

For NPD, medications typically are not used while a combo of various psychotherapeutic and behavioral therapeutic methods can be effective.

Can ADHD Lead to Narcissism?

Today, there is no clear evidence that ADHD is the cause of the development of NPD in adults. Yet, the study conducted in 2012 [2] proved the correlation between ADHD and some other personality disorders. According to it, patients with ADHD are prone to develop Borderline Personality Disorder (over 33.69% of patients), Narcissism (25.16%), schizotypal disorder (22.42%), and antisocial PD (18.86%). Thus, the risks are higher for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder patients to get NPD as well as any other PD but the statement that ADHD leads to Narcissism is not 100% true.

Can ADHD Be Confused with Narcissism?

In some cases, ADHD and Narcissism comorbidity lead to difficulties with thorough diagnostics. A study [3] highlights the common features that make it tough for a mental health specialist to decide on which type of dysfunction a patient has due to a couple of overlapping symptoms as follows:

increased impulsivity of a patient;
some self-centeredness which is embodied in extreme egoism in NPD while being more about trying to keep the focus on oneself in ADHD;
emotion regulation issues.

Besides, Narcissism as a complex disorder, can emerge in adults with ADHD as an additional disorder. So, if you have any suspicions that you or your loved one have ADHD and NPD at once, it can also be true and if you ask if there is a connection between ADH and Narcissism, the answer is it can probably exist.

Although the causes and symptoms of both ADHD and Narcissism are quite distinctive, studies do not prove a strict correlation between these two disorders nor their total absence. Both of them can be induced by multiple factors including genetic predisposition and they can co-occur in the same individual. Moreover, both these disorders have some comorbid symptoms like difficulties with attention and emotional dysregulation but the manifestation of each of them is different and results in quite different behavioral patterns.

Although the symptoms of ADHD and NPD overlap, a qualified mental health specialist can provide you with the exact diagnosis based on specific diagnostic methods. At URP Behavioral Health treatment center, we provide advanced diagnostic, treatment, and rehab programs for the successful rehabilitation of patients with ADHD and NPD of any severity. With relevant help, the lives of ADHD or NPD patients, as well as life with them for their families can be happy and active.

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