All three running together

What this means

Your answers sit near the top on all three traits at once. At that level they stop behaving like three separate habits. They work as a system, where each one covers the gap that would otherwise slow the others down.

In most people these traits are held in check by something. The wish to be admired is checked by embarrassment at being caught performing. Planning around people is checked by guilt when the plan costs someone. Impulses are checked by the memory of how the last one turned out. When all three run high, the checks fail together. A strategy that hurts someone does not feel wrong, so it does not get revised. The need for standing supplies a steady reason to run one. And impulsivity means a fair amount happens before any plan was needed.

The everyday result is that other people become weather: something to read, predict and work around, rather than something you are in a relationship with. That can be effective for a while. It tends to fail slowly and then all at once, usually when the person who was carrying the relationship stops.

Something the score cannot see

You took a test about unflattering traits and answered in a way that put you here. Plenty of people with strong versions of these traits would have done neither, because answering honestly means looking at something you would rather not. That counts for more than the number does.

It is also worth being clear about what this cannot tell you. It is not a measure of narcissistic or antisocial personality disorder and cannot say whether either one applies. It describes how you see your own behaviour at the moment. It says nothing about what you are capable of changing.

What to do next

Replace the missing brakes with external ones. If guilt does not reliably tell you when to stop, rules can do that job: keep promises whether or not you still feel like it, do not lie to a partner about where you were, wait a full day before acting on anger or on a sudden urge to quit, spend or leave.

Get an outside view. A therapist is the right step here, not because something is wrong with you as a person, but because these traits interfere with self-correction, and correction has to come from somewhere outside the relationships it is about.

Watch what people stop telling you. At this level the first sign of damage is usually quiet rather than loud.

Lovon is available to talk things through between sessions, including before a conversation you expect to go badly. It is support in between, not a replacement for a therapist.