Narcissism is hitting us like never before

This is the age of narcissism. And it is getting driven in the world on day to day basis.

Narcissists pleasure from others’ pain. Misery. Failure. And what not, everything bad, everything worst. They might figure worse of worst in every other positive, to ruin it for others, and to have pleasure out of it for themself. That’s one of their modes of attaining pleasure, on which they thrive, that they seek, and for which they strive. It can very well be intentional, or might not be as well. Probability exists.

The world has different kinds of people that you may understand and you may not understand at all. Some you relate to, some you don’t.

First things first, why are people narcissists? Like, why are people so self-indulgent and self-obsessed to an extent that it hurts others? While deep within they are extremely insecure about losing people and about not having anyone to love them, to tackle their egoism. They show the world that it’s either them or none, and they keep feeding their mind with the quintessential statements like ‘I’m the best’, so to say, ‘there’s no one like me’, which they thrust upon others to believe.

It’s a fine, fine camouflage that they desire. To cover the feeling of insecurity with an inflated ego. But within, they are actually meek. You don’t know why, I don’t know why, and that’s not what they appear so. Probably, that’s what they are. Meek.

Their self-praise is slightly overbearing. Receiving something and forcing to be received something are entirely two different poles. It might repel you to such an extent that you would shun interacting with such an egoist. But, only if you manage to categorise and recognise them as narcissist.

Out of every chaos that a narcissist comes with, the biggest is people fall into their trap. You fall and they win, which exactly is what they crave all the time. The problematic question is, why do they crave such consequences? They want people to be the victims of them.

They often share stories that make you pity them, so you don’t leave them. For instance, when they figure what works for people to get them emotionally driven, they start implementing the same. So, like if they’ve discovered that one emotional story from someone had people’s empathy and all the emotions, they start putting up the same.

And it doesn’t matter that they draw your attention by telling emotional stories about their problematic childhood or past in general, or something that’s so brilliant, so interesting that you start calling them prodigy. Everything said and done, they remain narcissists and they do it for narcissism even if their story is true. The purpose of everything else remains secondary to their pretence.

They don’t just ruin everything for everyone else, but they figure out ways that generally go beyond boundaries for a normal person. You get trapped and they win. And like always, psychology comes into play.

It’s such a brilliant and convincing picture they paint about their life that you might fall prey to it and develop empathy to gradually make them a part of your life. Welcome to the world of narcissism, you have fallen prey to it.

Gradually, as you spend time with a narcissist, the skin is shed, you will know that it was all a facade. They will try to discourage you, never give credit for your talent, never put efforts in making the relationship work and so on. They will pull you down and demean you, or simply will ignore all your positives.

They will find faults in you and would keep endlessly advising about every aspect of life, to change you and the way you live. The hopeless part is even if you change, they will ignore how you moulded your life for them and again begin to advise. They somehow start running your life.

Such relationships leave scars on your mind; your psyche. It takes years of counselling and thinking to get back to your original self. In fact, to break off from this relationship isn’t easy as they will pull you back with their pitiable stories. Often, I feel they loathe in self-pity as it’s a weapon to keep people in their life.

It isn’t the kind of any relationship to be in, in any perfect sense, well, no relationship is perfect. But every relationship surely makes you feel loved, even if it’s in bits or for some moments, which they are incapable of giving. They are simply incapable of loving someone else as they love themselves far more. This might look like an anti-thesis and confuse the beholder. Do they love themselves too much or find themselves not worthy of love? This is a psyche that is tough to decode.

It is time to decipher this duality. They are deeply insecure and hide it with excessive pride to keep infusing and effusing confidence, which, in reality, is false. In fact, they are never comfortable with themselves, their body and mind are never in sync. They have an issue accepting themselves as they are, so most times they adorn a mask that they artistically carry and we get fooled. It is stressful to carry a mask all the time as they fear it falling off and losing their loved ones.

Technology has given a lot of exposure to people. Some use it right, some still are learning and some only use the other way. Then we are forced to believe, narcissism has now started hitting us more. And it only seems to rise by leaps and bounds. All things aside, this doesn’t sound good at all. Not good for a society as well as an individual.

Facebook. Instagram. Even LinkedIn among many other platforms that people from different geographies use every day. That are used to connect, to network and to boast about supposed magnanimity, talent, wit and uniqueness. But such platforms are becoming more sort of a means for a narcissist to hit the purpose right. That is to get worshipped all the time and that is to get their ego pampered while to let people feel inferior to them. On another side, to receive empathy and to belittle everyone else around. And they better know how to covert their identity while existing around.

So, when you walk away from them or you just try to do so, in spite of their stories about how much they love you, they will hit back in whichever way possible to defame you. They can’t bear the fact that someone has dumped them and chosen to leave them.

Somewhere you might trace the origin of this behaviour in a failed relationship or in their miserable past. But, the challenge is that narcissists see no issue with themselves. It doesn’t imply that they aren’t aware of the consequences. Only that they drive their senses, emotions and attitude in a way that limits them to see the big world around.

It is more of becoming an age of facade; what you see isn’t what exists. There is so much of noise about every small thing on social media, that sometimes I’ve to turn the back to question myself, or should we really wait until we all turn a bit into narcissist ourselves? Well, no. And it’s time.

It’s time before we approach towards the phase where narcissism drives the world and the world drives narcissism. And I wouldn’t wish that phase ever arrives, ever in anyone’s lifetime.

(With inputs from Ayush Garg).