Are We All Narcissists Now?

Step away from the reflecting pool and touch grass, y'all.

I try really hard not to wade into too much social commentary or get into fights with people online. My opinion likely isn't going to change any minds in the vast Internet ecosystem, so I just don't see the point in expending time and energy arguing with the Internet.

But there's something that's been bothering me for a long time, and sometimes, when something is stuck in my craw, the only way to get it out of my head is to write about it.

Are We All Narcissists?

Over the last few years, I have noticed a lot more social media posts about narcissism. Some of those are from mental health professionals, which is entirely justified. But a whole lot of these posts are from people who have anything from a mild disagreement with some member of the community to a full-on relationship meltdown.

I want to make one thing very clear: I am not a psychiatrist, psychologist, or mental health professional of any kind. I have zero educational qualifications to make any diagnosis or assessment of someone's mental wellbeing. The most I can claim is reading a few popular books writing by people with such education, and the closest I've come to reading anything about narcissism is when I've read books and articles about social media addiction, which often touch on the effects such addiction has on our self-perception.

I also want to say that I absolutely believe narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a real thing. I am not disputing that in the slightest. If I read a checklist of signs and traits of NPD, I can 100% match the signs and symptoms to people I know and people I see in the public eye--politicians, entertainers, business people, religious leaders, etc. I could probably list specific people here and get a lot of agreement, but that's not the point of this post.

The point is--it seems to me that there is a lot of vaguebooking about narcissism out there, and if every person posting about narcissism is right, we have a much bigger problem than psychologists are aware of.

I'm not suggesting that people posting about narcissists haven't experienced real pain. I absolutely believe they have.

But here's the truth: not everyone who hurt or disappointed you is a narcissist.

Are those people selfish? Quite possibly. Are they arrogant? Could be. Did you genuinely suffer inside that relationship? As a believer in the "there are multiple sides to every story" theory, yes, I believe you genuinely suffered in some fashion.

But so did the other person.

And maybe you missed some things, too.

Because here's another truth: when you keep sharing posts about narcissists, you look like the narcissist.

What Are We Even Talking About?

Consider what actual narcissistic personality disorder is. According to the Cleveland Clinic, narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is more than just selfishness or arrogance. People with an official NPD diagnosis have nine characteristics, including a grandiose sense of self-importance, belief in their superiority, a sense of entitlement, willingness to exploit others, and a lack of empathy. Estimates are that this official definition occurs in between .5% and 5% of people in the United States.

If I were to judge from the number of people who claim they've narrowly escaped from a narcissist, I'd have thought the rates were much higher.

Here's the thing: we've all been guilty of selfishness, arrogance, a sense of entitlement, lack of empathy, over-inflated sense of self-importance, and on and on.

It's called being human, and we all suffer from it.

That doesn't make us all narcissists.

Or does it?

In The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt points out that the decline in mental health in the young started right around the time smartphones got front-facing cameras.

In other words, once we were encouraged to look at ourselves all the damn time, our mental health started to decline.

But on the flip side, Angela Duckworth points out on this episode of the No Stupid Questions podcast that other research suggests rates of narcissism are actually going down.

So which is it? Is there an epidemic of narcissism? Or are we all just confused about what actual narcissism is?

Selfie Culture

Let's look back at the origin of the concept of narcissism. In Greek mythology, Narcissus was a young man so besotted with his own beauty that he stared at his reflection in a pool until he wasted away, leaving only a flower behind.

Sounds a little bit like selfie culture to me.

Here's a truth about humans. We are really good at taking neutral or even good things and distorting them or using them to puff up our own egos. Sometimes that looks like a lot of selfies and reels. Sometimes it looks like seeking attention through vague social media posts or passive-aggressive manipulation of friends and family.

The technology we have at our fingertips these days gives us all unprecedented capabilities and opportunities, but it can't override the oldest software on earth: human nature.

Because whether you're doing it overtly or covertly, it's just another form of narcissism.

Is There a Cure?

Look, I am totally willing to confess to a lot of bad behavior in my life. I have been selfish for sure. I've been self-destructive, which has hurt a lot of people around me. I've neglected people I love in favor of fleeting whims, and I've neglected them in favor of pursuits that would gain favor with others even as those pursuits wounded those closest to me. I've also been really good at slinging barbs and flinging insults that cut people to the quick; there are two sides to being a wordy girl, after all, and one of them is very ugly.

But bad behavior does not equal an official diagnosis of narcissism.

Unless, of course, we're all narcissists now.

Who doesn't want to "look out for number one," after all? Who isn't self-centered? Speaking for my own tribe of creatives, we kind of have a duality of one minute believing wholeheartedly in our own superiority, and the next believing that everything we've ever touched is crap.

There's really only one way out of being selfish, arrogant, unempathetic, and all those ugly things that get thrown around so casually on social media, and that is to look away from the reflecting pool.

What we're really talking about here is thinking so much about yourself that you get stuck. Mike Maughan, the cohost of that No Stupid Questions podcast, says that the time he felt the very worst about himself was when he was trying to get into business school. "And I remember saying to a friend, 'I can’t wait for this to be over, because I’m so tired of just thinking about myself all the time,'" he says.

Sounds like a reflecting pool to me.

If you're being honest with yourself, you know what your reflecting pool is. You might be the selfie queen. Or maybe you're the center of attention in your community--the person everyone focuses on when you walk in a room.

Or maybe it's just that the only social media interaction you get on those posts about narcissists are from the people who wouldn't dare tell you you might have problems, too.

If all you get is reinforcement of whatever your current belief is? You're stuck gazing into a reflecting pool.

And that is narcissism.

Embrace the Discomfort

I do understand how appealing it is to stay there at the edge of that pool. It's hard to look away from my own creative products and the twelve people who love them. It's tough to apologize for past bad behavior and take responsibility for things that have hurt people. I'd rather stare at myself and remain convinced of my rightness, sharing all of my grievances with a tribe of enablers who can reinforce my own narrative so I can wallow in the muddy edge of my own reflecting pool.

Or maybe... maybe I wouldn't.

Because here's the thing: the only way to grow into a more well-rounded, healthier person is to look away from the reflecting pool, step out of the comfort zone, and take responsibility for your own crap.

I am not saying people should just override their real pain settings and return to abusive relationships or something like that. And I'm sure that people with a clinical diagnosis of NPD need more than just discipline or a "stern talking to" to get to the point of maintaining healthy relationship, if that's even possible for a person with that pathology.

But if my social media feeds are any indication, there are a lot of "narcissists" out there who maybe need to stop sharing memes, take a bit of responsibility for their own actions, and get outside once in a while.

We are not all clinical narcissists. We are human, and that comes with a constant need to debug our operating system. It's an imperfect process, and I suspect it looks a little different for everyone, but I also suspect that debugging your HOS (human operating system) won't happen online.

Stop sharing the memes about narcissism, embrace the discomfort of change, and take the path of humility away from the reflecting pool.

It won't be easy, but it will be worth it.