What To Do When Narcissists Are Everywhere

Scrolling Deprives You Of Agency, Programs Your Thoughts, and Makes You Hate Yourself

Real person here. I need your support. The robots are trying to take my job, but my work is WAY better! Thanks for being a human being too! Thanks for your support: 30% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/b66e5c2e] 💙 40% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/01f1b0e8] 💙 50% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/0d3e6643] 💙 60% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/6a8f4788] Last week I did something without fully understanding why. I acted on instinct. Some internal part of me screamed, “Enough!” and set me on a course of action to break me out of a malignant routine. Over the last few months, I’ve been weary. I’ve been manic. I’ve been writing at a breakneck pace. I’ve been conducting interviews for four or five hours a day. Everything is rush, rush, rush. There’s a sense of urgency and I can’t place the point of origin. But then, out of all the chaos came an impulse to, of all things, listen to the Beatles. I haven’t listened to the Beatles in years. I had a rough childhood, but listening to the Beatles provided some moments of calm. We had the greatest hits albums that come in the blue and red packaging. Those are easy enough to find, but as I reached for the mouse, my body recoiled. Some internal force sent me away from the streaming services. “Get a CD,” came some disembodied whisper. I’ve listened to that voice before. I found a CD, sent off payment, and the next day it arrived. I went out to the backyard with my CD player and built a fire. I stared at the flames as the music played. Little by little, the displaced, frantic, urgency began to fade. It felt odd to stare at a fire. In many ways, fire seems like staring at a screen. It flickers. It erupts. It dances. As I listened to the Beatles, I found myself remembering what reality felt like. I’d chosen the music. It wasn’t the radio. It had been me. I’d built the fire. I built it with my own hands. It was real. It could burn me. I’d made it. It had been me. An hour later, I emerged a different person. I had a sense of peace that I hadn’t experienced for years. I decided to start pulling back. I cancelled many of my regular appointments. The next day, I got my paddleboard out of storage and went onto the river. In the course of twenty-four hours, I reclaimed two hours of my time, and I haven’t felt this good in years. This is a routine I’ve been following for the last two weeks. It’s a form of mental detox. Your telephone has a feature that lets you know your screen time every week. I’ve been distressed to see my screen time rising. I hadn’t noticed that I’d been using my phone more, yet every week I gave the algorithms a few more minutes. Creep, creep, creep. Every second you spend in that zombie state with your thumb upon the screen, you’re turning over your ability to choose. Thanks for your support: 30% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/b66e5c2e] 💙 40% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/01f1b0e8] 💙 50% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/0d3e6643] 💙 60% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/6a8f4788] Scrolling provides the illusion of a choice. The mechanism is similar to reading. Your eyes go from left to right and then down the page. You think, “I’m not engaging, I’m skimming, I won’t provide my full attention until I get to something good.” That’s self-deceit. That’s how they get you. You see, the awful men that we all hate, control everything. These are the toxic males whose skin is pale from constantly staring at the light of a computer screen. They don’t go out on the river. They don’t paddle. They don’t exercise. The closest they come is playing video games. They hate the real world. They hate fire except for leveraging its power to make the world burn. Whenever you scroll, you hand them the keys to your mind. They burrow in and recklessly labor to make you like them. You see, they control everything. No matter how long you scroll, no matter how many things you flick away with your thumb, the house always wins. They’ll never show you anything you want to see. They only provide you with trash that benefits them. The other day I reflected on all the old movies I’d like to see which have somehow gone away. They aren’t on any streaming services. I wanted to watch “The Fisher King” with my kids. Where is it? Where’s “JFK”? Where’s “The Last Valley”? Why are so many old films unavailable? Do these movies have messages that the tech bros don’t want us to see? Are they waiting for all the old people who remember to quietly fade away? People like me? I don’t want to scroll through titles. I want a spreadsheet. Let me know the films and the names and the dates. I want a feed I can curate. We aren’t given those choices. The tech bros know that if they gave us choice they would surrender control. Control, control, control. That’s what compelled me to seek outdated technology and sit in the yard to force myself to contemplate tangible reality. They control us through the screens, but we can take back control by turning them off. We are living through an era of recalibration. Social media has poisoned us. It’s a new thing and we didn’t recognize the danger. It’s has leveraged our senses and turned them against us. I grew up in the 70s. Even then we were assailed by loud and obnoxious advertisements on radio and TV. At first, you’re overwhelmed. You feel compelled to rush out and buy every little thing. You need the new toy, the new appliance, the new fashion, the new engagement ring. But at some point, your mind steps in and grabs control of the reigns. Our flight response pays attention to the smashes and the bangs, but when your nervous system determines that there is no risk, the internal volume gets turned down. Today, we can listen to advertisements without even hearing them. They’ve lost their power. They’re more suggestions than commands. We don’t rush to make those purchases. But scrolling is different. It compels us in a way we don’t understand. When you can’t find the movie you want by scrolling, you eventually settle on something the algorithm recommends. Eventually, you stop looking yourself. You just take what they give. Your mind is no longer your own. I didn’t recognize this consciously, but my body did. I purchased a CD. I went outside. I stared into the burning embers. For a long while, some part of me screamed, “Get your phone! Get your phone! This is boring! Think of all the things you’re missing!” But I stayed. And the annoying voice faded away. I don’t want the stinky toxic male tech bros deciding what I believe. I want to go out on the lake. I want to be strong. I want to feel the sun on my skin. I want to decide what I think. Stop scrolling. Stop giving them your mind. They don’t care about you. They don’t care about what you want. Make deliberate choices, and stop supporting toxic mechanisms that deprive you of yourself. Tell your kids. Tell everyone. Just say “No” to to the toxic doom scroll. You’re giving up more than you know. Thanks for your support: 30% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/b66e5c2e] 💙 40% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/01f1b0e8] 💙 50% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/0d3e6643] 💙 60% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/6a8f4788] I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe [https://walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Yesterday7 min

How It Looks When a Narcissist Comes Unraveled

I know you’re up against the wall economically, but if you can sponsor me, it will help me continue to fight for a better world. Thanks for all you do! Thanks for your support: 30% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/b66e5c2e] 💙 40% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/01f1b0e8] 💙 50% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/0d3e6643] 💙 60% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/6a8f4788] I was groomed to be a narcissist. That is, I was the victim of narcissistic abuse. It’s the same thing. Narcissists groom you to be just like them. They don’t do it directly, the toxic mind virus of narcissism is passed on in the response mechanisms you’re forced to develop just to survive. You learn to hide things so that your tormentor can’t exploit your vulnerabilities. With time, you begin to regard him as cognitively impaired. Then you view everyone that way, then you become a narcissist yourself. Abusers always get carried away by their own cleverness. They think they’re the smartest people in the room. After a while, I think they start to let their transgressions slip because, on some level, they want to be caught. I think this is what Michelle Obama was referring to when she said, “They’re not that smart.” My father always preferred to talk things out while he was driving. In that way, he could be in control of our reality even if he wasn’t in control of the conversation. He helped me develop my familiarity with all the rhetorical tricks that narcissists use to deflect their marks from perceiving the truth. He tried to make his arguments with volume, body posturing, derision, and threats. First he gave warning laughs. If you persisted, he showed rage. Everything he said and did was designed to trigger the trauma bond we all feel after having gone through a period where we weren’t regarded as people. The United States doesn’t see children as people. Narcissists use the agony of that era as a lever for control throughout the term of our natural lives. But narcissists can be unmade. I’ve seen them unravel and it’s sad and terrifying and comical and pathetic. The weaker they feel, the more they try to project strength. Above all else, they want you to back down because they are terrified at the prospect of exposing their fundamental failure. Do not be confused and assume that a narcissist cannot feel shame. The opposite is true. Shame is all they feel. They’re filled with self-loathing and a terrible understanding that they’re completely without value. Every component of their personality has been carefully crafted to disguise their shortcomings. They know how to divert attention. Don’t let them. The way to unravel a narcissist is through exposure. My father always felt confident that he could get me to “see reason” if given enough time. In reality, he never intended to have an honest conversation. He only wanted to bludgeon me with his power and his cruel tactics. Thanks for your support: 30% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/b66e5c2e] 💙 40% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/01f1b0e8] 💙 50% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/0d3e6643] 💙 60% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/6a8f4788] Many of us shy away when a narcissist becomes enraged. It’s the same impulse that makes us reluctant to hang up the phone on a telemarketer. We don’t want to appear rude ourselves. Bad faith actors leverage our essential decency. They view it as weakness, and they try to use our better natures to shame us. The first rule of dealing with a narcissist is to dismantle their assertion that they have the right to be angry. Remind yourself that we are allowed to ask questions. If something doesn’t make sense, we shouldn’t defer to the narcissist’s rage. Their anger is not a validation of their opinion. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I remember making the observation to my father that all the people in his family had gotten divorced. I remember the way his muscles tightened and his hands clenched the steering wheel. “No,” he growled, his voice trailing off and his pitch rising higher in order to make the single syllable stretch for an unnatural duration. “Drama circles the drain,” I said. “What’s that supposed to mean?” “It means that the people at the center of conflict are often the cause of the conflict,” I replied. I wouldn’t have said this on the highway, but we had just pulled into the driveway and he had no other option than to park. I’ve been seeing more and more evidence of this assertion in recent times. It applies not just to family, but also to politics and the media. I’m seeing people bicker with each other. I see them throw desperate accusations in an effort to maintain their grasp on relevancy. Often these are millionaires and celebrities and people with power. But I’ve seen this dance before and it’s pathetic. They’re so desperate for significance that they look like the groveling, entitled, spoiled children who are always free to inflict pain and who are never held accountable. Our whole world is made up of people like this. They get the promotions, they get the book deals, they have a hundred million followers, and none of them have earned any of it. None of them have a scrap of talent. They’ve been exposed. I feel as if our whole society is in narcissist overload. Everybody has awakened. We’re sick of AI slop, and we’d like to hear a real story written by a real human being. The narcissists have noticed the slack growing in the chain that holds their power and they’re starting to panic. They do what narcissists always do. They rage. They scream. They holler. They stand with their arms out to make themselves look big. They hurl insults and threats. We’re supposed to recoil and let them have their way. Then we’re all supposed to go back “to the way it used to be.” That’s another one of the horrific lines they always say. “Remember the good times.” “You mean the times that you weren’t hitting me, yeah, those were great.” But here’s the thing that most Americans do not yet know. There is one more stage. Once the narcissist comes to realize that the rage no longer plays, they’ll pivot to pity. Every human emotion is a means to an end and they can mimic them like a chameleon. Kindness, dismissal, anger, threats, violence, sadness, pleading, and then suddenly silence. They’ll try to run away. They’ll leave you behind. Once you’ve seen through the veil they’ll want noting to do with you. You’ll be a reminder of their lie, so they’ll run away and lob bombs at you from afar. We’re told not to air our family laundry. This is another cultural expectation that the narcissists made. They’ve made all our laws, and they never once intended for any of the rules to apply to them. They cultivate every rule so that they win no matter how the game is played. Even as they scream at you for telling your truth, they’ll be whispering lies about you to anyone who comes near. Make no mistake, narcissists are dangerous creatures, especially when they’re cornered. But always remember that there is no protection in compliance. There is also no option for compromise. They’re like the scorpion that can’t help but sting you even if you agree to transport it across the river. Betrayal and deception is their nature. The thing they hate most of all is discovery. They deflect the conversation from the receipts because their real conflict is with reality. They call forth a tempest rather than answer a simple question. It must be exhausting. They’ll rage themselves until they fall still, unconscious, and when they’ve recovered enough to rouse themselves again, they’ll get right back to raging. In these challenging times, it’s our duty to learn the lesson. Before humanity can escape this era of conflict and division, we’ll have to finally understand that it’s not our duty to appease them. Narcissists must be opposed. Full stop. They don’t deserve any compromise or credit. They are bad faith actors. They do not respect boundaries. They will not honor the terms of any agreement. They must be unraveled. You’ll watch them explode like a tightly wound ball that has been compressed beyond the tolerances of all physical laws. There comes a moment of inversion. We are on the precipice of that moment now. Too much truth has already been revealed. You can’t put the genie back into the bottle. The way it goes with narcissists is that they are the last to recognize the truth everyone else knows. They think us fools. They rage until the grave and once they’re gone they’re forgotten. Soon. Thanks for your support: 30% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/b66e5c2e] 💙 40% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/01f1b0e8] 💙 50% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/0d3e6643] 💙 60% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/6a8f4788] I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe [https://walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Yesterday8 min

What To Do When Narcissists Are Everywhere

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