The Roots of Narcissism, Insecurities and Validation.

Narcissism, which is commonly viewed as an obsession with one’s self and seen among most of the youth and teens isn’t just a label given to someone who cares about themselves. The extent of narcissism is what defines its severity. Everyone cares about themselves and how they look, its only natural to take care of oneself, but to think of oneself so much that you forget everything and everyone else, to a point where you matter so much to yourself that it starts affecting people around you negatively, it wouldn’t be surprising to call it a disorder. 

Whether you agree with the definition of narcissism you see online or just think of it as a casual term which affects everyone, whether it is the grandiose (superiority) type of narcissism or the vulnerable (inferior type of narcissism), we all know it exists and very much affects our society today.

In this article we’ll be going through what may be a possible major cause of narcissism.

To be concise, both the type of narcissisms have similar roots and causes, the difference is in how our minds react to them.

Before jumping to the subject, let us depict this through an example:

Lila is a young teenager living in Dubai. Her parents moved there when she was barely 2-3 years old in an attempt to raise their daughter in one of the world’s major cities offering all sorts of comfort, luxury, and amenities. Lila’s parents adored her and loved her dearly as she was growing up; after all, she was their only child. Lila loved her parents too. She was always cheerful and obedient to her parents, always ready to help. She was also fond of whatever Apple pumped out next, seeing all her friends in school brag about their parents’ new “iPhone’s”. Naturally, she also desired to possess and use whatever the new hot tech at the moment was. Her parents knew she was a growing teen, and they used to shower her with whatever she liked but in limits.

As Lila grew, her desire to want the newest iPhone still existed but also bred many other new ones. It isn’t the iPhone that Lila wanted; it was the sense of approval and validation which came along with it. The same friends who used to brag about their parents having the new iPhone were now bragging about how many Instagram followers they had and how much attention they got. Lila was fairly hyped by her friend group. She was more attractive than most of them and had more followers than the others. She used to get a lot of attention online as well as in person from all sorts of people.

Lila also had a friend, Maya. Maya wasn’t considered attractive by her group and was often jokingly bullied for certain facial characteristics. Maya had always been slightly jealous of Lila, but she never visually expressed it to her. Whether someone was attractive or not, Lila and Maya’s group would sit around and rate people from their group and others all day long. They used to pass comments on people’s noses, foreheads, lips, and anything you can think of. In short, they were OBSESSED with how people looked and how they looked in comparison to them, whether in real life or online. They had cultivated a toxic culture of hyping visual beauty.

Fast forward 10 years later. Lila and Maya coincidentally meet in a cafe, they both make some time to sit down and catch up on what they have been up to. Lila tells Maya about how she went to college and how she was one of the most popular girls there and how she is now an entry level software tester in a mid tier company. Maya tells Lila how she went to college and made some friends, most people avoided being her friend because they thought she was “uncool”. She did make some friends later as classes started, people who were interested in the same subjects as her, who later joined her to pursue research in the domains of their interest in the later years of their college. She mentions how she adores those friends and they’re the reason why she is a successful researcher today. However she also mentions how she used to be really jealous of Lila when they were in high school together, how she never felt pretty or appreciated in her life. There were times where she couldn’t sleep at night if someone answered a question in the class of her favourite subject instead of her. She opened up about how she longed for some appreciation, admiration, if not for her looks then for her works, she would get insecure whenever someone else was praised, she would feel like she’ll never be enough or equal to that person, she felt like she could never be good enough. 

Lila also opened up about her experiences so far, she told Maya that these appreciations and admirations from people, especially on things which do not give value to society are simply mundane and do not mean anything. She said how she was so used to getting these appreciations that she made her entire life revolve around them, she would dress, walk and act in every possible way to make sure that everyone around her was absolutely flattered by her. By doing all this she expected compliments, so they didn’t really mean anything to her if someone gave her those compliments, however, if someone didn’t compliment her and god forbid, compared her to someone else and said the other girl was better, she would lose her mind, she wouldn’t be able to sleep at nights like Maya mentioned and would rethink everything she did from scratch, from her clothes to her actions.

Lila mentioned that her quest for attention lead her to nowhere in life, although its good to take care of oneself and carry oneself well, overdoing it especially with the sole purpose of seeming superior to the ones around you completely ruined her mental state and peace. She couldn’t get her mind off of how someone would even think that she doesn’t look perfect. All these realisations hit Lila when she entered the corporate workforce, she faced brutal rejections, no one valued her beauty as she didn’t bring anything valuable and productive to the table. Initially heartbroken, she later learned that there’s more meaningful things to the world than to just try and seem superior to others.

They both later came to a conclusion that in their growth years, they were so obsessed with how they looked and how others perceived them, their nose, their face and compared it to others that it had sown a seed in their minds, a seed which grew with time and attention, a seed which helped them mask the wounds of their insecurities by seeking validation or salt it by thinking of oneself as inferior to other purely based on one’s physical appearance. Such was the journey of how Lila and Maya’s obsession with their appearances, insecurities and people’s feedback both online and offline shaped their future lives.

TLDR : The type of treatment we get in our growth years greatly affects our future life. It isn’t uncommon for people who went through grave insecurities and never got or earned the validation in their earlier ages to develop a narcissistic personality when they finally grow up. Some people cope by thinking of themselves as the greatest, they are unable to accept the brutal and harsh realities of life and long the validation they once received as a kid or a young adult. They create an image of themselves  as someone far greater or far inferior to others, not realising that our value doesn’t reside in how superior we are to others or how much better are we than them, it resides in how valuable and useful we are to others, even the richest billionaires are at their spot of value not because they are far better than others in a subjective sense, but because they provide objective value and impact to the ones around them.