We will see a massive rise in symptoms of narcissism this year. Many people living chronically in survival mode exhibit narcissistic tendencies by default due to the shutting down or impairment of certain centers in the brain that directly impact our ability to reason, our emotional regulation, our memory function, and our ability to assess true vs false threats to the system.
This often leads to cognitive distortions such as emotional reasoning, black and white thinking, blaming/projection, catastrophic thinking, etc. In turn, these states can manifest as emotional outbursts, defensiveness, and even straight-out gaslighting as they attempt to reconcile your version of reality with theirs.
Prolonged states of survival mode are not only a response to trauma, but they are traumatic in and of themselves. Often, people will begin to identify so deeply with these states and with their trauma that they genuinely believe that their symptoms are who they are, and not indicative of a deeper, root cause. It is important to maintain empathy, and understand that these are the normal physiological responses of an autonomic nervous system under attack.
However, it is equally imperative to maintain clear boundaries - mentally, emotionally, physically, and psychically.
While many of these symptoms are normal, given the position society is in and the level of trauma we have endured collectively, especially post-pandemic…it is imperative that we do not accept these symptoms as the “new normal,” and especially that we do not continue to identify with the false “I” (the trauma, Shadow Self, pain body, etc) in place of the true core Self.
I would also like to note that there is a significant difference between someone exhibiting symptoms of narcissism due to survival mode, and someone who is simply evil and seeking to hurt you. This post is specifically referencing the incline in mental and emotional disturbances that we will see this coming year, largely due to the attack on the nervous system via electronic frequencies and technology weapons, as well as the normalization and over-identification we see with symptoms of mental illness, especially in certain ideological circles.
