You’re Not a Narcissist Slayer—You’re Just Kind of a Jerk

When Healing Becomes Branding

Everyone’s fluent in therapy now.
They throw around words like “trauma,” “gaslighting,” “boundaries,” “inner child” like they’re seasoning a salad.
You scroll for five seconds and it’s all:

“I’m healing.”
“Protecting my peace.”
“Removing toxic people from my life.”

But here’s the uncomfortable truth:

Most of them just learned the language, not the skills.
They know how to say “self-regulation,” but not how to pause before they scream.
They post about “doing the work,” but they’re just labeling everyone else while avoiding their own reflection.

We’ve turned psychology into cosplay.

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You twitch once? “Tourette’s.”
You like a clean house? “OCD.”
You’re a little scatterbrained? “ADHD, babe!”
You’re emotionally stunted? “I’m neurospicy with a dark sense of humor.”

No, you’re just kind of a jerk.

Real disorders?
They don’t come with cute TikTok edits and matching outfits.
They don’t make you quirky.
They make life harder.
They make you grind.

---

My kid has Tourette’s.
Not the “look at me do a dance while I tic” kind.
The real kind.

The kind that comes with OCD so relentless, she erases her homework until the damn paper breaks.

But I guess that doesn’t get likes, huh?

She’s not getting brand deals or invited to speak on mental health panels.
She’s just trying to make it through a school day without melting down from life’s intensity.

Meanwhile, people out here treating neurodivergence like a personality filter.
Like it’s something to try on.

---

This isn’t new either.

Back in the day it was goths and emos crying about how Hot Topic didn’t have their size in Tripp pants.
Painting pain in eyeliner. Writing performative sadness in their AIM away messages.

But while they were romanticizing misery, other kids — real quiet ones — were just sleeping past 10 a.m. and not waking up.
Not because they were lazy.
Because the weight of being alive was too heavy to move through.

That was never a vibe.
It was chemical. It was real.
And nobody made a playlist for it.

---

But now?
It’s all rebrands and excuses.

You’re not difficult, you’re healing.
You’re not lazy, you’re in a rest cycle.
You’re not out of shape, you’re radically self-accepting.

Okay. But also?

Your knees hurt.
Your doctor’s been raising an eyebrow for years.
Your Apple Watch is basically begging you to move.

Dignity matters. But so does honesty.
And when you rename every warning sign a vibe, you’re not growing. You’re hiding.

---

Everything bad becomes someone else’s fault.
Every flaw becomes a badge of honor.

Your ex? Narcissist.
Your boss? Gaslighter.
That friend who called you out? Toxic.

Never you.
Never your behavior.

You’re the main character, and everyone else is just background noise.
NPCs with one trait, flattened into easy templates so you never have to examine your part in the chaos.

---

And yeah, maybe it all started with those goddamn participation trophies.

We taught a generation that just showing up deserved applause.
Now they want emotional medals for surviving their own bullshit.

They go to therapy once and come back like they’ve seen the burning bush.

“I’m trauma-informed now.”
“I’m setting boundaries.”
“I’m evolving and cutting off people who can’t handle my growth.”

No. You just went to therapy, learned the language, but not the skills.
You’re still emotionally immature, just with better vocabulary.

---

You wanna know what real healing looks like?

It’s not cute.
It’s not on trend.
It’s not a carousel post in neutral tones with affirmations.

It’s ugly.
It’s quiet.
It’s crying in the shower and then apologizing because you know you snapped when you didn’t have to.

---

Tyler Durden had it right.

“You are not special.
You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake.
You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else.”

And you know what?

That’s not depressing. It’s freeing.

Because when you let go of being special,
you can start being real.

You can actually look in the mirror and say:

“Maybe I’m not a misunderstood empath.
Maybe I’m just kind of a pain in the ass sometimes.”

And from there, growth is possible.

Because real healing doesn’t get applause.
It gets quiet.
It gets messy.
It gets honest.

And no one’s going viral for that.

– From a fat, old, crabby asshole who doesn’t even do the work
(but at least I’m not pretending I do)