Why I don’t “empathise with the Narcissists”.

…Since a lot of people seem to be asking that question.

Lucy the Oracle
4 min readSep 25, 2024
Photo by Max Bender on Unsplash

I’ll be brief.

There are two articles of mine that went viral here on this platform. Check out the first one and the second one if you’re curious. Both are about narcissism (the disorder, and the traits, because let’s be frank here — one doesn’t need a full diagnosis to cause some damage).

My dudes, I am an oracle. This is literally my name on Medium. Do people even read the author’s name? Or just jump straight to reading/reacting to whatever article was suggested and that’s that? Have we gone past the threshold where people no longer have ANY attention span anymore? Hello?

I’m an oracle. I write about “woo”. That’s the bread-and-butter of what I do here.

…And yet, the only articles of mine that ever went viral were about something completely unrelated to my bread-and-butter topic of interest. Because it’s trending.

Do you see my point? If not, let me help you: when you “critique” my skills as a Psychologist or Psychology researcher, what you’re doing is having a knee-jerk reaction. That’s because, if you took, literally, less than 5 seconds, and read my bio, you’d see I am not what you’re assuming I am. I mean, sure, you can still get mad at me if you want, ain’t nothing stopping you, but whose fault is that? Whose expectations are they? And most importantly: who is getting OWNED here? You. The self-proclaimed intellectuals. If there was any truth to that, you guys would be well used to long length Academic text by now, and thus, not shy away from basic research either.

Oh, but some of my articles are trending, and they happen to be about a topic of Psychology. So I must be some kind of expert.

Says who???

Come here, real quick. Let me give you all a quick lesson in context analysis. Let’s call it Context Analysis 101, shall we? Great. So, here we go: Medium is an ad-free blogging platform where experts and “mere peasants” alike can share their thoughts. This is the context we’re in. Copy that? Good.

How do you think an ad-free platform makes money? Or are you all under the delusion this platform, which probably costs a pretty penny to maintain and keep online, exists “for a charitable greater good”? Come on, you’re not that naive.

Medium makes money the same way a lot of online newspapers and magazines make money, especially the ad-free ones: by promoting stories that are trending in the wider world of online content creation, so that they will pique the interest of new readers everywhere, and possibly, new members. Guys… this is just reality. We live in a Capitalist world. Like it? Ok. Don’t like it? Ok. I’m not talking about value judgements. I’m giving you a fact. Whether you like this context or not, you can’t ignore it.

One of these trending topics is Narcissism. It’s a trending topic, as far as strategic advertising is concerned. The industry does not give a flying fuck whether or not someone is talking about the “insult” or the actual disorder, whether someone is an expert or not, whether someone is right or not.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

Now… the empathy thing. I’ll try not to laugh while typing this (too late).

“Lucy, you’re not empathetic; you’re insensitive; you’re cold-hearted”, yadda yadda, bla bla, guess how many times I’ve heard that low-hanging-fruit manipulative tactic? I’d be rich if each of them gave me a euro.

I won’t even get into the merit of misogyny (yes. Misogyny. And I’ll say it louder if you try to silence me about it), because that renders its own separate article for the future, but as a rule, women are expected to be peace-keepers. Sweet. Demure. Sugar-and-spice-and-all-things-nice. An angry woman, a resentful woman, a woman who expresses any negative feeling other than helpless damsel-in-distress-like sadness… Sure enough, is “hysterical”. (Google the history of that word. That would give you a head-start).

THAT IS WHY I don’t take your baits to “be more empathetic”, “be more compassionate”, etc, personally. Because I know they stem from social conditioning that REEKS of the patriarchy, among other social problems.

As I said in the beginning, this blog is a space where I talk about my main topic of interest (religion and spirituality), but also, occasionally, I share generalised and anonymised reflections about events from my life and interactions I had with other people. I’m under no obligation to demonstrate impartiality, detachment, or even a “cool head” for that very reason. My personal posts that develop into personal theories are not all about narcissistic people (but I hope I don’t need to repeat my Context Analysis 101 lesson once again). I couldn’t care less what’s trending or not, I’m not here for that, I didn’t even sign up to make money off Medium. But sometimes, my stories coincide with trending topics. And that’s when people come by the dozens assuming I am some kind of expert in said topics.

Who else do you guys mistake for experts? I’m worried.

Anyway, rant over, and lesson over as well. As usual, I hope this helps.

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Lucy the Oracle
Lucy the Oracle

Written by Lucy the Oracle

Oracle learner / spirit worker based in Ireland. Buddhist/polytheist. I don't read minds. I don't change minds. I don't sugarcoat. Take my message or leave it.