So many people claim to be introverts. In fact they are shouting it from the rooftops of social media.

“This is so me” “OMG relatable.”

Yet they don’t seem to be introverts. They seem to cry that they have social anxiety one minute and then violently condemn the confident person the next. Believing in yourself used to be a noble aspiration, now it seems that it’s better to dwell in the shadows and critique the world in their smug echo chambers.

Confidence is not the same as arrogance and these fucking people are trying to hijack the meaning and derail so many people who are on the path to personal development.

They are a sneaky bunch who will mentally sabotage others on successful paths in order to lessen the crippling jealousy they feel in the shadow of accomplishment.

We have (most of us) experienced the emotional parasite.

The ones who actually accuse us of narcissism for showing up, dressing smart and believing in our own path. Yet they proclaim their humility as loud as possible as they post endlessly on social media the articles that demonstrate their supposed traits.

They are desperate to get the message out, they are desperate to tell us who they are. They search for likeness and identity and share it because they have to be seen in a certain way. They care more about the propaganda they perpetuate to sell their identity than they do about good deeds and self improvement.

The danger is when these attention addicts get the validation on social media, the brain responds with a hit of dopamine.

Together they are legion and they feed each other empty reassurances and their lives go on in the same way that a heroin addict exists in the den.

It starts with a simple comment. I remember it from my teenage years. I was perfectly happy in my own skin and I loved to talk and entertain my friends and they in turn would do the same for me.

It starts then with one person, one empty little sneaky “introvert” to say ‘You certainly think a lot of yourself don’t you.’

Then it’s in your head. And unfortunately I didn’t learn to disregard the opinions of the falsely humble until much later.

I started to think

“What if everyone thinks this way?” “I bet they’re all laughing at me behind my back.”

The truth is it doesn’t matter what those people think. They more than likely have a history that they are less than proud of and their sneaky ways are a demented by product of their own mental shortcomings.

This false humility and subtle manipulation must be met with brutal responses. For these are the people that lie about mental illness, they lie about their trauma.

Or worse still they take genuine trauma and troubles and they utilise them for selfish gain and social currency.

We cannot let their puppetry go unnoticed.

Otherwise the behaviours and consequences will be upon our children, and with men becoming more and more demonised for their stoicism, having such a trait misnomered as cold indifference...we cannot allow this underhanded emotional terrorism to continue.

I know it’s a long article, thank you for reading if you got this far.