"Don't You Know Who I Am?": How to Stay Sane in an Era of Narcissism, Entitlement, and Incivility

By: Ramani S. Durvasula PhD

Narrated by: Ramani S. Durvasula PhD

Length: 19 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's Summary

It’s time to take our lives back from a world of narcissism, entitlement, and toxic relationships.

“Don’t you know who I am?” has become the mantra of the famous and infamous, the entitled and the insecure. It’s the tagline of the modern narcissist. 

Health and wellness campaigns preach avoidance of unhealthy foods, sedentary lifestyles, tobacco, drugs, and alcohol, but rarely preach avoidance of unhealthy, difficult, or toxic people. Yet the health benefits of removing toxic people from your life may have far greater benefits to both physical and psychological health. We need to learn to be better gatekeepers for our minds, bodies, and souls. 

Narcissism, entitlement, and incivility have become the new world order, and we are all in trouble. They are not only normalized but also increasingly incentivized. They are manifestations of pathological insecurity - insecurities that are experienced at both the individual and societal level. The paradox is that we value these patterns. We venerate them through social media, mainstream media, and consumerism, and they are endemic in political, corporate, academic, and media leaders. 

There are few lives untouched by narcissists. These relationships infect those who are in them with self-doubt, despair, confusion, anxiety, depression, and the chronic feeling of being “not enough,” all of which make it so difficult to step away and set boundaries. The illusion of hope and the fantasy of redemption can result in years of second chances, and despondency when change never comes. 

It’s time for a wake-up call. It’s time to stem the tide of narcissism, entitlement, and antagonism, and take our lives back.

©2019 Ramani S. Durvasula, PhD (P)2019 Post Hill Press

should play on continuous loop throughout the USA

I really love this book. I have been listening to her utube videos for a while. I come from a family of narcissists. As stated in the book, they are like ants. When you see one, the swarm has hit your life; and your only form of pest control is to learn what the "pale pink" flags are. I have been through and witnessed so much emotional abuse in the workplace. I also grew up in a society of rampant emotional abuse. When I was young I heard the false mantra of "Honesty is always the best policy" or "The truth hurts". Those are just sayings that allow toxic people to abuse others with impunity. I grew up in the LA area where "car fights" were a dangerous part of my life. I thought it was ok to always "defend" my self. My mom died in a car accident and somehow I thought aggressive driving was ok. I realized how absurd the aggressive driving was when 9-11 happened. All of those people who were on time to their crappy job died. Now I am aware. I will spot the pale pink flags and live the best life that I can.

8 of 8 people found this review helpful

Intelligent, insightful, and compassionate

I do not think that I would have ever said that, but Dr. Ramani is my favorite psychologist.

This book makes you reflect on your relationships, who you are, your needs and your goals, all the while distilling wisdom into your soul, and reassurance at every word.

From someone who has been living my whole life with the types of people that she speaks of in this book, she has reaffirmed a lot of the thoughts that I had about them, reconnecting myself with those lessons, while giving me new things to ponder about and new ways to get through life.

She has opened my eyes to what I had felt, but covered my eyes about.

Thank you for letting me listen to you and feel that living life is self improvement, deep connections, meaningful relationship, kindness, love, care and insight.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

Highly recommend

The scope of this book was more than I could have imagined. So many aspects I had not considered. Very well written and easy to follow.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Vital Information

A very comprehensive work done by someone with great topical understanding. More people need to be equipped with this knowledge.

Informative and Thorough

Definitely a must-read for a better understanding of narcissism, how narcissist are created, and how to deal with narcissistic abuse. The material would be hard to digest for anyone unfamiliar with the suffering caused by these difficult relationships. Offers relevant and helpful advice.

Trump supporters are THE MOST targeted by Narcs

The authors consistent dismissmissal, and simplifying of "racists," or "sexists," or "trolls" ignores the power structure. Leftist ideology negates the reality of differences between groups, which is to lie, and actively incentivizes narcissist type hostile behavior toward people who observe simple reality. Ignoring and attacking reality and people who notice it are more pathological than those who risk these labels.
The issue with Nationalism isn't at root a pathology, but a observance of real differences. The author fails monumentally, and absurdly to give its due importance the phenomenon of ingroup/outgroup preference. People have 1 policy for dealing with their own, and another for the other. This is healthy and natural. We hear a lot about "pathological altruism," which is only possible operating from the assumption that all groups of people are interchangeable.
The author is most guilty of doing what she warns against, which is labeling anyone we disagree with as a narcissist.
Too much biased. The purely clinical explanations are informative nontheless .

Trump may be a narcissist, but he was fighting a narcissistic system with narcissism; fire with fire. He was "our" narcissist (emphasis on 'was').

The author is so tone def on diagnosing the matters of the day, to be so blinded as to why anyone would want to maintain their majority status in their country; our post angry comments about ant-white agenda that this book is almost worthless.

She misses the point. Her left leaning blinds her to the real systemic narcissism, which are petty tyrants on the left.

2 of 7 people found this review helpful

A masterpiece!

The author is a university professor and an expert in narcissism. By the time you've read / listened to this book, you'll have the tools to be an expert too! Also the confusing behaviour shown by this subgroup of society will begin to make sense. Dr Ramnai presents the contents of her book in an engaging and easy to understand manner.

So informative, so relatable. <br />

I've been waiting for this since she announced it was coming out months ago. it was totally worth the wait. she somehow narrated my entire life and gave me tools to help me make better choices. amazing.