NEW YORK — Local neurotic Lenny Malone discovered a range of new, worse ways to be insufferable after spending months in clinical psychotherapy, according to family, friends, and a steadily growing list of enemies.
“When he took the plunge and sought professional help, we were delighted, we thought he was finally going to work on his litany of issues,” said friend Shawn Bugglar. “Instead he’s co-opted the lingo of that world and become incredibly condescending. Nowadays he has a lot of strong, unsolicited opinions on why the people around him are broken. I have an avoidant attachment style, apparently, and though his parents are still alive and they get on well he’s started calling himself a spiritual orphan. Whenever anyone gets mad at him he says they’re projecting. It’s like, dude, you just crashed my car and threw up in the glove compartment, the only projectile here is your vomit.”
Malone himself reports feeling far more in touch with how profound and interesting he is, and how the world continues to fail him.
“I don’t expect regular people to understand my depth, my trauma, the journey I am on. I’m not going to do the emotional labor of explaining myself. If anything I feel sorry for them,” Malone said while very, very drunk. “I’ve come to understand that well-rounded personalities and so-called ‘happiness’ are just repression, defense mechanisms. They’re not authentic, like me. I try to explain to them how damaged they really are but they won’t listen. They don’t understand. No one understands me.”
Malone’s therapist, meanwhile, thinks he’s making great strides.
“He’s making tremendous progress. We’ve been working hard on his inner child and his grasp of archetypes is coming along nicely,” said Dr. Belinda Carlisle. “Changes in behavior? That misses the point entirely. We’re here to reflect, analyze, and grow. But not too much. It’s all about what’s going on inside, forever. Besides, anyone doubting his life skills need only see the reliability with which he pays my $200 an hour fees. Or maybe it’s his parents who do that, I forget. Anyway, how would you describe your relationship with your father?”
At the time of publication, Malone reportedly diagnosed most of his immediate friends and acquaintances as covert narcissists.
