Clearly, a psychopath would get a thrill from adding a little more pain to your misery when things aren’t going your way, but when you’re really down and out, why would people (some people you may have referred to as “friends” not long ago, as well as people you don’t know or don’t know well at all) take pot shots at you, when you have little or no resources for recovering from the attack or wounds therefrom?
Life can be incredibly harsh when you’re already struggling. It’s bad enough dealing with the pain of your situation, but it can feel unbearable when others seem to add to your suffering. Whether it’s people you once considered friends or strangers who act without a second thought, the feeling of being “kicked while you’re down” can leave you wondering why anyone would behave that way.
But is it intentional? Or is it a symptom of something deeper and more universal?
Why Do People Kick You When You’re Down?
First, let’s address the rare case: some people, like psychopaths or deeply broken individuals, do derive satisfaction from seeing others suffer. They may deliberately add to your misery for their own twisted thrill. But these individuals are few and far between.
More often, what feels like a personal attack is not personal at all. There are people with low self-esteem who feel better about themselves by comparing their situation to someone else’s struggles. If they see you struggling, it reassures them that they aren’t doing so badly after all.
This dynamic often plays out among so-called “friends.” These are the people who cheer you on when you’re down, claiming they “want the best for you.” That’s all well and good—until you start doing better than them. Then, their encouragement turns to caution, doubt, or subtle sabotage. They may warn you that you’re heading into dangerous territory, secretly hoping you’ll stumble so they can swoop in with an “I told you so.”
The reality is, most people aren’t kicking you while you’re down out of malice. Instead, they are navigating their own struggles and insecurities, often unaware of how their actions—or inactions—affect others.
The Matryoshka Doll: A Story of Invisibility
To understand how this happens, consider the story of a university professor who lost everything.
This once-respected man watched his life crumble after his youngest daughter was diagnosed with leukemia and later took her own life. His family fell apart under the weight of their grief, and he left his career to open a gift shop in her memory. But tragedy struck again when the shop burned down, leaving him destitute. Eventually, he became homeless, clutching only a treasured matryoshka doll—a gift he had given his daughter—as a reminder of her love.
One night, as he sat in an alleyway with his beloved doll, a car barreled down the street, striking a dumpster that smashed into his hiding spot. The professor survived, but the doll was destroyed. Days later, his lifeless body was found, clutching the shattered pieces.
From the professor’s perspective, it felt as though life itself was conspiring against him. Every glimmer of hope had been shattered, leaving him broken and invisible. Yet the truth was far less personal. The car in the alley wasn’t targeting him; it was driven by teenagers on a joyride, completely unaware of his presence. The professor’s tragedies weren’t orchestrated by malice—they were a cascade of unfortunate, unintentional life circumstances.
Invisibility and the Struggle to Matter
As the professor’s story illustrates, when your ability to influence others diminishes, so does your visibility in the eyes of society. People are consumed by their own lives, their own struggles, and their own quests to feel better. In today’s fast-paced world, out of sight often means out of mind.
This doesn’t mean people don’t care; it means they’re distracted. Everyone is trying to navigate their own challenges with the tools they have, often with blinders on to the struggles of others. It’s not that they’re kicking you while you’re down—they simply don’t see you at all.
Perspective Matters
The truth is, we all live life from our own perspectives. Until you read this story, a broken matryoshka doll held no significance for you. For the professor, it was everything. The teenagers who crushed it didn’t see the professor or his pain; they were focused on their own lives, trying to feel good in the moment.
Same incident. Different perspectives.
This is the nature of life. When it feels like someone is intentionally hurting you, it’s often just life unfolding around you. People rarely act with the intent to harm; they’re simply doing the best they can to navigate their own challenges, often unaware of the ripple effects.
Finding Your Way Back
When life feels overwhelming, and you feel invisible, the most important thing you can do is take steps to remind the world—and yourself—that you are still here. Don’t let yourself fade into the background. Even small, deliberate actions can reignite your significance.
You are an amazing person with a unique purpose, message, and mission. Your experiences, no matter how painful, have equipped you to help others who are struggling with similar challenges. You don’t need to have all the answers; you just need to refuse to give up. Take the next step toward rebuilding your life—no matter how small—and trust that each step will lead to a better, brighter future.
A World of Blind Spots
The professor’s family didn’t abandon him out of malice. They were overwhelmed by their own grief and chose to cope in ways that made sense to them, even if it meant distancing themselves. His daughter’s suicide wasn’t meant to hurt anyone—she simply wanted to ease what she thought was a burden on her family.
We’re all human, trying to navigate this imperfect world. Most of us have blind spots, and we unintentionally hurt others simply because we’re focused on our own pain or desires. The key to moving forward is to recognize this truth and give others—and yourself—grace.
The Path Forward: Love and Purpose
No one is intentionally out to get you. Life’s challenges can make it feel that way, but more often than not, people are simply unaware of the impact their actions have.
Instead of dwelling on the perceived slights or injustices, focus on what you can control. Look for ways to rise from your circumstances. Find your purpose, share your story, and inspire others with your resilience.
You have the power to create a new chapter—one defined not by despair, but by strength, love, and the profound realization that you matter.
This is my prayer for you:
Amen.
it all makes sense now. who knew perspectives matter so much? maybe the solution lies in changing your perspective. if you can think of people pushing you down simply as people pushing you towards the greatness that lies in your future you could change everything. thank you so much for this
I read this entire article and honestly i understand it with the passion because i lost my children a couple years ago to the system and fought fiercely to get them back. My younger child that was only 2 at the time was taken at the hospital for a check up. And even though the doctors cleared her to make sure she was being taken care of from daily situations , enviroments and daycare etc- I was arrested by a police officer for an assumption that i was under the influence. I had in fact made the mistake of being under the influence and had the choice to sober up before taking her for a check up my motherly instict was not thinking about “waiting to take care of my 2 Yr old baby”. So , Long story made short, later on down the line, i did everything i could possibly do longing so deperately for her return just to be taken on an endless battle of dissapointment and false hope by the system. Today it is Feb, 17, 2020 and just lost my rights this past december and my children are now 4 and 7. Im in the exaact same position spiritually that this man was with the world. I feel just about 100 percent disconnected from society because of the depression and lack of work in addition to the loss of my parental rights. Its a very strange feeling from losing touch with the main identity that one once had. Nowadays i have just about no friends and the one i did have turned his energies of rejection and dismissal of who i was as a person and made me feel excluded from deserving the same treatment he gave his other friends. I would then ask myself why it seemed like people like to kick others when their down and find myself painfully wondering whether these actions are intentional or whether they are in fact just living their lives. However, I would have to say that there is truly alot of dishonest people in this world whos mission is to infact demonize and single us out from normal life and reality that humans deserve to have and strive for.
thank you i really needed to see this im in a hardship right now and im going to use this to move forward. H.O.B.S = HOLD ON BE STRONG
I’m sorry. But I started reading this only to be invalidated that ” no one is kicking me while I am down ” I am disabled from Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from chronic abuse from my family or origin. Not only do they kick me when im down so do all the narcissits in the world. You act like psychopaths and narcissits don’t exist. Who are you to say one cannot KICK you while your DOWN. Thanks for the invalidating passed up as education. Invalidating Abuse as “they are just living their lives doing the best they can” is not only misinformation its Dangerous.
I don’t know that I’m qualified to respond Lucy. But I want to tell you that I felt and experienced the same thing you described. I worked researching narcissism for almost 5 years and very recently realized that I needed that fight. And a fight it was I had a covert or malignant narcissist bf that was so unbelievably ugly to me everyday I remained in shock that I could not stop going back, jumping up at his every request & all manner of self defeating actions trying to get him to see what a good person I was & so hurt that he knew my family scapegoated me so badly & appeared not to care what happened to me that I almost can’t believe it and boy did I want to just die from the desperation, pain, loneliness & all manner of feel sorry for me. truly everyone I knew saw confirmed it’s him not you. And through my study I found out I was a good person maybe one of the best I got away safely. One day not long ago I realized I had to fight to be me. I fought so hard to be me that I am going to be the best me possible & I truly love the me I am. I know that you are one terrific person with a light so bright so nice so kind so giving & selfless that you are a target of darkness. You are more than it appears. Before this life you may have contracted with these souls to do this to do you so you could learn how amazing you truly are for eternity. Bless all your teachers good & seemingly bad ones you are getting to know why there is a wonderful you!
I agree 100%. Most of these articles are written by people who’ve never truly been down in their lives. If they had, they’d see a whole other side to people, and they wouldn’t like it.
The real truth of the matter, is that people are egotistical. They’re only nice to people they want something from. If you have nothing to offer them, they’ll think of you as a burden and treat you negatively.
I also believe this is unconscious, because people are unaware of how selfish they truly are.
Take it from someone who’s been through it themselves: people are not nice, THEY’RE SELFISH. The writer of this article doesn’t live in reality.
You should read a book called “Awareness” by Anthony Demello. It speaks of uncommon truths and will definitely give you the validation and confirmation you need to rise above this illusion.
I totally agree … putting it on the victim is disgusting and elitist!
Lucy is the HERO OF MY DAY for disputing this article. I googled this comment only to get a bunch of get over it nonsense so I’m so glad to see a comment so soon that validates what I’m going through. That’s all I was hoping when I put “narcissists love to kick you when you’re down” into the Google search engine and instead I found this crap article.
They also like to do it after putting on the nice mask for a while. Then they’ll start some fight over something petty. No contact FOREVER seems to be the only way out. Otherwise they’l unexpectedly pull the rug from under your feet at the worst possible moment after playing nice.
They won’t have me around as a source of sporadically sadistic supply anymore!
The people that kick us when we are already down, are often the same ones that put us there, e.g., narcissistic predators.
Totally agree.
And to add to that, I don’t think that everyone walks around living life only thinking about their lives and not even considering that the things they do have an impact on other people. I think more than often you understand what impacts your words and actions have even if it’s after the fact. I agreed with some of this but I just think it’s ridiculous to say everyone’s in their own world can’t blame them, you don’t have any empathy you can’t think about others feelings or you can’t say anything nice, there’s something wrong with you.
I went through a gamut of emotions while reading this article. At first I thought “you’re wrong people do intentionally kick people when they’re down” however after I finished I sat and thought about it. Yes, it seems people do kick you when you’re done, however we fail to see things from their perspective. We can only feel what has been done to us, and how it affects us. We might have sympathy or apathy for other peoples plates, but in the end, we really truly cannot relate unless it’s happening to us.
So let’s flip the script here and talk about this man’s wife. She is left wondering why her husband is choosing to kick her while she’s down. Not only is she dealing with the loss of a child, she has to do with the fact that he has abandoned her and the family. He has cleared their life savings and left her to deal with all the financial burden alone. Not only did her child die, her husband selfishly abandon her and take all their money with him, she’s now not sure if she can even keep her home. The home she cherished because it is where she raised her daughter.
The couples remaining children are left abandoned by their father and now their Mother who is overwhelmed and struggling too hard to help them cope. This woman would be thinking, why? Why is he doing this to me, why must he kick me when I’m down? He has made her tremendous loss so much worse by purposeful actions.
You see it’s all about perspective. Most of the time when we are being kicked while down it is because others are selfish and cannot see how or what they do affects us.
It’s hard not to take it personally but it helps to attempt to see the other side of things. This was a great article. Thank you.
I have tried to engage with these people to try to find a sense of belonging. I have isolated myself for awhile because nothing works. Sorry, but I don’t agree with the doctor. There are a lot of sadist out there. Maybe it’s our society today. It’s really sad. I’m getting by. Humor does help