René Girard shows us that while most people experience mimetic desire explicitly as a desire to imitate other people, other people experience it in a different form - narcissism.
Narcissists attempt to model their desire on themselves. They aspire to become an idealistic version of themselves they can project. This is fraught with disappointment.
Narcissists are deeply unhappy because the harder they try to imitate and impress themselves, the less they’ll succeed.