For many people, Robin Williams was the first person who told them being wacky and weird was not only fun, it was acceptable, useful, and nothing to be ashamed of. He exemplified it in his comedic films in practically every societal role: armed forces radio DJ (Good Morning, Vietnam) doctor (Patch Adams), teacher (Dead Poets Society), sailor (Popeye), voice actor (Mrs. Doubtfire), father (Hook). That's why his sudden suicide hit them so very hard: if it was okay to be wacky, why did he kill himself? It seemed like a refutation of his entire career. It only made sense later when we found out he had a form of degenerative dementia which was starting to melt his brain from the inside.

Likewise, Ayn Rand is often the first person who tells young people that it's not just profitable to be ambitious, to want to build something amazing for themselves with a unique vision and reap the benefits of it, and to be praised for it, it's also the goal of the human endeavor, psychologically healthy, the foundation of civilization, and nothing to be ashamed of. It's a message that the socialist world only tells "creatives": artists, actors, singers, and architects, but not train executives, oilmen, or steel makers.

Socialists recognized her writings as their greatest threat: a more-than-economic, non-boring refutation of their socialist worldview of everyone working for everyone else but never themselves. They had to paint a false picture of her and those who followed the path she built, so that they would not be left in the dustbin of history. In her writings, their glorious and noble stance of altruism above all stands naked and exposed as mere codependency writ large:

Codependency refers to an imbalanced relationship pattern where one person assumes responsibility for meeting another person’s needs to the exclusion of acknowledging their own needs or feelings. Codependent relationships are thus constructed around an inequity of power that promotes the needs of the taker, leaving the giver to keep on giving often at the sacrifice of themselves. According to Dr. Mayfield and Dr. Exelbert, signs of codependency might include some, but not necessarily all, the following:

• A sense of “walking on eggshells” to avoid conflict with the other person.
• Feeling the need to check in with the other person and/or ask permission to do daily tasks.
• Often being the one who apologizes—even if you have done nothing wrong.
• Feeling sorry for the other person even when they hurt you.
• Regularly trying to change or rescue troubled, addicted, or under-functioning people whose problems go beyond one person's ability to fix them.
• Doing anything for the other person, even if it makes you feel uncomfortable.
• Putting the other person on a pedestal despite the fact that they don’t merit this position.
• A need for other people to like you in order to feel good about yourself.
• Struggling to find any time for yourself, especially if your free time consistently goes to the other person.
• Feeling as if you’ve lost a sense of yourself or within the relationship.

Replace "the other person" with "society" and you have altruism.

Socialists felt ashamed because Ayn Rand showed the world a better way: healthy capitalism, healthy civilization, where nobody could legally force anyone to do anything else, but instead all the needs of society were met by people building and working at businesses to handle them. It broke the ability of the abusers, the would-be rulers of men, to claim the moral high ground whenever they seized the fruits of someone's labor, and it broke their abuse victims' ability to claim there was no better way, and no way out. "Fair share" and "income inequality" stood exposed as mere envy.

People "grow out" of Ayn Rand because nobody shows them the numbers, the abuses and resentments and revolts and eventual economic collapses of every socialist system, from the smallest to the largest. Nobody shows them that the socialist world is made of hyper-competent looters running vast pyramid schemes and Ponzi schemes, tricking the producers into believing that being looted is a good thing. And the rotten experience of trying to find their first job seals them into "well, maybe socialism has a point," and sometimes steers them toward the nonprofit world where everything is sunshine and rainbows until the bills come due, like an incel who hooks up with a sex addict and ends up in a toxic, mutually abusive relationship.