Tip: click a paragraph to jump to the exact moment in the video. How Narcissist Collapses Furiously

1. 00:11 One of the misconceptions in the study of narcissism is that narcissistic collapse is the outcome of deficient narcissistic supply. That is true. But this is not the only reason or the only cause of narcissistic collapse. Of course, if the narcissist is unable to
2. 00:32 secure an uninterrupted regular flow of narcissistic supply, problems with self-regulation develop because narcissists rely on external regulation. And because internal regulation is disrupted, there is a problem with shame and other negative effects that go completely orai
3. 00:56 out of control, overwhelm the narcissist, take over and this could culminate even in suicidal ideiation. The narcissist clinically becomes a borderline. But this is only one pathway, one trajectory of narcissistic collapse. There’s another type of narcissistic collapse
4. 01:16 that I would like to discuss today and that is the collapse. The narcissistic collapse that comes about when people refuse to collude with and participate in the shared fantasy. The shared fantasy remember is the organizing principle of the narcissist
5. 01:36 life and existence. It imbuss it with meaning, purpose and direction. It is inexurable. It is dictated by early childhood experiences and conflicts. And the narcissist is a captive of the shared fantasy as much as anyone else. But the narcissist needs other people to
6. 01:52 participate in the shared fantasy. And when they reject him, when they refuse to step in, when they refuse to be incorporated into the shared fantasy, the narcissist reacts with narcissistic collapse. Now, before I proceed and before you flood the comment section,
7. 02:09 half of all narcissists are women, but I’m going to use the male gender pronoun because of Victorian conventions. Yes, I’m that old. The narcissist perceives narcissistic collapse as some kind of injustice. The narcissist feels entitled. He’s entitled to special treatment. is
8. 02:34 entitled to special outcomes which are incommenurate with the narcissist’s efforts. In other words, the narcissist doesn’t think that he has to work hard or study hard. Everything should come to him as mana from heaven. He feels entitled and narcissistic collapse is the denial
9. 02:54 of disentitlement. You are not going to get narcissistic supply. We are not going to participate in your shed delusional fantasy. It’s a denial. And whenever the narcissist faces the denial of his expectations and the lack of catering to his needs, when
10. 03:12 his needs are unmet, at that point the narcissist perceives the whole situation in terms of a morality play. He splits. He becomes all good and everyone else is all bad. This is known as a splitting defense mechanism. It’s an infantile primitive defense mechanism.
11. 03:32 The entitlement, the sense of entitlement when frustrated leads of course to aggression. But the initial phase of the aggression as Dolard had observed in 1939. The initial phase of the aggression is an overwhelming sense of having been wronged. Narcissistic collapse is
12. 03:55 perceived as injustice. And the sense that you have been wrong that the narcissist has been wrong leads him to then become angry. So narcissistic collapse perceived as injustice a violation of the sense of entitlement trigger an anger and aggression. Sometimes
13. 04:16 when this anger and aggression cannot be efficaciously applied to the alleged or ostensible transgressors. When the narcissist cannot punish these the people who have violated the the entitlement, the people who refuse to participate in the shared
14. 04:37 fantasy, the people who refuse to give him narcissistic supply, the people who mocked him, humiliated him, shamed him, exposed him and so on so forth. The people who would not uphold and butress the grandio inflated fantastic self-concept and self-narrative. All
15. 04:53 these people need need to be punished. They are the subjects of the narcissist aggression and anger. They are the perpetrators of the injustice and the injustice needs to be remedied and rectified. But sometimes it is not possible to direct the aggression
16. 05:15 and anger efficaciously and punitively at the transgressors at these people and then the aggression is just there like a blob of energy. What to do with it? It cannot be externalized. And so it is internalized. The aggression is directed at the narcissist rather than at outsiders.
17. 05:39 And when the direction, this anger, this diffuse, uh sense of of having been wronged, discriminated against and so on, when all this rage, seething, resentment, bitterness and and and uh so on when they cannot be applied to others, they are they are absorbed. They
18. 06:01 are digested by the narcissist. They are assimulated by the narcissist. And the narcissist then constructs a narrative to explain why he is so angry at himself, why he’s why he’s aggressing against himself. And the narrative is I have failed to perform and my failure
19. 06:23 renders me unlovable, unworthy of life. Now you can immediately see that this is a reenactment of early childhood relationships, interpersonal relationships especially with caregivers like the mother where love had been conditioned on performance.
20. 06:43 Love was um an effect that was dispensed
21. 06:49 sparingly and the child had to be performative. the child had to gratify the parents, satisfy their needs and wishes, cater to their unfulfilled dreams and fantasies and only then the child receive a modicum uh of love. So it’s been it’s an impoverished experience
22. 07:15 and gradually the child convinces himself or herself that they’re not that they’re not lovable by virtue of who they are. They are lovable by virtue of what they do. And so a failure for example to create a shared fantasy and convince other people, convert other people to the
23. 07:35 cause, this failure is um perceived as proof of
24. 07:45 unlovability. I I can be loved only when I perform. I fail to perform, I cannot be loved. I’m unworthy of life. In effect, the internalized aggression results in numerous psychological processes and culminates in depression and self emulation, self-defeating behaviors, self harm,
25. 08:12 sometimes physical, self- thrashing, self-destruction, unhealthy behaviors, recklessness, dangerous defiance and consumaciousness, challenging authority, and so on so forth. So the sequence is the narcissist needs narcissistic supply. Narcissistic supply is garnered
26. 08:34 through the imposition of a shared fantasy on other people. If other people refuse to collude and collaborate in this um dance macabo in this theater production in this movie, the narcissist becomes angry and aggressive because he feels entitled and not having his needs
27. 08:52 met feels like some kind of injustice. But this anger and aggression can be either externalized. He can inflict it on other people. the very same people who had undermined and sabotaged his narcissistic his flow of narcissistic supply and have destroyed the shared
28. 09:08 fantasy or if this is not possible for some reason this aggression remains there and it is directed inwards it is internalized and the narcissist becomes highly uh self-destructive and also depressed and anxious Anxiety reflects the innate knowledge that the
29. 09:34 narcissist is dangerous to himself. There is an unconscious realization that the self-aggression could end very badly and this creates a lot of anxiety. And if the collapse persists, if the narcissist cannot reverse this course of action, the narcissist starts to
30. 09:54 disregulate emotionally and even entertain suicidal ideiation. Clinically, as I said, the narcissist enters a borderline state and his personality devolves into a borderline personality organization. This interplay between narcissism and borderline has
31. 10:12 been amply described by Otto Kenberg. Now, narcissists are not completely defenseless in the face of these breaks and pauses and deficiencies and interruptions in the flow of supply and in the in the perpetuation of the shed fantasy. They’re not completely
32. 10:29 defenseless. They have, for example, self-upply, the capacity to supply themselves. I’ve dealt with it in in numerous videos. So, I simply advise you to search the channel for self-upp. And self- supply ameliorates the collapse somehow, mitigates it somehow by um by u
33. 10:48 providing a semblance of narcissistic supply. The narcissist perceives the self supply as emanating from the outside because the narcissist cannot tell the difference between external and internal objects. And also the narcissist believes that his opinions
34. 11:07 and judgments are universal. They emanate from some universal source because a narcissist is godlike. So self- supply is experienced internally exactly like supply from external sources from other people and it amilarates the collapse. On the other hand,
35. 11:28 lowgrade supply actually makes the collapse worse. And this is something again that most people get wrong including scholars. When the supply is lowrade emanates from sources of narcissistic supply which are not appreciated by the narcissist
36. 11:49 and are not up to up to scratch or up to it and when the supply is fake for example an attempt to manipulate the narcissist via flattery and so on the lowgrade and fake supply exacerbate the collapse. The narcissist says to himself, “I deserve much more than that.
37. 12:11 I deserve much better than that.” The fact that the only kind of supplier I can secure is lowgrade or fake is is a sign of failure. I am failing to obtain high-grade supply. So I’m a failure. So I’m unlovable. So I’m unworthy of life. and that perpetuates the borderline
38. 12:35 dimensions, clinical dimensions and features of the process of narcissistic collapse. So narcissists prefer to avoid lowgrade or fake narcissistic supply altogether. They prefer self supply to lowgrade supply. They prefer self supply to fake supply.
39. 13:00 They are looking for high-grade supply, authenticated narcissistic supply, real supply emanating from sources which they can look up to and respect and uh and even admire role models in a way. And so
40. 13:18 the hierarchy of narcissistic supply is high-grade supply, self supply and then lowgrade or fake supply which make the collapse even worse. And the narcissist spend spends an in inordinately long stretches of time immersed in sthing anger, biting bitterness and resentment.
41. 13:42 The narcissist becomes repulsive, obnoxious, aggressive, entitled, demanding, and consequently, of course, hated. The process of trying to extricate himself from the collapse render the narcissist very hateful, very obnoxious, very dis disgusting and repulsive. And
42. 14:08 people want to avoid the narcissist. And many many people want to punish the narcissist. People who have been wronged by the narcissist, they become very punitive themselves. And that’s a contagion effect in in in reality. The narcissist converts external
43. 14:26 objects, other people, into instruments of his own self-destructiveness. Ironically, when the narcissist fails to impose a grandio shared fantasy, he imposes a a destruct self-destructive shared fantasy. When the narcissist fails to convince people that he is amazing, omniscient,
44. 14:51 brilliant, perfect, a genius, um, omnipotent, super handsome, and when he fails to convince people in any of this, and there’s a a systemic uh collapse of the shared fantasy and a disruption, a massive disruption in in the flow of narcissistic supply. At that point, the
45. 15:13 narcissist construct another shared fantasy, a different one. And that’s a shared fantasy of his own demise, of his own disintegration, of his own decay, a twilight of the go gods. And he recruits people into this self-destructive sh fantasy by converting them into haters.
46. 15:37 Haters, enemies, hostile to him. And so people think that when they’re punishing the narcissist, they are being righteous and virtuous and and out of the control of the narcissist. But actually, when you’re punishing the narcissist, you’re participating in the narcissist’s
47. 15:56 alternative shared fantasy, the shared fantasy of his own grandio self-destruction, a self-destruction that is ostentatious and for the ages. you’re participating in this when you’re punishing the narcissist. So people who have been wronged by the narcissist
48. 16:13 punish the narcissist and in this way they serve as his instruments and tools in the pursuit of his own as I said self emulation and they punish the narcissist by denying the narcissist supply basically for example imposing reputational costs on the narcissist giving him bad
49. 16:35 reputation shaming the narcissist humiliating the narcissist ignoring the narcissist Even when the narcissist deserves accolades and recognition for true accomplishments or for good pro-social communal conduct, even then people deny the accomplishments.
50. 16:56 They negate the the good behavior. They they smear the narcissist. They humiliate the narcissist, shame the narcissist, or the most common strategy, completely ignore the narcissist. That drives the narcissist insane. This enhances the narcissist’s sense of injustice.
51. 17:18 Because the narcissist says, “This time I really did something good. This time I really accomplished something amazing.” And yet people are ignoring me. They’re not giving me my due. They’re humiliating and shaming me and they’re spreading rumors about me and so on so forth. So
52. 17:39 this is a really vicious uh vicious cycle is the narcissist starts by uh confronting a situation where he lacks supply, there’s deficient supply and the shared fantasy is not working. There’s a sense of injustice. I’m entitled to all this. Why am I not
53. 18:00 getting it? It’s not just sense of injustice which leads to anger and aggression which often are externalized and inflicted on other people but sometimes are internalized and lead to depression and borderline effects and borderline behaviors and then people this alienates people.
54. 18:20 This drives people away. Narcissist pushes people away. They hate the narcissist. They want to take him down. They want to destroy him. And the only tool, the only weapon people have is the narcissist’s constant need for narcissistic supply. So they deny him
55. 18:36 the supply and this time intentionally as a strategy. And that enhances and increases the narcissist’s sense of injustice, cosmic injustice, because sometimes narcissists do have real accomplishments. Sometimes they do behave behave well. But this is lost in
56. 18:57 the din tentrum of the battle between the narcissist and all humanity. Narcissist is trying to coersse humanity into accepting him as this messianic um genius figure and humanity wouldn’t comply. Humanity pushes back or mocks and ridicules the narcissist, exposes and shames him or
57. 19:18 whatever. And mostly humanity ignores the narcissist. And the sense of injustice becomes entrenched. And some of this sense of injustice is justified really. And this real injustice and unjust abusive treatment at the hands of other people prods the
58. 19:40 narcissist even further into the state of what I call furious collapse. And there is a collapse spiral. The more angry the narcissist is, the more abrasive, the more aggressive, the more furious, the more enraged, the less inhibited, the less controlled, the more the narcissist is
59. 20:05 conflictrone, antagonistic, contemptuous. The more the narcissist is himself obnoxious, the more people hate the narcissist. They mistreat the narcissist. They abuse the narcissist as a punishment which then enhances the narcissist sense of injustice. And he becomes even more
60. 20:27 aggressive, even more obnoxious, even more punitive, even more contemptuous. And the cycle continues indefinitely to the point that the narcissist may become a complete outcast and a hate figure. This furious collapse, the collapse spiral um is a series of ritualized, orchestrated
61. 20:55 moves and counter moves by the narcissist and his environment. The narcissist lashes out at people he perceives as tormentors or or or bias prejudice discriminating people or bad people or malevolent people or evil people or enemies or he lashes out. He tries to modify their
62. 21:18 behaviors or eliminate them alto together and he fails of course and then he internalizes the aggression for having failed. He hates himself and then he hates other people for hating himself. He says they made me hate myself. He’s angry at them. And then he
63. 21:38 he again lashes lashes out and it’s an endless process, endless cycle. So why do why does narcissistic supply end? Why does it uh come to a point where it fades and vanishes? Because sooner or later the narcissist finds a winning strategy to obtain
64. 22:02 narcissistic supply by changing usually the pathological narcissistic space moving to another physical location. Um a new church, a new pub, a new family, a new workplace, something new. And then he starts from zero and he’s able to obtain initially able to obtain
65. 22:22 supply because he knows he’s sometimes charming, sometimes useful, sometimes always manipulative and and ostentatiously pro-ocial, helpful, do good, you name it. Numerous strategies. Somehow the narcissist succeeds to resuscitate the flow, the uninterrupted
66. 22:39 flow of narcissistic supply and this terminates the collapse phase and the narcissist grandiosity and and other cognitive distortions are fully restored. Narcissist is back to for back to his old self. He reverts to form and the cycle starts again. But as
67. 22:58 you see, the collapse process is very nuanced, multifaceted, not as simple as, oh, the Narcissist doesn’t have supply, so he’s sulking. Or, oh, the Nazis doesn’t have supply, so he’s a bit borderline, he’s emotionally disregulated. No, it’s not
68. 23:13 as simple as that. There are mechanisms within mechanisms, cogs within wheels and it’s a it’s a complex phenomenon and the narcissist is trying to manage it as best he can because there are transformations and manifestations and expressions of aggression
69. 23:32 which are sometimes externalized and sometimes internalized. Sometimes he uses other people to destroy himself. Sometimes he uses himself to destroy other people. And it’s very difficult sometimes to tell the subtleties and the nuances and the differences in behavior
70. 23:50 and what is the aim or what is the goal and where all this is going and the collapse phase is highly chaotic because it’s truly not it’s truly the absence of an organizing principle. Everything the narcissist believed in his own inflated fantastic grandio self-concept
71. 24:10 the flow of narcissistic supply and the sources of supply the shared fantasy and its its ultimate destination or destiny all these are gone absolutely gone all the defenses crumble in a process of decompensation the narcissist is faced with himself he’s alone with himself
72. 24:31 facing himself in the mirror witness to his own shame, fallibility and you know like the wizard of Oz his minute small stature and he cannot tolerate this it’s very threatening it usually results in in motification if if it is very abrupt but even if it
73. 24:55 doesn’t result in motification it’s still very threatening and the narcissist is hellbent simultaneously on pen penalizing the people who brought him into this state on the one hand and on finding new converts, new participants, new victims if you wish,
74. 25:13 new sources of narcissistic supply. These are both these missions, both these tasks are very compulsive and they are often irreconcilable which renders the collapse uh state a dissonant state which then gives rise to a heightened heightened anxiety and to
75. 25:36 which is which is coupled with a depression. Anxiety and depression. It’s a bad time for the narcissist. The collapse is much much worse in the wake of of narcissistic motification could be life-threatening. But even normal collapse, standard collapse and narcissist go through
76. 25:53 collapse numerous times in the in in the lifespan. But even a normal collapse is a very harrowing period and challenges all the narcissist resources and all of them recover. All of them regain their totally paracosmic self-concept. totally you know uh fictitious self-concept
77. 26:18 but uh so it’s getting it’s getting more difficult with age is the memories of previous collapses and the fact that collapse are much more frequent as the narcissist ages could put together lead to internal motification like the realization that that’s it I’m
78. 26:41 out of resources I’m out of strategies and strategent. I, the narcissist, don’t know what to do anymore. Don’t know where to go. Don’t know what’s next. And then there is serious risk of a borderline devolution or deterioration or including a serious contemplation of suicide.