Hello I m Darren Magee and today s topic video comes from the questions What is meant by the
term narcissistic collapse? and, What can cause a narcissistic collapse? Before answering, I would
like to say that all of us experience emotional distress, or an emotional collapse, if you want to
call it that, at different times in our lives. For instance, despite all our best efforts we might
fail at something that's really important to us. Or, or we might have our heartbroken. We can all
feel defeated, despondent at times. A narcissistic collapse is something else. I would describe it
like an unregulated emotional implosion. Some of those collapses might be momentary, some might go
on for a long period of time. But to understand the narcissistic collapse, narcissists have a
very fragile sense itself. They have a constant need for attention, validation, admiration. They
also have a huge sense of entitlement as well as a lack of empathy for others. Narcissism can
present itself in different ways. Most commonly, there would be a grandiose narcissist which is
characterised by haughty behaviour. There's arrogance, domineering and being highly
resistant to criticism. With vulnerable narcissism we see low mood, a sense of perpetual victimhood,
a lot of guilt tripping and being highly sensitive to criticism. But regardless of the presentation,
what we often see are a lot of maladaptive defence mechanisms aimed at protecting that
fragile sense of self. That s why we often see avoidance of accountability and responsibility
and projection of their own behaviours, their own motives and attitudes onto others. The collapse
tends to happen when those defence mechanisms aren't working or maybe have stopped working
in certain situations, with certain people. The collapse can manifest itself in different ways
but narcissists tend to experience things like intense outrage, frustration, fury, anxiety,
debilitating depression, even desperation. So what happens that those defence mechanisms
aren't working? What causes a narcissistic collapse? Well, firstly, it could be because
they are experiencing something they consider to be humiliating, particularly publicly humiliating.
Now this could be a failure at something. It could be others pointing out their errors. It could be
others laughing at their expense even if there's no ill will intended. Or they might be in a
situation where they re out of their depths. No amount of self righteousness, bravado or
intellectualising can give them the narcissistic supply of admiration that they crave. Narcissists
don't do humility well. They can struggle with the idea of other people being more accomplished
in different areas or having skills or knowledge that they don't have. Because of that week ego how
others perceive them is of the utmost importance. They depend on the validation from others to feel
special. If others don't see them as perfect, flawless, virtuous, this brings up a vulnerability
in them they find difficult to cope with. They re reminded of their flaws and as a result and find
it difficult to keep up that pretence. Another cause of narcissistic collapse could be losing
their public image, their status. Perhaps they are being exposed for their lies, their schemes,
their bad behaviour and no amount of blame shifting, grandiosity or victimhood can help them
recover that image. This can lead to a shame based depression. Or there could be the fear of losing
their public image, the fear of losing their status, the fear of being exposed. For example,
maybe they know they have done or said something that they realised wasn't right and there are
going to be consequences. They might plan a lot of excuses, things to say, try to find ways to
shift the focus away from themselves somehow. But no matter what they think up doesn't really
alleviate the distress. And the fear of losing their status can be quite debilitating. Their
fear of a future where they re not admired, being envied come bring up an intense anxiety where they
re maybe not able to function in the present. Some cases they might even find it hard just to get out
of bed. Another cause for a collapse could be when they are faced with the reality that they are not
as unique and as special as they believe they are. They are not as entitled as they think they are,
no more so than anyone else. They don't get a prize for justice turning up. They don't get any
special treatment. No one owes them adoration and no one is obligated to them. When their sense of
entitlement is challenged they might feel as if they're being mistreated. In reality, they just
being treated fairly, the same as everybody else. Their already low self esteem and confidence tends
to take a nosedive. They might spread gossip, claim victimhood, throw a tantrum or they might
show their displeasure by stonewalling. Anything to try to regain a sense of control over how they
re treated. Lastly, they collapse when they cannot get their narcissistic supply no matter what they
do. No one is feeding their ego. Their schemes, magical thinking, sense of omnipotence either
doesn't work or no longer works. No one cares about how special they think they are. No one
is interested in how intelligent, attractive or virtuous they claim to be. There are no enablers,
no flying monkeys or agents to support them or collude with them. Maybe no one believes
the lies anymore. Maybe they're being ignored. No one admires them and no one fears them. They
can become quite desperate in their efforts to escape the pain to try to regain supply.
Maybe in some cases their reputation precedes them, people are on to them. Or in their attempts
they just keep missing and heading the wall. Eventually the intense frustration and anxiety
becomes painful misery. Many people with strong narcissistic traits lack emotional insight,
they re either unwilling or unable to self reflect. This could bring up shame and
vulnerability. To illustrate that lack of insight a narcissist might say they are really hurting,
but they're unable to say why they were hurting, what that pain is. And the lack of empathy might
mean they, they either don't understand or they don't care why others won't give them what they
want. Why others are maybe happy or better off without them. The most they might do is just
blame others for their pain. They might say they, they might claim that there actually being abused,
they re being treated unfairly, exaggerated what happened, but find it difficult to accept
or acknowledge their part in what has happened. Sometimes their solutions to try to avoid the
distress of the collapse can be quite desperate, delusional, poorly thought out as they try to
escape the feelings of pain and shame and rather than resolve the dilemma. If they have been the
cause of their own misery, they might say they're sorry. However, in many cases they re only really
sorry for the consequences they face as opposed to being sorry for their actions. There are times
during a narcissistic collapse that they might actually realise they need to change something.
They might seek support, but it really does depend on the person, how pathologically ingrained the
narcissism is. Some might do a lot of work on themselves. Others, maybe they're just really
looking for an easy, quick fix to the problem. An answer that doesn't really require them to
have to do any work. I think the difficulty keeps coming back to those defence mechanisms. Taking
responsibility for themselves. If they believe the problem lies outside of them, then so does
the solution. Or maybe they get a new supply. Or perhaps the situation resolves itself naturally.
They just go back to doing the same things over and over again. It's like they haven't learned
anything. With covert narcissism it wouldn't be uncommon for them to use the collapse,
use the misery as a tactic to try to gain sympathy, attention from someone,
anyone, even if that's just on social media. So that's a brief outline of the term narcissistic
collapse. As always, please feel free to use the comment box below to add anything I might have
missed, there are some interesting conversations start around these videos. If you found this video
interesting please consider subscribing to my channel and until next time thanks for watching.