What is narcissistic collapse?

I have witnessed a narcissistic collapse more than once. A collapse happens when a narcissist’s source of self worth mal-functions. For example, their significant other stops trying to make them happy. If they have no other sources of validation and they start to feel like they’re losing control of things they once controlled, they spiral. What specifically happens is their false ego starts to crumble. The false identity they have “installed” around them has been consistently validated by the source of self worth, maybe for years. When the validation stops, they are suddenly confronted with the reality that their false self isn’t actually real and isn’t actually worth anything to anyone anymore. They lose their identity. This is extremely distressing to them. This is no joke. I speculate that they feel like they’re dying. They are terrified like a small child lost in the woods on a winter night. They lose their self control and they lose their sense of how to behave. Their mask just crumbles and all that is left is a helpless, dysfunctional, terrified little child. This is as close as you will ever get to meeting their “true self”. This might sound overly dramatic, but this can really happen when the narcissist doesn’t get the “supply” they need. It is not a pretty picture.

They recover just fine, though. They find new ways to validate themselves, maybe a new partner, and they put the pieces of the false self back around them and they carry on.

 

Narcissistic collapse is a psychological state of extreme emotional crisis and distress triggered by the loss of a narcissistic supply—an external source of validation, admiration, and supply. It is typically seen in individuals with narcissistic personality disorder, but can be caused by significant life events such as the death of a loved one, rejection, or a major loss. This often leads to feelings of extreme insecurity, helplessness, self-loathing, and depression.

 

Ahhh, the infamous collapse, I’ve seen this up close and personal. The collapse normally occurs immediately after you have told the narc No, disagreed with the narc or caught the narc in a lie red-handed! This person may remind you of the girl in the movie “The Excorsist” minus the projectile vomiting! Screaming and hollering, you’re called every name in the book, they might even run up on you or swing on you! Incoherent paraphrased non sense, about irrelevant issues and matters will pop up in the collapse. The narc is cornered, you don’t believe the hype! The narc only collapses after the jig is up, even if they are denying your questions or accusations! Even when the proof is right in your hands !

Why is my narcissist bugging and demanding to marry me if he was on the process of dumping me?

It’s easy to beat up, knock out, and concuss narcissists with WORDS.

Narcissists are clowns, who live lives full of failure. They are really pig headed, and don’t know when they’re beat.

Listen closely to their victim story.

Let’s say the narcissist in question has been badly beaten up in the past, because he did something dumb — he played games with the wrong person. Due to his insufferable arrogance he got beat up, knocked out, concussed in an utterly humiliating fashion.

You don’t use the trigger words at them, you use them on yourself, or talking about other people. The words carry the weight of the blow — they can’t bear to hear them.

So what you say is:

“This year has really knocked me around. I’m just feeling so bruised from work, you know? The new boss is really hammering me, it’s just making my head spin. I’d love to get married but I’m just feeling so pummelled by everything right now”.

You don’t have to make it quite so dense as that, but just keep hammering them with trigger words that make them get that sore look in their piggy little eyes. Trigger their shame by referring to yourself or others and using trigger words.

Pow, right in the victim story,

Robert

 

 

Keeping you hooked in is part of the game. You cannot reject them! They are the only ones who can determine when and how a relationship exists. Understand it’s a game! It’s not about loving, caring and a dozen red roses. It’s about control!

I believe he is bugging you to marry him simply to manipulate your emotions and see how much control he has over you. It could also be that he wants to keep you hanging on until he secures a new source of supply.

Oh my gosh. “Demanding to marry” him? Wow. How romantic. Lol. Sorry. He probably just wants control. For some reason, in his mind, marriage is going to benefit him. Maybe you have resources. Maybe he thinks you make an impressive looking couple. Maybe he suddenly feels like being married will fit his image. Maybe he has a green card that’s about to expire. Maybe he thinks you’ll be easier to control. Who knows. But I would say a good rule of thumb is not to marry someone who’s demanding to get married. Oh… and as for him being in the process of dumping you… that was then. This is now. They live in the present. Yesterday never happened. But don’t worry, he could go right back to “dumping” you in an instant.

Fear of loneliness. Maybe u can provide something he needs? Push and pull is a tactic to get you emotional hooked to him . Can go so far that u become addiction to the push and pull . The emotional roller-coaster. Hormone rush .

This is a great question and a question that people often don’t fully understand. Narcissists get married because narcissists value ONE thing above all else – SECURITY! Let me explain.

Narcissistic people are, by nature, very insecure. They also tend to be pessimistic on their outlook about things. They have seen their relationships end – often in tragic ways. Because of this, and their inability to really take full responsibility for the true reasons why their prior relationships ended, they often feel like no one understands them, no one is capable of understanding them and they won’t find “happiness”. Secure people realize that happiness is not a person, place or thing. Secure people also realize that happiness doesn’t come from anything outside of yourself. Narcissists do NOT see things that way. They look for external validation and happiness. Getting married makes them feel like SOMEONE truly does want them and love them. That knowledge makes them feel secure. It is also one of the reasons that they will move quickly from person to person. If one relationship ends, they can’t be alone, so they MUST have something to fill the void.

Most narcissists fear being alone more than anything. I say most because not all narcissistic types have that core fear. Covert narcissists actually are not afraid to be alone and, if not in a relationship, are likely to remain alone or have very transitory relationships. That narcissistic type is typically a “loaner” type anyway. Most other types of narcissistic people cannot stand being alone and it equates to utter loneliness and despair for them. So here comes marriage! The narcissist gets to have someone who devotes their life to them. They get to not be alone until they want to be, they have someone to heave their negative emotional baggage on AND they get to look “normal” to the outside world! After all, if someone managed to marry them, they can’t be that bad right?

At the end of the day, narcissists are just people! They are just people who are looking to fill a void left by some trauma that has led them down a winding, harrowing road that has been hard for them to escape from. They are lonely people who don’t realize how damaged they are, but DO realize how empty they feel when they are by themselves. So many people think that narcissists only marry for show, but that is just not true. Imagine that you are thirsty and you crave water, but drinking doesn’t stop the thirst. THAT is what love and relationships are like for a narcissist. They are searching and hoping and trying to fill themselves – to make themselves whole. Yet, nothing they do makes things right for them. They are broken people. Expecting broken people to be whole and well is like expecting someone who has never gone to school to perform complex brain surgery. When you don’t understand why you even behave the way you do, it is frustrating to go down a road that ends up not making you feel complete. Narcissists, on a very deep level, are EXTREMELY lonely people and, even though they have a hard time admitting it, they feel unwanted and unloved from a very deep place inside of their souls. They have watched people leave them and walk away from them and they have left people and walked away from people and they know what it is like to FEEL utterly and completely alone – even if their loneliness is a DIRECT result of their behavior. THAT is why they marry! Hope is a VERY powerful motivating factor for people who feel hopeless deep inside.

Narcissists also sometimes marry solely for financial reasons or status. However, that is not an unusual thing. Many people, both narcissists and non narcissistic people, will marry someone who is of a higher standing financially or socially. I will add that narcissists, when they marry for this reason, can become very dangerous to deal with. In this specific situation, the narcissist almost always has an exit strategy in mind at the beginning of the marriage and, sometimes, that exit strategy includes walking away with the money the person they are marrying has and that person ending up dead. I know that sounds extreme to some people, but narcissistic people are capable of EXTREME things because they don’t have that inner filter or buffer that stops most of us from doing the uncivilized and outrageous. Even if you do not have money, but are dealing with a narcissist who is money hungry, you are still in danger. Narcissists who are money hungry think nothing of taking out insurance policies and killing their spouses. It happens more than you think, so be VERY careful and do not ignore the warning signs! Not all narcissists are that way, but the ones that are can be very diabolical.

A marriage for a narcissist will NEVER be about connecting with another person to make that person’s world a better place. It will never be about love for the sake of pure love – even though a narcissist can “care”, in their own way, about the person they marry. Marriages to narcissists will always be about the narcissist fulfilling their own needs and addressing their own issues. For the person on the receiving end, a marriage to a narcissist becomes the loneliest island in the world. It becomes a place they signed up to go to, but also a place that is ultimately completely and totally unfulfilling.

What can cause a sudden change in a narcissist’s personality?

I have found three things that suddenly change a narcissist’s personality:

  • They have new supply.

When a narcissist latches on to new supply, they engage in mirroring. They lack a stable identity because their emotional development is stunted to toddler years.

Every time they meet new supply, they start changing like a chameleon.

They change the way they dress. They change the things they like. They change their political beliefs. They change their sense of humor.

The supply could be a partner or a friend. But once they are in idealization phase, the narcissist becomes a new person. They gather new traits for their mask.

  • They are in a collapse due to loss of supply.

When a narcissist is rejected, they go into collapse. It’s when the narcissist has no choice but to confront their shame, and they feel unlovable. It reminds them of the rejection from their narcissist parent.

I’ve seen many collapses: it causes a sudden despondency. A deep depression and vulnerability. I rarely see it last more than a week, often much shorter.

It’s always utterly unsettling and fiercely intense.

The narcissist is actually most likable in this pathetic state. They seem human.

However, they’re dangerous AF in this state too. They’ll go into a rage and their revenge is wildly disproportionate.

I know one narcissist that killed himself in this state as a child, at 15, after sexually assaulting his supply and being discarded. And my dad also tried to kill himself in a collapse.

It’s a dark and dangerous mental state.

  • They sense you are doing well.

OH HELL NO?! She’s still living?!

TIME FOR A HOOVER.

Let’s see if we can FINISH HER.

At this time, the narcissist who discarded you like you were moldy cheese suddenly acts like you’re a whole gourmet meal again.

They bring on your favorite drug: the lovebomb.

And then they try to ruin your life all over again.

There is such a thing as a good narcissist, I know one. What’s the good in one narc?

There is such a thing as a good narcissist, I know one. What’s the good in one narc?

I can relate to what you are saying because (for some crazy reason) the universe keep aligning me with narcissistic people. I’m recalling a couple of them, a male (overt) and my wife (covert).

I have to say the overt womanising never got any money of his own male is an obnoxious ahole. You can read him like a book and you soon learn he has no redeeming features. His character was shallow. Was there anything good about him? No. You instinctively knew he was a bad apple.

But there was a certain easy feeling around him. All narcs are quite social.

But my wife, the covert type, when pressed she is very dark, a well advanced narcissist with psychopathy i’m sure of it. But when she is not triggered she is in many ways easy to get along with too, she is generous, friendly, even fair. But this “good” side is always in conflict with the dark demon inside. Don’t be fooled. It’s all a sharade, smoke and mirrors. You can think the narc genuinely likes you, maybe, but that won’t stop them smearing you, denigrating your character to everyone you know, You couldn’t never expect the zeal and tenacity they have for destroying you, for no apparent reason, then come and be nice to you after having done the devils work for the day.

Sooner or later you will experience one of the worst human experiences you’re ever likely to encounter in life. To have someone you loved, trusted, put your faith, suddenly turn on you and show disdain for you. It gives you a horrible sinking feeling. It is often described by those who are dragged into this netherworld as shocking. It’s all that and more. This is head turning Linda Blair stuff from the exorcist. It’s something you can never be prepared for in life. It’s the worst type of betrayal when you learn just how despised you are without rhyme or reason.

 

A narcissist does many things very well.

Please give me a moment to get a cup of coffee.

Okay, this is my list of things the narcissist does very well:

  1. Convince others they are a good person. My father is known in the community as a nice person, a giver, a philanthropist. Behind closed doors he is an abusive monster.
  2. Make it look like they are successful. See that car they drive. They have a few like that. They stepped on many people to get those cars. Those people (nameless victims) you will never see. Instead YOU see the fantasy.
  3. Easily convince you and sometimes millions of others of how popular they are. They have millions of fans but it’s never enough. “I need 100 million people buying my next record in order for me to feel more popular then I already am.” Their success will never be enough. They look but don’t ever feel popular. The goalpost will always change..

I could write a list of 200 things but I’m not going to go any further.

Good day