hello I'm darm again the topic for today's video comes from the questions what is meant by the term narcissistic collapse and what can cause a narcissistic collapse well before answering I would like to say that all of us experience emotional distress or unemotional collapse if you want to call it that at different times in our lives for instance despite all our best efforts we might feel it's something that's really important to us or or we might have our heart broken 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 they understand the narcissistic collapse narcissists have a very fragile sense of self 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 a narcissism can present itself in different ways most commonly there would be a grandiose narcissist which is characterized by haughty Behavior 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 defense mechanisms aimed at protecting Not Fragile sense of self that's why we often see avoidance of accountability and responsibility and projection of their own behaviors their own motives and attitudes onto others the collapse tends to happen when those defense mechanisms aren't working or maybe have stopped working in certain situations or 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 defense mechanisms aren't working what causes a narcissistic collapse well firstly it could be because they're 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 could be others laughing at their expense even if there's no ill well intended or they might be in a situation where they're out of their depth no amount of self-righteousness bravado or intellectualizing 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 weak ego High others perceive them as of the utmost importance they depend on the validation from others to feel special if others don't see them as perfect Flawless virtues this brings up a vulnerability and they find difficult to cope with they're reminded of their flaws and as a result can find it difficult to keep up that pretense another cause of narcissistic collapse
could be losing their Public Image their status perhaps they're being exposed for their lies their schemes their bad behavior and no amount of blame shifting Grand theosity 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 realize 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 of 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 can 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're not as entitled as they think they are no more so than anyone else they don't get a prize for just 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're just being treated fairly the same as everybody else but they're already low self-esteem and confidence tends to take a nosedive they might spread gossip claim victimhood through 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 that pain to try to regain the supply maybe in some cases their reputation precedes them people are on to them or in their attempts they just keep messing and hitting 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 are hurting what that pain is on 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 happier or better off without them the most they might do is just blame others for their pain they might say they might claim that they're actually being abused they're being treated unfairly exaggerate what happened but find it difficult to accept or acknowledge their part and what has happened sometimes there's solutions to trying 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 rather than resolve the Dilemma now 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 realize they need to change something they might seek support 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 defense mechanisms taking responsibility for themselves if they believe the problem eyes 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 that wouldn't be uncommon
for them to use the collapse they use their 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 for some interesting conversation start around these videos If you find this video interesting please consider subscribing to my channel and until next time thanks for watching