 okay bubot and bubim I'm back and I have a surprise for you Mini is back I don't know where she's been she has been and what she's been up to but we have a don't ask don't tell policy so I'm glad she's here mmm she's always so warm and soothing okay Shoshanim today we are going to discuss collapse what happens to the narcissist when he is utterly unable to obtain supply no matter what he does no matter what he tries no matter where he goes no matter who he communicates with he fails to obtain supply what happens then how does the narcissistic experience his inability to obtain supply what are the internal dynamics we know that the narcissist disintegrates a process known as narcissistic collapse but what is the subjective experience of this collapse does the narcissist feel bad is he capable of remorse are there any long term changes in the narcissist personality traits behaviors and interpersonal interpersonal interactions stay tuned and you you'll have the answers to all these questions and many more besides but how can I start any video without a dire tribe again my target is the self-styled experts online with and without academic degrees most of them misuse the term failed narcissists failed narcissism is a stage in childhood development it was coined by grojstein was a psychoanalyst grojstein used the term failed narcissism to describe the child's failure to attain a narcissistic personality structure the abused and traumatized child means to mentalize and parentify child tries to become a narcissist in order to fend off shame and hurt when the child fails he becomes a failed narcissist also known as emotionally dysregulated borderline grojstein said that borderlines are failed narcissists so when the narcissists when the adult narcissists fails to obtain supply is defeated is exposed is shamed and humiliated and excommunicated etc etc or imprisoned and so on that's not a failed narcissist that's a collapsed narcissist the correct term is collapsed narcissists second thing there is no type constancy in narcissism a cerebral can become a somatic a somatic can become a cerebral an overt often becomes covert and a covert becomes overt narcissists would do anything to secure narcissistic supply including changing types type in constancy so it's very important to understand that narcissism is not a stable personality structure and that narcissists transition via collapse to other types so when the overt narcissists collapses cannot obtain supply he may try to become a covert narcissists when the cerebral narcissists fails to obtain supply for example he doesn't have enough use he doesn't have enough use on his YouTube channel he may become somatic in order to garner supply from sexual conquest type in constancy this process is known as type reversion so narcissists oscillate and vacillate between types and when type reversion fails it leads to narcissistic modification decompensation and the emergence of a borderline like personality with emotional dysregulation and mood lability I encourage all of you to watch my videos on narcissistic modification this was a phrase first coined in 1957 four years before I was born but it's more relevant than ever narcissistic modification is one source of narcissistic supply dwindles the narcissist finds himself trapped in a frantic though at times unconscious but in a frantic effort to secure alternatives to the vanishing supply as one pathological narcissistic space is rendered uninhabitable the narcissist wanders off to find or to establish another pathological narcissistic space again I encourage you to watch my videos on pathological narcissistic space the pathological narcissistic space is the narcissist stomping grounds his horns his dives where he goes to obtain supply it's usually a physical location but when too many people see through the narcissist manipulation and machinations and skimming and cunning when too many people are onto the narcissist or when they're simply tired with the narcissist and his insatiable demands for narcissistic supply then the pathological narcissistic space becomes dysfunctional and uninhabitable and the narcissist moves on these are all cataclysmic and traumatic events in the life of the narcissist because narcissistic supply is the glue that holds the narcissist personality for whatever it it's whatever it's worth holds it together it's anyhow disorganized some time some people say some scholars say that narcissistic personality is more disorganized than even borderline personality can be was of this opinion and so it's anyhow chaotic and disorganized narcissistic personality disorder narcissistic supply I'm sorry holds everything together this precarious house of cards when supply is absent everything threatens to crumble and fall apart these hysterical endeavors to try to find substitute supply sometimes lead to boom bust cycles a little like Wall Street these cycles involve in the first stage the formation of what I call a grandiosity bubble grandiosity bubble is a self-contained space I will discuss it in a minute within this space within this bubble the narcissist supplies himself is unable to obtain supply from other people his sources of supply had abandoned him he is alone and so his only sources of supply is himself and this is called self-supply I have several videos analyzing the process of self-supply long-term self-supply can lead to what I call binary narcissism the emergence of covert and overt structures processes behaviors traits cognitions and emotions overt and covert in the same person and of course this creates an almost conflict and enormous dissonance I have a few videos dedicated to binary narcissism just go to the search function on my YouTube channel it's designated by the magnifying glass click on the magnifying glass and type binary narcissism narcissistic modification self-supply and you will be instantly gratified in the best Vaknin tradition back to grandiosity Bob when the narcissist fails to obtain supply as I said he creates a grandiosity bubble grandiosity bubble is an imagined self-aggrandizing narrative involving the narcissist and elements from the narcissist's real life people around him places he frequents conversations he is having the narcissist weaves a story incorporating these facts inflating them in the process and endowing them with bogus internal meaning and consistency in other words a narcissist confabulates and he believes his own confabulations that's why I keep saying narcissists never lie they believe they believe their prevarications but this time the confabulation is loosely based on reality in the process of inflating the grandiosity bubble the narcissist reinvents himself and his life to fit the new fangle tale he recasts himself in newly adopted roles he suddenly fancies himself I don't know an actor an author a guru a political activist a narcissism expert an entrepreneur or an irresistible hunk just like me he modifies his behavior narcissists tries to conform to these new storytelling elements to this new script and to his new functions he gradually morphs in shape shifts into the fabricated character and he becomes the fictitious protagonist that he had just created has just created all the mechanisms of pathological narcissism are at work during the bubble inflation phase the narcissist idealizes the situation he idealizes the other actors in the play a process known as co-idealization he idealizes the environment everything is ideal and fantastic the narcissist tries to control and manipulate his milieu into buttressing his false notions and perceptions faced with an inevitable grandiosity gap the gap between his imagination his fantasy and reality faced with his gap the narcissist becomes disillusioned bitter he devalues and discards people places and circumstances involved in the bubble and the bubble deflates inflation deflation is the narcissist equivalents equivalent of idealization devaluation the narcissist self supplies within the bubble he inflates the bubble that's the idealization phase then the bubble deflates faced with the onslaught of reality the bubble doesn't hold it breaks apart which is the equivalent process to devaluation and still grandiosity bubbles are not a part of the normal narcissistic mini cycle grandiosity bubble bubbles are rare events they are much like trying on a new outfit for size and comfort grandiosity bubbles fizzle out rapidly and the narcissist reverse to his regular pattern idealizing new sources of supply devaluing and discarding these sources pursuing the next victims to be drained of all life actually the deflation of a grandiosity bubble is met with relief by the narcissist it does not involve a narcissistic injury the narcissist views the bubble as merely an experiment at being someone else for a while it is a safety valve allowing the narcissist to effectively cope with negative emotions and frustration and so cleanse cathartically the narcissist can go back to doing what he does best projecting a false self and garnering attention from others narcissists are addicts the junkies they're addicted to narcissistic supply and they react with depression paranoia and schizoid withdrawal to the absence or deficiency of supply narcissists decompensate act out experience brief psychotic episodes when they're deprived of narcissistic supply in the long term and many narcissists resort to self delusion unable to completely ignore reality contrarian opinions countervailing information and data the narcissist transmutes these things unable to face the dismal failure that he is the narcissist partially withdraws from reality to soothe and solve the pain of disillusionment and disenchantment the narcissist administers to himself a mixture of lies distortions half truths and outlandish interpretations of events around him and then he goes on to believe all these things the narcissist when he is faced with dwindling vanishing narcissistic supply adopts one of several solutions I'm going to describe these solutions to you one of the main problems in narcissism is that it is an extremely variegated phenomena it's very difficult to put all narcissists in one basket narcissists for example when they are faced with a lack of supply choose different solutions and this these solutions either are diametrically opposed to each other they're mutually exclusive so it looks and looks as if some people are narcissists and some people are not even when they are and here are the solutions the first one is the delusional narrative solution remember these are the solutions the narcissists adopts having tried to obtain supply in a classical way from sources of supply and failed a process known as collapse having tried the grandiosity bubble and failed having attempted self-supply and failed having experienced modification narcissistic modification and then unable to cope with the motive with the life-threatening modification narcissists withdraws from reality he develops solutions one of them is the delusional narrative solution the narcissist constructs a narrative in which he figures as the hero and the protagonist in this narrative he is brilliant perfect irresistibly handsome destined for great things entitled powerful wealthy the center of attention in short he is some vakni the bigger the string on this delusional charade the greater the gap between fantasy and reality the more the delusion coalesces and solidifies finally if it is sufficiently protracted you know long time the delusion replaces reality and the narcissist reality tests deteriorates to the point of delusional disorder or even psychotic disorder the narcissists withdraws his bridges and becomes schizotypal even catatonic or schizoid the swedish had described the post traumatic stress disorder syndrome very similar to this now the next solution is the antisocial solution again I'm reminding you these are solutions to collapse to an inability to obtain supply never mind what the narcissist tries to do maybe people around the narcissist are no longer available to provide him with supply maybe they are too angry at him the solution with him whatever the case maybe he cannot obtain supply so the first solution is to become delusional but the second solution is to become antisocial the narcissist renounces reality in the solution to his mind those who pucillanimously fail to recognize his unbound talents innate superiority overarching brilliance benevolent nature entitlement cosmically important mission perfection etc those who are too low-bro and too inferior to grasp his superiority they don't deserve consideration they are subhuman he holds them in contempt the narcissist natural affinity with a criminal and with the psychopath his lack of empathy is in compassion his deficient social skills his disregard for social mores and morons and laws and rules his defiance his reactance they now erupt and blossom the narcissist becomes a full-fledged antisocial psychopath in effect a primary psychopath he ignores the wishes and needs of other people he breaks the law he violates all rights and boundaries natural and legal he holds people in contempt and disdain he derides and decries society and its codes he punishes ignorant ingrates who refuse to provide him with supply and that these people to his mind drove him to this state they are responsible they deserve what's coming he acts criminally he jeopardizes safety lives and property of these people because they deserve every conceivable punishment for having pushed him to this particular corner that's the antisocial solution another solution is the paranoid schizoid solution again when the narcissist collapses everything failed grandiosity bubbles surf supply other people supply pathological narcissistic space all the devices and mechanisms and strategies don't work anymore for some reason the narcissist becomes much less self-efficacious he's unable to extract narcissistic supply from his environment and the grandiosity gap had grown has grown to the point of intolerability it's unbearable at that point the narcissist adopts solutions one of them is a delusional solution other solution is to become essentially criminalized the third solution is a paranoid schizoid solution when narcissism fails as a defense mechanism the narcissist develops paranoid narratives self-directed confabulations which place the narcissist at the center of other people's allegedly malign attention and intention people or institutions are persecuting him the narcissist becomes his own audience and he is self-sufficient as his own sometimes exclusive source of narcissistic supply the tales he's telling himself the tales of of persecution the tales of of abnegation the tales of pursuit and chase by malevolent malign malicious institutions and individuals who are envious of him or afraid of him these tales are actually his narcissistic supply paranoia or paranoid ideation are is actually a form of narcissism because it places the paranoid at the center of attention it's a it's a form of grandiosity the narcissist develops the secretary delusions he perceives slides and insults where none are aware intended he becomes hyper vigilant he becomes subject to ideas of reference referential ideation he believes that people are gossiping about him mocking him prying into his affairs violating his privacy cracking his email hacking his accounts the narcissist is convinced that he is the center of malign and malintentioned attention people are conspiring to humiliate him punish him abscond with his property or ideas delude him impoverish him confine him physically or intellectually censor his speech impose on his time force him to action or to inaction frighten him coerce him surround and besiege him change his mind part with his values victimize him or even murder assassinate him these delusions are self-generated they don't require any support and any evidence they're not evidentiary and so this self-generation of delusions the secretary delusions paranoid ideation that's a supply it's a form of malignant cancerous self-supply paranoid narcissists who had chosen the paranoid settled on the paranoid schizoid solution refrained from meeting people from falling in love from having sex from talking to others or even from corresponding with others their lives are constricted they limit themselves more and more to a single physical space in a single type of interaction which is minimal in short these narcissists become schizoids not out of social shyness and not because of the general motivation of the schizoid a lack of interest in people but out of what they feel to be their choice this evil hopeless world does not deserve me goes the inner refrain of this kind of narcissists I shall waste none of my time and resources on this ungrateful environment and the narcissist convinces himself that his survival depends on withdrawing from the world this is the paranoid schizoid solution but there's another type of paranoid solution again these are solutions to deficient narcissistic supply the others the other type of paranoid solution is the paranoid aggressive or explosive solution some narcissists who had developed who have developed the secretary delusions they are already paranoid they have paranoid ideation they resort to an aggressive stance more violent resolution of their internal conflict these kind of narcissists become verbally psychologically situationally and rarely physically abusive insult castigate chest eyes Hector berate demean and derived decry their nearest and dearest and often other people who are well-wishers and loved ones in extreme cases they even direct these vitriol and diet tribes at total strangers these narcissists explode in unprovoked displays of indignation righteousness condemnation and blame theirs is an exegetic bedlam they interpret everything even the most innocuous inadvertent and innocent comment as designed to provoke and humiliate them their hyper vigilance leads directly to paranoia aggression and violence these narcissists so fear revulsion hate and malignant envy in everyone around them they flail against the windmills of reality they are a pathetic forlorn sight but often they cause real and lasting damage fortunately mainly to themselves unfortunately very frequently also to others then there is a masochistic avoidant solution the narcissist who chooses this solution who selects for it is angered by the lack of narcissistic supply he directs some of this fury and frustration aggression inwards punishing himself for his failure and defeat this masochistic behavior as the added benefit or forcing the narcissists closest nearest and dearest to assume the roles of dismayed spectators or of persecutors either way to pay him the attention that he craves by molesting himself by punishing himself visibly by hurting himself this kind of narcissists forces everyone around him to cater to his needs to walk on eggshells to become enablers to collaborate with him and this constant ambience of anxiety and fear and attention is the narcissistic supply self-administered punishment often manifests as self handicapping masochism it's a narcissistic cop out by undermining his work his relationships his efforts the increasingly fragile narcissists avoids additional criticism and censure negative supply he transitions from overt to covert self-inflicted failure is a narcissist doing it is self-inflicted the narcissist is in control of this process it proves that he's a master of his own fate I may have failed but I made it happen she may have cheated on me but I pushed her to do that masochistic narcissists keep finding themselves in self-defeating circumstances which render success impossible Milan had written that this is a way to avoid an objective assessment of their performance to render it improbable these narcissists act carelessly they withdraw in mid effort they're constantly fatigued bored or disaffected and they passively aggressively sabotage their own lives their suffering is defined in your face visible and by deciding to abort they reassert their omnipotence because I had this I have decided to abort the Nazis is pronounced in public misery self-pity sanctimonious self-righteousness their compensatory again Milan wrote that these reinforce the Nazis is self-esteem against overwhelming convictions of wealthlessness and Masterson added shame the narcissist tribulations and anguish render the narcissist in his own eyes unique saintly virtuous righteous resilient significant and holy this is a form of self-generated narcissistic supply it's a form of self-supply all these solutions are forms of self-supply and so paradoxically the worse the worse the anguish and the unhappiness the more egregious the defeated the failure the more relieved and elated such a narcissist feels it feels good only when he feels bad so these are the solutions that narcissists opt for and select when they are faced with a dearth with a lack or deficiency of narcissistic supply and they have exhausted all the means to obtain supply the narcissist reacts to his failure to obtain enough narcissistic supply very much as a drug addict reacts to the absence of his particular drug the dwindling or absence of supply is a trauma the narcissist experiences a kind of post-traumatic stress or post-traumatic reaction the narcissist constantly consumes we actually praise upon adoration admiration adulation approval applause attention other forms of narcissistic supply including including negative forms of supply not a riot in being feared when lacking when deficient a narcissistic a narcissistic deficiency dysphoria sets in it's a kind of mild depression a little like dystemia the narcissist appears to be depressed his movements slow down his sleep patterns become disordered the eaters sleeps too much or he becomes an insomniac his eating patterns change as well he gorges on food or he avoids it all together some narcissists develop eating disorders the narcissist is constantly dysphoric sad unheadling he finds no pleasure in anything including his former pursuits hobbies and interests the narcissist is subjected to violent mood swings mainly rage attacks and all his visible and painful efforts as self-control fail such a narcissist faced with the catastrophic certainty of lack of supply he catastrophizes he anticipates he anticipates never ever getting supply again so he may compulsively compulsively and ritually resort to an alternative addiction alcohol drugs love reckless driving show Paulism they all substitutes for narcissistic supply the gradual disintegration this gradual disintegration is the narcissist's futile effort both to escape his predicament and to supplement his aggressive urges to render them socially acceptable the whole behavior of the narcissist seems constrained artificial effortful as the period of lack of narcissistic supply continues as time goes on and he's unable to obtain supply the narcissist gradually becomes more and more mechanical detached robotic unreal begins to resemble a schizoid in many ways the thoughts of the narcissist constantly wonder or become obsessive and repetitive his speech may falter he becomes a lot more dissociative amnesiac he appears to be far away in the world of his narcissistic fantasies where narcissistic supply is a plenty and abundant the narcissist withdraws from his painful existence where other people fail to appreciate his greatness special skills and talents potential or accomplishments the narcissist ceases to bestow himself upon a cruel rejecting universe punishing the world for its shortcomings its inability to realize how unique the narcissist is Gantre described it in the 60s as an interaction with an internalized bed object when narcissism fails as a defense mechanism the narcissist develops paranoid delusions as I've mentioned self-directed confibrulations which place the narcissist at the center of other people's alleged alleged malign intentions the narcissist becomes his own audience and self-sufficient as his own sometimes exclusive source of narcissistic supply and again many narcissists go into a schizoid mode narcissistic or schizoid withdrawal many narcissists isolate themselves her myths in a kingdom of hurt and pain this kind of narcissists minimizes his social interactions and uses messengers go-betweens to communicate with the outside it's a vicarious form of existence by proxy devoid of energy depleted the narcissist can no longer pretend to succumb to social conventions his former compliance his mask falls and it gives way to open avoidance a rebellion of sorts smiles are transformed into frowns courtesy becomes rudeness emphasize etiquette a bit affected is used as a weapon as an outlet of aggression is an act of social violence the narcissist becomes a spectacle blinded by pain he seeks to restore his balance to take another sip of the narcissistic nectar in this quest the narcissist turns both to and upon people around him his real attitude emerges as far as the narcissist is concerned his so-called nearest and dearest are nothing but tools two-dimensional instruments of gratification sources of supply pimps of such supply catering to his narcissistic lusts i call this insignificant others having failed to procure for the narcissist his drug having failed to garner for him narcissistic supply and sources of supply the narcissist regards friends colleagues even family members as dysfunctional frustrating objects in his rage and wrath the narcissist tries to fix these people by forcing them to perform again to function and this is coupled with a merciless self-flagellation a deservedly self-inflicted punishment the narcissist feels that he had failed especially himself is idealized self-image is renters him a perfectionist his standards can never be met he sets himself up for failure in extreme cases of deprivation the narcissist entertains suicidal thoughts and this is how deeply he loads himself and his dependence on narcissistic supply throughout the narcissist is beset by a pervading sense of malignant nostalgia harking back to the past actually to an imaginary past to a fantastic past which had never existed except in the thwarted fantastic grandiosity of the narcissist the longer the lack of narcissistic supply the more the narcissist glorifies rewrites reframes misses and mourns this ostensible past this nostalgia serves to enhance other negative feelings amounting to clinical depression the narcissist proceeds to develop paranoia he concocts a prosecuting persecuting world incorporating this worldview into his life's events and social milieu it becomes an organizing and interpretative principle it gives meaning to what is erroneously perceived by the narcissist to be a sudden shift from over supply to no supply and these conspiracy theories account for the decrease in narcissistic supply he says people envy me people hate me people avoid me because i'm superior the narcissist is frightened he's in pain he's in despair he can't hold himself together he's falling apart he's disintegrating he's experiencing his own emptiness this void the howling void inside him this hall of mirrors where no one is reflected and so he embarks on an orgy of self-destruction intended to generate alternative supply sources attention at any cost the narcissist is poised to commit the ultimate narcissistic act self-destruction as a spectacle self-annihilation and self-defeat in the service of self-aggrandizement gutter demo the twilight of the gods hitler in the bunker is a prime example of this when deprived of narcissistic supply both primary and secondary the narcissist feels annulled hollowed out mentally disemboweled it's an overpowering sense of evaporation disintegration into molecules of terrified anguish helplessly inexorably ineluctably there's nothing the narcissist can do about it it's the ultimate the consummate form of helplessness when without narcissistic supply the narcissist crumbles not like a cookie but like the zombies of the vampires one sees in horror movies it is a terrifying process to behold and even more terrifying to endure and experience and the narcissist will do anything to avoid it mortification leads to this consider the narcissist think about the narcissist as a drug addict his withdrawal symptoms are identical it's the cold turkey of no supply delusions physiological effects irritability emotional ability in the absence of regular narcissistic supply narcissists often experience brief decompensatory psychotic episodes and this also happens while in therapy or following a life crisis accompanied by major narcissistic injury the psychotic episodes may be closely allied to another feature of narcissism magical thinking narcissists are like children in this sense and not only in this sense narcissism pathological narcissism in adulthood as Freud had observed 110 years ago is a form of infantile regression many for instance fully believe in two things many narcissists fully believe in two things then whatever happens they will prevail in other words they're immune to the consequences of their actions and it's a kind of law of attraction the universe is at their back and call and that good things will always happen to them it is more than mere belief actually it's it's conviction narcissists just know that these things are true the same way one knows about gravity directly immediately and assuredly and of course this is very conducive to psychosis to a divorce from reality impaired reality testing sometimes become no reality testing the narcissist believes that no matter what he does he will always be forgiven always prevail in triumph always come on top and never pay the price narcissists is therefore fearless in a manner perceived by others to be both admirable and insanely reckless the narcissist attributes to himself divine and cosmic immunity he cloaks himself in it like an invisibility cloak it renders him invisible to his enemies and to the powers of evil conspiring against him it is a childish phantasmagoria but to the narcissist is very real the narcissist knows with religious certainty that good things with always will always happen to him with equal certitude the more self-aware narcissist knows that he will squander this good fortune time and again and it's a painful experience and it's best avoided but it's inevitable so no matter what serendipity or what fortuity what lucky circumstance what blessing the narcissist receives what gifts is endowed with always strives with blind fury to undermine them to deflect them to deform and to ruin his chances just in order to deceive himself that he is the master of his own fate the engineer of his life utterly and totally in control the inevitable then becomes a choice a choice that restores the inner generation of narcissistic supply self-supply