 My name is Sam Dachnin and I'm the author of Malignan Self-Lover, Narcissism Revisited. The narcissist presents to the world a facade of invincibility, equanimity, superiority, skillfulness, cold-headedness, invulnerability, and in short, indifference. This front is penetrated in times of great crisis that threaten the narcissist's ability to obtain narcissistic supply, attention. In extremis, when all his default behaviors and solutions fail, or when only negative, fake, low-grade, and static narcissistic supplies to be had, the narcissist falls apart in a process of disintegration known as decompensation. Decompensation is simply the inability to maintain psychological defenses in the face of mounting stress. But in the case of the narcissist, decompensation is accompanied by another type of behavior known as acting out. Acting out is when an inner conflict, most often frustration, translates into aggression. Acting out involves acting with little or no insight or reflection, and only in order to attract attention or disrupt other people's cozy lives. So, the dynamic forces which render the narcissist paralyzed in fake, his vulnerabilities, weaknesses, fears, are starkly exposed as his defenses crumble to become dysfunctional. The narcissist's extreme dependence on his social milieu for the regulation of his sense of self-worth is painfully and pitifully evident as he is reduced to begging and controlling. Narcissists then engage in temper tantrums, similar to children. They rage. They attack others. Their aggression wears many forms. At such times, the narcissist acts out self-destructively as well, and anti-socially. His mask of superior equanimity is pierced by displays of impotent rage. Self-loathing. Self-pity. Passive aggressiveness. And crass attempts at manipulation of his friends, family and colleagues. The narcissist has sensible benevolence and caring evaporate overnight. The narcissist feels caged and threatened, and he reacts as any animal would do, by striking back at his perceived tormentors, at his hitherto nearest and dearest. Often people describe the narcissist as a spoiled brat, but it far exceeds this description. Narcissists at the extreme are horrified, to behold. But this is the extreme. In the majority of cases, narcissists react to deficient or fake or low-grade or negative narcissistic supply by resorting to several adaptive solutions. Solutions which allow them to continue to function. First there is the delusional narrative solution. The narcissist constructs a narrative, a story, in which he figures as a hero in the protagonist. He is brilliant, perfect, irresistibly handsome, testing for great things, entitled, powerful, wealthy, center of attention, etc. The bigger the strain on this delusional charade, the greater the gap between fantasy and reality, the more the delusion coalesces, solidifies and ossifies, and encases the narcissist. Finally, if it is sufficiently protracted, this delusion replaces reality, and the narcissist's reality test deteriorates even onto the point of psychosis. The narcissist withdraws his bridges and may become schizo-tipo, catatonic, schizoid, or, as I just said, psychotic. This is one solution. Another is the anti-social solution. The narcissist, faced with a discrepancy between his reality and his self-perception, renounces reality. To his mind, those who pucillanimously fail to recognize his unbound talents, innate superiority, overarching brilliance, benevolent nature, entitlement, cosmically significant mission, etc. Those people do not deserve consideration. The narcissist's natural affinity with the criminal, his lack of empathy and compassion, his deficient social skills, his disregard for social laws, and more race and morals. Finally is now erupt and blossom in this solution. The narcissist becomes a full-fledged anti-social, known as sociopathal psychoma. He ignores the wishes and needs of others, he breaks the law, he violates all rights, natural and legal. He holds people in contempt and disdain, he derides society and its codes, he punishes the ignorant ingrates that, to his mind, drove him to this state. And he does that by acting criminally and by jeopardizing their safety, lives or property. A variant of this pattern of anti-social conduct is known as passive-aggressive solution. The passive-aggressive solution wears a multitude of guises, procrastination, malingering, perfectionism, forgetfulness, neglect, truancy, intentional inefficiency, stubbornness and outright sabotage. This repeated and advertent misconduct has far-reaching consequences and effects. Consider the passive-aggressive narcissist in the workplace. He or she invests time and efforts in obstructing their own chores and in undermining relationships in the workplace. But these self-destructive and self-defeating behaviors wreak havoc throughout the office, throughout the workshop, throughout the workplace. Despite the obstructive role they play, passive-aggressives feel unappreciated, underpaid, cheated and misunderstood. They chronically complain. They blame their failures and defeats on others, posing as martyrs and victims of a corrupt, inefficient and heartless system. In other words, they have alloplastic defenses and an external locus of control. Passive-aggressive narcissists sulk and give the silent treatment in reaction to real or imagined slides. They suffer from ideas of reference. They believe that they are the but of derision, contempt and condemnation, and are mildly paranoid. They believe that the world is out to get them, which explains their personal misfortune, of course. In the words of the diagnostic and statistical manual, they may be sullen, irritable, impatient, argumentative, cynical, skeptical and contrary. They are also hostile, explosive, lack impulse control and sometimes reckless. And then there is the paranoid-schizoid solution. When narcissism fails as a defense mechanism, the narcissist develops paranoid narratives, self-directed confabulations which place him at the center of others allegedly malign attention. The narcissist becomes his own audience and self-sufficient as his own sometimes exclusive source of narcissistic supply. The narcissist develops persecutory delusions. He perceives slides and insults where none were intended. He becomes subject to ideas of reference, that people are gossiping about him, mocking him, crying into his affairs, cracking his e-mail or stalking him. The narcissist is then convinced that he is at the center of malign and malintentioned attention. People are conspiring to humiliate him, to punish him, to abscond with his property, to delude him, to impoverish him, to confine him physically or intellectually, to censor him, impose on his time, to force him to action or to inaction, to frighten him, to coerce him, to surround and besiege him, to change his mind, part with his values, victimize or even in extreme cases, assassinate or murder him. Some narcissists who adopt a paranoid schizoid solution withdraw completely from a world populated with such menacious and ominous objects. Really, these objects are their projections of internal processes and objects. Such narcissists, schizoid narcissists, avoid all social contact except the most necessary. They refrain from meeting people, falling in love, having sex, talking to others or even corresponding with them. In short, they become schizoids, not out of social shyness but out of what they feel to be their choice. This evil, hopeless world does not deserve me, goes the inner refrain, and I shall waste none of my time and resources on these ingrates. But paranoid narcissists could also be aggressive, and indeed we have the paranoid aggressive or explosive solution. Only narcissists and other narcissists who develop persecutory delusions resort to an aggressive stance, a more violent resolution of their internal conflict. They become verbally, psychologically, situationally and very rarely physically abusive. They insult, castigate, chastise, berate, demean and deride the nearest and dearest, often well-wishers and loved ones. They explode in unprovoked displays of indignation, righteousness, condemnation and blame. Theirs is an exegetic bedlock. They interpret everything, even the most innocuous, inadvertent and innocent comment, as designed to provoke and humiliate. They sow fear, revulsion, hate and malignant envy. They flail against the windmills of reality, pathetic for law and sight. But often they cause real and lasting damage, unfortunately, mainly to themselves. And so these are the two types of paranoid solution, schizoid and aggressive. But finally, we have a more rare breed of narcissists who choose the masochistic avoidance solution. This type of narcissist is angered by the lack of narcissistic supply and he directs some of this fury, some of this rage, inwards, punishing himself for his failure to elicit supply. This masochistic behavior has the added benefit of forcing the narcissist's closest to assume the roles of dismayed spectators or of persecutors, and thus either way to pay him the attention that he so craves. Self-administered punishment often manifests as self-handicapping masochism, sort of a narcissistic copout. By undermining his work, his relationships and his efforts, the increasingly fragile narcissist avoids additional criticism and censure, negative supply. Self-inflicted failure is the narcissist doing, and thus proves that the narcissist is the only master of his own fate. If I choose to fail, it's my choice. I am in control. It was not brought about by anyone outside my ambit on remit of rule of control. Masochistic narcissists keep finding themselves in self-defeating circumstances, which renders success impossible, and as Milen says, also make an objective assessment of their performance improbable. They act carelessly, withdraw in mid-effort, are constantly fatigued, bored or disaffected, and thus passive-aggressively sabotage their own lives. Their suffering is defined, and by deciding to abort, they reassert their omnipotence. The narcissists' pronouns in public misery and surpity are compensatory. Again, as Milen says, they reinforce the narcissist's self-esteem against overwhelming convictions of worthlessness. The narcissist's tribulations and anguish render him, in his own eyes, unique, saintly, virtuous, righteous, resilient and significant. Narcissists, such narcissists are, in other words, their own source of narcissistic supply. All these behaviors are self-generated narcissistic supply. Paradoxically, this type of narcissists, the mother-pist, the worse his anguish and unhappiness, the more relieved and elated he feels, because the more narcissistic supply he gets, either from himself or from those around him.