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Narcissistic Collapse

• surprisetalk 4y ago
  Genuine question: NPD is probably rare, but narcissism-lite is endemic to humanity. What are the indicators that tell me I should start inducing a collapse in myself? How do I make it obvious that my ego has diverged from the world around me?
  • joemazerino 4y ago
    Start journaling your thoughts and then review them weekly to see how things are going. You might notice a gap.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • digitalsushi 4y ago
    keep friends that would just tell you the truth. very valuable.
    • jandrese 4y ago
      Something that narcissists generally avoid. Gotta surround yourself with yes-men to keep the ego fed.
  • papandada 4y ago
    Yeah I read this article and think: isn't that a possible reaction for anyone who feels like their world is falling apart? It just happens at a different point for a "narcissistic" person, of which I definitely can recognize some in myself. Just like I can identify with a lot of other things on various spectrums. I don't have much advice on your specific question, other than I happen to have a wonderful woman in my life who taught me some things: laugh at myself, especially when others are teasing me; accept I'm human and don't expect otherwise of myself; things always change, so just be patient and don't do anything drastic in a moment to make things worse.
    • icegreentea2 4y ago
      Lashing out when your self-image is damaged isn't unusual. Individual acts of narcissistic behavior isn't unusual. For example, a relatively normal person might lash out after being dumped, but then after one regrettable night yelling at his friends, or one regrettable text message, realize that he did some dumb things and self adjust. In general, the difference between what usually gets diagnosed a personality disorder, and the spectrum of normal is how systemic a behavior is, and how resistant a person is to changing their behavior.
      • throwaway290 4y ago
        Article sure casts a wide net. Like it says collapse can manifest as 'trying to win the other person back if their partner broke up with them'. It says 'people with NPD are so insecure, they often feel empty and hollow – they need admiration from others to feel validated.' Could be NPD and collapse are super prevalent or maybe I need to face some truths about myself and my circles
        • icegreentea2 4y ago
          Right. The article could maybe be written a bit better, but it says right from the beginning that this is an article discussing NPD individuals. NPD individuals do a lot of things that highly overlap with what non-NPD individuals do. They are just much more harmful. In general, whenever you read about X personality disorder, you need to mentally qualify every statement of behavior with some variant of "to the extent of consistently/frequently causing self-harm or harm to others". Chiefly, the fact that you are concerned with acting narcissistic is a strong indicator that you likely would not be diagnosed with NPD. Like I said, acting narcasissitcally in a moment, lashing out when your ego/self-image is damaged, feeling insecure, wanting external validation - these are -all- normal human behaviors. Completely erasing these "faults" is... I think impossible. That said, one does not have to be a NPD to be an asshole. Every group will have different thresholds from "noticeable trend of behavior" and "a real actual problem". Self-reflection is always helpful.
  • rogerkirkness 4y ago
    NPD is fairly uncommon, and people with it are generally completely immune to feedback. You could tell them they have harmed you in X way, and they will simply be unable to internalize it. 'Immune to negative feedback' is a good proxy. Where as people merely high in the narcissitic trait are more likely to behave that way, they would also eventually be able to understand that they harmed you. A narcissist would be very reluctant to go to therapy. Someone with NPD would believe at their inner most core that therapy is incompatible with their being.
    • pixl97 4y ago
      >NPD is fairly uncommon And >Someone with NPD would believe at their inner most core that therapy is incompatible with their being You do see how these things could correlate in a manner that leads to a diagnosis rate lower than the population rate.
      • rogerkirkness 4y ago
        For sure. But the destructive wake of people with actual NPD is so large, it is a relatively stable rate.
  • theonemind 4y ago
    You could just skip waiting for or looking for indicators and skip straight to Mahayana Buddhism. Maybe try https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonglen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonglen Interestingly, though, the way you talked about inducing collapse reminds me of a Vajrayana Buddhism guru type thing where the guru sometimes punches you in the self-centered weak spot in the context of practices that help you realize self-clinging as the ultimate source of the pain.
    • noasaservice 4y ago
      > Interestingly, though, the way you talked about inducing collapse reminds me of a Vajrayana Buddhism guru type thing where the guru sometimes punches you in the self-centered weak spot in the context of practices that help you realize self-clinging as the ultimate source of the pain. That happened to me after I came to a pagan high priestess. I tried to explain my problems.. but she knew already (learned narcissism and other terrible behaviors as a defense - terrible parents). She was able to do a ritual which was a forced ego-death. The ritual was maybe 5 minutes. None of the hollywood trappings. It allowed me to see me for who I am, others for who they were. Basically it reversed much of my extreme ego, and did similar to what Tonglen does... but in a span of a half hour. I broke down at least 5 times with the gravity of what I had done to others in my life. My case was extreme. And since I explicitly asked, she did so. I asked her afterward the downsides (since I knew I was spiraling downward), and most people just crumble under that. And I'm still eminently grateful she did so.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  • agumonkey 4y ago
    one trick I used to have is to check your value regularly. try and fail and know where you sit. it avoids the overinflated aspect. reality check to put it simply. another thing is to relate to others in very simple context: a charity, doing simple stuff for others, it helps reconnecting with people without an egotistic ladder in mind ps: I don't know i'm NPD or a competitor, but I often need perfectionist context and comparisons. I have trouble not being able to rank myself on a ladder.
  • starkd 4y ago
    So, maybe there's a "narcissism spectrum disorder" ? But I think that might be over-medicalizing things.
    • SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
      Probably. Like most psychological disorders, NPD is diagnosed by getting a high score on a specialized evaluation, so you could easily describe someone who gets a score that’s not quite beyond the threshold as being on the narcissism spectrum. But it doesn’t seem practical to say that an otherwise normal person who is “showing arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes” has a medical condition.
    • bloopernova 4y ago
      There probably is, but its symptoms are very much intermingled with those of ADHD and a whole slew of mental conditions. Reading the article, I recognized a collapse in myself after a lost a deeply-valued job in a horribly-unfair way. I was fired after a new sysadmin pulled drives from a still-active storage array, after I told them to pull drives from the shut down array. The reason given was that I didn't write a change request, when there was no change control system in place. I met some of the conditions in the article, but none of the abusive-towards-others ones - I didn't accuse my then-wife of being responsible, I didn't gaslight or lash out verbally. I withdrew into myself and became deeply depressed and anxious. Back on topic after too much personal sharing, I think everyone has aspects of NPD, just as everyone is on a scale of other personality traits. The more we understand these scales and spectrums, the better we'll be able to deal with negative events, I feel.
  • noasaservice 4y ago
    You're probably right - actually medically diagnosed narcissistic personality disorder is likely very rare diagnosis... Because the people who have that would deign to admit they have a problem. "Its the world that has a problem and they're right." And if reading https://old.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/ https://old.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/ is any signifier, yeah it's likely rampant. It gets bad there quickly and stays bad. Even my own mother is one such narcissist. She's tried to bait us siblings against each other. Fortunately, we'll just get on a call or zoom and actually talk. As of now, all siblings have blocked her. Thankfully, we (siblings) all met up for thangsiving, which was awesome. Mommy dearest can go tell herself how great she was, by herself.
  • PaulHoule 4y ago
    I think that when somebody (almost anybody) today blows up out of proportion of the cause it is a "narcissistic collapse". That is, somebody flips from "I'm a good person" to "I'm a bad person" and to use a technical term, they lose their shit. That is, it's a problem in my mind that "Narcissists" are othered as a category whereas narcissism (self-love) is a natural and essential part of the psyche the same way your heart is a part of your body. Everybody has it. You have to engage with (cathect) your own self image to remember to do self-care such as brushing your teeth, planning for retirement, etc. Many things can go wrong with your narcissism the same way that many things can go wrong with your heart (heart attack, heart disease, heart failure, arrhythmia, etc.) There is a case that people have more trouble with narcissism today than in the recent past because of the need for self-invention that people have today: it used to be that you didn't move, you didn't have to think about who you would marry or what kind of work you would do or how you fit in with other people, it was all decided for you. Chris Lasch, on the other hand in the book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture_of_Narcissism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture_of_Narcissism saw the culture in the US being corrupted by narcissism in the later half of the 19th century to today. Japanese people think that analysis applies to Japanese people in the Tokugawa period and if you believe that you might also find traces of it in Imperial Rome. (Lasch would see religion with an ecclesiastical structure separate from the state as a countervailing force.) Myself I had two periods in my life of about six months in my life where I experienced NPD-like symptoms and behaviors. Once I found an article in Psychology Today with a title like "Are you the target of a Narcissist?" and I think I had exhibited 10 out of 12 of the behaviors on their- list. In both of those cases I was under stress, in a kind of transitional situation, and exposed to bad influences.
    • TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
      Narcissism is not self-love. It's a reaction formation to hide the opposite. People who genuinely like themselves aren't usually emotional extremists. Challenges and setbacks don't obliterate their sense of self and they can deal with them in a mature way. They're capable of empathy for others and don't need to perpetually one-up themselves with condescension, bullying, criticism, and psychological and emotional attacks. Not so much narcissists, who are notorious for all of the above. Self-esteem does change over time, but not always in predictable ways. Young people aren't necessarily more narcissistic than older people, or vice versa. The common factors seem to be embedded shame and a kind of terrified sense of impotence that can only be alleviated by constant and excessive praise, attention, and reassurance.
  • more_corn 4y ago
    I love this question and I salute you. What if you practice being wrong? Present your firmest-held opinions to those most prepared to challenge them. I suspect non-narcissists don’t lose their minds over it because they practice it all the time, present more accurate and reasonable personas and don’t base their personality on a fiction.
  • matchagaucho 4y ago
    Comparing oneself to others is usually the #1 indicator. Once someone builds their identity around a job, title, group, app... they either continue to build and nurture that identity by focusing exclusively on their strengths... or play "not to lose" and get defensive at anything that threatens their image.
  • philwelch 4y ago
    Genuine answer, given cryptically so as to keep the implications implicit: if you think you might benefit from something like a self-induced narcissistic collapse, you might be interested in “ego death”.
  • webnrrd2k 4y ago
    I think that it's really good to examine yourself, and to keep trying to understand and work out the truth of your particular situation. I don't know anything about you, so please take this with a grain of salt, but the fact that you are serious about inducing a narcissistic collapse tells me that you probably don't need one. It might even be damaging for you. Maybe you're depressed, or have self-esteem issues, alcoholism, addiction, co-dependency, developmental issues, or any of a number of other things going on. Re: Narcissism-lite -- it's been pretty well established that a small amount of narcissism can be a good thing, while too much is a bad thing. How to know the difference? Results. Does your life work for you? Do you have some friends that you can talk with about this? Or maybe a therapist?
    • surprisetalk 4y ago
      Yeah, I've recently made huge strides in overcoming alcoholism, and I think I'm just interested in other large positive perspective shifts I can make in my life. But it might be better to stick with some smaller incremental gains for a bit :) Thanks!
      • webnrrd2k 4y ago
        I remember reading The Road Less Travelled, by M. Scott Peck, a long time ago. It dealt with issues of narcissism, addiction, self awareness, hard work, suffering, and growing into being an adult. Parts of it are out of date, and in retrospect, I can see that the book has some big flaws with regard to religion; but it also does a good job of exploring self-centeredness, and where too much can veer off I to unhealty behaviors. I think it might be a good book to add to your reading list.
  • nathanvanfleet 4y ago
    I think it's definitely a spectrum. You read the article and thing "yes I also get sad and somewhat defensive when I am laid off, broken up with or not hired." But just feeling those narcissist feelings for a moment is much different than it be out of control, or causing you to binge drink or yell at your partner etc etc.
  • theGnuMe 4y ago
    If you suspect you are a narcissist, you probably are not one. You can also go to therapy to sort things out. So basically meta questioning yourself and your personality probably means you do not have NPD.
• mabbo 4y ago
  Can't think of anyone this might be happening to right now. Not one person. Definitely not anyone rich or famous.
  • outsidetheparty 4y ago
    Pretty sure I’ve got it narrowed down to two possibilities
    • jfghi 4y ago
      My guess was chief twit. Is the other one chief invader?
      • derwiki 4y ago
        Or Ye
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    • synu 4y ago
      Only two? It seems most celebrities are going through something like this near constantly. Or at least they are simulating it since the drama attracts more views, reinforcing the celebrity.
      • pydry 4y ago
        It's a bit more obvious in some. E.g. kanye.
        • greenhorn360 4y ago
          Kanye is clearly having a manic episode. It's not narcissistic collapse
          • tartoran 4y ago
• thenerdhead 4y ago
  Is this not the same thing as an "ego death"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_death
  • emblaegh 4y ago
    Reading the description of both, I can't think why would anyone think they refer to the same thing.
  • mda 4y ago
    I don't think they are related.
  • noasaservice 4y ago
    Not at all the same thing. Ego-death can be brought on by yourself, with extreme introspection and seeing yourself from inside your body. The end is realizing your body is not you. This sometimes can be done by situations, but usually done in some branches of psychology, or by an occult practice. Narcissistic collapse is when the facade of control by a narcissist is collapsed down around them forcefully, and they then have to deal with the fact they are not the center of the universe. This loss of control causes them to spiral inward, and then lash outwardly very violently. They , in almost all cases, lack the capability of addressing the causes of narcissism or the damage they cause others.
    • the_doctah 4y ago
      I see the term ego death used in relation to people taking hero doses of Psilocybin.
      • tokai 4y ago
        Its just a fancy way of saying dissociation.
        • crawfordcomeaux 4y ago
          I've got friends who go into reactive dissociative states. Rarely do they emerge with a new story of self where they've grown through what they triggered around. I'm saying rarely here to account for the fact that while I've never witnessed it, I'm not saying it's impossible. This is definitely not the case for friends or myself who've experienced ego death, with or without psychedelics.
• crazygringo 4y ago
  Perhaps why this was posted, snippet from the article: > In the workplace, narcissistic collapse can also resemble a tantrum. A boss with NPD, for instance, may impulsively fire people, bully others, or make nasty threats about how they intend to give people consequences.
  • synu 4y ago
    Funny enough, all traits I’ve seen described as “real leadership” recently on Twitter.
    • noasaservice 4y ago
      Its always vogue to call out public/popular humans for diseases. Not the best look. Now, capitalism... now that causes a whole host of problems. If a corporation were a real human, it would be diagnosed as a sociopath. Noam Chomsky did a great work with "The Corporation": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5hEiANG4Uk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5hEiANG4Uk
      • synu 4y ago
        It’s true, similarly people self-diagnosing their parents or other family members and friends as narcissists seems to be a quite common and probably unhealthy recent trend as well. In this case though I wasn’t saying the people calling this leadership are narcissists, but I do think it’s a sign they are confused that the behaviours they are calling leadership are also symptoms of a narcissistic meltdown.
        • noasaservice 4y ago
          Perhaps... But I would think that living with someone (even if not by choice for the first 18 years of your life) gives you a much deeper understanding than watching some celeb online and making snap judgements there. And in my case, all my siblings have deemed that our mother is indeed a narcissist. We're all no-contact with her. We're not docs, so med diagnosis is off the table... But you can definitely be a narcissist without being diagnosed with NPD.
• bmarquez 4y ago
  This article finally explained what was going on with my former friend. He was extremely narcissist (and an alcoholic), then got rejected by a woman and started lashing out at all his friends because his image of being a self-proclaimed "dominant alpha male" was shattered. I told him to get therapy then he shifted his attacks towards me instead of her. I no longer associate with people who have drinking as a core hobby, it just exacerbates whatever emotional issues they may already have.
  • texasbigdata 4y ago
    I wonder if you can predict when narcissists will lash outward versus lash inwards through self destructive behaviors. Would be helpful to know beforehand even if the predictive accuracy wasn’t very high.
    • hinkley 4y ago
      Don’t try to control a narcissist.
  • pram 4y ago
    Yes I have a former friend who is pretty far down the alcoholism spiral with seemingly “narcissistic” tendencies. He’s extraordinarily aggressive and abusive when he’s drunk, and lashes out at everyone. The thing is, now he claims he can’t even remember that happening when he’s sober. I don’t know if this is the truth or he’s lying lol Either way it’s tragic and sad. Probably the most self destructive cycle I’ve ever personally witnessed.
• lifeisstillgood 4y ago
  One of my conjectures about the future world is that emotional abuse is likely to become as taboo as physical - and at some point companies will need to check their management for such behaviours - and not just the outrageous stuff. We will start to monitor all our interactions and ... well with enough data points (second by second capture of interactions over billions of humans) then coaching / therapy becomes a medical / epidemiology problem It's going to be a weird world, but maybe we will be better adjusted ? Or does that sound like the ending of Serenity the movie?
  • jandrese 4y ago
    Emotional abuse happens behind closed doors and leaves no obvious evidence. It is really hard for society to deal with something like that.
    • lifeisstillgood 4y ago
      Yes. But what if everyone carries a smartphone round in their pockets that recorded their every move and sound and conversation? What if celebrities were on the TV saying how much having a phone provide therapy chnaged their lives? We can easily imagine a fringe of people doing this - quantified living etc? What happens when those people start to have real world advantages? Are healthier wealthier? What happens when a company of well adjusted people whose conversations are mapped is able to react faster? Extract meaningful knowledge graphs from who knows what? What about a country - will their army be more efficient ? will having a knowledge economy be all about meta data management ? What happens at the tipping point ? When does it become suspicious that you are not medically recording your life? When does refusing to allow these recordings make a defence against accusations harder? None of this is great, or fair, or even better. But these are feasible future options - and something is going to chnage - this is all possible with tech - and we shall have to deal with it?
      • texasbigdata 4y ago
        If you’ve seen real narcissistic abuse, other than the screaming dehumanizing rage filled sessions, (and this makes sense from an evolutionary perspective) the person on a receiving end has a realllllly hard time cogently describing what they suffered without drawing some suspicion to themselves. And when threatened the narcissist will (this is a stupid term but in the literature) have both flying monkeys, and unleash an attack on your character. Recording everything written is probably not sufficient imho.
• whynpd 4y ago
  Going to write this anonymously as someone who has went through a serious narcissistic collapse 5 months ago. All I can say is that the collapse is the only, and rare opportunity for a narcissistic to begin real change. It’s like reaching the bottom, same as when alcoholic ruins his life and only then begins to change. I felt like I reached my own bottom and there was nowhere to hide anymore. There are lower bottoms to reach but that was enough for me. I was going to therapy before the collapse but after that went even deeper. If a narcissist has enough self-awareness and a willingness to change, as painful as it is, it can be a gift in disguise. I’ll also add that narcissism is a spectrum and beyond a certain point, a full-on NPD is just incapable of change.
  • enkid 4y ago
    Wow, thanks for sharing that.
  • throw6286185 4y ago
    Also posting anonymously, for obvious reasons. They say narcissists can't change because either they're unaware of their plight or they "embrace" it. Yet I have many narcissistic personality traits, I'm aware of it, and I hate it. I try to correct myself but it's not working well. Some examples. The minute someone "crosses" me (or I feel they have, even if they haven't) I completely remove myself from the relationship. That doesn't work too well for jobs, romance, or friendship. I can become extremely aggressive when someone who I feel should be paying attention to me, doesn't (typically, a bored bank teller). I have strong road rage. I never make myself vulnerable, never say what I really think or how I really feel. In general I consider that I deserve everything, and should be on top of the world. Since I'm a nobody, the space between what is and what should be is incredibly hard to bear. I hate everyone but the person I hate the most is me. It's easy to identify what needs to change, but very difficult to act upon a specific behavior in the heat of the action.
    • tartoran 4y ago
      At least you have an insight and want to fix it, go seek therapy for otherwise you’ll have a miserable existence.
• dsego 4y ago
  For more on npd and other personality disorders i find this website helpful https://outofthefog.website/ https://outofthefog.website/ Also specifically for narcissism, there is a yt channel and website by Sam Vaknin, I think he possibly coined the term "narcissistic supply".
  • mjjjjjjj 4y ago
    Sam Vaknin and other youtube personalities surrounding NPD are people who make a lot of money convincing you they uniquely understand this pervasive threat and can help you protect yourself from it. They don’t have incentives to present accurate, holistic information, they have incentives to get video views. He has some interesting ideas, but the overall presentation is skewed by the medium it is presented in and is basically just his opinion. All the expertise on the really deep psychological stuff is like that to an extent, and I think the best way to understand any of it better is to compare a few different perspectives from academics, practicing therapists, and people who worked on healing themselves. I recommend learning about Object Relations Theory and Attachment theory from an academic perspective, Pete Walker’s CPTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, and Richard Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems Therapy from a personal/clinical perspective.
• SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
  I’m extremely skeptical of any non-academic discussion of narcissistic personality disorder, because in practice it gets used as a catch-all folk diagnosis for behavior we don’t like. (You can already see some sibling comments diagnosing famous CEOs with it!) The author acknowledges that “narcissistic collapse” is a term they made up with little evidence-based support, so how confident should we be that it’s a real thing at all?
  • starkd 4y ago
    Yes. Someone introduces an academic explanation for behavior, then suddenly everyone becomes a psychologist. We see this time and time again with over-diagnosing. Soon there will be Narcissism Spectrum Disorder.
• jarym 4y ago
  Pretty sure I lost my last startup due to my former co-founder having NPD. How did I cope? I had to walk away and lose everything I had at that time, deal with huge legal bills, and then watch him twiddle his thumbs while the startup folded. It also put an intense pressure on my marriage which ultimately also broke down. Was a dreadful experience that I would never wish on anyone else and I am pretty certain I'll never trust anyone to co-found another startup with in the future. Edit to add: advice for anyone in business with someone they suspect of NPD: tidy everything up, get legal advice, get away as quietly as possible, don't look back.
  • texasbigdata 4y ago
    You basically explained a corporate, non-family, version of the grey rock technique. Nice! Source for the curious, many more online and on YouTube (including often helpful role play videos, strongly recommend for practical purposes): https://www.talkspace.com/blog/grey-rock-method/ https://www.talkspace.com/blog/grey-rock-method/
    • deebosong 4y ago
      Someone else posted a link from outofthefog, but I came across pretty much the same set of principles as "grey rocking" but outofthefog called it "medium chill." It took about... 5 years? Maybe more? For me to learn to use the principles well, whatever you wanna call them. These issues go core-level deep! But yeah, grey-rocking & medium chill are effective strategies to create & maintain the necessary distance to endure the onslaught from covert/ full-blown/ any and all narcissists. Granted, we all got bits and pieces of that dark side in us somewhere, and all of us will have to learn to address it sometime and to whatever extent it impacts us.
      • robocat 4y ago
        https://outofthefog.website/what-to-do-2/2015/12/3/medium-chill https://outofthefog.website/what-to-do-2/2015/12/3/medium-ch...
    • leeroyjenkins11 4y ago
• zahma 4y ago
  Thanks. This article confirms what I have long suspected of my mother-in-law. I knew she was a narcissist, but I didn’t associate the full-blown tantrums directed mostly at my partner as part of the disorder.
  • texasbigdata 4y ago
    The covert narcissist in my opinion is the worst and apparently they degrade very ungracefully as they age, which is why you might be seeing it now at an advanced age for your in laws.
• dandanua 4y ago
  > bla bla ... it’s a defense mechanism ... bla bla It's the same pseudo-scientific garbage that explains how bullies are vulnerable and that's why they bully. No, you idiots, bullies, narcissists, and other pricks do what they do because it gives them advantage in life. Period. They choose their wealth, health and life over the wealth, health and life of other people.
  • quacked 4y ago
    This is sort of like saying that basketball players work out and practice so they can win. Yes, of course, but why do they want to win so badly? https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/04/the_abusive_boyfriend.html https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/04/the_abusive_boyfrien... https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/02/the_other_ego_epidemic.html https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/02/the_other_ego_epidem...
    • stuckinhell 4y ago
      This is a very fascinating blog
      • quacked 4y ago
        Have you come across it before? I found it in 2019 and my life completely changed as a result.
        • stuckinhell 4y ago
          Nope, do you know what happened to the author ?
          • quacked 4y ago
            Yeah, he was doxxed a few too many times and quit writing under the Alone/Last Psychiatrist pseudonym. He recently published two books "Penelope's Dream" and "Sadly, Porn" under the name Edward Teach, and he may have continued writing under another false name, but if he did none of his regular fans know about it.
• nickysielicki 4y ago
  There's a general tendency among the broader population to label anyone and everyone that has slighted them as a narcissist. /r/raisedbynarcissists has 800k+ subscribers and thousands of posts by people who believe that because their parent doesn't see things the same way that they do, that their parent is definitely a narcissist and self-centered and feels no empathy and so-on and so-forth. It's especially dumb because, well, we only get one side of the story -- from the aggrieved -- so they are free to paint the motivations of other side as inaccurately as they would like. When the behavior or motivations of the other side crosses the point of believability, you don't have to justify or explain it because we're talking about a fundamentally-broken narcissist that by definition behaves in unbelievable sociopathic ways. In fact, the more unbelievable you make their behavior, the better case you make that you're dealing with a true narcissist. It's a mechanism to rant online about your life without the risk of someone calling you on your bullshit. I'm not saying that all of the stories on there are bullshit, I'm just saying that it's (ironically) primarily a label that comes out to describe someone when you are looking to find a narrative that protects your own ego -- because you've experienced trauma and you are looking for a mechanism to not put an ounce of blame on yourself. Are there narcissists in society? Sure. Is a large percentage of the population narcissistic? No. When someone "collapses" in the way that the article indicates and/or slights you, does that probably make them a narcissist? Absolutely not. Calling someone a narcissist lets you freely claim that the other side is incapable of sincere emotion and lets you get away with believing whatever the hell you want. It's popular because sometimes you need to do that to move on. But it's not a healthy way to look at the world. /rant
  • kyleyeats 4y ago
    Read this for the other half of the story: https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-missing-reasons.html https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-mis...
    • skorpeon87 4y ago
      > "the story" But it's not a singular story, it's many thousands of independent stories. That link only provides the other side of some of them.
• AlejoTeran 4y ago
• meta2023 4y ago
• dudul 4y ago
  That was an interesting read for me. I have experienced most symptoms of the collapse a few months ago, but I have almost none of the symptoms of NPD. Maybe the collapse is defined a bit too generically. It looks like it could just be someone going through a rough patch.
  • theGnuMe 4y ago
    Did you blame others for your collapse?
• throwarayes 4y ago
  Narcissism in the workplace among leaders is fairly common. I recently was let go by a narcissistic boss. Early on I was fairly heavily 'love bombed' and told how great I was. I was told how the team was being built up around me, how my leadership and inspiration was driving the team forward. This boss did a few things, staying up late nights, to help me out on a few things. I thought "Wow this person really has my back!". So I let my guard down. Over time, like the frog in boiling water, I gradually experienced a lot of gaslighting about my performance. One day I would be told X behavior is good and expected. The next day I was told that same behavior was problematic. This boss increasingly became very top-down and domineering, and had a fairly fragile sense of their self worth. I helped to setup the team this boss took over as a Director. I was well liked and respected as a leader on the team (I was a Staff+ IC). I think this boss felt challenged by the esteem I had with my peers. They would work to undercut my own leadership, exclude me from decision making, and increasingly chide me for having idea. Providing technical leadership, and other activities that were core to my role, were seen as negatives. All of these were activities I used to receive praise for. I started to feel like a scapegoat for anything going on in the team, being told I was "disruptive" and a "distraction" for doing my job. My expectations became whittled down to things like editing X document, or having Y conversation. Very micro-managed low level things. Sadly, it took a long time for me to see this pattern. I thought I was the problem, and so I internalized a lot of the behaviors. It created a tremendous amount of stress and sleepless nights. At my wits end, I tried to get some coaching and outside perspectives. I realized after a long career I hadn't had a negative relationship with a boss. I started to be more assertive after I decided after a year plus I wasn't the problem. As I started to speak up for myself more and more, the boss let me go, to the surprise of many of my fellow teammates. I feel like I went through a classic idealization -> devaluation -> discard cycle of narcissism[1]. Long story short, please educate yourself about narcissism. Most empathic, 'normal' people assume they're the problem, they will internalize it, and so this kind of subtle abuse can creep up on you. 1 - https://pathwaysfamilycoaching.com/4-phases-of-a-narcissistic-relationship/ https://pathwaysfamilycoaching.com/4-phases-of-a-narcissisti...
  • agumonkey 4y ago
    I wonder how different is love bombing compared to the usual honeymoon phase in any relationship. (honest question)
• agumonkey 4y ago
  Something I rarely see, if ever, is that not all narcissists are full blown sociopaths. Some have just been molded with incoherent mental maps of social relationships, fear, value, affection.. and some don't feel good about this failed balance. It's daily source of pain and dread about your own state and the others (ironic being obsessed with others and being self involved). Very few psychology article deal with this and only consider narcs as evil clear headed monsters. Not always.
• 7e 4y ago
  [flagged]
• IAmGraydon 4y ago
  I can’t help but get the feeling that people seem to love throwing this word (narcissism) around so much because it helps them believe that they aren’t somewhere on the narcissism spectrum. I think most people are.
  • louwrentius 4y ago
    Sounds like something a narcissist would say :-)
  • notacoward 4y ago
    Not really surprising, since failures of introspection are quite central to the "dark triad" and related syndromes. It happens to some extent with every psychological condition, but especially with those. In general, people don't see themselves very clearly, and those who most need to are often least likely to. It's like the Dunning-Krueger effect, though with social/emotional things rather than intellectual.
• zahma 4y ago
  I’m also curious if anyone knows how to deal with people who have this condition. Scientifically or anecdotally.
  • greenhorn360 4y ago
    Anecdotally: leave and never speak to them again.
  • thenerdhead 4y ago
    There's a good book called "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents" which covers this well. Much of it can apply to any person, parent or not.
• gwbas1c 4y ago
  (Warning, politics!) I worry more about current world leaders, like Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Xi Jinping. What's Putin going to do when it's clear he's loosing in Ukraine, and popular support within Russia? What's going to happen in North Korea or China when their leaders lose support? Is Trump's tantrum about losing the 2020 election an example of Narcissistic Collapse?
  • lambic2 4y ago
    He protected his ego by believing he didn't actually lose. What did finally cause his ego collapse is people working for him telling him there was no evidence of election fraud...which allegedly caused him to throw plates at the wall in a fit of temper tantrum (https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-threw-his-lunch-against-wall-cassidy-hutchinson-testifies-2022-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-threw-his-lunch...) - a perfect example of narcisstic collapse.
  • jazzyjackson 4y ago
    Gabor Mate speaks to this in an interview with Russel Brand, describing Obama, Clinton, and Trump as extreme narcissists, really anyone who desires public office. On YouTube it's called "Damaged Leaders Rule The World", 90 minutes. Of course Douglas Adams refers to this as well, "To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it." Also Tyler, the Creator raps about it in the song 911 / Mr Lonely: > They say the loudest in the room is weak > That's what they assume, but I disagree > I say the loudest in the room > Is prolly the loneliest one in the room (That's me) > Attention seeker, public speaker ...
  • Ancapistani 4y ago
    I’m hesitant to engage in this one, but it is interesting to me. Please note: I am not intending to make this a conversation about politics, and will do my best not to respond to any comments about politics. > Is Trump's tantrum about losing the 2020 election an example of Narcissistic Collapse? Given what I know about NPD, Trump’s initial run for the presidency might be an example of lashing out in response to a perceived slight. Trump was vocal in the “Birther” scene during Obama’s presidency. In response to that, Obama publicly ridiculed Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in 2011: https://news.yahoo.com/news/blogs/ticket/obama-ridicules-trump-correspondents-dinner-mocks-birther-crusade-043803862.html https://news.yahoo.com/news/blogs/ticket/obama-ridicules-tru... I’ve heard several people, on both sides of the political aisle, mention this specifically as the direct motivation for Trump to run in 2016. As the race continued, Clinton’s overt condescension of Trump seemed to galvanize him to continue and double down - he returned her mocking with straight-forward insults. Because Clinton was wildly unpopular with a bit over half the country, this went over very well indeed and likely resulted in his election. All in all, I’m fairly confident that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were the direct causes of the Trump presidency - they unwittingly played directly to the part of Donald Trump’s personality that most strongly motivate him.
• api 4y ago
  One thing many people don’t get is that narcissism isn’t confidence. It’s the extreme absence of confidence. The narcissist has a giant hole and is addicted to second hand validation to fill it. Like many addicts they become hostile and aggressive when the supply of the thing they're addicted to is interrupted. Someone who is actually confident doesn't need a constant stream of validation from other people to feel good about themselves.
  • npteljes 4y ago
    Absolutely. The abuse comes from desperation, to keep the charade alive. It's the polar opposite of a confident, content person. They are always on the lookout for the next dose of validation, and for enemies who try to take them down.
• dpdpdp 4y ago
  This should be required reading for all young college students. I watched so many classmates, and myself, go through portions of this. At a time when one has expectations of your entire family placed on you, hundreds of thousands of dollars of financial pressure, an entire new peer group to be 'cool' for, along with unyielding studies and new requirements, it's a time where many must destroy their old self image.
• eduction 4y ago
  > Narcissistic collapse isn’t an official psychiatric term, and it hasn’t been extensively researched. The most important sentence in the whole post. It is nice to have a common and simple language with which to talk about our emotions and mental health, and tempting (and probably sometimes useful) to try and diagnose others. Particularly given that many people are uncomfortable just talking about these topics without medical (or pseudo medical) labels. But this article seems to provide a shallow framework with which laymen can purportedly diagnose others, without citing any real scientific, medical, or really evidentiary basis of any kind. Fun to read but I am wary of it.
  • __jambo 4y ago
    I agree. Narcissism is a just a term in pop-psychology for someone who is doing something we don't like. This article is damaging because it provides people justification to use an overly-simplistic generalised theory to instead of doing the real work of understanding the other person. Doing this amounts to gaslighting and degrades the ability of the two parties to have a meaningful discussion based on real events rather than bogus disconnected internet dogma.
    • antisthenes 4y ago
      The worst part is that it dehumanizes the person who might legitimately have a mental illness condition. When shitty pop-sci articles like this "helpfully" label certain behaviors as bad-sounding medical terms, it helps no one. It just cements the stigma of mental illness in society and prevents people from seeking help. I've recently adopted a very strong principle - I will vehemently oppose any kind of narrative that puts down people with mental illness, because I believe it to be cruel and unhelpful at best, and malicious and sadistic at worst.
      • snoot 4y ago
        > it helps no one Incorrect. It helps people who are trying to relate to those with NPD.
      • lamontcg 4y ago
• dblohm7 4y ago
  > Other times, they may threaten to estrange or cut off their children. In some cases, they will do that (although they will often spin it as if the child ended the relationship). I was one of those cases. After years of repeatedly being told I was going to be sent to live at my mother’s house (not an appealing prospect at the time, I assure you), my father finally threw me out. Then he immediately started phoning anybody who would listen, crying to them that I “left him” just like my mother did.
• reneberlin 4y ago
  Dr. Les Carter https://www.youtube.com/@SurvivingNarcissism https://www.youtube.com/@SurvivingNarcissism If you have or had to deal with people with NPD, this doctor is a very, very good source of lots of information / videos on the topic and how to deal with it and finally: move on. I don't think there is any topic left, that wasn't discussed there and in a very human tone. The space around NPD on Youtube is very saturated, but this one channel really stands out. I never expected to see this topic on HN and now really had to share this to all interested parties.
  • pks016 4y ago
    Thanks. Will check out. I follow Dr. Ramani's youtube channel. It helped me better understand and coming out of abuse.
  • DrCThrowaweigh 4y ago
    > The space around NPD on Youtube is very saturated, but this one channel really stands out -- Dr. C is one of the few that have, imo, the discipline to orient his content around how 'narcissistIC' patterns operate whereas nearly all others fall into the trap of describing 'the narcissIST'. This is a fundamental and, for me, life-saving difference: Narcissistic patterns are hugely insidious, because they go undetected (by design) and can even become virtues. In contrast, obvious narcissIST is obvious. -- Dr. C uses repetition to reinforce the core identifiers of the narcissistic pattern: In nearly every video he will do a sort of 'verbal footnoting' to re-re-re-state what narcissism really is... -- ... the manipulation tactics around control. Very few Youtubers keep the focus on the narser's fundamental interest in 'control'. -- Dr. C has by far and away the highest signal-to-noise ratio of any nars channel. Every video is in list format, but as he goes thru the items in a given video, he frames them within the larger concepts of nars patterning as a whole. In my experience, this low-level/high-level framework is absolutely crucial and generative: When you see how behaviors emerge from a system, 'new' narcissistic tactics are understood as novel approaches to the narser's standard intentions.
  • throwaway245890 4y ago
    This is an excellent example of what's wrong with narcissism material on the internet. I've just paged through his entire video catalogue, and every single title is bitter. I think this is because people who become particularly interested in narcissism, speaking from my own experience included, were victims of them. Especially children of them. It's something very hard to just move on from. Not a single one of his videos are titled things like "Where does a narcissist come from?", "how does a child of narcissists repair the damage", "how can a narcissist be cured" (or treated). It's all just bitter stuff, and none of that, except perhaps for any "cut and run" advice, helps people move on. It's all just anger fuel.
• kornhole 4y ago
  I think someone posted this alluding to a particular person at the center of the Twitter collapse. This is good for all of us to understand and how it might continue to play out.
• fnordpiglet 4y ago
  You really need to watch out for doing things like buying a social media company and firing 80% of the staff in situations like this.
  • cannabis_sam 4y ago
    Don’t forget desperately fawning over political extremists that are fanatically stroking your ego … It’s an immensely seductive and soothing balm for a bruised, narcissistic personal image.
• EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
  Everyone will rage when fired/disrespected/betrayed/dumped, it's normal. There are too many people with expensive psychology degrees, so they must invent deceases to keep bread on the table (and to pay the student debt).
  • barking_biscuit 4y ago
    >Everyone will rage when fired/disrespected/betrayed/dumped Are you sure about that? Like... as in... full blown raging and making a scene? It's normal to experience negative emotions in such a situation, but it's not necessarily normal to fly off the handle.
    • EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
      Definition of "full blown raging" and "fly off the handle" varies wildly.
  • opportune 4y ago
    Narcissists (but also many with cluster B disorders) react disproportionately to these events. For example, if you tell your friend that you are not interested or available for some suggested activity, they may lash out with verbal abuse rather than say “oh ok”. Or they may manipulate you into doing the thing by suggesting that your friendship would be over if you say no, they are considering suicide, etc. A single event like this may not indicate a disorder but making a pattern of this kind of thing is definitely not normal and is pathological.
    • EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
      Everything you have described is a normal behavior, not a decease. Let criminal code set the limits on what is considered abuse, not some "psychologists". Definition of abuse is highly subjective, and often manipulated.
• doggzz0000 4y ago
  Interesting to see this on hackner news, but not surprising! Several friends (and exes…) of mine who are npd read this site daily..
• theGnuMe 4y ago
  I think narcissism is way more common then we think and certain narcissistic traits are celebrated and celebrified in our culture. That said being married to an alcoholic narcissist sucks.
  • phist_mcgee 4y ago
    Go on.
• throwaway245890 4y ago
  A very important topic, one I'm glad to see here. I think personality disorders should be taught at school, since people are very likely to encounter people with them in their lives, and not understanding them can lead to big problems. I'm a child of two NPD sufferers. My mother had severe vulnerable narcissism, and my father had aggressive grandiose narcissism. They both had NPD proper, as it was clear that their narcissism was driven and accompanied by deep rooted psychological distress of some kind. My mother was such an emotional wreck that she could barely function, and my father dealt with his own demons by filling every waking hour with work to distract himself. They both came from vicious childhoods. The problem is that you presume, like everyone does, that your parents, or perhaps partners and coworkers, are just normal people. They look normal, they behave for the most part like normal people. But under the surface, they're really not. And if you had them as parents, you don't come away unscathed, not by a long shot. I only realised this stuff in my thirties, after decades wondering why I wasn't like everyone else, and why my life was going such a bad way, full of suffering and desperation. So much pain could have been avoided if I'd known and understood. Now I know about NPD and the effect it has on children of its sufferers, so much about me makes sense now, and I've been able to start healing myself. It is not right that this stuff is just being left under the radar, in the backdrop of our society. It needs to be brought out into the open, and challenged, and addressed. It's a hard one though. The problem is that NPD overlaps so heavily with evil, it's hard for people to empathise with them at all, which results in hatred and vigilance towards them, them which they respond to by doubling down. We need to do much more to get the word out about it and where it comes from. We need to get these people to think back to their younger selves and introspect about what happened to them, and find ways to repair it. A narcissist can only care about themselves -- but that includes their young self (the "younger self technique"). It might be the only way.