Narcissistic Collapse Questions

When “their belief systems crumble before them.”

Honestly, I thought he was going to have this public narcissistic collapse long ago.

Recently in the comments of Why Narcissists Never Get It, someone I was unfamiliar with asked several complicated questions about narcissistic collapse and trump.

For those unfamiliar with the phrase, unlike many terms in psychology, this one generally means what it sounds like. It is a narcissist psychologically collapsing. It ranges from lashing out, to severe discomfort, to complete and total meltdowns. It all seems to depend on if the narcissist’s buttons keep getting pushed in triggering ways.

Ergo, the process should be understood in levels, because a complete collapse often goes through several stages. It can happen all at once, but normally that would take a massive, life-altering trigger to send a narcissist directly into full meltdown. Just know you do not want to be anywhere near one when it happens.

Supervillain Magnito narcissistically collapsing after triggering The Phoenix.

The first phase is denial, where the narcissist does everything they can to reconstitute their lost sense of superiority, followed by a fire hose of anger, lashing out, and blaming everyone but themselves. If the collapse progresses, the next stage is cruel, aggressive, and vindictive behaviors towards anyone they want to blame for any of their pain, no matter how irrational that blame is. Sounds familiar? 🤔

However, it is important to have a decent understanding of clinical-level narcissistic disorders, such as HPD, BPD, NPD, or ASPD, to truly grasp the level of collapse a narcissist can experience when forced to confront a significant threat or total destruction of their self-inflated, defense-mechanism fantasy world.

It seems one of the biggest mistakes normies make is believing that these completely self-serving people see reality the same way that they do. Understanding narcissists requires a bigger imagination.

Always remember, these are people who definitely “can’t handle the truth,” so their subconscious spins out alternate realities that they can psychologically digest. As regular CNI readers know, this is why there is no bottom to how low they will go. They must maintain their false fantasy world of their greatness, stable genius, and superiority at all costs, or it’s narcissistic collapse time.

The reader’s “few” narcissistic collapse questions

I have a few questions about narcissistic collapse that I haven’t seen described in articles or books. (A few? I counted seven.)

1. How do we understand the progression, or stages, perhaps(?), of a collapse from the perspective of the narcissist? (Oh my!)

2. A narcissist experiences a collapse due to something that threatens to reveal their precious, delusional, and manufactured image, correct?

So, what happens if a narcissist cannot escape out of a collapse (threats to their ego are fully realized, the supply of admirers and sycophants is gone, they face overwhelming criticism, and can’t lie, cheat, or steal their way out)? (Oh my! x 2)

What is full narcissistic collapse from a psychological (and neurological) perspective? (Oh my! x 3)

To what lengths will a narcissist go to avoid full collapse? I would presume that suicide becomes a more preferable option(Hitler), but for a true narcissist, wouldn’t suicide be inconceivable? (Oh my! x 4 then 5)

- Lastly, in the case of a malignant narcissist as President of the United States, would Trump go as far as contemplating “pushing the nuclear button” as an “all else has failed” last resort if he felt truly boxed in and under severe distress? (Oh my! x 6)

This is what worries me when I think about the 3.5 years ahead: Trump, as a malignant narcissist has almost zero guardrails to restrain his whims and he has more power than any narcissist could ever realistically hope to have.

I don’t see how malignant-Trump goes 3+ more years of escalating power-addiction without eventually fiending so badly for more, more, more that only big bombs will satisfy his narcissistic cravings. (Oh my! x 7)

Their belief systems will crumble before them if…

Long before narcissist psychology became central to the process, I would try to find the hows and whys of the extreme lengths people would go to, to avoid the uncomfortable truths, such as lying to themselves and everyone else about what is real and what is their (narcissistic) delusion.

This thought experiment created a dramatic description, “People are not good at watching their belief systems crumble before them,” and that phrase only became more fundamental once the syndrome was confirmed by narcissist psychology.

I learned this dynamic to be true from political debates in college, because no matter the belief system, I began to notice how people would glitch, freeze up, or talk nonsense and quickly try to change the subject if their false belief was exposed to the light of pure logic and common sense.

I never tried to trigger anyone into collapse back then, but I sensed that I could make some people’s false belief systems crumble before them if I kept pushing the right buttons. I would later learn this was the technique greater narcissists use on lesser ones to manipulate and control them.

Think about it. It is every narcissist’s fantasy to have the power to weaponize everyone’s private information on the media platforms they own and with the algorithms and AI that they control. That way, they can covertly manipulate everyone’s narcissism by controlling what they do and do not see and hear.

My pre-narcissist psychology goal for many years was to find common ground among Americans and peoples of the world, regardless of political belief systems or ideology, because when you have truly experienced multiculturalism such as that in the SF Bay Area and traveled the world, you learn most humans are pretty much the same and want the same things.

It seems pretty simple. We all want to live in a nice community that respects us and our beliefs and culture, have a decent home, be able to contribute to the good life for our family and friends, have a region and country we can be proud of, and have a few fair chances at chasing our dreams.

Of course, before gaining greater understanding of psychology, I had no idea that nearly all the worst people in the world and throughout history exhibited the telltale psychological signs of malignant histrionics, narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths.

However, once psychology took the wheel from my international relations mindset, it became clear that those who are the worst at watching their belief systems crumble before them are these clinically disordered types of narcissists. Indeed, because they don’t distinguish between their fantasies and reality, logic appears to dictate that the most consistent way to expose a narcissist is through a reality triggered collapse.

Answers

Hello Sarah,

Apologies for the delayed response to your intriguing and complex questions about narcissistic collapse. Unfortunately, non-subscribers who ask several complicated questions that require complicated answers are usually the last to be addressed.

In reality, the only way to answer your biggest questions with a higher degree of accuracy is to have a discussion about them, such as the one that comes with a 1-year subscription. In the meantime, some answers are less complicated and will hopefully be useful.

1 - To truly understand the progression or stages of a collapse from the perspective of the narcissist is unique to each individual in their given circumstances, so it would take having a decent handle on both to have a strong chance at 🎯 answers in any specific situation.

2 - “So, what happens if a narcissist cannot escape out of a collapse?” has pretty much the same answer. Depends on the narcissist and circumstances. We can, of course, generally say that a grandiose narcissist will usually experience X when Y happens or if Z is triggered, but without details, it is too broad of a question.

There has been a CNI narcissistic collapse analysis planned for quite a while, and when that finally comes out, it may answer your broader questions. They will certainly be considered and incorporated if they fit the lessons.

The only delay is that CNI is primarily focused on providing tools for the here and now, for both psychological self-defense requirements and to focus on those who need to be triggered into narcissistic collapse so they stop hurting people. Ideally, somehow they reveal themselves to all those they have tricked into supporting their greedfests and power plays. Of course, a current CNI goal is to add resources so we can add more researchers and writers to cover more subjects.

3 - “What is full narcissistic collapse from a psychological (and neurological) perspective?” is another varied and huge question.

4 - “To what lengths will a narcissist go to avoid full collapse?” is an easy one. They will compulsively go to any length.

5 - Re: suicide, if hitler was high and out of his mind on meth and/or cocaine, he could have killed himself, but I have always been dubious that he had the courage to shoot himself. I generally agree with your assessment that for a true narcissist, suicide would be inconceivable, but there are exceptions. However, as is the case most of the time for narcissists, near the end of their collapse, their old trusty massively inflated ego reminds them what stable geniuses they are, which allows them to reset into a belief that they can, once again, talk, buy, or bully their way out of trouble.

6 - Re: “Would trump go as far as contemplating ‘pushing the nuclear button’ as an ‘all else has failed’ last resort if he felt truly boxed in and under severe distress?” - Yes! Absolutely! By his pathology, he’s already contemplated it several times just to make himself feel powerful when he is feeling weak. Something like, “I could destroy the world if I wanted to, so the world better treat me right, or I will.”

You are absolutely right to be worried about a point where trump, as a narcissist with almost zero guardrails to restrain his whims, will act like hitler, because in the end the malignant narcissist wanted the German people to suffer more death and destruction for failing him. Based on their rhyming psychological orientations, it is almost a near certainty that trump will react similarly in similar circumstances.

7 - I finally truly understood the “malignant” in malignant narcissist when I came across the definition, “progressively gets worse.” In other words, you are again correct in not seeing “how malignant-trump goes 3+ more years of escalating power addiction without eventually fiending so badly for more, more, more that only big bombs will satisfy his narcissistic cravings.”

However, the positive side of trump so massively monetizing the presidency and being such a compulsive hedonist is that he will have more money than he could have ever imagined, and spending it all on himself before he dies will likely appeal to his gluttony more than he will feel the need to destroy a world that doesn’t suck up to him. He can also now buy all the suck-ups he needs to soothe his narcissistic triggers.

Conclusions

In general, triggering a narcissist into public collapse is not only the best likely way to expose them but also actually not that difficult due to the narcissist’s hypersensitivity to any form of criticism. Kamala Harris did it quite effectively at their debate, even if George Conway and I wished at the time that she had pushed all of his buttons towards full collapse. That is a reason he wanted no part of a second debate with her.

Also, just because something is not difficult and can be effective doesn’t mean one should not be very judicious in action and strategic in planning and sure they are doing it for the right reasons.

Wanting to lash out against narcissists that mistreat us is the most natural human reaction in the world, but the reality is it can blow back on you and others very badly, even when it seemed like you had every angle covered, so you need to be very sure it is worth it and consult experts.

Additionally, they are often trying to trigger your righteous anger in public so they can spin it back on you by saying, “See, they are the crazy one. Look how angry they are.”

It is especially effective against those among us who struggle with emotional regulation. The concept of gray rocking is instructive in how to counter a narcissist trying to trigger you in this way. Just enjoy the fact that it will initially drive them crazy if they can’t trigger you.

CNI warning: Trying to trigger a narcissist’s collapse is never something to do lightly, because to succeed, it must always be executed with creative tactics, strategies, and precision, and one must also expect and be fully prepared for the fire hose of venom and poison that will explode out of a collapsing narcissist.

One of the most dramatic examples of narcissistic collapse are the annihilators. Although there are four different types, they are all motivated to kill their family for narcissistic reasons. The main reason seeming to be when the lies their lives are built on are about to crumble before them. How selfish one must be to sickly and selfishly want to take close family down with them.

All of this should tell you that anyone who considers themselves a responsible person must seriously question if triggering a narcissist is going to make things better or worse and that you must methodically think about the consequences to others if you trigger a narcissist in their orbit, because it can blow up other lives too. If you feel you must, do your best to do it on your schedule, while protecting the innocent and on a battlefield of your choosing.

Update: Sarah was a good sport and became a year subscriber. Her comment is below.