The Aging Female Collapsed Narcissist

Female Collapsed Narcissist

Do you know a woman who seems to love being a perpetual victim? Someone who blames everyone else for her misery? Whether she’s your mother, your wife, an ex or a friend or relative, have you met a woman who seems to have sort of lost her ability to get what she wants? If so you are dealing with an ageing female collapsed narcissist.

If you do, let me ask you a few questions.

• First, is she of a certain age?
• And if so…does she seem to have an over-inflated sense of her own self-importance?
• Is she ridiculously entitled and does she require excessive and constant attention admiration from the people around her?
• Does she clearly think she is more important than others, even if she pretends otherwise?
• Might she have a tendency to over-exaggerate her accomplishments and/or her talents?
• Does she often talk about how she used to be famous or beautiful or rich?
• Does she seem to think she might only be able to associate with people she deems special?
• Is it difficult to have a conversation with her that isn’t…well…about her?
• Does she tend to take advantage of people and their kindness?
• Is she the kind of woman who seems to want special treatment above everyone else, and does she forget or not seem to be able to care about how people feel? Is she conceited or stuck up or arrogant?
• Does she always need to be the best and have the best of everything?
• And what happens if you dare to criticize her?
• Does she get upset or angry when she doesn’t get what she wants, or when people don’t treat her better than they treat everyone else?
• Does she seem to always have issues in her personal relationships and friendships?

And despite the fact that she tries really hard to seem perfect and infallible, do you ever secretly think she might secretly be insecure or that she might be dealing with a lot of shame about herself?

If so, you might be dealing with an aging female narcissist.

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In fact, she may have found that she’s not quite as capable of getting the kind of narcissistic supply that she’s used to. This can happen when the narcissist’s family and friends have just had enough and one-by-one, abandon them.

In some cases, the narcissist loses their ability to attract new supply because they get older and lose their looks, or because they become so self-involved that they forget how to do the whole love bombing thing – or any combination of these things.

But a narcissist really NEEDS that supply to continue to exist, right? So what happens then? Do they become a real person, or do they just sort of lose it?

What is a Collapsed Narcissist?

When a narcissist is unable to obtain narcissistic supply, what can you expect? Some people call this a narcissistic crisis or a collapsed narcissist. Whatever the label, it’s a big problem – and often, not just for the narcissist, but also for the people around them.

For the record, let me define the collapsed narcissist: it’s what you get when a narcissist has stopped being able to obtain the proper amount and type narcissistic supply. And narcissistic supply is, in most cases, a person to help bolster the narcissist’s self-worth, self-esteem – value as a human being. In essence, a collapsed narcissist will feel like they’ve been denied the very supply they need to exist – their proverbial life’s blood.

This leads to narcissistic injury, and as the collapsed narcissist writhes helplessly in the pain of not getting what they believe they’re due (whether it’s meeting some big goal or simply getting the admiration and praise they feel they rightly deserve), their whole world feels like it’s falling down around them.

Psychology of the Collapsed Female Narcissist

When it comes to the collapsed female narcissist, they will quickly find themselves losing self-esteem and in so many ways, their self-image is nearly erased. They begin to self-devalue and self-doubt. They literally hate themselves to the point that they project this self-hate onto everyone else around them. So, since she figures that everyone “hates” her anyway, the female narcissist may as well hate them back. She sees no other option.

There is no more (or very little) social life for the collapsed narcissist. People, the narcissist reasons, are all fake and stupid anyway, so why should they bother to be kind to anyone?

At this point, the female narcissist practically lives in constant attack mode, attempting to force people around her to provide the much-needed supply to which she was once accustomed.

She becomes overly sensitive and full of rage and hate. She throws temper-tantrums that would rival a two-year-old and is outright intolerant, disrespectful, and often even violent in words and even actions to the people around her.

The previously-maintained facade of a nice/cool/easygoing/friendly kind of person falls away and the true face of the narcissist is revealed – rage, ugliness, and general disgust for humanity.

Read The Covert Narcissist: Angel On The Outside, Devil On The Inside

Female Narcissists and the False Self

Narcissists put up a facade or create a false self-image for the world. They need you to think that they are superior and they need to have the best of everything. Of course, covert narcissists put on a very different image of them having low self-esteem, which they really do, and they love to play the victim.

They might also appear to be quite altruistic, but they only do this in order to get attention, not to actually help anyone. Grandiose and covert narcissists project themselves differently, but they both are just as manipulative, dangerous, and lack emotional and compassionate empathy. All narcissists thrive on narcissistic supply which they get from others who they use, manipulate, and abuse.

Female narcissists are, in so many ways, just like those mean girls that you hear about. They do what they can to make their appearance flawless, and narcissists who become mothers manipulate and control their children. Their kids quickly join the ranks of their main sources of supply. That is why children of narcissistic mothers don’t get to experience unconditional love growing up, and many of them were abused, physically, psychologically, or both.

But what happens to these female narcissists when they age? What do you think happens to them when their appearances change and end up getting wrinkles? What happens to them when their children leave the nest? And may even go no contact on them? And if she is divorced or widowed, how would she gain supply?

You can see that is when the world of the aging female narcissist begins to crash down on her, she’s at risk of collapsing.

Read Ninja Narcissists: How They Torment You With Their Sneak Attacks

The Collapsed Female Narcissist in Action: What to Expect

While they are still unable to deal with any sort of blame, criticism, or perceived disrespect of themselves, they are actively projecting their own self-hate to the people in their lives – or maybe random targets such as people of different religions, races, or even political affiliations.

This is when the gloves come off and the female narcissist blasts out her blatant bigotry and small-minded ways. You’ll see that anyone who is different from the narcissist is quickly minimized and put into a “not good enough” box (to put it very mildly).

This is also often when narcissists will go all-out to abuse their partners, whether physically, mentally, or otherwise. And yes, even female narcissists will abuse their partners and anyone else who comes into their inner circle.

Some narcissists will excessively cheat, or gamble away their money. In some cases, it’s worse than that, but we won’t go into all of that today.

The loss of narcissistic supply triggers defensive behaviors, such as the whole “leaving my family and starting a whole new life,” behavior – in which the narcissist literally flees what he or she sees as the scenes of their failures and attempts to literally start over again.

They may lose not only their primary source of supply – spouse or partner – but also their children, friends, and anyone else who used to offer supply.

This leads to the ultimate collapse and often, a mental breakdown from which they may never recover. If you look at the narcissistic personality as a sort of house built on stilts, imagine that the lack of narcissistic supply is a strong wind that causes the house to come crashing down.

Read 50 Ways to Tell If Your Partner Is A Narcissist

The Choices of the Collapsed Female Narcissist

The female narcissist has two choices if she wants to move forward here. She can try to become a whole person and develop real coping skills (and in some cases, obtain a new source of narcissistic supply), or she can remain collapsed and poison everything else in her world in the process.

So back to the house metaphor – the narcissist could burn down all the houses around theirs in order to take revenge on everyone and everything else. What it all comes down to is that regardless of the reason for the narcissistic collapse, the narcissist blames everything and everyone EXCEPT her self. She must believe, ultimately, that she is a victim and that nothing is her fault.
Do you know an ageing female narcissist?

If your mother was that narcissist and you decide to go no contact with her, you can bet that her world is literally crashing down on her. The same will go for any female narcissist you’ve dealt with – but when she is unable to find and secure a new, worthy source of supply, she will become openly mean to literally almost anyone she deals with, and she will believe she is in the right, every single time.

You might call her a Karen, if you were the sort of person to call out Karens.

Remember this. A collapsing female narcissist feels like her world is crashing down around her, and as she desperately attempts to cling to her past, she will feel nothing but self-loathing deep down – but she will blame everyone but herself for this issue. She may not even recognize that she’s no longer the self she used to be.

She may become more insecure than ever, and chances are that she will do her best to keep faking it. She might spend a lot of time in a plastic surgeon’s office, and she might find herself competing with other women in odd and uncomfortable ways.

Read How To Outplay A Narcissist And Beat Them At Their Own Game

The truth is that she hates herself for what she has become, even though ageing is natural and part of life. I mean, don’t get me wrong – as someone who is 45 years old living in a society that values youth and shuts down women of a certain age – I understand why it can be difficult – especially for a woman who bases her entire value on external things and the ability to manipulate people to get what she wants.

The female narcissist would prefer that reality to be covered up – she wants to hide her current self so badly. As the female narcissist ages, her beauty begins to disappear, her kids are no longer around, and she is losing her sources of supply – those people who inadvertently were her “shield” to the world. And now that she’s no longer able to control people the way she used to, all of those terrible parts of herself she has been working so hard to hide are bubbling to the surface.

That means she will do lots of crying and will not make an effort to hide how pitiful she really is. Expect plenty of hoovering at this point as the collapsed narcissist will do what she can to get her kids back if they’ve gone no contact, not to mention other former sources of supply. You’ve got to remember: She is desperate right now as her world has crashed down.

A collapsed female narcissist can be even more dangerous and crueler than her younger counterpart, believe it or not, and be careful with her, because she will be the dangerous type who has nothing left to lose. It’s isn’t pretty, and while it would be really easy to feel sorry for her, don’t let her pitiful appearance fool you – she is more toxic than she appears.

Question of the Day: Do you know someone who might be a collapsed female narcissist? How did or do you deal with her? Share your thoughts, share your ideas, share your experiences.

Written  by: - ANGIE ATKINSON
Originally appeared on: Queenbeeing.com
Republished with permission.