The Narcissist Collapse: Causes and Symptoms

The Narcissist Collapse: it’s a pain like nothing you’ve ever seen before.

Growing up as the scapegoat child in a household with NPD and trauma bonding for decades means that I’ve witnessed, and nursed narcissists through, many collapses. Chances are, if you’ve broken up with a narcissist, or exposed their lies, you have too.

Many people report that narcissists may threaten self harm or suicide after being broken up with: this is true, but it’s not actually a threat.

It’s a symptom of the narcissistic collapse, which is a mental breakdown.

I’ve seen two sociopaths die by suicide, and I’ve seen one — my father — attempt it and fail. This is why you often have mass shooters or fathers who kill a family and then turn the gun on themselves.

The narcissist collapse is the moment in which the narcissist can no longer live in fantasy and denial and must face the truth of who they are.

What they face is a bottomless pain and an overwhelming feeling of worthlessness.

What causes the narcissist to collapse, and how does it function?

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Narcissists collapse at their core triggers of trauma from their early childhood.

This was the trauma of their first mental breakdown.

It happened in toddler years, or earlier…

It happened when the NPD parent they were golden childed after first abused them, and made them feel worthless.

It happened when the narcissist parent who golden childed them, who had been their mirror, their God, their sole source of love suddenly turned into a predator.

They were betrayed in the worst way, as the cycle of abuse began to be introduced into their lives, and their npd parent began to punish them through causing a narcissistic collapse, a full mental breakdown.

My sister, the golden child, used to head bang for hours, peel the skin off her hands.

If she wasn’t the best child, then there was only one other option: the worst child.

Post collapse, her brain always snapped back into denial, clung to fantasy: the best child.

Things that trigger the collapse:

• ABANDONMENT
• REJECTION
• EXPOSURE
• TRUTH

They collapse at breakups, job losses, or evidence brought to light of their crimes.

I saw my mother and a student collapse at the death of the parent who golden childed them. But mostly, I never saw NPDs grieve death.

During the collapse, they are suicidal.

Their mask falls, and all the emotions they’ve been denying, the emotions they suppress to survive, come pouring forth.

Their true emotional intelligence becomes clear: they seem like children.

In a narcissist collapse, you’ll see why they can never talk about feelings, why they return questions about feelings back at you like Serena Williams at a championship match.

BECAUSE THE FEELINGS THEY ARE DENYING ARE…

…OF THE MOST UNBEARABLE DESPAIR.

The death of their inner child.

If they were to talk about feelings, they’d never stop crying.

They wouldn’t survive.

The unspeakable happened to them.

Sexual abuse by a parent, horrific beatings, being locked in a closet, being told they were worthless…

…after having been told they were perfect.

Their parent abandoned them when their brains were not even close to fully developed: that kind of cognitive dissonance and danger for a child can only be escaped one way: MADNESS.

Denial, delusion, repressed feelings.

Love became fatally unsafe, and fused with hate.

The part of their brain that other children would develop as empathy and feelings of human bonding was stunted by trauma: their emotions never develop beyond the capacity — and the terror— of those early childhood collapses.

They are, quite literally, toddlers in adult bodies, playing an elaborate game of pretend, of hide and seek.

The difference between golden child and scapegoat abuse is that goldens were born with a perfect, safe love and were made to believe they were a perfect extension/copy of the NPD parent, and then that parent turned into an absolute monster and took all love away.

To survive, they deny their collapses and abuses happened: they snap back to the fantasy of the golden child.

They rid the traumas they deny by projecting them.

So golden children who were raped by their parent, for example, will cope by denying that happened and becoming rapists.

(This is also why it’s commonly reported that rapists cry or can’t get an erection. My stalker rapist mostly raped me with a malicious glee in what I can remember — i was drugged for three weeks — but I have one memory of him crying and saying “mama.”)

The scapegoat child, however, was born unloved. To survive, they denied the parent didn’t love them and internalized themselves as bad and worthy of abuse. They sought to earn the npd parents’ love.

But we never do. Our self harm and suicidal impulses come later than our npd siblings. And that’s why our emotional development is higher. My first suicide attempts and self harm were at 8, but my sister was at 2, during collapses while being abused.

This is why NPD/ASPDs are at such high risk of suicide.

I know two who completed suicide, and my dad attempted it. They did so in collapse.

I’ve witnessed many collapses, and all of them confessed to something very bad.

Like molesting their siblings.

Or raping someone.

Or killing a friend, getting away with it.

Or of being just like their parent.

They mean that as a nightmare…

They can’t handle that shame.

They hate that parent.

Their brains are shame avoidant.

They must PROJECT IT.

So when they survive the collapse, they have some bad feelings to project, and they’re looking for someone to blame…

NARCISSISTIC RAGE.

REVENGE on the parent.

It feels their survival depends on it.

This feels like a game to them. And they must win.

THEY FEEL VICTIMIZED BY THEIR BREAKDOWN.

THEY ARE TRIGGERED IN A PTSD RESPONSE TO THEIR EARLIEST CHILDHOOD TRAUMA.

They feel morally justified.

Their response will be wildly disproportionate, will disregard all boundaries, and can be violent or life-threatening.

It depends on how much you triggered their fear.

They’ll project their own child abuses back onto whoever collapsed them.

They’ll reveal the TRUE malice of their HATE.

IT IS ACTUALLY SELF HATRED.

But they can’t survive that, so they’re dumping it on their supply.

And they’re in a childhood trigger, so they believe it’s justified.

By the time I was in my late 30s, the threat of suicide as a BPD became very real. I’d had so many painful traumas with NPDs as lovers or FPs. I wasn’t yet aware they were all narcissists, though some were overt and obvious. I knew my mother was, and I knew I had a pattern. I was still in denial and self blame over many, which is what made me suicidal.

I didn’t know yet my sister had NPD. (She is the last person I unmasked, and the most painful).

She was not supportive when I was having a breakdown. She’d emotionally abandoned me decades prior, and really only breadcrumbed me or sent a generic gift on holidays.

But I always tried to reach out to her.

She was the only one who had the same childhood as me. Plus, I knew she understood suicidal tendencies. I’d seen her suicidal in childhood and whenever a boy broke up with her.

What always perplexed me was that she acted as if she’d never been suicidal like me.

I HAVE WATCHED HER TRY TO TAKE HER OWN LIFE.

Since she was a baby…

And we both knew our father’s attempts, so it’s not an unfamiliar thing for us to witness.

She always acted like it was….

Once I unmasked her, I thought this habit was to gaslight me, to push me more towards suicide by making me feel I’m truly crazy and she can’t relate to a thing I say or any of this lingering trauma or the PTSD or the memories….

BUT

In non abusive, non manipulative moments, she told me that she, quite earnestly, did not remember our childhood.

She said that she knew we were abused, and she remembered a kind of tone, of terror, but she has only one specific memory of an act.

And it’s of her taking our mother’s head and slamming it on the cupboards.

She could barely speak of this memory.

I said, “Why are you getting choked up? I loved that you always had the nerve to fight back with her since you were little.”

She said, “Because when I remember that, I feel like a small animal that’s about to die.”

THE MORE I REFLECT ON HER COLLAPSES AND ANY OTHER NPD COLLAPSE I WITNESSED, I RECOGNIZE HOW THEY GO ON AFTER…

…as if they truly don’t remember what just happened.

What pain they were just in.

I believe they don’t.

They know it happened, but emotionally, they repress it.

Their brains DENY IT.

Then it reverses self blame and PROJECTS RAGE AND REVENGE to cope with the trauma of it.

I think my sister got so cagey when I was suicidal in part to abuse me, yes, but also in part because she is not strong enough to enter the emotional memory of that trauma and survive.

And if she did survive, someone would have to feel her rage after.

For an NPD/ASPD, their childhood abuses are often the same abuses they’re guilty of, so they’ll avoid discussing, or look at you in fear, at certain trigger words, such as:

• rape
• Homosexuality or LGBTQ
• incest
• domestic violence
• pedophilia/molestation
• racism

They need to deny these.

They deny it happened to them, deny they are abusers, and will usually victim blame if it happens to someone else…

…so they can deny it happens ever, altogether.

…therefore, they can’t be abusers.

NPD IS THE ROOT OF RAPE, RACISM, VICTIM BLAMING, AND HOMOPHOBIC HATE CRIMES.

I never met a homophobe who I didn’t uncover a closeted lover or homosexual rapes in their past.

As well as gay-bashing and murder. They project their self hate.

It’s the nature of their illness.

It’ll give you a good bit of brain damage in trauma, every time.

Then when victims try to talk about it, we’re smeared, gaslit, and told it’s our fault.

I deeply wish we had some way to help them.

But, that’s the catch-22: their disorder says they are perfect, the best.

Denial is the devil.