Collapsed Narcissist, Collapsed Histrionic
Channel: Prof. Sam Vaknin
Date: 2019-08-05

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The collapsed histrionic is usually a woman with body image (somatoform) issues and a low sense of self-worth. Yet, she still needs men and uses them to regulate her flagging self-esteem and deficient self-confidence. This creates a permanent dissonance and anticipatory anxiety as such a woman expects fully to be rejected and humiliated by men.

Low self-esteem often leads to an impaired reality test: the collapsed histrionic misreads environmental, social, and sexual cues and often ends up being mocked, shunned, abused, or sexually assaulted by men.

She compensates for her insecurities with brazen defiance and grandiosity as well as substance abuse, all of which compound her ability to properly gauge reality.

Her feelings of inferiority and inadequacy lead the collapsed histrionic to social withdrawal and reclusiveness. She rarely dates men and when she does, she aggresses against, pushes away, and abuses alpha males, even when they are genuinely interested in her (“preemptive abandonment”).

Instead, the collapsed histrionic picks up "safe" males: weak, ugly losers, who are very unlikely to painfully reject her.

Similarly, the narcissist front is penetrated in times of great crises that threaten the narcissist's ability to obtain Narcissistic Supply, or when the Narcissistic Supply is spurious (fake or low-grade), negative, or static. This is the Collapsed Narcissist (not Failed Narcissist which is a term invented by Grotstein to describe one of the phases in the development of Borderline personalities).