Collapse: Variants of Somatic Narcissism, Wounded Borderline Self-trashing
Channel: Prof. Sam Vaknin
Date: 2022-06-27

Cerebral narcissists rarely have sex. By definition, any narcissist who is sexually active is somatic.

In the binary system of somatic-cerebral which often characterizes the period of switching, the narcissist cycles rapidly between abstinence and hypersexuality, a part of his approach-avoidance cycle (binary systems are dissonant and dysregulated and so resemble the borderline personality).

The cerebral's narcissistic supply is a sublimation of his sex drive (Eros or libido). Consequently, a collapse and the ensuing dysphoria - his incapacity to sublimate - render the cerebral sexual again and facilitates the switching to a somatic phase.

There are two variants of somatic:

1. The shared fantasy, single partner one; and

2. The promiscuous subtype.

What determines which sub-species of somatic the cerebral turns into is his sociosexuality.

But subtypes can also collapse (fail), leading the somatic to switch from one subtype to another.

Finally, when all subtypes have failed, the newfangled somatic narcissist switches back to cerebral.

EXAMPLE OF COLLAPSE

Some borderline women (secondary or subclinical psychopaths and emotionally dysregulated), with or without a prior history of promiscuity (sociosexually unrestricted) embark on a spree of sexual self-trashing after they have been discarded abruptly and cruelly by a long-term intimate partner to whom they had been scrupulously faithful and who was the centre and pivot of their world.

Such self-harming can last for years or decades and deteriorate into full fledged sex work.

By letting men - individuals and in groups - do with and to her body as they please, the brutally abandoned borderline is attempting to accomplish three goals:

1. Secure male attention and acceptance, compassion and affection, however fake and even if only for a few minutes;

2. Reaffirm her self-perception as bad, worthless, unworthy, whorish, and incorrigible;

3. Punish her erstwhile partner by cheapening and prostituting his “property”.

Sexual self-trashing is non-autonomous, non-agentic, and self-objectifying. It involves copious and ubiquitous dissociation as well as self-incapacitating and disinhibiting substance abuse intended to help legitimize the self-harm (“I was drunk”) and resolve cognitive and other dissonances.

Self-trashing borderlines, especially those who end up in sex work, create a counterfactual narrative of choice and empowerment. But in reality, such behaviors are lifelong addictions. Studies show that such women are unable to commit in relationships and they break up and cheat much more often than the average.

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