Collapsed Covert Narcissist: Indifferent Doormat, No Boundaries

My name is Sam Vaknin. I'm the author of "Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited," a series of other books and ebooks about personality disorders and other topics. I'm also a professor of psychology and professor of finance in several universities. In October of this year, I'm going to publish a very long paper in a prestigious academic journal in the field of psychology.

In this paper, I'm going to make a claim which is bound to be controversial, because I never make claims that are not controversial; it's not fun. So this controversial claim is that all narcissists are both overt and covert. There's no type constancy. Narcissists oscillate between being overt and covert, and they do so in reaction to changing life circumstances and especially to incidents of extreme narcissistic injury, leading usually to mortification. So that's the first claim.

The second claim I'm going to make has to do with the behaviors of coverts who are predominantly classic. In other words, when the classic narcissist or overt narcissist becomes covert, he is not fully covert. There's a kind of subvariant of covert which I call "collapsed covert narcissist." Every personality disorder has a collapsed state. There is a collapsed narcissist. I have a video on this channel which deals with collapsed histrionics. There is a collapsed borderline. I will dedicate a video to this a bit later this week. And there is a collapsed covert narcissist.

Now this gives me the opportunity to teach you a useful tool. If anyone confuses failed narcissists with collapsed narcissists, they are not the experts they claim to be, and they don't know the first thing about narcissism. Failed narcissism is a phase in the development of borderline personality disorder. It was first discovered, suggested, and described by a scholar of great importance; his name was Grotstein (G-R-O-T-S-T-E-I-N). Grotstein said that borderlines are actually failed narcissists. As children, they had tried to develop narcissistic defenses in the face of extreme abuse and trauma, but they had failed. Instead, they remain exposed; they remain without a skin; they remain vulnerable to their own emotions and to pain emanating from the outside. Consequently, they become hyper-vigilant; they anticipate rejection and humiliation and abandonment; and they react with decompensation; they lose it; and they act out; they misbehave recklessly, defiantly, if they are anti-social.

So today we are trying to unify the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and secondary psychopathy, but that's the topic that I've dealt with in at least three separate videos on this channel. In our failed narcissist, failed narcissism is a stage in the development of borderline. When we talk about a narcissist who fails—a narcissist who does not succeed to obtain narcissistic supply on a regular, predictable, and repetitive basis—a narcissist with deficient narcissistic supply—that's not a failed narcissist; that's a collapsed narcissist. And any self-styled expert, with or without the title "doctor," who confuses the two simply never read the literature and is exactly that: a self-proclaimed wannabe expert. Be very careful; there are a lot of fakes out there, out for your money and nothing else.

So the collapsed narcissist—hitherto we thought that the collapsed narcissist simply goes through a phase of withdrawal, a schizoid phase, or becomes antisocial, becomes a bit psychopathic or delusional, reframes situations in a grandiose way, and so on and so forth—I'm suggesting that one of the main strategies of the collapsed classic narcissist is to become, for a while, a covert narcissist. He becomes a covert narcissist, and he, in this way, copes with his collapse. Now this would mean that there is no type constancy; that every overt or classic narcissist can be covert, and essentially every covert can be overt.

To test this hypothesis, I conducted two studies, and this is the paper that will be published in October; it's being peer-reviewed right now. I conducted two studies. To remind you, I have the world's largest database of people diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, and this database comprises 1,800 people. The first one in my database dates back to 1997, so it's a long longitudinal database; it's very long. And I've also interviewed an average of five family members, colleagues, and so on, of each of these narcissists. So the database, in totality, has something like 15,000 people. Now each of these people had responded to a questionnaire comprised of 683 questions, modeled roughly on the MMPI-2. And so this is a database with a gigantic number of data points and allows me to data-mine at my leisure using off-the-shelf statistical tools.

So I conducted two studies. The first study, I simply data-mined the database and found out the patterns—the patterns of conversion from collapse to covert and back. And then I administered a questionnaire to close to 3,000 family members who had agreed to participate—sixty to seventy percent of them women, thirty percent of them men—and I asked them a series of questions about how they had experienced this switching between overt or classic and covert. And I'm using the word "switching" very judiciously, because "switching" is how we describe the word that we use to refer to a change in personalities in multiple personality disorder—shifting from one personality to another, from one alter (alternative personality) to another in multiple personality disorder, today known as dissociative identity disorder. This shifting is called "switching," and I think the narcissist switching from classic to covert is exactly a dissociative state; it's a self-state, exactly like borderline in general. The picture emerging is that all these personality disorders are forms of multiple personalities; they are all—they all involve multiple self-states which approximate and are asymptotic to full-fledged personalities, and they all involve switching.

So there I was with this majority of the 3,000—to my good surprise—responded, and now I had a complete picture of how people experience the narcissist when he switches from overt to covert, and I incorporated it in the paper. Now, in this particular video, I don't want to be too academic or too dry—maybe it's too late for this—and so on. And what I want to—what I did instead, I had rewritten the paper with the first-person pronoun. It's like I've rewritten the paper as though it were a personal testimony. No, I am a—I am a classic, overt, malignant, psychopathic narcissist. So I am 99% of the time; I am not covert. So the majority of what you are about to hear has nothing to do with me, even though I will be using "I," "my," "mine"—most of it doesn't have anything to do with me, but it is a composite, a collage, an agglomeration, an aggregation of all the information provided in the two separate studies. Bear that in mind before you bombard me with comments about my personal life and so on and so forth. Some of it applies to me, of course. I have gone through covert states, I now realize, but the bulk of it, the bank of it, describes hundreds of narcissists and thousands of their family members. So it's a valuable, I think, contribution to interpersonal dynamics within the experience of switching from overt to covert.

First of all, when the overt becomes covert, he develops immediately conflict aversion—conflict aversion in every possible situation: in business, at work, with family members, in romantic or interpersonal relationships. Such narcissists would suddenly lose boundaries, not enforce boundaries; they will not fight for their rights; they will allow other people to prefer their ideas; they will never protest; they will never take action; they will never fight back; they don't stand up for themselves, not because they're cowards, but because of other reasons. So I asked these—I asked these people, "Why don't you stand up for yourself when you become covert? What happens to you when you become covert?" It's not a question of shyness or vulnerability or fragility, because none of these have to do with not fighting back. It's—it's a question of—it seemed to involve other psychodynamic processes and motivations. And this is what these people—this is what these people told me: "I don't fight back; I don't protest or stand up for myself, but not because I'm a coward, but because I'm just, or because I'm practical, or because I'm indifferent, or because I'm grandiose." And I broke it down this way: Just many narcissists said, "I cannot satisfy the emotional, sexual, or business needs—or whatever—I cannot satisfy needs. In the case of interpersonal relationships, I cannot satisfy the emotional and sexual needs of my women, so I have no right to set boundaries; I have no right to make demands or to enforce rules of contact. I encourage women in my life to look after themselves and to outsource their needs." That's in interpersonal relationships; same in the workplace or in business: "I cannot provide the goods, so I encourage outsourcing."

The second reason covert narcissists gave for becoming doormats, for becoming submissive, for becoming reticent, for withdrawing, for not fighting, for not standing up for themselves, for not enforcing their rights—the second reason was practical. Many covert—many narcissists said, "There is no point in fighting back." Some of them said, "My reputation is so shot that no one will ever believe any of my claims or intentions, not even my so-called nearest, dearest, intimate friends and significant others. So, for practical reasons, I'm not fighting back." There was a very big group—which we will focus on today—of narcissists who had switched from classic to covert, and they said that their character had changed; they became indifferent. They say, "I easily switch off; I tune out; I repress; I dissociate; I reframe; I move on; I sometimes mind some things, but I never care about them. Everything and everyone becomes meaningless, to be imbued with no emotions." They were describing the process called "décalage," imbued with no emotions. They admitted that—"I'm quoting this"— "confuses people, especially women, and drives them to test me and to test my boundaries in an attempt to ascertain the extent of my involvement, but it doesn't work; I remain indifferent." And finally, some of them admitted that one of the reasons they are not fighting back is because they're grandiose. "Fighting back means that I care. Caring is vulnerability. I don't want people to see that I care. Not caring is the ultimate form of personal strength; it enhances my feeling of omnipotence." So they're not fighting back; they're not imposing rules; they're not enforcing boundaries because they're grandiose. That's for the less—and more—it's not for them.

So the only times switched covert narcissists—collapsed covert narcissists—engage in conflict is when they are afforded the opportunity to statistically humiliate other people, preferably in public. Covert narcissists are very insidious, very pernicious, very subterranean, very passive-aggressive. And if they can't humiliate in public, they will—it gives them sadistic supply. So it is only then that they may suddenly come alive and erupt in conflict. And I—I focused in my—in my study, I focused on the issue of sexual exclusivity and—and the reason I chose the issue of sexual exclusivity in a dyad, in a couple, in an intimate interpersonal relationship, is that sexual exclusivity provokes our most primordial defensive instincts. Like if someone homes in or zeroes in on the woman with me, I would become an animal; I would—I would be romantically jealous; I would act out; I may even become violent. The sexual—nothing—nothing provokes more basic reflexes, instincts, drives, urges, and reactions; nothing, absolutely nothing, provokes more aggression than breach of sexual exclusivity. That's why people react to cheating, for example, with extreme trauma. So I decided to choose this because it combines into the intellect, primordial, basic, primitive drives, the body—body and mind. So it's like a package deal, and I focused on this and I tried to see how the behavior of the overt or classic narcissist would change if he were to become a collapsed covert narcissist. So—and I'm going to use the first—the first-person singular, although I remind you that this is not about me; this is a composite or a collage of hundreds of testimonies by narcissists and thousands by their family members.

As long as the sex continues, I enforce strict exclusivity—sexual exclusivity. When the sex ceases, or sexual attraction between us wanes or is absent, including owing to physical separation, she is not—not my woman any longer, though she can be present in my life in other functions; she's not a woman to me, and I do not care; I'm not romantically jealous and not possessive about sexual exclusivity any longer. I sometimes even encourage the woman in my life to be with other men in order to get rid of the relationship altogether or to transform it into a sexless—sexless companionship. Women interpreted—so now I'm—I'm drawing on the study of the family members—women interpret it as proof that I do not care about them. They want to test me and my boundaries and to see if I would mind when they misbehave with other men, if I would impose and enforce rules and boundaries. Children do the same with their parents; we recreate our childhood with each other, of course.

So the first sign of switching from classic narcissism to collapsed covert narcissist is losing—losing interest—losing interest, indifference. This indifference—I've just—I have described indifference within sexual romantic interpersonal relationships, but this indifference extends to all—all realms of life. And so I'm continuing with the—with the collapsed covert narcissist. I have a feeling that I don't know how to be a man. I switch between "Hiro"—macho—"all women be damned"—and "zero"—resistance is futile—"any passing male is more man than I am and is going to bag and bed the woman in my life." And here I took experiences described by hundreds of narcissists; like I amalgamated them; I put them together as a first—first-person testimony. Men just walk up to women who are with me—lovers, girlfriends, wives—and they pick them up in my presence. This is because when we are in public, I show zero interest in the woman with me, and I give no hint of intimacy of any kind with her. I ignore the woman completely, or if I pay any attention to the woman at all, it is briefly, just to mock and to berate her painfully. And this sometimes arouses the other men's savior, protective—"damsel or princess in distress"—instincts. I've been told by men, "You don't protect your women." Men talk to me about my women disrespectfully; men don't respect me; they disrespect me; they misbehave with the—with the woman who is with me, and they know it, but they think that I do not mind; they think I do not care. So they see an opportunity to take advantage of my sad and mad partners and of my blatant indifference. Showing an utter lack of interest is tantamount to communicating a license to proceed; it's like saying to the other men, "You're not disrespecting or offending me by absconding with my woman; go ahead, go with her, do with her whatever you want." When I make clear that their behavior bothers me, they explain, they apologize, they minimize, and they all stop immediately. And of course, this is a collapsed covert narcissist describing his behavior. When he becomes a classic overt narcissist again, so the same collapse—the same narcissist can go through periods of total indifference, encouraging actually this woman or giving her license or giving other men license to misbehave, to sleep around, to cheat, and then suddenly, having switched back from collapsed covert narcissist to overt narcissist, to classic narcissist, he regains his sense of possessiveness, ownership, romantic jealousy, and he demands sexual exclusivity. It can be extremely disorienting; it's like two personalities—one could even argue these are two personalities—one of them doesn't care about sexual exclusivity at all, doesn't care about the intimate partner at all, is unable actually to have any kind of intimacy, and the other one is very possessive, very jealous. It's the same person; we are not talking about two people; we are talking about an overt classic narcissist who goes through a phase of collapse and becomes a covert narcissist. These men don't take the woman away from me; they don't do anything against my will; they don't do anything against her will. I give up on the woman; I discard her publicly, and she wants the other men. There's no underhandedness; there's no coercion or expropriation; it's all out in the open, with full knowledge and consent—consent of everyone involved. And so I cannot really claim innocence; I cannot say I didn't know that they're going—they're going to have sex; I didn't know he was going to a section. It is I who actually foretell—I foresee the sex, and I give them my ascent and my assurance that I don't mind. I know that they're going to spend the night together; I know they're going to drink together; I know they're going on a vacation together. And I realize that when they get drunk or when they are isolated on an island in vacation, and when she flirts with him shamelessly in my presence, I realize what's going to happen. I decline to force myself on them; I don't insist to join them; I don't insist even when I'm invited; I withdraw; I withdraw and give them full freedom. I—I have only myself to so-called blame. Men don't abscond with my woman—property; I give my woman to the men because I'm not interested in her in any way. This is how—this is the inner experience of a collapsed covert narcissist. If he experiences indifference—whether it's real indifference or feigned indifference—it's an open question. Because when the collapsed covert narcissist reverts to classic form, he experiences horrible pain, horrible agony over what had happened. So it's like he's leading himself to mortification. It's like in a classic narcissist, mortification leads to enlightenment and self-awareness, but in a covert narcissist, mortification leads to classic narcissism. Mortification is the way the covert narcissist awakens himself and becomes a full-fledged overt classic narcissist. And the classic narcissist, when he experiences mortification, he experiences self-awareness and then a covert phase. Mortification, therefore, is the bridge between overt and covert and back—that is the mechanism we've been missing; we've been wrecking our brains for the last at least 30 years asking ourselves, "How is it possible that an overt narcissist can become covert? They are such diametrically opposed types. How can a single individual be both?" Well, through the process of mortification, which shuts down the false self for a while and allows the covert, indifferent, withdrawn, schizoid, self-effacing, passive-aggressive mode to emerge.

Classic analysis said: "I'm immersed in interacting with a male company, trying to impress them. I usually meet in groups, so the role of the woman by my side is very unclear: Is she a hanger-on? Is she an admirer? A student? A guest? An estranged wife? An ex? Did we have a lover's quarrel? I leave that hanging in the air. I never protest when a man—when a man flirts with the woman next to me, when he picks her up. I give the impression that I couldn't care less, that I'm not bothered at all, that I have better, more important things to do than to get involved. In truth, I'm kind of afraid of confrontation; I feel weaker, much less of a man than the other men. I'm also certain that my—that the woman will mock me and humiliate me in front of the other men and still abscond with him—still go with it. I don't have the power; I don't have the right to stop her." And that's already a classic narcissist, actually; he's not aware, but he's describing a covert mindset. "I never stand up for my woman; I never protect the woman in my life, even when I know that she is vulnerable, very drunk, unhappy, sad, depressed, or sick. Even when I know that the man she had picked up to spend the night with or to have an affair with is a dangerous man, a low-life scum, an alcoholic, a criminal, a junkie, a loser, a pedophile, I let the woman go with him; I let her get hurt; I don't care if—if my intimate partner is mocked, physically attacked, falls ill, is depressed, sexually assaulted, or needs me in any way, except if helping her narcissistic supply as a guru, a psychologist, an advisor, a wise man, a father figure." So this is a description of the transition back from covert to overt. We have the two sides; we are dealing with sexual exclusivity in interpersonal relationships, to remind you, because they evoke and provoke the most intense emotions, and these emotions are partly primitive—reptilian, if you wish—and partly—partly civilized, and partly intellectual, and partly bodily, as no other realm of life, which provokes this concoction. So that's why I decided to study this. And so many—many narcissists used a phrase that I invented: "virtual single." They say, "My women behave like virtual singles in my presence. They always prefer to communicate with other men, aggressively pick them up, flirt with them, spend long stretches of time with them—days, sometimes whole nights—go to bars, go to nightclubs alone and pick up men there. They have emotional affairs; they cheat repeatedly—repeatedly. They become so desperate that they signal to men in my presence; they give them their phone numbers; they flirt with them even when they are having an evening out with me. They feel no real bond with me; their start was starved for sex and intimacy, to be wanted, to be cherished. They feel used and abused by me; they want out by any means." They…

Feel exploited. Cheating and ostentatious infidelity is their exit strategy, as you have said in your videos. Rights, one by the way. This puts paid to the myth that narcissists are not self-aware. Had narcissists been totally not self-aware, processes like narcissistic injury and mortification would not have been possible. It would not have been possible to penetrate the narcissist's mind. It requires a modicum of standing out outside yourself and looking at yourself—of introspection.

The analysis continues. When asked directly, the woman with me lets the other man know that I don't care, that I don't mind her misbehavior, and I have no interest in her. I, I don't care about her whereabouts or who they're spending their time with, or when and if they will return to me and how, how she chooses to act. Um, the woman in my life is likely to say he's busy with his work, or he rejects and abuses me; he's very sick; he has mother issues; he told me, he told me I can sleep with others. I mean, they would use a variety of, a monopoly of excuses and explanations. Some of the, some of the narcissists feel this experience, the covert phase following the collapse. Experience the covert phase; it is deeply humiliating. Men disrespect me completely and to my face for letting them have my women, in whom presumably I'm invested as my property, so they imply that I'm a doormat. Some of them say that I'm not involved in my intimate partner's life and I don't involve her in mine; that I'm not human. They even, men who admire and value what I have to give—intellect or contributions to business—pity and mock me as a pompous fool, a deranged freak, a doormat, non-men in other realms of life.

Okay, so this was an example of the collapsed covert experience of indifference in a field, an area of life where we would have thought indifference is impossible, and that is interpersonal sexual exclusivity with his intimate partner. Even there, he is rendered totally indifferent. But this is an aspect and dimension of a larger phenomenon, which is a form of people pleasing, and we must contrast people pleasing with primary psychology. So many of the narcissists say men have been taking, taking away what's rightfully mine all my life: my time, my ideas, my money, my reputation, my history, my women, my contacts, based on my indifference and collusion in this plunder. All men have reached two conclusions: one, as a people pleaser, I have no boundaries, no dignity, no self-respect, and no sanity. I'm defenseless. What they can do to me and to mine is limited only by their own pity, compassion, morality, and sense that there is nothing more to take or that the maintenance cost is becoming too high. And this makes people in my life feel unsafe and unprotected and makes my partner feel [Music] disillusioned.

The second conclusion that people reach when they observe the covert phase, the collapse covert phase, is that the person who is undergoing this switch is very mentally ill, utterly dysfunctional, incapable of maintaining even the rudiments of a relationship, capable of having sex, gauge reality, or act in reality self-efficaciously, even if only to the extent of holding on to what's and who's his. So many narcissists describe the moment of loss, the moment where they had lost their spouse, their family, their money, their business, their freedom; they described the moment of loss as intimately connected to a phase of motivation followed by collapsed covert narcissism. It is then, having been observed from the outside, that people um, got alarmed, got frightened, and walked away. Because it is then that the underbelly of the narcissist, the hidden black hole-like deep space void and darkness, the totally empty hall of mirrors—it is then that the non-existence, the absence of the narcissist in his own life and in his own mind became glaringly apparent, and it's a terrifying sight. It's like confronting an alien. And so they, most people just, they, they are deterred; they, they walk back; they, they don't want anything to do with this kind of person. As long as the overt or the classic narcissist maintains the show, as long as the show goes on, there will be people charmed by him, succumb to his charisma, play along with his strategies, collude and collab, collaborate with his plans, etc. As long as it keeps it together. But when he disintegrates and switches and transitions via the modification bridge to a collapsed covert state, it is then that they see the true face of the narcissist, the nothingness, the absence. They see that there's no one there. It's the most terrifying experience.

This analysis says gradually everyone comes to regard me the same way, with a mixture of wariness, pity, revulsion, and contempt. Some are envious of my gifts and project their envy and their sense of guilt and shame for having abused me by becoming even more aggressive. They compensate. I mean, they feel guilty and ashamed when they see the narcissist disintegrating; there's immediately an empathic reaction, like you feel bad. And some people feel guilty and ashamed; they feel that they had caused, they had caused the disintegration; they pushed the narcissist over the edge. And even though it's a narcissist and even though you know it's a monster, they said that they still feel bad. But some people, if they're immature, if they're narcissistic themselves, they would react to their own discomfort, to their own shame and guilt with extended and enhanced aggression. The majority would just walk away.

Having squeezed the analysis dry of any usefulness, narcissists say from time to time I try to fight back. But when I ask the narcissist in the sample to tell me how, how do they fight back, how do they extricate themselves, like the baron mink housing, lifting themselves by their own hair, how do they extricate themselves from the repeat, the cesspool of covert narcissism, how do they restore themselves back into an overt or classic state, I found out that they do it by calling people, cheating people, deceiving, making false promises, lying, or engendering the fantasy and then drawing people into the fantasy. For example, drawing women into the fantasy via the process of grooming. There's a series of videos I made about this shared fantasy. So they call people; they cheat people out of money, out of love, out of compassion; out of, they simply pretend to be who they are not. They assert themselves by taking instead of giving, and at that point, gradually they regain their classic narcissism, their overt narcissism. And suddenly, suddenly with the same intimate pop, they would make a new list of demands, boundaries, and rules, which include, for example, sexual exclusivity.

Um, some narcissists said even when I failed, um, even when I failed, I still tried to call people. But even there, as a con artist, I failed time and again. People saw right through me; people walked away; women cheated on me repeatedly; their needs unmet, and the hope that I will set these people free, let them go once they make me aware of their betrayals—that is the force that drove all of them. In other words, what this answer is saying is that when people discovered that he is calling them, that he's lying to them and he's deceiving and cheating, they transgressed against him; they betrayed him, and they did it ostentatiously, openly, so that he would let them go. Calling people, said this narcissist, was setting boundaries for and asserting not myself, but the fictitious character that I had created for the calm. So again, it defeated the purpose; again, I ended up giving everything of myself freely to another entity, or be it an entity that I myself had conjured up. It's a very, very fascinating observation. The narcissist, this narcissist says that um, when he felt himself transitioning from classic through multiplication to collapse and from collapse to covert narcissism, he wanted to go back; he wanted to be classic again, and he felt that the only way he could do this is by calling people, cheating, deceiving, taking from them. So he tried to do this, but to, in order to do this, he had to come up with a fictitious figure, with a false self, with an act. And then he suddenly realized that whatever he's taken from other people, it's not he who, who does the taking; it's the false self; it's the invented character; it's the conjured-up entity. It's again not him [Music]. Whoever is calling other people, deceiving them, cheating them, stealing from them, taking from them, it's not him; it's the character he had invented. Again, he has been usurped; again, he has been replaced, displaced, and substituted for. And he said, and similarly, I make women fall in love with a false apparition, an emanation, a thespian project, a role play, never with the real me. The grooming phase over, upon entering the shared fantasy, all my women discovered, to the dismay, that I had calmed them into a relationship with a complete abusive and mentally disabled stranger, which is the real me, of course. The most fervent wish of these women is to up and walk away by any and all means necessary, including by having casual sex with strangers ostentatiously. So grooming is, is like making women fall in love not with the narcissist or the psychopath, but with another person; he had created a facade, a Potemkin person, a fictitious entity. So they fall in love with this, and then they discover the real, the real thing, the real McCoy, and they walk away.

Again, by luring women into my lair, I am, I am giving myself abundantly to another man; that other man is a fictitious character. In my case, for example, is the irresistible genius. I am doing the dirty work of this fictitious man; I'm doing his dirty work for him; I'm satisfying his grandiose and sadistic needs to uphold and prove his irresistibility and then to tone, frustrate, humiliate, and despoil the women he captivates. Those are his needs, not mine. I dedicate all my resources to catering to these needs on his behalf. Again, there's a situation of exploitation and gullibility. Again, the real narcissist is not catered to, is not satisfied. Women in committed primary diets often complain to casual sex partners, to their dates, to their lovers with whom they cheat; they often complain about their relationship and how its dysfunction is brought on, brought on the adultery. So in the typical classic relationship, women complain about their relationship and say, well, the relationship is not working well; that's why, you know, that's why I'm fornicating; that's why I'm cheating. But the intimate partners of the narcissist don't describe the relationship as the problem; they describe the narcissist as a problem. They actually like many elements in the relationship; they miss these elements, but there's no way they could countenance the narcissist himself. It's, it's a mirror image of normal reality. In normal reality, the, you, you love the person you're with, but you're having difficulties in the relationship. When you're with the narcissist, you, you have, you love the some elements of the relationship; it's exciting; it's thrilling; it's adventurous, but you have serious problems with the person you're with [Music]. Something is seriously alright with the narcissist, which makes even the greatest rewards and gifts you can offer an incommensurate compensation. And so these are the only two modes the narcissist has: the doormat and the psychopath. The narcissist either goes through multiplication and becomes a collapse covert, or he becomes a total antisocial psychopath. One of them is comatose; one of them is recessive; one of them is dominant at any given time. Um, at some points, the narcissist becomes avoidant, um, celibate, um, and a con artist; at other points he becomes a psychopath; at some points, and the psychopath micromanages the shared fantasy; at some points, the doormat is the one who is modified. You remember that modification leads from overt to covert and from covert to overt. And so sometimes the doormat is modified; it's when we force two alternative self-states to encounter each other and to communicate. But even as the doormat continues to process the modification, the psychopath continues the pace with his exploits, forcefully dissociating the doormat in order to function. So when the overt transitions via collapse and multiplication to the covert, when the covert transitions via collapse and mortification to the overt, there is a short period of dissociation where the dominant personality at that moment is fighting back; doesn't want to go away. So if you're covert, you're mortified; you're about to become overt; the covert will reassert himself. And if you are overt or psychopathic and you're mortified and you're about to become covert, you will become even more psychopathic, and you will dissociate the covert. Um, this is part of, of again a bigger problem of delusionality. One of the main management problems in narcissism, both in therapeutic setting and for the narcissist himself when he tries to manage his life, his cognitions, his emotions, is this delusionality. It's not only a lack of self-awareness; it's taking the information available and then reframing it in a way that supports grandiosity, grandiosity or other misconceptions. It's delusionality in the sense that the reality testing is impaired; the narcissist is divorced from reality at any time. And so, for example, in the, in the vast majority of cases of narcissists, everyone who comes in contact with the narcissist shuns him and ultimately flees, runs away. I mean, look at, for example, Donald Trump; he's a president of the United States, but look how many hundreds of people have abandoned him already in the last three years. Men do it one way, and women do it another, but all of them flee, all of them run away, all of them escape, all of them scatter, all of them don't want anything further to do with narcissists; they shun him. Men don't mind or even relish being seen as assertive and decisive, so they just vanish or they tell the narcissist off. Women prefer to be thought of as [ __ ] rather than heartless, traitorous [ __ ], so they cheat ostentatiously to get rid of the narcissist. So each, each gender has his own coping mechanisms and, and so on and so forth. If you're online, people will avoid the narcissist like the virus of the mind, which can cause systemic infection. Even when people recover from exposure to the narcissist, there's always multiple organ long-term damage, like the COVID-19. But the narcissist doesn't see all this. Even if he is the greatest analyst to have ever lived, he's still totally blind to his own life and to interactions and people in his life. His compensatory grandiosity compels him to reframe everything counterfactually, counterfactually and delusionally.

Let's take a few examples. Narcissists might tell you everyone is addicted to me; everyone misses me horribly, and it is their loss that I'm out of their lives. And the reality is people, especially women, can't wait to get away from the narcissist. They do anything; they do everything; they even go to extremes to set themselves free, to immediately go no contact with the narcissist unless and until the narcissist can be of use. They, they, and they procedure their lives happily after the narcissist and, and profitably, and they decline the narcissist's attempts to over or renew contact. And sometimes they do this aggressively and hatefully. And yet all of this doesn't affect the narcissist's perception that people are addicted to it, that they miss him, that they want him. But their lives and, and so narcissus doesn't realize that it's 100 percent his loss that people flee, in abhor having crossed pathways, parts with him. He doesn't, he doesn't realize; I think it's their loss, and he's very traumatized. The reason for mortification is that he's traumatized when he realizes that he can be humiliated; he can be made unsafe even by non-core issues, not important issues, even by useless people. When the narcissist goes through multiplication, he feels unsafe, disoriented; the whole situation looks nightmarish and surrealistic because his grandiosity impairs his reality testing. He is inside the delusion; he has selective attention; he filters out things, and this renders him dangerously unaware of his environment, gullible to a frightening extent. The narcissist delusionally, for example, considers himself witty or funny, fascinating, authoritative, omniscient, transformative, addictive, irresistible, hyper-intelligent, or hypersexual. And actually, the overwhelming majority of narcissists come across as loathsome, arrogant, fraudulent, foolish, buffoonish, pompous, gullible, sadistic, hurtful, pathetic, creepy, inhuman, and sarcastic. And yet very few narcissists would use these terms to describe themselves.

On the other end of grandiosity, there's paranoia, per secondary delusions. Everyone, especially women, tries to deceive me, to manipulate me, to lie to me, and to get away with abusive misbehavior. I am such a treasure; I have so much to give; everyone wants a piece of me. But actually, people perceive the narcissist as histrionic, as provocative, and they don't respect him; they don't admire him; they're not owed by him; they're not afraid of him. And none of this is true; actually, they know the narcissist; they pity him; they deride him; they're exasperated; they, they ignore the narcissist on many occasions; they often conspire to hurt the narcissist, but they do so in extremes when the narcissist is sadistic or bullying or threatening. And even then, when there is a real conspiracy, a real collusion to hurt the narcissist, the narcissist will fail to notice it because of his grandiosity, cognitive deficit. The thing is that it's all based on cognitive dissonance. When the overt or classic narcissist is famous, he rejects reality; he rejects life, and he rejects; he, he refuses to accept his responsibility for his own life. He becomes therefore covert, in the shadows, hiding a reflection. So it's rejection which is intended to settle the dissonance, to resolve the dissonance, and to ameliorate the anxiety that comes with dissonance. The narcissist deludes himself that he provides value-added; I don't know what—analysis, money, inside healing, support, support. He convinces himself that he's so unique that people will never give up on him, never mind how negativistic, passive-aggressive, aggressive, sadistic, frustrating, withholding, and hurtful he is; they will never give up on you because what he has to give is unique, can't be found anywhere else, and invaluable, has no price, worth every price, priceless. In reality, the narcissist provides value-added that sometimes is a bit unique, but it's not indispensable; it's not irreplaceable; it's definitely not worth the emotional price that people have to pay um, for his, for his abuse. So people, men and women, give up on the narcissist with alacrity; they go no contact post haste. People may respect the narcissist for some accomplishments or for his intelligence or, um, uh, but this is also very misleading; it's for sanitizing because an intelligent, charming, magnetic, charismatic narcissist would, it implies that his wives or mature, in narcissists are not wise or mature. When people get to know the narcissist up close, they lose all respect for him. And coupled with their envy and revolt at his obnoxious and pompous personality, it sometimes leads, if they are narcissists, if they are psychopaths, if they are um, victims of abuse who are vindictive and vengeful, sometimes this confluence of disrespect, envy and revolt, revulsion leads them to virulent displays of public humiliation, shaming narcissist shaming, and passive-aggressive or punitive acts, which in turn lead to mortification and collapsed covert state. Such disrespect is also communicable; it's contagious; people catch it from each other, you know. And this contagion is exacerbated by the narcissist's own behaviors. Ironically, when he feigns indifference um, in a covert state, it increases the incentive and the motivation to hurt him even more, to get through his firewall of him of apathy. And when he, when he is reactant, when he, when there's reactants and defines, when he's antisocial or psychopathy, of course you want to put him down like a rabid dog. The apathy of the narcissist in the collapsed covert state is not perceived as a sign of strength, but on the contrary, it's perceived as a doormat, cowardice, weakness, absence of enforceable boundaries. The narcissist opens himself up to contempt, abuse, and derision exactly by becoming covert. And alternatively, people perceive the narcissist's feigned and ostentatious disinterest as passive aggression. The narcissist's disrespect for and ostentatious disinterest in his intimate partners is interpreted by extension as a lack of dignity, lack of strength, lack of resilience, and lack of self-respect. Who, who doesn't care for his property, for his intimate partners; who doesn't protect people he loves—only a non-entity, zero, nobody, you know, a wretch. So similarly, if the analysis is, if the, if the narcissist switches from covert collapse covert state to a psychopathic antisocial defiant overt narcissistic step stage, if he, if he, if he then pendulates, if he swings, if he switches from covert to malignant, his reactance, his defiance, his aggression, they're not perceived as credible; he's about as intimidating and deterring as a spoiled brat and equally repulsive and antagonized. It's one of the few points where I fully agree with, with Jordan Peterson: nothing more repulsive than the spoiled brat. And the masses' ostentatio, conspicuous attempts to man up, to deter, to intimidate, they provoke the offended parties to escalate into egregious territory. Narcissists induce escalation in, in a war he can never win. People, men and, and much more so perhaps women, they have very, very little, to, very few strategic options in such cases; they have to become aggressive, and they have to hurt the narcissist in a way; they have to modify him; he's like in a, in a daze, in a trance; they have to wake him up; they have to bring him back to reality screaming and kicking, and you know, there's no other way. He can go into deep space; he can is, you know, he's in a trip; he's high on his own grandiosity. Even as a covert, he is high on his own graduality because the covert faint indifference is a form of grandiosity.

Mean different. I don't care. See if I care. I don't mind. You can do anything. Who are you? You know you can't touch me. It's grandiosity. And so this is this is the dynamic that the switching from overt to covert provoke. And the inner dialogue of the narcissist, both classic and covert. Covert, they share a single template. It's a little like Microsoft Word. With the same software, you can write this novel or that novel. You could write a novel or a poem with the same template. You get overt classic narcissist and covert.

So the dialogue goes like this: People, says the narcissist to himself, men and much more so women, they have very little to offer me compared to alternatives like books or films. People bore me to death. They can teach me nothing, of course nothing relevant or useful, because I know everything. They are wasteful; they are inefficient; they're untitled, and they're inflated. In other words, the narcissist projects. He says everyone is a narcissist; everyone is grandiose to maximize return on investment. Because narcissists like to think, like to think in objective terms, they consider themselves optimizing machines, optimizing devices, all-wise, all-knowing robots, and everything is like dictated by ultimate supreme rationality. You know, unless, unless they play the spiritual, the spiritual guru or the public intellectual, philosopher, psychologist who has all the answers. Unless they play this game, the majority of narcissists would pretend to be optimizing machines.

So to maximize return on investment, the bottom line in the balance sheet, the narcissist says to himself, I need people to adhere to strict standards and rules and to obey me. It is my way or the highway. Take it or leave it. Is, is not flexible. And so this insistence on following the narcissist's rules of conduct, this is has the added bonus of gratifying the narcissist's sadistic impulses because it frustrates and hurts other people. And that's fine. Frustrating and hurting other people is fun. It's even more fun than sex. But, of course, the reality is other people are not inferior to the narcissist. I would even say, as a general rule, the overwhelming vast majority of people are way superior to the narcissist in almost every conceivable way, perhaps with the exception of intelligence or intellect in some isolated cases. Narcissist is deficient, cognitively deficient, emotionally non-existent, is as clueless in social situations and in sex as the most autistic person.

Women cheat on the narcissist because, as he is, he is not lovable, and this creates in them a frustrating and infuriating, tantalizing dissonance. They love an unlovable person. Additionally, the shared fantasy of the narcissist is an extension of his creepy and sick mind. And so men equally, um, reject a narcissist because of this incongruence, lack of cohesion and coherence between what he promises and what he shows, the appearance and the substance, or actually the lack of substance. There's nobody there. It's a zero in the fullest sense of the word, not as a value judgment but as a mathematical description. The narcissist is a zero. This is nobody there. And when a woman cheats on the narcissist, the narcissist tells himself, how could she have chosen? How could she have opted for such an inferior man? Look at me, I'm intelligent; I'm irresistible, handsome; I'm rich and powerful. How could she have, you know, ended up with him? They don't understand that other men, regardless of how they look or behave by comparison, are a breath of fresh air. They bring normalcy into the life of the narcissist's intimate partner. His abuse creates a claustrophobic, suffocating, hyper-vigilant bubble with no atmosphere. He sucks the oxygen out of every environment. Women don't perceive the narcissist's absence in their lives after the breakup as a punishment or a loss. They perceive it as wonderful liberation, as a relief, is a reward. Of course, they miss his intimate partners miss some aspects. Some narcissists are very insightful, so they miss maybe the psychological insights are the Nazi system reasonably good lovers. They miss the sex. You always miss something in, in some, in something in someone. So generally, you know, most intimate partners would mean something, but, but largely and overwhelmingly they are relieved. They're relieved, their liberated, happy; they're happy to have gotten rid of the narcissist and his sick shirt fantasy. They are much happier; they're much happier when the Nazis is away. And even when they are together ostensibly, they try to avoid the narcissism. And all women, you know, if the narcissist allows them closure or closure dialogue, they compile these long and exhaustive lists of the narcissist's shortcoming, deficiency, shortcomings, deficiencies, disadvantages, etc., etc. And these lists are very, very, very long, almost internal, almost endless. So this by itself proves that all other men, alternatives, are vastly superior to the narcissist and way more attractive to his intimate partners.

You see what the narcissist fails to understand is that women first connect to a man as a person, and they want a person who loves to be with people, or more specifically loves women. They want someone who is kind, who is interesting, who is passionate, who is horny. They want openness, gregariousness; they want safe acceptance, a core, a good time. So they end up being with other men. And what I'm saying here applies to business as well. It applies to the workplace, applies to organizations the narcissist belongs to. I don't know, church, political party. People want people; people want human beings; people want persons to be with. They don't want to be with pale and dysfunctional and, and glitchy imitation of humans like the narcissist. Other people allow for intimacy to develop patiently and attentively. And so when the narcissist's intimate partner betrays him, cheats on him with another man, it's because they see in that other man the man, the person. And this is the foundation of sexual attraction. Women are, women are attracted to, to other men because of the person, the personality; the sex is a derivative. Many narcissists are functional schizoids. In other words, even if they socialize a lot, they don't really socialize. They are averse to people; they hate men; they hate women; they hate children; they hate humanity, except when and for as long as as other people are of some use to the narcissist. I don't know, give him supply, money, access, sex, services, in distance. All narcissists are very psychopathic. They are out to get narcissistic supply, and it's a goal, and that's the they will, they will instrumentally use other people to obtain this goal, but otherwise they're very averse to humanity, um, and, and, and this applies to people of the opposite sex. Sex is not a sufficient compensation as far as the narcissist is concerned. Anyhow, Nazis never have sex. Women are no exception. They, they are, they are useful to the narcissist as to as in his pursuit of sadism, to despoil them, to degrade them, to humiliate, a useful dream, to provide him with services, the three S's: supply, services, statistic, six. He's willing to invest in order to extract benefits, but only when there is an immediate, specific, and high return on his investment. It's not gratification, entitlement, or one of the other goals that I mentioned. And with women, the investment horizon is longer. Women demand reciprocity in some respects, sexually, emotionally, time-wise. And so women also tend to taper off their sex, their supply, and even services. So it's a bargain, and if the bargain is not kept, women end up being with other men. They cheat and deceive when, when the investment is, is the faucet is closed, or when there is asymmetry or imbalance. And women could, the narcissist's intimate partner could even end up with other men who are as abusive, grandiose, entitled, or sadistic as the narcissist is, but these men give them something: attention, support, money, children, stability, reliability, goals, sex, good time, socializing, something the narcissist only takes. Even the narcissist's sex is autoerotic, sadistic, using the woman's body; there's no reciprocity there. Masses can give insights; losses can be entertaining, but even these can be overbearing, meandering, compulsive, pompous, wrong, aggressive, sadistic, and ultimately he degenerates into unwanted rants, ramblings; it's too much. The narcissist is a caricature of a human being; it's too much to emphasize. And so when they, when the, when a woman has to make the, the comparison between the narcissist and any other man, I mean narcissists usually, usually end up losing, end up losing the game. And I'm again mentioning sexual exclusivity and interpersonal relationships because this is the most intense domain of human life. It's where everything is revealed; there's maximum intimacy, maximum emotions, primordial in contemporary, civilized, bodily and mental, intellectual and emotional, cognitive and feelings. I mean, everything is there; it's a microcosm and a microcosm; it's the cosmos itself. The workplace has a subset of these features; friendship has another subset of these features, but only an intimate relationship with an intimate partner, an interpersonal prolonged interaction, only there the true face of everyone involved gets revealed, and only then the narcissist can transition via multiplication from one self-state to another, from overt to covert, from covert to overt, and now to, to, to round it up, to sum it up.

I want to discuss the issue of whether anyone is preferable to the narcissist because this seems to be the behavior of the narcissist's middle partners, the narcissist's business partners, the nurses' friends. They all seem to give up on the narcissist and then proceed to develop relationships, sometimes instant relationships, sometimes one-night relationships with perfect strangers. Does it make sense if you have known the narcissist for years? Does it make sense for you to replace him with a talking stranger overnight? If you have worked with analysis for, for years, does it make sense for you to dump the narcissist and start something with someone totally new? And the answer is yes; it's a rational choice. Consider, for example, they take a perfect stranger. When you're dating a perfect stranger, there is a one to three percent chance of ending up with the narcissist or a psychopath, one to three percent of a population analysis and psychopaths. So when you are with a stranger, that's your child, these are your chances, but when you are with a narcissist or a psychopath, you are 100 percent guaranteed to be with a narcissistic recycler. So it's much better to take the odds of three percent than to take the odds of 100. It is rational to trust and to chance, take chances with strangers and not with the narcissist or the psychopath. And it's wrong to think that spending time with the narcissist, having a relationship with the narcissist, having a previous acquaintance with the narcissist, regardless of length and intensity, should change these calculus because it doesn't. First of all, the psychopathic narcissist is a pathological liar, so his self-reporting is very suspect. Can't learn much by spending time with you. And second thing, from the very first moment he abuses, lies, tortures, manipulates openly throughout any relationship, business, personal. So you gain nothing by spending time with the nurses; you gain nothing. Narcissistic narcissism is, is a guarantee of ultimate loss in abuse. Why take the, why take the chances?

So this is what I wanted to, to tell you that there is no time constancy. Narcissists switch from classic to covert when they go through collapse and multiplication. They switch back from covert to overt when they go from when they go again through collapse, multiplication. And I wanted to reassure you as victims of narcissists, survivors of narcissistic abuse, or people who contemplate being in a relationship with Nazis or exposed to people you suspect a narcissist, it's very rational to walk away, and it's very rational to, to prefer even relationships, even one-night stands, even dating, even with perfect strangers than with the narcissist. You know, because you don't know; there's no such thing as knowing the narcissist. I just demonstrated to you that narcissists have self-states exactly like borderlines, exactly like people with dissociative identity disorder. There's nobody there. And because there's nobody there, anyone can be there, and everyone is there. The narcissist you think you know can suddenly experience narcissistic injury, mortification, a collapse, and he becomes covert, and that's analysis you don't know. Syrup tissues, undermining, underground, passive-aggressive, maliciously dangerous. And then it goes back to being overt via another collapse, another modification, and you have a grandiose abuser with sadistic overtones. Why do you need this? Why do you need any of this? No contact, 1995. I suggested a coherent strategy of no contact in a series of papers, and the no contact strategy is not simply going no contact; it has dozens of steps of what you should do to ascertain that you are in a real no contact state. And I encourage you to watch the videos on my channel, which deal with no content. These transitions, it's a new way of looking at the narcissistic dynamic, but it doesn't really end any meaningful insight to the question today; doesn't really provide a new answer to the question, should I be with him or not? Not.