The Aging Narcissist, Midlife Crisis and Losing Narcissistic Supply

it's time for another ask me anything video and today we're talking about the aging narcissist this has been a frequently asked question from the span alee and other people in the community so how do narcissists change as they get older and how did the family dynamics change in that situation that's exactly what we're talking about today at quimbee.com so let's get started closed captioning provided by athena moberg and c PTSD foundation org my name's names yackin sent on this channel they offer free daily video coaching to help you discover understand and overcome narcissistic abuse and toxic relationships I like to call it toxic relationship rehab so if that sounds good to you hit that subscribe button and let's get going we all know that a narcissist loves to be the center of attention and we all know that they desperately need supplies they need praise they need adoration admiration and as they get older this sometimes becomes harder to get a hold of here's the hard part for narcissists because our society generally considers young people to be beautiful people many aging narcissists struggle now not all narcissist get their approval and attention through their looks but for those who do and even for those who don't the aging process can be really painful getting older because of our societal standards about youth and beauty can certainly mean losing a certain amount of status social standing all of that stuff and of course when the aging narcissist peeks at themselves in the mirror what do you think they see they see someone who's losing out someone who is going downhill and this is devastating for them so as the narcissist gets older they will experience feelings of distress and upset and anger and frustration among other things their interpersonal issues will definitely increase all of their relationships will be affected from the relationships at home all the way to the relationships with people they work with and even strangers they might have a tendency toward feeling depressed or even suicidal since they require narcissistic supply in order to sort of stabilize their own identity the lack of it is a huge detriment to the narcissists identity pathological narcissism is really defined by an unstable self-image so the aging arson we'll often alternate between their attempts to draw attention and get approval and praise to extreme sadness anxiety vulnerability which leads them to increasingly lower its self-esteem you may not be able to read this as you first meet the person or even if you're in a relationship with them because they're still going to act like they have that sense of entitlement and they're still going to act like they're better than you but in addition to the mental health issues that go with pathological narcissism and aging you might notice certain self-destructive behaviors with a narcissist as they get older this might be things like cheating and of course this would include risky sexual behavior they might start driving in a crazy way or start using drugs or alcohol definitely they're going to take more risks and certainly do more in order to get attention from other people they'll become increasingly outrageous it's important to note though that there are potential use of alcohol and drugs and their potential to take unnecessary risks with their lives and the lives of others is certainly reflective of their need for attention but it also allows them to numb themselves in order to overcome any feelings that they have of shame and loneliness and emptiness they may also begin to be very aggressive with you and other people in your life and that's just a straight up reaction to their self-esteem being threatened so what do they do they do a number of different things one of the things they might do in a family situation is they might start to try to live vicariously through children or grandchildren try to get attention that way in some cases the narcissist might be okay that's kind of fading into the background as long as they can get attention and admiration vicariously through one of the other people in their life or in another form so for example rather than brag about their own accomplishments they might start bragging about the accomplishments of their children or grandchildren because somehow they have affected that person or if they don't have children they might take credit for the accomplishments of nieces or nephews or the neighbor's kid anybody they've affected in any way it's all about getting approval for something like hey look what I did I hope that can become amazing so that means it's my experience another thing that happens to the aging narcissist is seriously heavy denial they deny that they're getting older so essentially even though they are getting older they don't let themselves see it so they live in this stage of yeah I'm just a 28 year old like they might even hang out with kids they don't allow themselves to grow old gracefully they allow themselves to walk around looking like someone who is trying too hard to say the very least basically they just don't allow the societal norm to get in their head and in some ways maybe it's a good thing but in reality it can be very difficult and distressing to the people around that person you've seen those old episodes of like Maury where mom dresses like a ho give her a makeover that kind of stuff well this is how those people sometimes react to aging they just never stop thinking they're young and beautiful and they keep dressing and acting like they are now that's a really confusing thing because there's no reason that we shouldn't feel beautiful when we're over a certain age but it's about respecting yourself and treating yourself with respect narcissists seem to treat themselves with respect but so often their vanity seems to get the best of them this might lead a narcissist to do things that can be really harmful for them like over the years they might get ridiculous amounts of plastic surgery or liposuction and repeated episodes of surgery are dangerous for anybody and the older we get the more dangers it might become a lot of narcissists will actually begin to cheat if they haven't already with younger people in their relationships just because they need to feel attractive look aging is not easy for a lot of us it means losing our excitement losing our glow facing our own mortality it's scary and painful for anybody but for me I've seen a lot of really positive things for example 20 years ago I was broke as a joke today I'm a lot healthier and a lot better I know a lot more than I knew in my 20s I am relishing watching my children grow up I wish they'd slow down a little but I'm really enjoying that and that's an amazing part of getting older I understand who I am as a person in ways I never did in my 20s I've let go of things that don't matter in the world like I don't focus on things I can't control I'm generally 100% healthier and happier than I was in my 20s but aging narcissists do something a little different they become bitter and angry instead of growing up and doing a little better for themselves maturing getting smarter wisdom that kind of stuff they kind of remain emotionally they stay where they always have been they see getting older as a series of failures on their part like I said they deal with the denial and they also throw rage in their resentment and of course eventually sometimes resignation where they just give up because they held on so tightly to the way they looked or their money or their stuff the connections they had even their fame if they were famous they become increasingly self-centered if you can imagine they become very needy and it's an intense form of neediness that makes their children and the people around them feel miserable they might deal with depression they might deal with all kinds of things and I've even heard more than one story where an aging narcissist took their own life you feel victimized by everything they blame other people for all the things that are wrong in their life that's pretty common for narcissists basically they become an extreme terrible version of what they were before they become their worst selves they are still abusive they're still mean they're angry and bitter stiff and rigid incredibly paranoid defensive isolated and desperate they live in their delusions another thing that tends to happen is that because they're so selfish and self focused and because they have no empathy and no compassion for other people as they get older their friendships kind of dwindles sometimes at least the real friendships they kind of end up alone isolated if their spouses are still with them they probably withdrawn in order to defend themselves and so they're not getting a lot of positive feedback there and many times the spouses have been gone for a while because they recognized what they were dealing with they got the heck out of there can't blame them if they have adult children and the children are aware of what's going on then many times they've cut contact or at least physically or emotionally backed away from the person because of their toxic Ness if they have grandchildren they may not even know their grandchildren again because they're adult children put boundaries in place to protect their children even neighbors and friends probably have pulled away at least up to a point because of the ridiculous amount of arrogance and insecurity and selfish crap that the narcissist spits of them or because of their rudeness or their sense of entitlement or the way they act like they're better than everybody something interesting that happens to a lot of aging narcissists is that because so many of their people have backed away from them and their social status is gone they don't really have a lot of things to talk about or think about so a lot of them will start to think they superior to other people because of who those people are so you'll see a lot of bigotry coming out in these people they might become a racist or they might become an anti-gay person or they might become a sexist it makes them feel like they've got more power if they can feel like they're better than someone because of the color of their skin or their sexuality or their sex it's pretty ridiculous but it's a common thing there's a little more information for you take a look in essence the narcissist feels like they've been denied the very supply that they need to exist the proverbial wife's blood of the narcissist is narcissistic supply from other people this leads them dov course to narcissistic injury and as the collapsed narcissists rise helplessly in the pain of not getting what they want what they believe they're do what they think that they need to exist whether it's meeting some big goal or simply getting the admiration and praise they feel they rightly deserve their whole world starts to feel like it's falling down around them the narcissist loses self-esteem and their self-image is merely erased they begin to self devalue self-doubt they literally hate themselves to the point that they project this self hate onto everybody around them since everyone hates me they think the narcissist well they may as well hate him back right all right now this brings me to the question of the day and the question of the day is do you have an ageing narcissist in your life and did any of these things remain true for you and what would you add to this discussion share your thoughts share your ideas share your experiences in the comments section below and let's talk about it I want to say a really sincere heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you who subscribes to my channel shares my videos likes my videos comments on my videos you are all part of my family and I am so grateful for each of you thank you so much it means the world to me I can't express my gratitude enough honestly thank you and while I'm at it I just want to offer a quick 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Channel: Angie Atkinson

Views: 200,001

Rating: 4.8916979 out of 5

Keywords: aging narcissist, aging narcissist and dementia, aging narcissist male, aging narcissist woman, the aging narcissist man, aging female narcissist, aging narcissistic father, aging narcissistic mother, aging narcissistic parent, grandiosity gap, mental illness, midlife crisis, narcissistic abuse, narcissistic supply, personality disorder, toxic people, toxic relationships, angie atkinson, narcissist, narcissism, narcissistic personality disorder, invalidation, codependent, anger

Id: JA3TeWmM4yY

Length: 12min 28sec (748 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 24 2019