Today, we’re talking about what happens as the narcissist ages and what that will mean for the significant others or family members who still have to deal with a narcissist. Let’s face it, none of us particularly likes aging, but for the majority of us, we at least try to age gracefully. We enjoy seeing our children take center stage with their lives as adults, and we enjoy slowing down and relaxing a little bit. However, for narcissists, this isn’t true. Narcissists have been living in a false reality of their own design and have become accustomed to being the star of the show—the person everyone caters to and the best at everything. In their fictional world, they are constantly looking at the people in their lives to reflect an image back to them that validates this fake and delusional reality they want to believe: that they are perfect, special, unique, and superior to other people. However, as they age, the reflection they’re getting back from the people around them isn’t so great and certainly isn’t in alignment with the fake image of themselves that they have created. Now they aren’t admired the way they once were. The people that surround them have grown tired of the pathological lying and the constant gaslighting. This, in turn, drops the potency of the narcissistic supply that they are desperate to obtain, which triggers the true self buried deep within that feels incredibly inferior and shameful. Those feelings are unbearable to the narcissist, and because of these things, the behaviors of the narcissist become much, much worse.
One of the first things that you will see is they become much more manipulative. Now, many of you might think that’s not possible because the narcissist in your life is currently insanely manipulative and that it couldn’t get any worse, but I am here to tell you it absolutely can become worse. First of all, they have years and years of experience manipulating people, so they are old pros at the manipulation game when they get older. Additionally, they will have more time on their hands, and narcissists in general bore very, very quickly. They are constantly trying to fight off boredom, and because they have much more time on their hands in their older years, they utilize that time doing things to cause chaos in the lives of their loved ones. So you can expect higher levels of triangulation attempts, lots and lots of projection, deflection, gaslighting, and stonewalling. Anything to make life more difficult and stressful for those around them is going to increase in frequency and intensity.
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Next, as the narcissist gets older, you will see a drastic increase in the levels of delusional thinking and paranoia that they have. Now, narcissists in general are quite paranoid people anyway. I think one of the main reasons that narcissists are paranoid is because they know that they can’t be trusted. They know how they manipulate and exploit other people, so they assume others are as deceptive as they are and are out to take advantage of them. However, as they get into their later years, this paranoia takes on a life of its own. The narcissist now is suspicious of all kinds of things: people, culture, businesses, political parties—you name it. They start to believe everyone and everything is out to get them, steal from them, and exploit them in some manner. This paranoia can get so bad that people might think the narcissist has schizophrenia and is hearing voices; however, it’s simply their pathology getting worse and taking over their beliefs and perceptions. This is beyond exhausting for the people in their lives.
Another thing that you will typically see increase in severity as the narcissist ages is their bigotry. Most narcissists become bigoted about certain things pretty early in life. One of the main reasons that narcissists become bigots is because, in their mind, this supports their fantasy land reality that they are superior beings. So they may be sexist or homophobic or racist. They may come to have extreme polarizing political beliefs, or they may be a religious bigot, condemning any other religion or person who believes differently than they do. They come to have these totalitarian beliefs about all kinds of things. Essentially, whatever it is that they are anti becomes much, much more intense as they age. Whatever or whoever they use as a scapegoat to degrade, demoralize, humiliate, and demonize in order for them to feel special and superior will become more extreme and can become all-consuming to the aging narcissist.
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Another thing that you will witness as the narcissist ages is that the abuse they subject others to is going to increase in frequency and intensity. One of the main reasons this happens is because they are going to be losing the levels of narcissistic supply that they have become dependent on. So as the levels of narcissistic supply decrease, that will cause them to have more and more narcissistic injuries or blows to their inflated ego. When that happens, it hits their true self that feels very vulnerable and inferior, which in turn will cause them to become very upset and emotionally dysregulated. When that happens, the way they emotionally regulate themselves is through abusing and humiliating other people. They essentially project those horrible feelings and beliefs they have about their true self onto those around them. Many times, they will fly into a very frightening narcissistic rage. That is how they neutralize or equalize the narcissistic injury they received. When the rage is over, the false self feels empowered and is back in the driver’s seat, and they feel better. All is good in their world again, but they could care less that they have made everyone around them suffer through the horror of their abuse. Because they feel better, they expect everyone they just abused and emotionally assaulted to be completely over it when they are. It’s quite shocking to watch a narcissist go from a violent rage into a quiet, calm, and controlled demeanor in a matter of minutes. I remember those days very well. My father would have a terrifying rage where I’d be crying so hard I was hyperventilating, and when it was over, he would look right at me and tell me to go wash my face. That’s how I knew the rage was over, and now I had to get myself together and act as if nothing happened. That’s a very surreal and incredibly confusing experience for a child to try to make sense of and process, but that’s how these people operate.
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Another thing you will see as the narcissist ages is how truly pathetic they really are. You will see how desperate they are to obtain narcissistic supply. You will witness how the delusional and irrational thinking becomes more and more outrageous and completely illogical as they age. The mask they wear starts to slip off more and more, revealing a very damaged, desperate, abusive, delusional, and pathetic human being. You will witness their inability to be happy and content the way other older people are who are surrounded by their loving families. You will see their attempts at manipulation start to fail, and the lies they tell become simply desperate and pathetic. You will see the panic that they exhibit in their desperate attempts to gain control over the beliefs, perceptions, and lives of others. It’s incredibly sad to watch, and they are unable to help themselves. They are incapable of self-reflection. They refuse to take accountability for anything they have done, and they will continue to promote this phony and false narrative that they are somehow the hero, the victim, or the martyr in the lives of their loved ones. They will become angry and bitter that they cannot con people the way they used to and will feel more and more victimized by their inevitable loss of control. They become more dependent on others, which all narcissists hate, and they become much needier than they were when they were younger.
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