What Happens When A Narcissist Loses Power? (After Reactions)
What happens when a Narcissist loses Power? The reaction of narcissists may vary depending upon their entire personality and personality traits. It is essential to note that the behavior of a narcissist is not an inevitable outcome and individuals can learn to manage their emotions and reactions.
Narcissists just cannot bear when they lose, be it losing power, control, or anything. They hate the word losing and also they have a tendency to excel at everything they do include behaving with others. So they might always be ready for counter-attacking when they think they are losing.
What is power according to a narcissist?
Power is the potential or ability to do something, to have something, to gain something, to influence behavior, act, or any circumstance. A powerful person has the authority of controlling or influencing that given particular contextual field, or people. So narcissists crave power as they love controlling everything and everyone.
According to a narcissist, power is about being in control of everything and everyone around them. They use power to exaggerate their self-importance, manipulate and exploit others, obtain admiration, and maintain superiority over others.
Narcissists thrive on being in positions of power and authority and use it as a tool to boost their ego and feed their sense of entitlement. For them, power is not taking responsibility or working for the purpose of serving others, but it is merely about gaining control and dominating others.
Narcissists and power are directly proportional to each other. Anything that brings power or is a tool for expressing power is liked by a narcissist. Narcissists are inclined towards positions that make them feel special, entitled, and superior to others; be it the boss of a company, head of the family, leader to any group, or any position that may give them accessibility to power and its disposition on others.
How power can be incompetent when it is conferred upon unsuited people(someone who might abuse the power)?
According to Clinical research published in “The Atlantic”, the magazine; a well-known and trustworthy publishing platform that is the basis for the article here which is utilized to conclude answers for, “How Power Corrupts the mind”;
According to an experiment conducted at Columbia University by, Andy J. Yap, a postdoctoral researcher, “When people feel powerful or feel powerless, it influences their perception of others.”
According to the conclusion of the experiment conducted by Andy J. Yap; it was concluded that “Power can mess with our heads”.
He also added, there are a few predictable ways in which people react to power. While across the world may be seen as preposterous and may come at various far-fetched costs, but while conducting the experiment in the lab, it was compared to be much simpler. Just asking a person when they felt the most powerful can put them in a different state of mind.
While the researchers have also found that in order to make someone feel powerful, just putting them in a dominating position is more than enough. This research finally concludes that power can be messy but at the same time, it can take a person to a differently elevating state of mind.
What Happens When A Narcissist Loses Power? (After Reactions)
Power brings the feeling and experience of having control and importance that elicits a sense of security and confidence. Some people, that also include narcissists, go to greater lengths to wield power over others. They are notorious for their insatiable craving for power, attention, validation, and attention. They will do whatever it takes to adduce themselves and maintain their superiority over others.
Narcissists are individuals who are excessively self-absorbed and have an inflated sense of their importance, achievements, and abilities. They often project a confident and charming facade to the world, but behind the scenes, they are manipulative, exploitative, and abusive. They are also driven by the need for admiration and approval from others. They see people as tools to serve their interests and hardly care about their feelings, emotions, and well-being.
Narcissism is a personality disorder that affects probably a significant number of people. Narcissists rely on their narcissistic supply to function appropriately for their day-to-day tasks. Narcissists often display a range of troubling behaviors which are totally moral for them but can be troublesome for others.
When a narcissist finds themselves losing in any situation and especially control, power, or face a potential threat to their ego, their inflated self-image, and their believability, they react in a few ways or manner. So let us explore some of the typical after-reactions of a narcissist when they feel their power or control is slipping away.
1. Narcissistic Injury
Narcissistic injury can be defined as a phenomenon or circumstance that can cause damage to a narcissist’s fragile and sensitive ego. They face this when they feel they are rejected, criticized, blamed, insulted, ghosted, ignored, lose control, power, admiration, and so on. Narcistsc injuries are psychological as they affect their mental health and leave a huge impact on them. Narcissists can not let go of things, people, and situations that easily and so due to their dissatisfied selves, they are prone to such psychological injuries which are known as narcissistic injuries.
2. They are most likely to lash out in anger,
Narcissists may react aggressively over losing power or control. Rage is the narcissist’s first and only reaction to all kinds of mishaps. When they perceive a threat to their ego, they may lash out at those they feel are responsible. This can take various forms like verbal abuse or even physical violence.
A narcissist’s thought processes and reflexes are a little impossible to predict precisely. They act impulsively out of rage when proven wrong or pointed fingers at. Narcissists are passive-aggressive beings, who fail to connect emotionally with their loved ones hence they use various methods to feel powerful. Their actions always differ from what they have to say or believe.
What is Narcissistic Rage?
Narcissistic rage is a counter-reaction or a defense mechanism utilized by a narcissist to shield themselves and save their grandiosity, superiority, esteem, self-worth, and their shiny spotless image from the arrows of setback, shame, inefficiency, disappointment, vulnerabilities, and anything that can devalue their worth.
Rage is usually defined as an extremely violent and out-of-control anger burst. The intensity of hostility, wrath, outrage, and outburst of violent words and actions is higher with rage as compared to anger. Rage is one of their most used emotion and when a narcissist is hurt by someone else, they would take it out on the person who is closest to them. Sometimes a narcissist just shuts down their emotions and chooses methods like rage, ignoring, silent treatment, blocking, or even disappearing for days.
3. They might launch a smear campaign
The Narcissist’s Smear Campaign is when the narcissist presents someone as bad and lies to others about what that someone has been doing to them. Narcissists can lie bluntly to save themselves and their image and destroy someone else’s image just to save their own image. Narcissists smear your image when they can no longer control you or have power over you, or when they want to teach you some sort of lesson just because you did not act according to the way they want.
During a smear campaign, the narcissist goes around telling everyone about how their ex-partner or a family member, a friend, or whom so ever it is by whom the smear campaign was influenced, how nasty their behavior was, to tell the relationship gossip and tell tales about how their relationship started on a good note but ended on a bad note just because of the other party whom they project as bad.
Narcissists would try to save their own selves by acting the victim and hiding their real toxic selves they project all the bad that they have done with you onto you and tag you as the bad person here claiming all the bad or the wrongdoings under your name.
4. They might make attempts to regain power
Narcissists are often driven by a need for power and control. When they lose that power they may become obsessed with regaining it. They may seek out new sources of power and control, like trying to get into a new relationship, or positions of authority either at the workplace, at home, or anywhere they may gain their power back. They might also choose to go with getting materialistic possessions to regain their power through expensive and out of reach life style, through which they might try to establish their power in position.
Narcissists might also engage in abusive and manipulative tactics like gaslighting, disregarding their partner, undermining those they perceive as potential threats to their dominance and power, and much more. Narcissists may go to any possible length to re-establish their power so that they can be in control again.
5. Depression and Anxiety
When a narcissist loses their power, they may feel a sense of existential despair and emptiness. A narcissist may struggle to come to terms with their downfall and may start feeling powerless, abandoned, and worthless. This can lead to feelings of anxiety, and depression and they might also have to seek professional help to treat this depression and anxiety. The narcissist may become sad, depressed, or unhappy when they realize they are losing power. This may lead to feelings like hopelessness, despair, anguish, and melancholy.
6. They may become hostile and aggressive
When something triggers a narcissist, in this case losing power and control, especially an overt narcissist, in this case, a narcissistic collapse, their first reaction is aggression and hostility. Narcissistic collapse may trigger a narcissist’s ill-intended side and thus they may act viciously or harshly. They would be all hyped up and agitated. Narcissists cannot bear when they lose control of the situation. Lashing out is their go-to reaction for anything that triggers them. They can be brutal and say some things that may hurt you severely and you might face their rage too.
The pre-eminent reaction of a narcissist to any bothersome event in their life is anger, rage, or wrath. Narcissists would be so overwhelmed when they lose their power that they might also resort to rage.
What Happens When A Narcissist has too much Power?
- When a narcissist has too much power, they tend to manipulate someone or some situation which can be dangerous.
- Usually, a narcissist may not be seen as a socially reliable person as they may be seen as someone who might exploit.
- Too much power can make a person perform many socially unacceptable acts.
- Power can make a person proactive, and responsive, that is if a person holds greater power, they might not make any first attempts, and they might gain a sense of entitlement due to power which is already ingrained trait for a narcissist, but with more power, it just doubles up.
- With narcissists, power may seem like a tool to exploit others rather than using it for their betterment as narcissists crave a sense of entitlement, control, superior, and the upper hand in situations, wider perspectives, big opportunities, monetary gains, an advantage in situations and a way to be better than others. And all this is provided by increasing power.
Why do Narcissists crave power?
Narcissists crave for power because they have an insatiable need for attention, validation, admiration, and control over others. Power enables them to fulfill their desire for attention and control as well as enhance their self-esteem and maintain the illusion of superiority. They believe that having power makes them better than everyone else, makes them feel more entitled, and also allows them to sidetrack or ignore the feelings of insecurity and vulnerability which are very common in their shallow life.
Power provides them a sense of importance and they believe that with the power they can hide behind a strong and fake personality that may impress others. Thus power is a core element of their personality, and they are willing to do whatever it takes to acquire and retain power, even if it means hurting, manipulating, and abusing their dear ones.
Conclusion
When a narcissist loses power their reaction can be many a time unpredictable and may also be potentially dangerous. Some narcissists though might be able to handle the situation with grace, but this is a rare case scenario referring to a narcissist.
In most of the cases when a narcissist loses power, they become volatile, abusive, self-destructive, aggressive, and sometimes out of control. So when this happens, seeking help from professionals might become necessary. Seeking help in the form of therapy might make things a little better.
From Relationship, Depression, and Personality Disorder to Narcissistic problems, I have helped a lot of people find their solutions. Upon gathering a number of common problems that people face, I decided to put the information on this blog so that anyone can get their answers easily.
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