The Ageing Narcissist : Part One

I am often asked about the effects of the advancement of time on our kind. I have written about how this affected one of my uncles, Robert and how I have laid plans to explain how his fate will not befall me. What, though, of how the advancement of time and aging impacts on our kind more generally? The standard question that is asked is whether a narcissist will get better or worse with age. As you might expect, it is not as straight forward as that as it will depend on the cadre of narcissist and the relevant school.

The Victim Cadre

All of our kind see ourselves as victims and will make use of emotional blackmail, pity plays and drives for sympathy as part of the narcissistic arsenal to further our aims, but one cadre of narcissist takes it to an extreme and relies on sympathy, pity and being cared for more often and more intensely and thus amounts to being a Victim Narcissist.

The Lesser Victim

Age will give the LVN more to complain about, more to point to and more to seek sympathy for. Used to already drawing his fuel primarily through the application of concern, sympathy and caring, he can look forward to getting more of this as time advances. As his illnesses become worse, his flesh weakens and his conditions become all the more debilitating he will rely heavily on gaining his fuel from his primary source who is likely to be his primary carer. Lacking the ability to seek fuel from fraternising with new sources, the LVN will look to have his fuel levels maintained by the primary source and a small group of family and friends.

He will be something of a curmudgeon, always complaining about his aches and pains in order to draw that fuel and will be seen as a burden. Lacking control, he will often erupt when he feels he is not being cared for and his physical pains become too great for him. He will have chosen most likely a Carrier Empath to shoulder this burden but if the primary source should ever escape, although this is less likely as the relevant primary source will have been selected for his or her quality caring and domestic attributes, he is likely to be moved to a care home where a succession of carers will be shunted between primary – non intimate – sources and secondary sources.

The LVN in advanced age will struggle to find a replacement intimate partner primary source if he or she is lost. This is because the LVN relies on solely his need to be mothered and looked after as his ‘selling point’. His own parents will be dead and therefore they cannot be promoted to primary source and he will lack the mobility and cognitive function to seduce a new intimate partner primary source. He can do this when younger, when his conditions are not as extensive and he finds that especially caring individual but when he is much older, he does not have this option. He has neither charm, money or intellect to draw a younger appliance to him and therefore the LVN runs the risk of losing the long-standing primary source through his rants and tantrums.

He will find himself trying to rely on family members, possibly brother, sisters or children, as secondary sources but none will be willing to adopt the mantle of primary source as they will have their own lives to lead and unless the LVN can sustain fuel from these secondary sources along with professional carers also as secondary sources, he faces a diminution in fuel which will add a further weakness to the physical and mental ones which have already amassed. Decrepitude is inevitable.

The aged LVN becomes even more unappealing with age. Furious at his limitations, unable to control that fury, but weakened from fuel losses, his is an unpleasant dotage. He will lash out at those who care for him, running the risk of isolating them and becoming the author of his own misfortune as he is visited less and less by a reducing pool of friends and family. If able to secure professional care, he will be regarded as a cantankerous and unpleasant charge for those caring for him who only do so out of a sense of professional obligation and therefore the fuel provided by these professional caregivers will be limited. He will invariably lack mobility and even access to technology is unlikely to assist through reduced cognitive function, diminished hearing and eyesight.

He will also have led a life which has been poor in terms of health and hygiene. He may well have issues with drink and will turn to this in particular as he slowly drinks himself to death, using it as a crutch against the cruelty of the world leaving him in this manner. He will sink into a routine of demanding his fix of drink or tobacco, caring not for the deleterious impact it will have, but rather needing the short-term boost it provides him with, oblivious to the downward spiral he has embarked on.

A combination of poor lifestyle choices, pre-existing health problems and the potential loss of a primary source caregiver, with other sources remaining away owing to the unpleasant, nasty and malodorous nature of the LVN means that they are more likely to face death in their 50s and 60s.

The LVN, unable to control his beast, will frighten away those but the most hardy and thus he runs a considerable risk of descending into decrepitude, alone, furious and unloved as his already shortened days come to an ignominious end.

The Mid-Range Victim

The MRVN follows a similar path to that of the LVN. Age will not be kind to him, increasing his discomfort, exacerbating his pain and making him rail against the unfairness of his situation. Whereas the LVN becomes the architect of his isolation by his inability to keep his fury under control at those around him, the MRVN has an increased cognitive function which he or she will put to better use.

The MRVN will retain some degree of charm, though nowhere near the standard of the greater, but he will be able to amuse and draw people to him, politely seeking their assistance with lowering him into the bath or rubbing lotions into his aching limbs. He does not like this reliance but has enough awareness to realise that he needs the assistance of others and he also has sufficient control over his fury to avoid lashing out in a fit of temper against those he needs to care for him

The MRVN stands a better chance of holding on to his primary source and also recognises that this person not only cares for him and thus provides fuel, but will provide a host of residual benefits and accordingly his machinations will mellow as he ages. He has enough acumen to recognise that having someone cook, clean and care for him as he ages is a useful trade-off for sticking with the same person. The likelihood of infidelity will diminish considerably from an already low point since Victim Narcissists have little interest in sex but rather use their general incompetence or impotence in that arena to garner the sympathy that fuels them. They have no need to be applauded for being a sexual Olympian when they can roll out a pity play for the inability to perform and blame it on some long-standing imagined fear.

As the MRVN ages there will be a lessening of the drama that once existed and with decreased energy levels he can no longer sustain the playing off of people against one another and instead focuses on just receiving their emotional attention and being cared for. He will use his moderate degree of charm to ask people to come and see him, pretending to take an interest in what the grandchildren are doing or how his favourite nephew is getting on with his new job. He will place a sprinkling of sugar in order to get those secondary sources to pay heed to him. The MRVN will make particular use of familial secondary sources during his dotage and indeed the primary source can witness a lessening of their burden as a ‘reward’ for sticking with the MRVN. If these mild charm offensives do not work however, what you will notice is that what fury is ignited will manifest as emotional blackmail and sulking as the MRVN coerces secondary sources into caring for him and visiting to provide fuel.

‘I am your father, not that it seems to matter to you, you haven’t visited me in two weeks.’

‘I will just sit here on my own shall I while you gad about, you selfish so and so.’

‘Old Bill gets plenty of visitors so I am left wondering where mine are.’

The family and friends of the MRVN can expect such spikey comments to be made in telephone calls and messages for the purposes of emotionally blackmailing those sources into providing fuel.

The MRVN will ensure he is well-cared for with a motivated primary source and plenty of secondary sources, galvanised through the carrot of mild charm or the stick of emotional blackmail. He is unlikely to struggle for fuel and recognises the considerable advantages of keeping onside the primary and secondary sources for the residual benefits. He is not as short-sighted, either literally or figuratively, as the LVN. For the most part, his demeanour will improve, save for occasional sulks and silent treatments, but these will not be as prolific as when he was younger. His old age will be comfortable for him as he is content to settle into the routine of being cared for and given a reasonable level of fuel , able to recognise his limitations and control his fury, for the most part. Those around him will find the occasional period of self-centred sulking and demands for assistance, but will most likely find him to be less arduous that he was when was younger.

The MRVN will have taken a reasonably sensible course through life and notwithstanding his ailments and physical shortcomings, he will have sufficient charm and economic power to ensure that the autumn of his life is relatively comfortable, if restricted. He will confine himself to his ‘tower’ and expect others to attend on him.

The Greater Victim

This combination of cadre and school does not exist.

Part Two will address the Somatic cadre and the relevant schools applicable to that type of narcissist.