“I bet it gets pretty lonely with only your ego for company.”
― Never Fade
The duality of a narcissistic collapse
Like many many writers, I can find inspiration for stories in almost any source. Movies, TV shows, environments, conversations, memories, altercations, other literary works, and even the feelings from all of those sources. It’s a very common superpower for artists. Now! On occasion, I find music to be a great source of inspiration for story writing. For example, I used “It’s Quiet Uptown” from the musical, Hamilton as the basis for my 27th short story, The Burden of Parenthood (click here). But, before that, I had a song stuck in my head for the longest time.
Back in the mid-2010s, I was going through a bit of a P!nk surge. I was listening to all of your songs and watching all of your music videos on my phone for a better part of a month. P!nk has always been one of my favorite female artists because she is unapologetically authentic. She was never going to change herself to please anybody and her song “Raise Your Glass” (click here to view) has been one of many anthems in my life growing up. This time around, though, I had “Please Don’t Leave Me” stuck in my mind. Even as I write this, I have it queued up on YouTube. It’s a fantastic song.
Go ahead…click here and give it a listen/view.
So, anyway, as I watching the music video, I was beginning to notice all of the references to Stephen King’s work, specifically Misery and The Shining. I don’t know if she’s a fan of his work or if the director is but I adored it either way. In fact, I loved it so much that I ended up watching that video over 1000 times throughout the month. Yeah, I’m not exaggerating; my friend had to put a ban on the song because he was getting tired of hearing me and his daughter singing it.
Later on in life (last year), I began to do research on Narcissistic Personality Disorder as a side hobby of mine. I’ve been doing that for a few short stories but I ended up really enjoying the research so I kept up with it. It’s really engaging and Dr. Ramani is a wonderful teacher of the subject so I recommend checking out her YouTube Channel (click here) to learn from her. Anyway, I was doing some reading while listening to the song and, suddenly…something clicked in me.
Every villain ends up collapsing in the end – either physically or mentally. More often than not, mentally. And, for narcissists, it may be a slow hit, but it is a devastatingly hard hit. Now, I must confess I’ve never seen the “collapse of a narcissist” but I couldn’t help but think about it.
How would it look? What would they be going through? Who would they have left to blame? What further harm could they possibly do? What happens when all of their narcissistic supply is stripped from them and they can’t get any new source? I think you can gather where this is heading and you would be right but in the traditional sense. But I’m not going to tell you. You’re just going to have to read it for yourself. And, with that, I hope you enjoy the story.
You can buy the book on Amazon. The link is here.
You can also learn about it on Goodreads. The link for it is here.
