 Hello everyone in another video with our guest, a professor Sam Vaknyin. If someone doesn't know him, give me a minute and I would love to introduce him. He's a visiting professor of psychology, Southern Federal University Rostov-Ondon in Russia, and the author of Malignan Self-Love Narcissism Revisited. And of course a professor of finance and psychology in SIEAS, in Center for International Advanced and Professional Studies. Hello again. Finally I know who I am. What a feeling, what an amazing feeling. So Sam, thank you for having me. Thank you for saying yes. So today I would like to speak with you about, I think, yeah, it's a really important topic about why breaking up with NPD is so difficult and why NPD has so many difficulties to breaking up, for example with BPD or DPD. And I think, yeah, it's a lot of misunderstanding around this and yeah, I would love to dive into this topic. People think that the narcissist is totally autonomous, independent, strong, dominant, alpha male or alpha female and so on and so forth. And of course the truth is exactly the opposite. Narcissism is a post-traumatic condition. The narcissist is needy, he's exactly like a codependent. Both the codependent and the narcissist are needy. They just need different things but they are both needy. The narcissist is addicted to narcissistic supply and without narcissistic supply, he falls apart, he falls to pieces so he needs supply and more precisely, he is dependent upon sources of narcissistic supply. Clinically speaking, there is no distinction between codependency and narcissism. Both of them involve external regulation. In narcissism, the narcissist regulates his internal environment by obtaining feedback from outside sources. Similarly, the codependent regulates her internal environment by obtaining input from an external source, her intimate partner. So they both go out, they outsource, they both go out of themselves to regulate their internal environment, their emotions, their moods, etc. In this sense, narcissists and codependents are mirror images. The narcissist needs to be seen in a highly specific way but he needs to be seen, he needs to be noticed. The borderline and codependent need to be needed. The crucial element in borderline and codependency is, as my wife keeps saying in her work, the need to be needed. So this is a perfect match, it's a match made in heaven because the codependent finds, I will say women and men, although it applies to all genders. So the codependent finds a man who is needy, who needs her and she needs to be needed so it gratifies her fully, satisfies all her needs and makes her feel safe. She needs to feel safe and if she is needed, she feels safe only when she is needed. So the narcissist needs her and makes her feel safe with him. She feels safe with the narcissist. There's another element and that is the false self. The false self of the narcissist is perfect. All-knowing, omniscient, all-powerful, omnipotent, godlike, brilliant, etc. In other words, the false self of a narcissist is a parental figure. It's how we see our parents when we are 18 months old or two years old. We regard our parents as all-knowing, all-powerful, infallible, never make mistakes, godlike, godlike figures. The narcissist has the false self and the codependent binds with the false self as a parental figure. So the narcissist becomes in a way a substitute parent for the codependent, which makes her feel very, very safe again. So she feels safe in two ways with the narcissist. One, the narcissist needs her for supply and so on. And second thing, the narcissist's false self is a substitute parental figure. She cannot feel safe this way with any other type of men, only with the narcissist. Same goes for the borderline. And this is the secret sauce, this is the glue that holds these psychological profiles together. Now the narcissist takes advantage of the codependence of borderline's neediness. What the narcissist does, he idealizes the codependent and the borderline. And then he gives the borderline and he gives the codependent access to this idealized image. He makes them fall in love with their own idealized image, which is a form of self-love. And then this creates a very strong bond, a very strong attachment, because self-love is the most powerful form of love. And if you don't have self-love, you miss out on a lot. For example, you're unable to love other people, you're unable to have intimacy, you're unable to have relationships. For the first time usually in the life of the codependent and the borderline, she experiences self-love. She doesn't love her real self, she loves her idealized self. And this gives the narcissist enormous power over her. So there are many, many dynamics at play which bind these profiles together and it's very difficult to break this apart. Part of it is the trauma, but actually it's not the big part. Trauma bonding is not the big part in these relationships. It's opposite actually. It's the feeling of safety. It's the feeling of being mutually needed. It's the feeling of self-love via idealization. Actually the dynamic between narcissist and borderline and narcissist is codependent is largely positive, not negative. Because if you go online and if you read texts and some, they say that what binds the narcissist and the borderline is trauma bonding. There is element of trauma bonding, but there are many other elements which are essentially positive. Which is why it's extremely difficult to break this particular bond. Yeah, I do agree. And also when I'm working with my clients, I can see this pattern, this scheme. Like if you don't want me, you will need me. So this is, I think also what you are talking about, need to be needy, right? And yeah, it's also important. But also it's one of the ingredients in this group. It's also to be feel worthy, not only safe, but like to be worthy, finally, for codependent and for VPD. Yes, the sense of self-worth in a codependent, exactly like in a narcissist. The sense of self-worth is regulated from the outside, is externally regulated. When she is needed, she feels worthy. Because typical codependent was brought up to feel that she is a good object, that she is worthwhile, that she can be loved, that she is lovable, only if she provides services. Only if she is needed. Only if she helps, only if she supports, only if she performs. So it's performance-based. Both the narcissist and the codependent as children, they were loved conditionally. They received love only if they performed. The narcissist had to perform, you know, like in a circus, like in a theater. The narcissist had to show as a child that he is intelligent, unusually intelligent, he had to get good marks at school. He had to collaborate with one of the parents in a parentifying role. He had to fulfill the dreams and the wishes of the parent, dreams and wishes which were not realized and frustrated the parent, et cetera, et cetera. So the narcissist got the message, you are not lovable unless you perform. Same with the codependent, exactly the same with the codependent. She received the message, you are not lovable unless you help me, unless you support me, unless you provide me with services. So she learned that to obtain love, she must find someone who needs her. She must be needed. And then she feels that she's a good object, a worthy object, you know, and so on. So this is the dynamic between these two. And the dynamic is extremely powerful. Again, I repeat, because it's largely positive, actually. The codependent can experience for the first time in her life a stable need, a need that doesn't diminish or doesn't fluctuate. The narcissist needs supply all the time, so there's a sense of stability. She also experiences self-love. She's idealized exactly as a good enough mother should have done, had a good mother idealizes her baby because babies are a big pain in the ass, excuse me for the expression, you know, they do all kinds of crazy things. Mother needs to idealize the baby in order to be able to love the baby. So there's a lot of idealization in the beginning. The codependent, when she meets the narcissist, the codependent regresses completely into her childhood. The narcissist with all his partners, even with partners who are not codependent, he pushes them back to childhood. He acts as the mother. The narcissist acts as in a maternal role. And so the minute the narcissist acts as the good enough mother and tells you, you're perfect, you're brilliant, you're amazing, you're super intelligent, you're drop dead gorgeous, you know, the minute he does this to you, the minute he idealizes you, he becomes your mother. But to receive this from him, you must become a child. Because if he's your mother, you must be a child. Otherwise, the interaction is not possible. So when you meet the narcissist, he idealizes you. He becomes your mother and you become a child. In order to receive this from him, this self-love of your idealized image, you need to become a child. You regress. The codependent regresses, the borderline regresses when they meet the narcissist. And then they have a second chance to be a child. They have a second childhood. And it is like maybe this childhood will be different. Maybe this time, maybe this time I will be loved. Maybe this time I will be accepted. Maybe this time. So it's a unique experience that only the narcissist can give them this second childhood. Yes. And this is also important what you said because sometimes many people are convinced that they have been chosen by NPD because of the empathy or because of the compassion or another characteristic. And it's not even, I think, about that. It's not at all about that. This is a serious grave mistake. The narcissist regards, as I said yesterday, the narcissist regards empathy as a threat. So he would regard an empathic person as a threatening person. The narcissist doesn't select for empathy. The narcissist selects an intimate partner who is vulnerable in the sense that the intimate partner wants to be idealized. Now this could be a codependent, a borderline or normal person. She wants to be idealized because she had never experienced unconditional love and therefore never developed self-love. Rosenberg, I think, calls it self-love deficit. And I like that phrase. So she didn't experience self-love. She has a deficit. The narcissist comes in and says, listen, let's try again. Let's start from the beginning. I will make you a baby. I will make you a baby. I will be your mother and I will allow you to experience unconditional love as an idealized figure. And then you can begin to love yourself. So the narcissist is perceived as a second chance at fixing everything that had gone wrong in childhood. That is enormous binding power, enormous bonding power. That's why it's extremely difficult to break. And the narcissist doesn't want his partner to empathize with him because how can anyone empathize with the narcissist? To empathize means that you are like me. We have something in common, but you're not like me. And we have nothing in common. I'm God, you're human. We cannot have anything in common. If you tell me that you're empathizing with me, you're insulting me. So he doesn't look for empathy. He looks for vulnerability. He looks for neediness. He looks for self-love deficit. And in this sense, the narcissist is really a predator. That part is true. But he doesn't do it with bad intention. It's just the way he is. He finds such women who are vulnerable, then he bonds with them. The borderline and the narcissist plug into the shared fantasy of the... The borderline and the co-dependent. They plug into the shared fantasy of the narcissist because it is within this shared fantastic space that they feel safe. The narcissist needs them. He is all-powerful and all-knowing. So he's a parental figure. So he can be mother. So they can be children. So they can love themselves. And it's a perfect charmed circle. Which, by the way, can go on for decades. The shared fantasy can last for decades. It just depends. If the two partners never grow up or never evolve or never develop, the shared fantasy could last decades. If one of the partners, the borderline for example or the co-dependent, develops their own autonomous life, independent life, that would threaten the narcissist and everything will fall apart. Yeah, I do agree. And still, many people are convinced that they are like a magnet for a narcissist. But the magnet cannot do anything about that. And they think that it's something inside them that makes it that this kind of match is happening. Let's say, perfect match. So yeah, they truly believe that. Still, about that. Well, the narcissist does scan for vulnerabilities, lack of self-love, neediness. So yes, there is a particular profile. But this profile is so widespread. So a huge part of a population has this profile. So I would say that narcissists are indiscriminate. They're promiscuous. If you can give supply. If you agree to be dependent on the narcissist for your needs. If you agree for him to be needy and to consume supply. If you agree to play each other's mothers, the dual mothership role model. Then he doesn't care anything else about you. He doesn't care about your empathy, your compassion, your affection, your emotionality. These are alien to him. He is not interested in them. And many of these things threaten his uniqueness. Threaten his sense that he is sui generis. That he is one of a kind. Because if one of a kind, he doesn't need help. He doesn't need advice. He doesn't need support. And he doesn't need your empathy. Because he is superior. So it's obvious. Exactly. Why would you need your help or support? Yeah, I do agree. So yeah, but how people are affected. Especially co-dependent PPD by this relationship with NPD. Because they are affected. Before we go into this. You asked two questions. I answered only one. No, I should be sorry. Because I answered only one and forgot about the other one. But now I remember the other one. You asked why NPDs find it difficult to break up with BPD. Yes, yes. Why narcissists find it difficult. And here the answer is a bit interesting. I said earlier that co-dependence and borderline. They kind of adopt the false self of the narcissist. They internalize it. Because the narcissist is needy. Because the narcissist needs the co-dependent. The co-dependent feels that she is in control of the narcissist. He needs her. So she controls him. So if she controls him and he is the false self. She controls an object that is godlike. The co-dependent needs to feel safe. These are the two driving forces in co-dependency. So when she internalizes the narcissist. When she makes the narcissist an internal object. When she takes over the narcissist. Controls the narcissist by giving him supply. Like a pusher of a drug. She gives him the drug. So he is a drug addict. He is addicted to her. When she makes him addicted to her. At that time. She internalizes him. She internalizes his false self. And she becomes godlike. She subsumes. She digests the false self. And all the properties of the false self of the narcissist. Become her properties. So there is a phase in the co-dependent narcissist dance. Borderline narcissist dance. There is a phase. Where the narcissist becomes very very very needy. The borderline. And to some extent the co-dependent. Feel omnipotent. They feel all powerful. They feel that they are. They own the narcissist. They control the narcissist. At that moment. All the properties of the narcissist. All the properties of the false self. Become the properties of the borderline and the co-dependent. Because she owns the narcissist. It's like. If you own a very fast car. The properties of the car. Become your properties. Because you can be fast. If the car. If your car is very fast. Then you are very fast. Of course. Because you are using the car. So it's the same with the borderline and the co-dependent. If they own the narcissist. It's like owning a car. The properties of the narcissist. Become their properties. At that moment. The co-dependent and the borderline. Feel totally safe. They feel safety that they had never felt before. Never. Because they had subsumed. They had internalized and introjected. An object. The false self. Which is godlike. They became in other words. Gods. The narcissists. They became gods. In the. This is the process of co-idealization. The narcissist idealizes the co-dependent. And the borderline. Gives her access to this idealized. Image. Access the mother. Gives her unconditional love. But he needs her. He needs her because she is also his mother. His mother. She also becomes his mother. So he needs her. For supply. For other psychodynamic issues. He needs her. The minute he needs her. She accepts. His idealization of her. She accepts it. It becomes a part of her. Technically. Both of them become narcissists. Yeah. So when the narcissist teams up with the borderline. And co-dependent. Into narcissists. That's why I keep saying that narcissism is contagious. When you have a relationship with the narcissist. Before you know it. You become a narcissist. Clinically. Definitely clinically. For example, your grandiosity goes up enormously. There's a huge jumping grandiosity. Some behaviors become narcissistic. Some traits become narcissistic. So you are infected. With your partner's narcissism. If you are co-dependent on borderline. By digesting. Adopting assimilating his false self. By controlling him. He becomes an extension of you. He becomes a part of you. Like a car. Like you own a car. Okay. The narcissist. I would say that the narcissist is much more dependent on the borderline. Than the borderline on the narcissist. I would say that the. The axis of dependency. Is from the narcissist to the borderline. The borderline is less dependent on the narcissist. Because the borderline is capable of acting out. Acting out in the borderline. In the borderline pathology. Acting out is to break. To break the continuity. After the borderline. Acts out. For example. She finds it much easier to get rid of her intimate partner. So. She has these exit ramps. It's like she's on a highway. And there is an exit. Exit ramp. So borderlines go on a highway. And they have exit ramps. They can be with another man. A stranger. They can run away. For months and years. So borderlines have these exits. Narcissist is on the same highway. But he doesn't have the exits. It's a one-way highway. There's no exit for him. He doesn't act out. He doesn't. He's totally dependent on Narcissist's supply. He's a junkie. So he has no way out. And he is much more dependent on the borderline. Than the codependent. Than the borderline. Is on him. So there are five reasons for this. Unfortunately. Never one. There are five reasons for this. I will mention them briefly and then if you want we can go. So we can go each and every one of them. Yes, please. The first one is external locus of control. The Narcissist develops an external locus of control. His supply is coming from outside. So he depends on his supply. So he feels that he is controlled from the outside. But strangely, with the Narcissist when he develops the belief that he is controlled from the outside his anxiety goes down. Not up. For reasons which we can discuss later. So with the borderline and the codependent the Narcissist feels that she controls him. He feels the borderline is in control. The codependent is in control and he loves it. It reduces his anxiety. The second reason is the Narcissist regards the borderline or the codependent as an enigma. A puzzle. And it challenges his omniscience. It challenges his grandiosity. So he tries to decode the borderline, to decode the codependent, to understand them, to decipher them to make sense of them. And there is no sense borderline and codependency are nonsensical disorders. There's no sense there. It's total chaos. So he doesn't succeed to make sense and this challenges his grandiosity. He feels narcissistic injury. And so he becomes hooked. He becomes addicted to making sense of his borderline or codependent partner in order to restore his grandiosity. The third element is that the borderline and the codependent especially the borderline are very unpredictable. They're very capricious. They create an ambience of uncertainty. Now the narcissist in this ambience of uncertainty feels alive. So with the borderline the narcissist feels alive. The drama, the unexpected outcomes, the acting out, the craziness, the ups and downs, the cycling all these make the narcissist feel alive like a technicolor movie. It's exciting. It's dramatic. Now narcissism is a dramatic personality disorder. Cluster B is called the dramatic or erratic cluster. So narcissism is a dramatic disorder and narcissists need drama to feel alive and if they don't get it, they create drama exactly like the borderline. There are commonalities between narcissists and borderlines. So we have a drama queen and a drama king. Yes, narcissists do create drama or they consume drama and they introduce partners into their lives. They introduce partners that generate drama constantly. Only then does the narcissist feel alive. Now this is exactly the same dynamic in borderline. Borderlines introduce drama dissonant voices inside themselves. When the borderline engages in drama she doesn't feel bad. She doesn't feel depressed. She doesn't feel anxious. She doesn't have time to feel anything. She's in the drama. Similarly, when she introduces drama she feels alive. She feels flourishing. She thrives on drama. It's the same with the narcissists. So the borderline is a drama generator. Now clinically speaking to be addicted to drama is a form of self-harm. It's a form of self-mutilation. So both parties mutilate. I would say that the narcissist infects his partner with grandiosity. So the partner falls in love with her idealized image and becomes very grandiose by assimilating the false self and by having access to the idealized image. So the partner but the narcissist becomes borderline they switch roles the borderline becomes a lot more narcissistic and the narcissist becomes a lot more borderline a lot more dysregulated but he feels alive walking on actions because narcissists are novelty seeking that's one of the characteristics of narcissists and psychopaths novelty seeking and risk taking reckless this is also a form of psychopathy in narcissism. Narcissists are antisocial. So the borderline gives him that. She gives him the novelty all the time new things she gives him the risk she in other words the borderline caters to the psychopathic aspect of narcissism because she is a psychopath she is a secondary psychopath she encourages the psychopathic part of the narcissist and in this sense she makes the narcissist more borderline she pushes the narcissist to become borderline he pushes her to become narcissists it's a very fascinating fascinating dynamic this creates of course intermittent reinforcement because the borderline approaches and then avoids withdraws approach avoidance repetition compulsion she comes close to you you show some signs of intimacy she runs away she then again approaches you and again you fall in love and again you show signs of intimacy and again she runs away or sabotages the intimacy or does something crazy or acts out and this is a compulsion this is a compulsion the borderline does all this to gain control over the partner she creates the uncertainty she creates the unpredictability she creates the crazy making and so therefore she is in control she can stop it or start it or start it and stop it and that's precisely what she's doing all the time it's a power play and a control mechanism and the narcissist is subject to intermittent reinforcement now the borderline has two anxieties she has engulfment anxiety and abandonment anxiety so when she gets close she is afraid of engulfment and meshment she is afraid to lose herself to disappear so she runs away when she runs away she is afraid to be abandoned and rejected so she comes back and the narcissist is subjected to this dance and finally this dance regulates the effects and the moods of the narcissist the narcissist feels good she feels bad is up or down depressed or elated in accordance to what happens in his relationship so will this approach avoidant trap? it's approach avoidance that starts to regulate the internal landscape of the narcissist it's external regulation now if you put all these together you get a very bizarre picture which is a picture that is similar to almost everything online almost all the YouTube videos for example it is not the borderline it is not the narcissist's partner that is subjected to intermittent reinforcement it's the narcissist because if you go online they say the narcissist plays with you he is hot and cold he approaches, he avoids he is playing with you no, it's not true because they need a stable source of supply it is the partner of the narcissist that plays hot and cold I'm here today, I'm there tomorrow I love you, I don't love you I hate you, don't leave me it's the partner, it's the borderline the codependent who are playing these games not the narcissist also there is the belief that the narcissist affects the moods the emotions of the borderline regulates them but it's usually exactly the opposite it's the borderline that changes the moods and the effects of the narcissist etc etc the picture as it is described online gets it completely wrong completely opposite everything that online people so called experts tell you that his borderline is actually narcissist and everything they tell you is narcissist is actually borderline the borderline is the one who controls the dynamic of the relationship with the narcissist she controls the regulation of his moods and effects she controls approach avoidance she controls walking on actions she controls making him feel alive she controls him totally the narcissist is totally controlled I do agree and I have like proof in my clinical experience also because when the NPD is coming to my office they say why I cannot leave my partner with BPD they cannot leave and then they don't know why this is happening so I'm really grateful that you mentioned about this this drama dynamic why they need this because they can avoid this tough and hard feelings especially borderline it's inside her and mostly her sometimes in him but yeah so I'm really happy that you mentioned about that because yeah this is the mostly narcissist asking why is all this drama about and why it's like that they cannot move exactly playing all the time this approach avoid and dance so yeah it's also tough for them yes you can think of it as an addict an addict the narcissist is an addict and the borderline provides him with a perfect drug she gives him supply she gives him drama she controls his moods she controls his emotions she approaches him she avoids him perfect ambience he needs all these elements and she is the perfect package she provides all the elements in one package and this is irresistible to him the narcissist will never leave the borderline the narcissist is a stable partner not the borderline the borderline is the unstable partner exactly opposite what people are saying online yeah and you also mentioned about that MPD's anxiety is going down with this could you say or why one big mistake catastrophic mistake and the information online is that psychopaths and narcissists have no fear and have no anxiety that is very very old information we no longer teach this or think this we now begin to consider psychopathy perhaps as a form of anxiety disorder and we definitely we definitely know it's even in the DSM-5 the alternative model for narcissistic personality disorder page 767 we definitely know that narcissists suffer from anxiety disorders comorbid anxiety disorders and mood disorders depression as well this is this is an antiquated very obsolete and wrong information so narcissists suffer from anxiety, severe anxiety and they are subjected to mood swings they have mood disorders as well and this anxiety there are two ways the narcissist tries to overcome this anxiety one way is grandiosity grandiosity is a compensatory mechanism anxiety of the narcissist is because as a child the narcissist was helpless was subjected to abuse was not loved so of course he developed anxiety he didn't know what will come next what will happen next he could not predict what the adults around him are going to do to him this created a background of anxiety and depression I call it prolonged grief the narcissist mourns himself grieves himself it's like the narcissist had died as a child the true self died and then the false self emerged but the false self is not the narcissist it's a piece of fiction it's a story narrative so the narcissist dies as a child and ever since then he is in mourning he is grieving so the background of anxiety and depression is there now the narcissist overcomes it in two ways one grandiosity if the narcissist says it's like then he doesn't need to be anxious anymore because God is not anxious God can do anything God knows everything God can predict anything that is going to happen God can prevent anything or make anything happen so God never has anxiety or depression and so this is one solution but there is another solution which is much neglected in the literature the narcissist adopts is by giving up his independence, autonomy agency and self-efficacy giving them up by saying from now on it's I don't decide my destiny I don't decide my fate I don't decide my life someone else does he hands over the responsibility to someone else his intimate partner now this sounds completely anti-narcissistic so this deserves some deeper explanation I apologize that I'm monopolizing the conversation but these are totally new things so most narcissists ultimately we know this it's substantiated in studies and so on most narcissists finally develop external locus of control most narcissists at some point become externalized so they say my life is decided by my boss my boss is not promoting me because he's jealous of me so he decides my life my wife is not doing this or is doing this and consequently I cannot do this or I can do this so it's like my wife is deciding my boss is deciding, my neighbor is deciding this is called alloplastic defense the narcissist is blaming other people blaming them for anything that goes wrong in his life but when you blame other people what are you saying you are saying these other people control me they're in control if I blame you for something bad that happened to me then you are in control of me because you made this bad thing happen you're in control so the narcissist hands control to the environment he hands it over and he develops an external locus of control of course because the narcissist is dependent on narcissistic supply the locus of control is always out there he needs supply from other people so these other people control his internal environment so we have two things one is external locus of control the narcissist perceives his life as determined from the outside by others and we have addiction to supply which is also an external locus because supply comes from outside in other words the narcissist feels that he is not in control of anything ever that's a very frightening feeling it creates anxiety he is anxious exactly as he was anxious when he was a baby he is always in a state of infantilism he's always a child and things happen to him people do things to him so he says to himself there's a solution for that I will find a woman who loves me and I will give her the control so then I feel safe if my boss controls me if my neighbor controls me I don't feel safe I don't feel safe because they don't love me because I'm not lovable I'm not doing anything for them or they perceive it that I'm not doing anything for them so I don't feel safe but if I have an intimate partner in my life and she loves me and she is addicted to me and I can get her addicted to me by becoming her mother by giving her access to her idealized image everything we discussed so this partner I can trust I can hand over control to this partner at that moment I don't need to be anxious and I feel totally safe because I don't believe that my intimate partner will abuse the power that I'm giving her over me now the narcissist when he has an intimate partner enters a shared fantasy space within this shared fantasy space he actually has no autonomy no independence no agency and no self-efficacy everything is determined by his intimate partner in the shared fantasy another reason for this is that remember that narcissism is the outcome of failed separation the child failed to separate from mother so the narcissist perceives independence as separation he perceives autonomy self-autonomy as separation and he is terrified of separation he is terrified of separation and he keeps failing when he tries to separate starting with his mother so he is trying to avoid separation so he needs supply from outside he needs an external locus of control which is safe like an intimate partner and he needs to not separate he needs to not separate so you put all this together you get a transfer of power to the intimate partner this is the initial phase of the relationship this is the idealization phase as I said in other videos gradually the narcissist wants to separate so there is a phase where the narcissist devalues you and discards the intimate partner in order to separate but then he fails he fails to separate and the cycle starts again in the initial phases of the shared fantasy which could last many years or many decades it is the intimate partner that is totally in control of the narcissist the intimate partner needs it if the intimate partner is a borderline or if she is a codependent this control over the narcissist makes her feel safe makes her feel needed and the narcissist needs it because her control over him makes him feel safe makes him feel wanted makes him feel loved so both sides collaborate in this transfer of power of course at some point the narcissist takes this power back he takes it back and then he devalues, discards and so on it would explain all these things put together the anxiety reduction the other things that I mentioned if you put all these together it is very difficult to break for the narcissist to break the bond very difficult too many psychological needs and too many processes take place including regression to early childhood so on both parties as each other's mother they regress the other and how does one abandon one's mother how do you abandon your mother how do you abandon someone who is in control of you and determines every second of your waking life how do you abandon someone who gives you a sense that you're alive how do you abandon someone who helps you to forget about your anxiety about your depression about your ego dissonance how do you get rid of someone like that it's a perfect package perfect storm and the narcissist needs compelling reasons to break up with the borderline and these compelling reasons are the deviation from the snapshot divergence from the snapshot and the need to separate which ultimately becomes powerful yes thank you for this explanation it's showing a lot about this dynamic and I think the answer why it's so extremely I would even say difficult to break this let's say perfect mash so yes yet the another question was how people are affected by this because like you mentioned already like when narcissist is giving you this kind of perfect view on yourself and when you have this self love deficit it's really hard to break it I think for BPD and DPD because then you have to realize and to see that you never exist yes it's a good point as I said earlier the narcissist forces the borderline or the codependent and there is a debate what exactly is codependent and whether there is a need for dependent personality disorder as a separate diagnosis and all probability it will not be maintained in the TSM6 these are all post traumatic conditions as Judith Herman keeps saying these are all post traumatic conditions as I keep saying much later she was the first to say these are all post traumatic conditions with self states with dissociative processes and so on so all these distinctions she's a borderline she's a codependent the distinguishing between codependent and narcissist I would say it's a wrong distinction but generally speaking the narcissist pushes the borderline to take care of his false self let's put it this way he says listen I am controlled from the outside I'm an addict to narcissistic supply people have power over me that makes me very sad that makes me very anxious would you mind if I give you my false self and you take care of it would you mind the borderline says no I love you what can I do for you I'm going to give you the false self you're going to be my source of supply you're going to be my mother and love me unconditionally even if I abuse you you're going to love me unconditionally so I'm going to test you I'm going to abuse you to see if you really are my mother and you're going to procure you're going to get me obtain get for me supply you're going to be the gateway you're going to be the portal and you're going to be in charge of my false self of course the minute the borderline takes this object the false self she gets infected she becomes narcissistic because from that moment all the properties and the qualities of the false self become her properties and qualities again like owning a fast car if you own a fast car you're fast so if she owns the false self she is God like she is the owner of God so she becomes a bit narcissistic a lot narcissistic actually the narcissists having given her the false self has guaranteed narcissistic supply from a safe source so his anxiety goes down his depression goes down he becomes much more alive he feels happy he feels literally happy now someone else has the problem of obtaining supply someone else is in charge of the false self he can finally breathe he can finally feel relieved and so on and he assumes a passive position passive position and she assumes an active position at that point he becomes essentially a borderline subject to dysregulation because she is approaching, avoiding she gives him intermittent reinforcement one day she loves him one day she hates him she is ambivalent so all this uncertainty and unpredictability dysregulate him he becomes much more dysregulated and much more borderline like this switch roles simply they simply switch roles she becomes narcissistic he becomes borderline it is a temporary condition for two reasons at some point the narcissist would need to separate from her because his relationship is a reenactment of his early childhood he is just replaying his early childhood with her he is making her his mother he is replaying so at some point he would need to separate from her so this is a temporary condition what I described the role switching is a temporary condition at some point the narcissist tries to separate from her and at some point she acts out so her acting out and his need for separation destroys the relationship ultimately inevitably so let's say that they are separating for good and how to move on and I would just like to add that moving as a process not as a decision as many people thinks for one event it's not like that it's a it's a process how to move on? I dealt with it in other videos but one thing I didn't say in other videos is that the experience is so unique both for the borderline and for the narcissist it's so amazing so spectacular so all-pervasive so that I think the main difficulty to move on is the disbelief that you will ever have any such relationship in the future you can't believe that any future relationship will be as good as this or as bad as this or as intense as this both the borderline and the narcissist when they break up, when they separate inevitably that all future relationships will be dull and boring and in comparison I think that's the main obstacle actually I believe that is the main obstacle there are other obstacles of course the voice of the narcissist the introject the voice of the narcissist remains in the mind of the borderline the codependent for a very long time and she mistakes this voice she thinks it's her voice so she needs to work on the introjects she needs to separate his introjects from her introjects and then get rid of his introjects that's another major issue a third major issue is the trauma both parties had been traumatized he trusted her as an external a regulating external object he trusted her to control him and to do good by him and to take care of the false self and to love him unconditionally and she's incapable of this especially if she's a borderline she approaches, she avoids she loves, she hates she undermines, she constructs she destructs, I mean he's not a stable partner so he's been traumatized narcissists are traumatized by relationship with borderline and she of course had been traumatized because he idealized her he mothered her to be the worst nightmare to be abandoned this way so they had become each other's persecutory objects they had become each other's nightmares and so when they separate the residual trauma post-traumatic effects there are many issues but ultimately the trauma fades and goes away ultimately the introjects also fade away or you learn to distinguish the voices and the narcissists voice and you can eliminate the narcissists voice but what doesn't go away is the enormous intensity of the relationship it was a relationship in color and all other relationships look like relationships in black and white yeah I do agree many of my clients in the office they say like so it was like a rainbow and now it's like a blind foot, like I don't like it and it will be like that till the end of my life I'm not enjoying they they say actually about that I'm from personal experience of course I've had many borderline partners and having tasted my first borderline the first woman I've been with was not a borderline actually I'm not sure about it but my fiancée my first fiancée was a borderline I said the first borderline I want to be only with borderlines no okay I know it's bad, I know it's mad I know it's sad I know it's wrong, I know it's self-destructive it's a form of self-harm self-harming I know it dysregulates me I know I lose control I actually lose control I give control to the intimate partner that's the deal I know it's going to end badly and I have a problem with the snapshot as well so I know it's absolutely not what the doctor ordered but I cannot be with any other woman who is not a borderline I simply cannot, I need the intensity I need the color I need this rainbow it's not even rainbow I think that was a bad mild relationship it's an explosion it's Aurora Borealis it's almost supernatural phenomenon and the reason of course is simple she provokes in you the child you provoking her the child and you both experience yourself and the world as children do children experience the world very intensely because everything is new everything is for the first time everything is threatening there's novelty there's risk around the corner and so the borderline and the narcissist are two children they regress each other and they then together experience their relationship and the world as children do with all the hope of childhood all the infinity of childhood and all the intensity and color of childhood nothing can compete with this and every price for me is worth it every price is worth it I'm grateful that you shared with your experience I hear you but from my also experience I was in a one long term relationship and I think the experiment was an NPD and I think badly I will never do for myself such a thing like this yeah I'm not borderline and I'm not narcissist I'm talking about pathological yeah I know but for me it was like really bad and hard experience of course because you're a normal person yeah healthy so I'm so grateful that you shared this with us totally thank you one more time thank you for having me thank you for thank you for listening for your time and I'm so grateful also for your comments thank you and have a nice day thank you everyone bye