 received 48 comments on my previous video 17 comments were so idiotic that I deleted them and blocked the commenters my channel is a stupid free zone 31 of the comments however displayed signs of outstanding intelligence all 31 analyzed my new haircut indeed the main topic the crux the gist the core of the previous video that I've made was my haircut my hairline whether it makes me look younger or God forbid older clearly this was what I was trying to convey and communicate congratulations I thought the overwhelming vast majority of YouTube viewers and users are it and I was proving wrong I was proven wrong I was utterly proven wrong your comments show that you are capable of digesting what I'm saying assimilating it integrating it with your previous considerable erudition indeed I have never been subjected to deeper more profound scrutiny and my hair definitely never so since this is the case please pay attention this is my new haircut with gel edit and I'm awaiting the tsunami and avalanche of inane comments about this the second much more marginal topic of today's video is the difference between the borderlines shared fantasy and the narcissist share fantasy borderlines and narcissists have a lot in common as Otto Kernberg one of my predecessors who was older than me is older than me if it's if it's at all possible Otto Kernberg was the first to note the affinities between borderlines and narcissists and he suggested very wisely in my view that narcissists and borderlines are two facets of the same coin cross time another psychoanalyst also connected borderline to narcissism and I think borderlines narcissists all personality disorders are actually a single clinical entity but enough of that borderlines share with narcissists many features many traits and many behaviors for example borderlines and narcissists are grandiose another example borderlines have a false self exactly like the narcissist both in both these disorders there is a self that is concocted in early childhood early traumatic and abusive childhood in order to fulfill certain psychological functions to cater to certain psychological needs in the case of the narcissist these are the ego boundary functions in the case of the borderline these are the regulatory functions in other words the borderlines for self is intended to assist her in recruiting external regulators of her internal states recruiting people to regulate her internal states regulate her moods regulate her effects emotions etc etc the narcissist the sole aim of the false self is to elicit and extract narcissistic supply from potential sources of supply some of them known euphemistically as intimate partners I call them insignificant others another thing is that both borderlines and narcissists create a shared fantasy they come across a potential intimate partner they attempt endeavor very forcefully to create a space where the two parties can disengage from reality to some extent and leave or pursue a magical life we'll come to it in a minute so both borderlines and narcissists have shared fantasies but there is a serious clinical difference between the shared fantasy of the borderline the shared fantasy of the narcissist the start by saying that narcissists are capable of attachment bonding and emotions I refer you to some of my videos which deal with the narcissist emotions and so on so forth narcissists are not capable to love to attach and to bond to other people to human beings because they are not capable of perceiving other people as separate from them or because they convert other people into maternal figures which are very traumatic so this you don't attach and you don't bond with a traumatic figure and you don't love a traumatic figure you do everything you can to manage the trauma and separate from the maternal maternal or traumatizing figure so narcissists are incapable of loving attaching and bonding with people but they're perfectly capable of getting attached bonding with and even loving in other words affecting investing emotional energy in inanimate objects for example books in my case I love books I'm attached to books I bond with books I mourn and grieve when I lose books or when they get defaced when I cannot obtain a book I yearn and long and pine for the book until it arrives or doesn't similarly narcissists are capable of attaching to and bonding with human bodies narcissists actually in the sexual acts somatic narcissists more generally cerebral narcissists when they transition to a somatic phase they tend to get attached to specific human bodies now intimate partners of narcissists usually mistake this attachment and think that it is a kind of love or a kind of bonding but it's actually an attachment to something the narcissist perceives as inanimate a human body narcissists objectify the human body and so for them it's indistinguishable from books for example narcissists therefore are capable of attaching to objects and to functions you remember the four s's the four s's sex supply sadistic or narcissistic services and safety narcissists get attached to these functions anyone who provides a narcissist with two or three of these four s's becomes an intimate partner because the narcissist gets bonded to and invested emotionally in what he gets from this from the intimate partner in other words the narcissist never loves the intimate partner never gets attached to the intimate partner never bonds with the intimate partner he loves he gets attached to he bonds with is emotionally invested in what he is getting from the partner be it sex be it services be it safety or be it supply narcissistic or sadistic so to summarize this first point narcissists are capable of attaching to inanimate objects or to objects which they can render in animate such as human bodies similarly narcissists get attached to functions to what they receive from other people especially from intimate partners border lines are not the same border lines get attached to regulated states the core of border line the core problem in borderline is emotional dysregulation borderline is unable to control her emotions and also her mood she's lebi and she's in a constant state of loss of control and this is known as dysregulation she's overwhelmed by her emotions she drowns in her emotions she very often becomes suicidal it's the only way to avoid the tsunami of emotions that threaten to submerge her and so the borderline the borderline's main preoccupation is with the need to regulate her internal state her internal landscape she needs help she needs someone out there who would be willing and able and capable of helping her to regulate her moods her emotions her cognitions her effect and her behaviors so the borderline does attach and does bond and does emotionally invest in and does love what a regulated state not the regulator it's another common mistake even in the literature borderlines love their intimate partners borderlines get attached and bond with their intimate partners the emotionally invest in their intimate partners because the intimate partners guarantee regulation in this sense the borderlines are indistinguishable from the narcissist the narcissists are interested in the four s's sex supply safety services the borderline is interested in the one our regulation it is what the it is what the narcissist is getting from his intimate partner that bonds him or binds him to the intimate partner similarly it's what the borderline is getting from her intimate partner that attaches her to this intimate partner of course when you ask a narcissist or a borderline are you feeling anything they would say yes I love my intimate partner they mislabel now have a whole video dedicated to how the borderline mislabels her emotions both narcissists and borderlines tend to mislabel emotions and even cognitions so when when they try to make sense of what's happening to them they would tend to use the wrong labels when the borderlines tries to make make sense of why is she so dependent on her intimate partner she doesn't realize that she's dependent on her intimate partner because he offers regulatory services he helps her to regulate her moods and emotions she doesn't realize this she says I love him when the narcissist is trying to make sense of his attachment to his intimate partner in a shared fantasy he doesn't realize that he's attached to her because she gives him sex or services or supply and if he is aware of it he would tend to minimize it because he doesn't need anyone he's of sufficient he's godlike instead he would say I love her but of course I love her because she's perfect he loves the idealized image of her so there is a mislabeling of misplacement or displacement of the locus of catexes the locus of emotional investment the shared fantasy serves a crucial role in the lives of narcissists and borderlines I've dedicated at the very least 10 videos that's 10 hours to the issue or the concept of shared fantasy in the narcissist psychodynamics and I for those of you who are interested to know why does the narcissist need a shared fantasy what does he do within a shared fantasy how does he exit a shared fantasy how does he enter a shared fantasy what's your role as an intimate partner in a shared fantasy etc etc the only thing I can tell you is go and search for these keywords shared fantasy on my channel and find the 10 videos that I've made on this topic you can search a channel by clicking on the magnifying glass if you are using a laptop those those of you old enough to lose a lot a laptop and if you're using a smartphone like the majority of the population then there's a down arrow you click on it and there is a menu and you choose search be sure to choose search and you can search the channel so this is the narcissist shared fantasy I discussed it discussed it at length I will touch upon it now just in order to make the contradistinction to the borderlines shared fantasy the borderline shared fantasy is the mirror image of the narcissist shared fantasy and this fact explains why narcissists and borderlines are drawn to each other like two magnets why they can't let go of each other why they find each other in a crowd why they form diets my good friend and colleague John Lachkar was the first to describe this phenomenon in the early 1980s in her masterpiece narcissistic borderline couples indeed there is a preponderance there's an overabundance of borderline narcissistic couples way over and above the the statistical average in the general population in other words there's a statistical significance when we study who would the narcissists tend to bond with we very often find that is a borderline why is that because of the shared fantasy the narcissist shared fantasy is the mirror image the complement the other side of the coin of the borderline shared fantasy it's like key and a lock like a substrate and a reagent it's the perfect match not between the narcissists and borderline but between the shared fantasy of the narcissists and the shared fantasy of the borderline the narcissists and the borderline can actually be incompatible they can be they can be enemies they can be fighting all the time they can hate each other's guts they can harm and hurt each other constantly they can be aggressive with each other violent and act out and do horrible things to each other but they can't let go of each other and they can't let go because their shared fantasies the shared fantasy of the narcissists and the shared fantasy of borderline create a chemical reaction they become a single molecule is like a hydrogen and oxygen become water and that's the end of it more or less same with narcissism borderline and the function the main function of the shared fantasy of the narcissist is to engulf to subsume to consume to digest to immerse to assimilate an intimate partner main main function of the narcissist shared fantasy is to get the intimate partner to become addicted to what the narcissist has to offer which is perfect mothership plus plus the whole of mirrors the ability to reflect to the partner an idealized version of the partner the partner falls in love with this idealized version of herself and so she becomes addicted to it she becomes addicted to the intensity and depth of this self love newly discovered self love and she can't let go of the narcissist and that is the main function of the shared fantasy to create him to create a magical kingdom where both parties can replay their traumas in a way that provides resolution to both of them the narcissist is able to separate from his intimate partner in this way reenacting the original conflict with his mother origin with his birth mother and the intimate partner is able to love herself finally she's a co-dependent if it's a borderline it's the first time that she experiences real self-love to the idealized image through the narcissist gaze both parties both parties get a lot out of the narcissist shared fantasy the narcissist gets to replay his childhood he gets a second chance at going through the phases of his childhood and this time with hopefully a healthy resolution or so he believes the intimate partner of the narcissist gets a chance to love herself to love herself as a mother would love her as a mother would see her a bit idealized and a bit unconditional so this is the narcissist shared fantasy it's about engulfing the borderlines shared fantasy is about being engulfed in other words what the narcissist offers the borderline seeks she wants to be engulfed she wants actually to disappear and vanish it's not a surprise that 11% of people with borderline personality disorder commit suicide because the main drive and the main thrust in the borderline's existence is to not exist she pursues absence and emptiness actively the narcissist also has an empty schizoid core but the narcissist is trying to ignore this core of emptiness he's trying to suppress the void and the black hole by pretending to be something else that's the grandiosity defense the narcissist puts on a facade of perfection and brilliance and superiority because he is trying to hide the fact that there's nobody home that is it's an old devouring black hole the borderline doesn't do this she doesn't put a facade she doesn't pretend to be someone she's not what the borderline does she pursues the emptiness in her she tries to merge with the black hole that she had become owing to childhood abuse and trauma she seeks death she has a death wish she wants to be annihilated but of course it's terrifying to seek your own destruction contemplating suicide can be soothing up to the point where you have to carry it out when it becomes terrifying so rather than commit suicide physically she chooses to commit suicide mentally via the agency of the narcissist via the agency of her intimate partner she tells the intimate partner I want to die I want to not be I want to never exist again and I want you to help me with this and the way you can help me with this is by taking over my mind the way you can help me with this is by suspending me deactivating me disabling me in taking over all my functions the borderline approaches her intimate partner in the borderline shared fantasy with a proposition I will be all yours I will be your slave but in return you have to regulate my moods you have to control my emotions you have to help me to survive and you have to be here 60 second a minute 60 minutes an hour 24 hours a day 366 days a year that's the borderlines proposed contract with her intimate partner so while the narcissist creates a shared fantasy in which he can trap and gulf consume and convert his intimate partner into a maternal figure etc the borderline creates a shared fantasy into which she invites an intimate partner on the condition that he agrees to take over her mind and her life he doesn't become the center of her life he doesn't become the pivot he doesn't he becomes her she disappears and reappears in him it's a process of merger infusion which happens also to some extent with co-dependence so when the narcissist and the borderline come together there's nothing the narcissist wants to do more than take over his partner then make her disappear because this alays this reduces his abandonment anxiety so he wants to engulf the partner he wants to get enmeshed with the part he wants to subsume and consume the part he wants to render the part convert her into an extension of himself and there's nothing the borderline wants more than this it's exactly what the borderline wants she wants to disappear in the narcissist she wants to become another organ a third arm a third leg she wants she wants to become merge with him infuse with him and become one a single organism with perhaps two heads of course she's terrified of this process because this is mental suicide so there's a lot of approach avoidance the borderline approaches the intimate partner with this offer and when the intimate partner agrees and takes over the borderline the borderline runs away she's terrified because she feels that she's disappearing she's vanishing into him into the intimate partner but then she returns she returns and she runs away and she runs away and she returns that's the famous approach avoidance repetition compulsion I hate you don't leave me so the narcissist shared fantasy has four phases and is very stable it starts with idealization and love bombing continues into devaluation then discard and then replacement mentally by the way discard precedes devaluation as I have explained in previous videos but these are the phases and they are rigid they follow each other in ineluctably in inevitably they there's no change in this pattern in this algorithm it's like artificial intelligence a follows b follows c follows d end of story with the borderline the shared fantasy is a lot more chaotic the narcissist shared fantasy is rigid the borderline shared fantasy is amorphous ephemeral approach avoidant unpredictable labile dysregulated crazy making why because the borderline is like this the shared fantasies reflect reflect of course the initiators of the shared fantasy the narcissist narcissism pathological narcissism is about rigidity it's a constriction it's even mentioned in the diagnostic and statistical manual a rigid pattern the borderlines disorder is chaos it's a big bang it's an explosion borderline is all over the place and nowhere so her shared fantasy would reflect this but both shared fantasies both of them are founded on consist over the dual mothership concept the narcissist offers the borderline the unconditional love acceptance and idealization that her mother should have offered her and in all probability did not he offers her this because it allows her to love herself through his gaze he he looks at her he sees her as a surrogate mother the borderline constitutes herself on the fly through his gaze she looks in his eyes she sees the unconditional love as she interprets it and she feels safe she feels seen she feels that she exists and that reduces her internal emotional dysregulation and mood liability so the narcissist acts as a maternal figure allows the borderline to use his gaze to love herself as an idealized version in an idealized version and that that causes her dysregulation and mobility to diminish which is exactly what she had in mind that was the goal of the shared fantasy on the other hand the borderline acts as the narcissist maternal figure the original mother of the narcissist was exactly like his borderline intimate partner she was absent she was selfish she was grandiose she was she instrumentalized him she parentified him so the borderline is a perfect imitation a perfect simulation a perfect stand-in for the narcissist original mother so the borderline plays this maternal role and makes it easier for the narcissist to devalue her and then to discard her and this way separate from her and hope to individuate later on he fails because of introject constancy watch my previous video but the borderline is his best chance at separation individuation you're beginning to understand why the borderline narcissist bond is unbreakable extremely powerful resilient and irresponsive to outside stimuli and and so come to the very information and so because they are each other's best chance the narcissist is the borderline's best chance at gaining control over her chaotic self the narcissist gays his idealization of her allow her to love herself in this way to reduce her emotional dysregulation and liability and she can't get this anywhere else only from the narcissist because only the narcissist will idealize only only narcissists idealized similarly the narcissist sees in the borderline a replica a clone of his original mother of his mother of origin so it's his best chance by far to separate in a way that would feel authentic that would feel true and real it's like separating really from real mother so he clings to the borderline as a maternal figure and then he devalues her harshly and discards her truly it's the only way to prove to himself that he has truly separated from her approach avoidance in the case of the borderline versus separation devaluation and discard in the case of the narcissist of course the borderline is terrified of all these dynamics somewhere in her she realizes that she is being sacrificed like Isaac you know like Isaac almost has been by Abra she's being sacrificed to the false self the false self is godlike it's a deity and the borderline is the sacrificial lamb she understands this she understands that the narcissist is like acid it dissolves he dissolves her she descent she's disintegrated the narcissist takes over her abscondes with her internal functions the narcissist controls her moods tells her how to feel with a single word he can he can cause her elation in euphoria and with another word he can drive her down to the pits and the bottoms of despair he has in all narcissists or her intimate partner actually even if he's not narcissistic has an inordinate power over the borderline so in her shared fantasy the now the borderline feels very uncomfortable her shared fantasy is ego-dystonic the narcissist shared fantasy is ego-syntonic the narcissist shared fantasy enhances his grandiosity and gives him hope to complete the separation individuation with his mother as far as the narcissist is concerned the shared fantasy his shared fantasy is the best thing since sliced bread or since some vaknis videos as far as the borderline is concerned the shared fantasy is a threat it's a menacing ominous space within which she can let go she can regulate herself but at what a cost at a cost of disappearing and vanishing the intimate partner in the borderline shared fantasy is someone who is out to consume her utterly and totally so she develops engulfment anxiety and she runs away this never happens with the narcissist he doesn't feel the need to run away he feels the need to discard he feels the need to separate and both narcissism and borderlines hover they both hover but they hover for different reasons if you watch yesterday's video those of you who are seriously self-loathing and self-destructive so if you watch yesterday's videos a video it's about introject constancy versus object constancy the narcissist has something that I call introject constancy he cannot get rid of the introjects in his mind he can he does he he doesn't dare to eliminate or eradicate or erase or delete the his internal objects his avatar the avatar is in his in his in his internal space the snapshots of previous lovers he doesn't dare to get rid of any of this he hoards these things and the reason is that if he were to try to get rid of these introjects he would develop enormous abandonment anxiety the borderline has object in constancy object constancy or inconstancy not introject constancy the borderline gets attached to real people she perceives her intimate partner as a full-fledged human being the borderline has empathy and she has access to positive emotions is distinct in opposed to the narcissist so the narcissist interacts with representations of other people in his mind he never interacts with other people he interacts with their symbols their images their icons their avatars in his mind the internal objects in his mind that stand in for external objects so his intimate partner is out there it's an external object the narcissist never interacts with her he interacts with her representation in his mind he interacts with the internal object in his mind that symbolizes his intimate partner symbolizes this external object not so the borderline the borderline really perceives her intimate partner as separate from her as a three-dimensional human being with needs and hopes and beliefs and so on in this sense the borderline is much healthier actually than the narcissist narcissist is much closer to psychosis on a daily basis the borderline can end up being psychotic under stress or rejection or humiliation the narcissist is psychotic every minute of the day he's psychotic because he cannot tell the difference between external and internal objects so the narcissist is emotionally attached to the internal objects in his mind and he cannot get rid of any one of them because getting rid of any one of them would create in him enormous abandonment anxiety separation insecurity the borderline cannot get rid of real people in her life because she has object in constancy or object constancy so she cannot get rid of real people the narcissist hovers you because he wants to match you with internal object he wants to kind of close the books here you are an external object here here you are in his mind as an internal object that reduces his anxiety case closed is not abandoned the borderline will hoover you because she really wants you she misses you or she misses your regulatory functions she misses what you can do for her that's much more accurate she misses the fact that you can regulate her internal world her internal space so these are the differences between the shared fantasy of the narcissist the shared fantasy of the borderline if you have any questions about my hair of course forget the rest the rest of this video is utterly irrelevant my hair is the issue so if you have any questions about my hair I'd be delighted to respond in great anatomical detail but it's not for the squeamish I warn you there are things about my hair that you really really don't want to know