 My name is Sandak Nin and I am the author of Malignan Selklava, Narcissism Revisited. In 1997 I wrote a series of articles suggesting that codependence and narcissism are flip sides of the same coin. In both cases these are reactions to childhood abuse and trauma. Both reactions, codependence and narcissism, are pathological. They both involve fantasy as a defense mechanism. The codependence has a pretty realistic assessment of herself, but her view of others, especially her intimate partners, is very fantastic. On the contrary, the narcissist's self-image and self-perception are fantastic, delusional, grandiose, but he has a penetrating view of others and it is blood-curdingly accurate. This is what I call, called empathy. So to summarize, the codependent fantasizes about others. She tends to idealize her intimate partner. The narcissist fantasizes about himself. He tends to idealize himself. He tends to attribute to himself grandiose traits and qualities such as omnipotence, omniscience, brilliance and perfection. The codependent tends to devalue herself. The narcissist tends to devalue others. As you see, codependence is a mirror image of narcissism. But this raises a few interesting questions. I've been asked in a recent seminar in London, what's the difference between seeking narcissistic supply and seeking validation? Codependent also goes around seeking some kind of input. Exactly as the narcissist goes around looking for adulation, admiration, affirmation. So what's the difference between them? Well, the difference is pretty big. The codependent asks other people, especially her intimate partner, to give her a realistic assessment of herself, to help her restore her reality test. Codependent wants others to calibrate her, to provide her with the appropriate dimensions of appraisal and evaluation. She wants them to tell her, for example, that she's not crazy, that she perceives reality properly, that her actions and reactions are a bit too much, a bit too little. So she's looking for others to sort of show the path, kind of draw the trajectory that she should follow. She is relying on others and on input from others to gauge reality, to perceive reality properly. So her validation is about restoring a sense of the real, not the fantastic. The narcissist is exactly the opposite. The narcissist is looking for input from the outside, looking for narcissistic supply, not in order to restore some kind of sense of reality, not in order to feel better in the world, or to fit in with the universe. The narcissist seeks input from the outside to support and enhance and mattress his fantastic view of himself, his grandiosity, his delusions. The narcissist wants others to help him avoid reality, escape reality, evade reality. He wants them to help him construct a Disneyland-like kingdom in which he is king, ruler, judge, and jury. Codependent wants others to help her restore a sense of reality. Narcissist wants others to help him to construct an alternative reality, an alternate universe, a virtual reality in which he can be whatever he imagines himself to be, usually grandiosly. So this is the first important distinction. Then there is an issue of can codependence be narcissists? Can narcissists be codependents? Well, some codependents, a very small minority, can be narcissists and are actually narcissists. I call them inverted narcissists. These are narcissists who are covert narcissists. They are narcissists who are not able to obtain narcissistic supply except via another person. These kind of narcissists who are, as I said, a subsection, a subtype of covert narcissists cannot obtain narcissistic supply because they are introverted, introverted and they avoid the limelight. They are avoidant, they are afraid of public exposure. They are terrified of rejection, shy, they are fragile and they are vulnerable. So in order to obtain narcissistic supply, they must team up with someone who is exactly the opposite, who is extroverted, outgoing, the center of the life of the party and the center of attention. So they team up with a classic narcissist. So here we have a type or subtype of covert narcissist teaming up with a classic or overt narcissist in order to obtain vicarious supply, supply by proxy. And yet the inverted narcissist who is a full-fledged narcissist is also a codependent. So that's the only subtype of codependent who is also a narcissist. The overwhelming majority of codependents are not and by definition cannot be narcissists because they possess empathy and because of other traits. They cannot be narcissists. The opposite is not true. The overwhelming majority of narcissists actually have codependent traits. They depend on other people for the regulation of their sense of self-worth and self-esteem and self-confidence and self-image. They need other people. They need the input from other people. Without the input from other people, the narcissist crumbles like the proverbial vampire. He crumbles to dust. He requires input from other people known as narcissistic supply simply to maintain the precarious balance of his personality. And his personality as a recall is composed or comprised of two parts. There is the dilapidated, degenerated, dysfunctional true self which is at the level of a four-year-old child to a nine-year-old child frozen, ossified in space at the corner crying. That's the true self of the narcissist. And then there is the false self which is everything the true self is not. The false self is all-powerful, all-knowing, divine, God-like. He is perfect. It is perfect and brilliant. The narcissist tends to identify to the false self to the exclusion of the true self. He becomes gradually over the years the narcissist becomes his false self. As he becomes his false self, this kind of narcissist becomes a drug addict. He develops an addictive personality and his drug of choice is narcissistic supply. And without pushers around, without people who provide him with this supply known as sources of narcissistic supply, the narcissist is totally dysfunctional. So, narcissists need input from other people in order to merely function, merely get up in the morning. They of course react with severe dysphoria to the absence or deficiency of narcissistic supply. So, narcissists are dependent on other people and they do develop marked, pronounced, co-dependent traits. Isn't that the narrative? The narcissist who regards co-dependence as weaklings, as despicable human beings or sub-humans. It is the very narcissists who are actually themselves co-dependents.