 My name is Sam Dutton, and I am the author of Malignancy of Love, Narcissism Revisible. Narcissists often frustrate other people. Frustrating one's nearest and dearest has a double advantage. It has the dual advantage of simultaneously satisfying the narcissist's masochistic tendencies and his sadistic urges. So, two birds with one stone. Frustrate your nearest and dearest, and you satisfy your masochism and your sadism. How is it possible? Well, by withholding love, withholding sex, avoiding intimacy, avoiding the fulfillment of other people's desires and needs, the narcissist torments these people. He taunts them, he torches them, even as he obstructs his own gratification. Think about it. If you don't have sex with your wife, you frustrate two people, your wife and yourself. When you frustrate your wife, you are a sadist. When you frustrate yourself, you're a masochist. Self-sabotage, self-defeat, self-denial, and self-destruction, the martyred victim stance, all these serve to prevent the forming of attachment and intimacy, and the potential for ultimate hurt, ultimate pain, as they dissolve. But self-denial, self-destruction, self-defeat, self-sabotage, all these also buttress the narcissist's sense of superiority, of uniqueness, of omnipotence. Why is that? Because only the strongest, only those with a method, can overcome and vanquish strong desires, powerful urges, needs, emotions that easily overwhelm lesser mortals. So by overcoming and vanquishing these desires and urges and emotions, the narcissist proves to himself that he is the strongest, that he is unique. The narcissist adheres to his idiosyncratic brand of ascetic religion, in which he is both God and the worshipper. The narcissist's inner monologue goes like this, I reject everything that matters to other people. Everything that is deemed valuable, worthwhile, meaningful, and desirable, is nothing to me. And I hold the weaklings who succumb to their emotions and drives, I hold these people in contempt. Nothing they have, or anything they can possess, or attain, none of it, is of value to me. It is all meaningless and worthless. So the narcissist devalues the commoners, the hoipoloid, the great unwashed, the average joe, the pedestrian, the routine, the animalistic sex, and the socially conformist. And so, certainly fitting, certainly lying, and certainly structuring behaviors and choices, actually engender narcissistic supply. Because when you're self-denying, when you're self-defeated, when you're self-destruct, you uphold and demonstrate a truth, the superhuman nature of the narcissist. This proves that the narcissist is a superman above humanity, and humanity's needs, and humanity's emotions, and humanity's drives, and humanity's desires, and humanity's preferences, and wishes, and priorities, is above the fray, is above all that. He doesn't need sex, he doesn't need intimacy, he doesn't need other people, he doesn't need society, he doesn't need. He denies his needs. He denies his drives, and urges, and desires, and wishes. This self-denying proves to him, demonstrates to him, and to others, a kind of utter and titanic independence of society, even of nature, because he doesn't need sex. A kind of independence of others in interpersonal relationships. It's a form of counter-dependence. It's a defiance of the world, of the universe, of God, of nature, of himself. This overcoming, this overcoming, this elevating oneself to a higher plateau, this is the essence of the narcissist narcissistic supply. When narcissistic supply is a short supply, embarking on the path of self-negation is actually an efficacious way, an efficacious shortcut to obtaining and securing narcissistic supply. At the very least, he draws astounded attention to the narcissist. Look at him. He is without sex for decades. Look at him. He just turned down the best job imaginable. Look at him. He doesn't need other people. He uses, abuses, and discards them. There is some shock and awe in observing the narcissist, especially the psychopathic narcissist. He inspires a kind of intimidation, to say fear in others, that puts him over and about his audience, makes him a kind of malevolent entity, the type of alien that we all stream it in a good horror movie. The horror movie is the narcissist's life. Today, I'm having a Donald Duck moment, or is it a Donald Trump moment? Lately, I and the rest of the world am not so sure. At any rate, today we have a cornucopia, cornucopia, looking up online. Many, many interesting and fascinating things from all corners of cyberspace, plus a central theme, a central topic. And then this will be followed by quotes from books as had become a tradition. My new Instagram channel is called Narcissism with Vakny. One word, Narcissism with Vakny. That's my new channel, because my old channel has been blocked by Facebook. And I've been asked on this channel, I've been asked by one of my followers, why did you delete your Jerry Springer video? I thought it was honest and ballsy. Well, first of all, I did not delete it. I had moved it to the playlist section. All the videos you think, well, most of the videos you think had disappeared because YouTube had deleted a few of my videos. Haters complained about hate speech and other things and YouTube had deleted a few of my videos. But all those who survived and you can't find them on the main screen, they are in the playlist. There are seven or eight, I don't remember, nine playlists on my YouTube channel. Just go there and you will find the missing videos. Scan the page, you will find it. Playlists are mentioned in a variety of places. Okay. But what struck my interest in her comment was the use of the word ballsy. She connected honesty with courage. And I wrote back to her, ballsy is a peculiar choice of words to describe an infantile non-man. And she responded, well, it takes courage to be that honest with strangers and with yourself, also known as ballsy. And my response was, you are confusing courage with impulsive recklessness. An infantile narcissist is never courageous. He's just oblivious. He's indifferent to the consequences of his actions. Sometimes, if he's antisocial, he's defiant. Also, if you hold people in contempt, if you don't care what they think about you, it takes no courage to be honest and open. The potential consequences, the court of public opinion, don't matter. Finally, negative supply is preferable to no supply. The narcissist will go to any length and distance, even self-degradation, even self-humiliation, even self-destruction, self-shaming and self-trashing in public in order to secure supply. You can see this on the Jerry Springer show in Dollops. The C word here is not courage. It's compulsion. The narcissist can't help it. Okay. Today, later in the second half of the video, I'm going to read to you book excerpts from three books. One of the excerpts will provide a very unusual view of empathy. The second excerpt, that's Matthew Luther King, Jr., about love. What he had to say about love. And the third excerpt is about fear. And now we have become a culture of fear, risk averse, danger averse, thrill averse, novelty averse. How we cocoon ourselves and how we socially distance long before the age of the pandemic. Fear had become the defining, motivating factor in our civilization. But before we go all there, I want to read to you a quote, a surprising quote. It's from a book called Cattle Kingdom. The hidden history, the hidden history of the cowboy west. It was written by Christopher Nolton. And it was published in 2017. And there's a sentence there caught my eye. The long-awaren bull was notoriously ornery, sullen, morose, solitary, and pugnacious. As one cattleman put it, the longer he lived, the meaner he became. I thought this applies to the long-awaren bull as well to one of our acquaintances, the narcissist. Okay. Lydia Angeloska in one of our endless exchanges suggested a new concept, which I found very, very fascinating. She said, the same way a narcissist collapses and the same way a histrionic collapses. The same way perhaps a borderline collapses. Sources of narcissistic supply can also collapse. Sources of narcissistic supply can suddenly stop providing narcissistic supply. They can turn off the faucet. They can go away. They can break up. They can upset themselves emotionally or physically or both. And at that moment, they stop providing the narcissist with what he needs most, secondary supply. We'll talk about it in a minute. And they become collapsed sources of narcissistic supply. And it occurred to me that Angeloska's innovation, because it's a totally new concept to the best of my ability, Angeloska's innovation fits well with the collapse of other elements in the narcissist's eternal quest for the primary grain of narcissistic supply. The source of supply can collapse, as Angeloska had suggested, but also the pathological narcissistic space can collapse. Sources of primary supply can collapse. Internet partners are sources of secondary supply, never primary supply. So sources of primary supply can collapse. And how does the narcissist cope with this? He copes with this via something called auto-supply or self-supply. He uses auto-supply or self-supply to create an equilibrium. Let me give you a simile or in some ways a metaphor. Those of you who remember your school days, if you had studied physics, I don't know, in Europe, physics is mandatory, I don't know, in the United States with what's left of their education system, if physics is mandatory. But we were taught about communicating vessels. Communicating vessels are containers, containers which are interconnected with pipes. And when you fill one of them with fluid, the fluid goes through the pipes to the other containers. And the level of the fluid in all the containers is the same. This is known as Stevin's Law. Stevin's Law of Communicating Vessels. Stevin was a fascinating character, Simon Stevin. He was Dutch, which already makes him interesting. In Latin his name was Stevinus. He was actually Flemish, to be more precise. He was a mathematician, physicist, military engineer. He did amazing things. For example, he created a yacht, a land yacht, kind of a yacht with sails, but on land. I mean, he was a bizarre character. He translated many texts and so on. He said, his famous quote is, a man in anger is not clever dissembler. So, Stephen Simon Stevinus was the guy who came up with the idea of the communicating vessels. And it's a perfect simile to non-sysistic supply. Because you pour a non-sysistic supply into the first container, that's vessel. Jar, jug, glass, doesn't matter. You pour the narcissistic supply and it spreads equally across the various emotional and psychological needs of the narcissist. If you pour an insufficient amount of supply, the level will be very low in all these areas of psychodynamic functioning. The narcissist needs a constant infusion of supply to maintain the level across all communicating vessels high and the same. When there's not enough supply, when the supply is missing, the narcissist administers supply to himself or asks his intimate partner to administer supply to him. When the intimate partner administers supply to the narcissist, that's secondary narcissistic supply. And when the narcissist does it to himself, when he fulfills these vessels with narcissistic supply by himself, it's called auto-supply or self-supply. To refresh your memory, there are two categories of narcissistic supply and consequently two categories of narcissistic supply sources. Primary narcissistic supply is attention, both in public forms, like fame, notoriety, infamy, celebrity and in a private, interpersonal form, adoration, adulation, applause, fear, fear, repulsion. It is important to understand that attention of any kind, positive or negative, constitutes primary narcissistic supply. Infamy is as sought after as fame, being notorious, is as good as being renowned. To the narcissist's accomplishments can be imaginary, can be fictitious or only apparent as long as others believe that he is an achiever. Appearances count more as far as a narcissist is concerned, count more than substance. What matters is not the truth, but the perception of the truth. It is impression management on steroids. Narcissistic supply comes in two forms, animate, animate, direct and inanimate, indirect. Inanimate supply is composed and comprised of all expressions of attention which are communicated in personally, not personally. For example, in written form, via third parties or as views on a YouTube video. In animate supply also includes aggregate measures of popularity and fame, number of friends and likes on Facebook. As I said, number of comments on YouTube, numbers of readers in a blog, statistics. That's inanimate supply. It has no face, it's faceless. Animate supply requires an interpersonal interaction with the source of the narcissistic supply, usually in the flesh. To sustain his sense of self-worth, the narcissist requires both types of supply, inanimate and animate. But especially the animate variety. He needs to witness firsthand the impact his false self has had on living, breathing, flesh and blood human sources and on his immediate environment. That's why isolation, quarantine and social distancing are very, very difficult on narcissists. Now, triggers of primary narcissistic supply include being famous, being a celebrity, having notoriety, fame, infamy, I mentioned that. Or having an air of mystique when the narcissist is considered to be mysterious, inaccessible. Or having sex and deriving from it a sense of masculinity, virility or femininity. Or being close or connected to political, financial, military, spiritual, movers and shakers, power, authority or yielding and wielding this power. All these are triggers of primary supply. But who provides the supply? Sources of primary narcissistic supply are all those who provide the narcissist with narcissistic supply on a casual, random basis. Not so secondary narcissistic supply sources. Secondary narcissistic supply includes leading a normal life. Normalcy, just being able to present yourself to appear to be normal is a source of great pride for the narcissist. Having a secure existence, economic safety, social acceptability, upward mobility and obtaining companionship. So having a mate, having an intimate partner possessing conspicuous wealth, being creative, running a business and of course the business is transformed into a pathological narcissistic space possessing a sense of anarchic freedom being a member of a group or a collective having a professional or other reputation being successful, owning property, flaunting one's status symbols they are all secondary narcissistic supply. But this source of secondary narcissistic supply is the narcissist intimate partner. She has a very important function. She supports his moments of glory and when he's down, when he cannot obtain supply when his supply is deficient she reminds him of these moments of glory. She's like an external hard disk, external memory and she stores supply she witnesses the supply and she stores it and then when the narcissist needs it she releases, it's like a slow release pill she releases the supply she regulates the supply. That's her main function. The main function of the narcissist intimate partner is regulatory to regulate the flow of supply. When there is a collapsed source of narcissistic supply again suggested originally by Lidia Wengerowska when there's a collapsed source of narcissistic supply the narcissists will try to compensate for this. So when the source of secondary supply had collapsed the narcissists will try to obtain more additional primary supply. The narcissists will also try to provide himself with supply, auto supply, self supply which we're going to discuss in a minute. When there is a collapsed source of primary supply, primary narcissistic supply when sources of primary supply vanish disappear, mock the narcissistic when they create external modification and so on when the narcissistic remains bereft of all sources of primary supply he's going to put the onus and the pressure on the source of secondary supply to regulate the deficiency to cover up for the deficiency to release memories of past moments of glory past accomplishments so as to compensate for the deficiency and again he's going to use auto supply self supply is a regulatory tool and finally when the entire pathological narcissistic space collapses to remind you pathological narcissistic space is the physical places narcissists go to in order to obtain supply the local pub, the library, the church the narcissists family is a pathological narcissistic space usually so when the pathological narcissistic space collapses the narcissists tries to compensate by obtaining more primary supply what's the role of auto supply or self supply in all this again it has a regulatory role in this sense it's the exact equivalent of an intimate partner again we see auto eroticism libidinal investment in the self auto supply, self supply are as good as having an intimate partner they're interchangeable don't have an intimate partner supply yourself as a narcissist you can't supply yourself as a narcissist you look for an intimate partner it's all investment in the self you can supply yourself in really dire straits when as a lost result so it's a regulatory mechanism it is tied to schizoid states where the narcissist is isolated, withdrawn I refer you to the previous video that I made and so he has no access to people he has no access to an intimate partner he may have divorced she may have abandoned him, cheated on him traded or whatever so he's in a schizoid state isolated, withdrawn, recluse lone wolf and so at that moment he will try to compensate via self supply or auto supply now what is self supply? what is auto supply? it's anything that grants the narcissist narcissistic supply but not dependent on any input or feedback from other people in other words you remember that in narcissism there is a god-awful confusion between internal objects and external objects the narcissist misconstrues and considers external objects as totally internal so worse comes to worse rock bottom when the narcissist does he begins to relate to some of his internal objects as actually external and he derives from these internal objects narcissistic supply as though and as if they were external he may uplift himself with positive automatic thoughts he may tell himself that he's great, that he's a genius misunderstood but still a genius so he will give himself pet talks and so on not in a healthy way, most of us almost everyone does that from time to time but in a sick compulsive way repetitive and something that occupies the bulk of his time so he's going to have a dialogue he's going to establish a dialogue with his internal objects thereby estranging himself from his internal objects to the point of psychosis almost almost to the point that he takes his internal objects as external objects he still maintains a modicum a measure of reality testing and he knows that he's talking to himself he knows that these objects don't exist out there but he tends to identify them with external objects that had existed in his life from his past and he tends to kind of in a process that I call twinning he tends to twin and contemporary internal objects with the past external objects so he would identify for example an internal object with his ex with his ex-wife he would identify an internal object with his teacher who admired him so he would kind of twin the past with the present and so this leads to several types of auto-supply the most prominent by far is paranoid or persecutory ideation think about it paranoid ideation the belief that you are at the center of some kind of collusion or conspiracy theory aggrandizes you makes you appear important at least to yourself if you believe yourself to be at the core or at the crux or to be the pivot and the axis of processes around you that is the kind of magical thinking that elevates you that renders you the center and the focus of attention so paranoid and persecutory ideation are highly narcissistic and they are a form of auto-supply self-supply because you don't need anything in any one so buttress prove substantiate your paranoid and persecutory ideation on the very contrary paranoia is a very solitary very solitary kind of state of mind the second type of auto-supply or self-supply is delusionality you can simply develop a delusion or a series of delusion some people develop a delusion that God himself is interested in their lives to the minutest details he micromanages their lives others believe others develop a delusion that yeah my wife had left me 46 years ago but she will be back one day I mean there is no end there is no way to specify all possible content of delusionality delusionality but delusions are very crucial important mechanism for self-supply and auto-supply there is even a therapeutic technique it's called anchoring like anchor of a ship and it is when we reorient the narcissist towards self-supply we push the narcissist to sort of win himself off narcissistic supply and to substitute for it to replace it with self-supply rather than resort to figgle and ephemeral external sources of narcissistic supply the narcissist is taught in the anchoring technique he is encouraged to resort to himself for supply to look forward with excited anticipation to the structured pursuit of let's say hobbies vocations to develop certain traits and skills and reward eliciting behaviors and this self-mastery is a major source of supply and this approach leverages the narcissist grandiose solipsism and his fantasy defense mechanism especially fantasies of omnipotence and it renders the narcissist emotionally self-sufficient and proud of healthy progress so here is an example of a therapeutic technique that uses knowingly, consciously mechanisms of self-supply and auto-supply but let's elaborate a bit on delusions because delusions delusionality delusions that's the family of coping strategies that the narcissist had his most acquainted with when the narcissist is a child subjected to trauma and abuse nowhere to hide nowhere to escape he's being instrumentalized objectified beaten sexually molested is what to do well the narcissist as a child escapes to delusionality he develops a delusion which is essentially the fourth self a god-like entity totally delusional an imaginary friend a comfort object that is delusional so the narcissist default when there isn't enough supply the narcissist default is delusion unable to completely ignore contrarian opinion and data from reality he transmutes them unable to face the dismal failure that he is the narcissist partially withdraws from reality altogether loses reality testing to soothe and to solve the pain of disillusionment the narcissist administers to himself a mixture of lies confabulations distortions and outlandish interpretations of events around him and these delusional solutions we can classify them into groups let's start with the delusional narrative solution the narcissist constructs a narrative in which he figures as a hero he is perfect he is irresistibly handsome testing for great things entitled kind-hearted, wealthy the center of attention etc etc he is the protagonist of his own novel of fiction the biggest strain of this delusional charade the greater the gap between fantasy and reality the more the delusion coalesces and solidifies that's the irony delusion is a defense against reality the more reality challenges the narcissist the more delusion he becomes that's why it's very wrong in therapy to challenge the narcissist delusions to introduce him to force him to accept reality because when you do this it entrenches him it becomes even more traculent obstinate resistant to treatment and finally he is sufficiently protracted this delusion replaces reality altogether when the narcissist's reality testing deteriorates he withdraws he withdraws he withdraws bridges and we become schizotypal catatonic or schizoid again I'll refer you to the previous video I made then there is the antisocial solution the narcissist all these solutions to remind you are in case the narcissist is unable to obtain supply so here's the second family of solutions the antisocial solution the narcissist renounces reality to his mind those who pusillanimously fail to recognize his unbound talents his innate superiority his overarching brilliance his perfection his benevolent nature his entitlement his cosmically important mission these people do not deserve consideration they are you know what they are intervention they are not human they are subhuman anyone who can gaze at the face of the narcissist he is the son you can't look at his face because he is glowing there's an aura he is saintly in godlike and he is an amazing genius and he is unprecedented in the annals of humanity if you can't grasp this if you disagree with this if you are stupid enough to not realize it instantly then something is wrong with you what's wrong with you? you are not fully human you are indistinguishable from monkeys and apes so you don't deserve you have no rights you don't deserve any consideration and the narcissist has no obligation towards you the narcissist natural affinity with a criminal his lack of empathy lack of compassion deficient social skills his disregard for social laws social mores and morals now this affinity with a criminal erupts it blossoms it flourishes the narcissist becomes a full fledged antisocial psychopath he ignores the wishes and needs of others he breaks the law he violates all rights natural and legal he holds people and contempt at this day he derives and decries society in its codes he punishes the ignorant ingrates he becomes consumacious and that that is because these people to his mind drove him to this state of deficient supply they are the criminals they had acted criminally but and and so he is just reciprocating he is jeopardizing their safety their lives, their property, their happiness their mental health because they have done it to him first defiance quit pro quo that's the second family the third family is I mentioned before the paranoid schizoid solution when narcissism fails the defense mechanism, the narcissist develops paranoid narratives self-directed confabulations which place him at the center of others allegedly malign attention intention and attention the narcissist becomes his own audience self-sufficient as his own sometimes exclusive source of narcissistic supply the narcissist develops persecutory delusions, he perceives insults where none were intended this is known as hyper vigilance he becomes subject to ideas of reference, referential ideation he believes that people are gossiping about him mocking him behind his back prying into his affairs cracking his email and that reminds me of Donald Trump so much I'm going to take another scene from the Donald Trump Donald Duck come the narcissist is convinced that he is the center of malign and malintentioned attention people are conspiring humiliating him to punish him, to restrict him to abscond with his property to prevent him from realizing his potential and self-actualizing to delude him, to impoverish him to confine him physically to dwarf him intellectually to censor him to impose on his time to force him to action to force him to inaction force him to surround him, to besiege him to change his mind, to part with his values to victimize, to murder him and so on no limit escalation to the end and all this, the narcissist is the center of this universe of collusion, conspiracism and inanity some narcissists withdraw completely from a world from a universe populated with such menacious and ominous objects but these objects are really projections of internal odds and processes as you realize and these narcissists avoid all social contact, except the most necessary, they refrain from meeting people, falling in love having sex, talking to others or even corresponding with others in short, these narcissists become schizories not out of social shyness but out of what they feel to be their choice the schizory doesn't have a choice the real schizory schizory simply dislikes people doesn't need sex and is utterly asocial asocial, not antisocial asocial here the narcissist makes choices to let go, to give up certain proclivities and predilections that he has certain tendencies and inclinations he gives them up knowingly but he gives them up gives them up in his view this distorted mind in self defense the evil hopeless world does not deserve me they say to themselves I shall waste none of my time and resources on it grandiose exit left now the next family is the paranoid aggressive explosive solution the previous family was the paranoid schizory another variant the paranoid explosive solution other narcissists who develop a secretary delusions resort to an aggressive stance a more violent resolution of their internal conflict they become verbally psychologically situationally and very rarely physically abusive they insult, castigate humiliate, chastise berate, demean and deride their nearest and dearest often their well wishes and loved ones they explode in unprovoked displays of rage, indignation righteousness, condemnation and blame theirs is an exegetic bedlam they interpret everything even the most innocuous, inadvertent and innocent comment is designed to provoke and humiliate they so fear revulsion, hatred and malign attending they flail against the windmills of reality for no one sight but often they cause real and lasting damage fortunately mainly to themselves and there's a middle middle ground version between the paranoid schizoid and the paranoid aggressive and that's the paranoid passive aggressive I refer you to videos on this channel which deal with passive aggression or negativistic personality another family is the masochistic action masochistic self-harming, avoidant solution some narcissists when they cannot secure a supply they are angered by the lack of narcissistic supply such a narcissist directs some of this fury inwards, punishing himself for his failure to secure a supply and this is masochistic behavior and it has the added benefit that the narcissist closes the nearest and dearest to assume the roles of dismayed spectators or of persecutors and so either way to pay him the attention that he craves it's like he's shouting from the rooftops I'm about to commit suicide I'm about to harm myself I'm about to hurt myself it's a cry not for him it's a cry for attention often manifests as self-handicapping masochism a narcissistic copout by undermining his work his relationships his efforts the increasingly fragile and vulnerable narcissist avoids additional criticism and sensory avoids negative supply self-inflicted failure is a narcissist doing and so proves that he is the master and he is in control this is a technique very often used by covert narcissists masochistic narcissists keep finding themselves in self-defeating self-destructive circumstances which renders success impossible Milan wrote in 2000 that masochist narcissists do this, they sabotage everything they undermine everything they do this and an objective assessment of their performance to render it improbable they act carelessly they withdraw in mid-effort they are constantly fatigued bored, sick, disaffected and so passive-aggressively they sabotage their own lives their suffering is defiant in your face suffering conspicuous victimhood ostentatious self-reignation they get drunk, they do drugs they overspend, they over it and so by deciding to abort their lives to reject their lives as gladly put it they reassert actually their omnipotence not only am I in control of myself I'm in control of your emotions because I make you sorry for me I make you sad I make you depressed I have a state of mind in you I'm going to play with your emotions I'm going to sacrifice myself to eff up your mind the narcissist pronounces public misery and self-pity they are compensatory and again as Milan said they are intended to reinforce his self-esteem against overwhelming convictions of worthlessness the narcissist tribulations and anguish render him in his eyes unique I am suffering so I never heard anyone of anyone that suffered like me I mean what he did to me I think no one else had ever experienced this it makes him saintly this suffering this victimhood is virtuous it's righteous it's resilient and significant he becomes an empath then he graduates and he becomes a super empath then he graduates and he becomes a supernova empath this empath label is grandiose it's highly narcissistic these are narcissists who had chosen the masochistic solution these narcissists are in other words self-generating what they do they replace narcissistic supply or they react to narcissistic injuries and modifications by generating supply from the inside self-generated narcissistic supply and they generate this supply by playing the victim by becoming the victim by identifying with victimhood not only as a state of mind but as an identity and so paradoxically the worst the worst the worst is anguish the more horrible is unhappiness the more relieved and elated such a narcissist feels he feels good he feels really good what he feels really really bad so a narcissist reacts to a deficient narcissistic supply very much as a drug addict reacts to the absence of a particular drug the dwindling or absence of supply is a trauma and the narcissist experience post-traumatic stress the narcissist constantly consumes praiseable, adoration, admiration approval, flaws, attention other forms of narcissistic supply when lacking, when they are deficient a narcissistic deficiency dysphoria sets in the narcissist then appears to be depressed his movements slow down his sleep patterns are disordered he becomes insomniac sleeps too much his eating patterns change he gorges on food or avoids it all together the narcissist is constantly dysphoric when he doesn't have supply he is unhedonic so he is sad and he finds no pleasure in anything including his former pursuits hobbies, professions and interests the narcissist is subjected to violent mood swings he becomes mood-lap-lapile mainly his rage attacks and he is visible and painful a kind of emotional dysregulation so in a way deficient supply pushes the narcissist to become a borderline the scholar Drotstein suggested the borderline personality disorder is failed narcissism when the child fails to develop narcissistic personality disorder the child ends up being in a midway house and that is borderline personality disorder it's a failed narcissist so when the narcissist fails when he collapses he reverts to a borderline state and you see these extremely anguishing efforts at self-control and they fail he compulsively and ritually resorts to some addiction alcohol, drugs, reckless driving he develops obsessive-compulsive rituals this gradual disintegration is the narcissist's futile effort both to escape his predicament and to sublimate the aggressive urges that he has he is frustrated Dahlan in 1939 suggested the frustration-aggression hypothesis he said frustration becomes aggression so the narcissist is frustrated he cannot obtain supply he becomes aggressive his whole behavior seems constrained artificial and effortful he gradually turns more and more mechanical detached and unreal his thoughts constantly wander or become obsessive and repetitive his speech may falter he appears to be far away in a world of his narcissistic fantasies where narcissistic supply is a plenty so the narcissist withdraws from his painful existence where others fail to appreciate his greatness his special skills, his talents, his potential his achievements he uses to bestow himself upon a cruel indifference universe he is punishing humanity for its shortcoming its inability to realize how unity is and what a gift he is when narcissism fails as a defense mechanism the narcissist develops paranoid delusions self-directed confabulations which place him in the center of others' allegedly malicious intention the narcissist becomes his own audience and self-sufficient as his own sometimes exclusive source of supply and again to remind you some narcissist is going to a schizoid mode referring to the previous video I made narcissistic or schizoid withdrawal this kind of narcissist isolates himself, a hermit in the kingdom of his hurt he minimizes his social interactions and uses messengers, flying monkeys to communicate with the outside devoid of energy the narcissist can no longer pretend to succumb to social conventions his former compliance gives way to open withdrawal it's a rebellion of sorts smiles are transformed to frowns courtesy becomes rudeness emphasize that the kit is used as a weapon an outlet of aggression an act of self-righteous sanctimonious violence the narcissist is blinded by his fate seeks to restore his balance to take another sip of the narcissistic nectar that his narcissistic supply and in this compulsive quest out of his control the narcissist turns both to and upon those nearest to him his real attitude emerges for him, his nearest and dearest are nothing nothing but tools one-dimensional instruments of gratification functions sources of supply extensions pimps of supply catering to his narcissistic lust having failed to procure for him his drug narcissistic supply the narcissist regards friends colleagues and even family members as dysfunctional frustrating especially hostile objects he develops what we call the secretary objects in his wrath and fury and unmitigated rage he tries to mend these people to fix them by forcing them to perform a game to function a game he's very adamant about it relentless, callous reckless this is coupled with merciless and deservedly self-inflicted punishment the narcissist feels in extreme cases of deprivation the narcissist entertains suicidal thoughts suicidal ideation this is how deeply he loathes his self and his dependence on others throughout this mess the narcissist is beset by a pervading sense of malignant nostalgia harking back existent make America great again accepting the thwarted fantastic radiosity of the narcissist the longer the lack of supply the longer supply is missing the more the narcissist glorifies rewrites reframes misses and mourns are totally invented past this nostalgia serves to enhance other negative feelings into clinical depression the narcissist proceeds to develop paranoia he concocts a prosecuting world a prosecuting world, I'm sorry a prosecuting world incorporating in this world his life's events and his social media he creates a giant game of thrones and gives everyone a roam every place every person all his personal history this gives meaning this online virtual game this MMOG multiple multiplayer game this gives meaning to what is erroneously perceived by the narcissist to be a sudden shift from oversupply to no supply this in this imaginary paranoid universe there's a reason he's not getting supply it's a conspiracy it's a collusion he's so self evidently superior he's so much to offer he's so much to offer he's such a gift he's such an endowment he's so perfect, he's so brilliant, he's so handsome he's so smart all narcissists are 190 IQ didn't you know and yet he's rejected he's ignored, he's mocked he's ridiculed, he's abandoned he's disrespected and it grates and in extremes it modifies creates modification and so he needs to co-create external modification he builds a paranoid theory a paranoid theory of the world it's all it's everyone against him it's malicious malevolent intent to deprive him to discriminate against him it's injustice, writ large it's institutional, it's individual it's individuals acting within institutions everyone, everywhere is against him otherwise he would have received much more supply proof that this paranoid ideation is not a delusion is that he's not getting supply does it tend to reason of course he should have received supply plenty theories of conspiracy account for the decrease in narcissistic supply the narcissist then frightened, in pain in despair embarks upon an orgy of self destruction intended to generate alternative supply sources alternative attention at any cost the narcissist is poised to commit the ultimate narcissistic act self destruction in the service of self-advertisement when he's deprived of supply both primary and secondary the narcissist feels annulled nonexistent hollowed out mentally disemboweled this is an overpowering sense of evaporation disintegration into molecules of terrified anguish dissolution, helpless and inexorable without narcissistic supply the narcissist crumbles crumbles to dust like the zombies or the vampires one sees in horror movies and the only the only sustenance is not blood it's supply it is terrifying the narcissist will do anything to avoid this fate think about the narcissist consider him as a drug addict he's withdrawal symptoms he's called turkey of the same like a drug addicts, like a junkies delusions physiological effects, irritability emotional mobility in the absence of regular supply narcissists often experience brief decompensatory psychotic episodes this also happens while in therapy or following a life crisis accompanied by major narcissistic injury and these psychotic episodes may be closely allied to another feature of narcissists magical thinking narcissists are like children in this sense I keep saying it in all my videos many narcissists, for instance, fully believe in two things that whatever happens, they will prevail and that good things will always happen to them it is more than mere belief it's it's magical thinking that it's experience as reality narcissists just know it the same way one knows about air or gravity directly, immediately assuredly unthinkingly, automatically the narcissist believes that no matter what he does no matter what he does he will always be forgiven always prevail in triumph always come on top, I call it narcissistic immunity the narcissist is therefore fearless in a manner perceived by others to be both admirable and insane the narcissist attributes to himself divine and cosmic immunity he cloaks himself in this immunity it renders him invisible to his enemies and to the power of evil the narcissist is a comic street it's a marvel movie not marvelous marvel, it is a childish phantasmagoria but to the narcissist it's very real the narcissist knows with religious certainty that good things will always happen to him with equal certitude the more self-aware narcissists and there are quite a few of them they, this kind of narcissist self-aware knows that he will squander this good fortune time and again it's a painful experience best avoided he knows that so no matter what serendipity or fortuity, what lucky circumstance what blessing the narcissist receives he always strives with blind fury to deflect them to deform them to ruin his chances and this is his only success self-destruction now the next video, I'm going to read 3 excerpts from 3 books a very surprising excerpt about empathy Martin Luther King's words on love which should resonate through the ages and an excerpt about the cultural fear the narcissist expects dry spells in obtaining narcissistic supply he knows that narcissistic supply is a flow like a river it has its ups and downs it has its tidal moments it wanes and waxes and he learns to expect these irregularities in the supply chain that is precisely why narcissists team up with intimate partners the main role of the narcissist in significant other is to regulate the supply to stabilize it to flatten the curve if you wish the intimate partner provides secondary supply which replenishes the missing primary supply so narcissists are well trained at regulating supply one way or another but what happens when the narcissist runs out of the ability to regulate supply when people around the narcissist are so disillusioned so disenchanted so disappointed so angry and so hurt that they want nothing further to do with the narcissist what happens when the narcissist moves from one pathological space exits it and yet didn't have the time to establish a new one what happens when circumstances and the environment conspire to prevent the narcissist from obtaining sources of supply for example is hospitalized or is in prison what happens in other words when the narcissist faces the dawning realization that he will never have narcissistic supply again that it is very unlikely how does the narcissist then regulate his internal environment how does he cope with such an imminent and very frightening threat and this is the topic of today's lecture the second or three on schizoid narcissists and I would like to open with a quote it's by Ferenzi and Shando to noted psychoanalyst it's titled notes and fragments it was published by the international journal of psychoanalysis volume 30 1949 when I was a young man and this is the quote a surprising fact in the process of self splitting is the sudden change of the object relation that had become intolerable this object relation changes into narcissism the man abandoned by all gods escapes completely from reality creates for himself another world in which he can achieve everything that he wants he has been unloved he has been tormented and so now this man splits off from himself apart and elfu loving often motherly mind commiserates with a tormented remainder of the self nurses this remainder decides for it with the deepest wisdom and most penetrating intelligence this part this motherly part is a guardian angel that sees the suffering or murdered child it wanders through the whole universe this child seeking help and this part invents fantasies for the child that cannot be saved in any other way but even though this child cannot be saved in any other way except via fantasy in the moment of a very strong repeated trauma even this guardian angel must confess his own helplessness and well meaning deceptive swindles and then nothing else remains but suicide this was the quote by the way launched called therapy Ferranci and Chando are discussing actually re-traumatization they warn that such a process when the false self collapses is disabled modification in activates it there's no further protection and nurturing and the guardian is dead the guardian angel is dead or gone it inexorably leads to suicide it's not true but it's partly true and today we're going to discuss the solutions that narcissists deploy and employ and use to cope with the removal of narcissistic supply as a self-regulatory instrument my name is Sam Wackney I'm the author of Malignan self-love narcissism revisited and your favorite professor of psychology when narcissistic supply is no longer available in principle and clearly will not be available for a very long period of time in the foreseeable future either because all sources of supply had been alienated and depleted or because pathological narcissistic supply had crumbled or because external circumstances conspire external circumstances conspire to prevent the narcissists from going out there and obtaining supply or because internal circumstances prevent the narcissists from obtaining supply rendering the narcissists a covert narcissists he's too shy, he's too fragile he's too vulnerable or he's too schizoid to go out there and scout for supply in all these cases supply suddenly becomes not scarce but absent it's not a deficiency of narcissistic supply it's the vanishing of narcissistic supply from the narcissists' landscape nothing could be more frightening than this because the narcissists uses narcissistic supply to keep himself together not only to regulate his moods his negative emotionality his negative emotionality can overpower him as well as others and he uses supply to regulate this but not only to reduce the ability not only to ameliorate anxiety narcissistic supply has so many psychological functions that the only thing that can compare it to other people is love actually maternal love spousal love other love object relations narcissistic supply is the narcissists object relation only the object is himself the narcissists has a libidinal investment in himself and he invests it via narcissistic supply narcissistic supply is the affirmation and the confirmation that the narcissists fantasy world his shared fantasy his false self his grandiosity his inflated self perception are real narcissistic supply reassures the narcissists deludes the narcissists deceives the narcissists into somehow believing that he is still capable of maintaining a modicum of reality testing but there comes a point where we completely ignore contrarian opinion countervailing data confirmation bias doesn't work anymore so he reframes them he ignores them he represses them, denies them, blocks them out transmutes them there are many many ways of coping with information or data that countermand undermine, challenge the narcissistic perception and grandiosity but if he is no longer able to face the dismal failure that he is the narcissists can react in one of two ways he can continue to remain in reality and undergo modification, narcissistic modification and I advise you to watch my videos on narcissistic modification that's one way and the other path is to essentially become psychotic divorce reality withdraw into an inner world so complete that it is misperceived by the narcissists as reality and that is a good definition of psychotic disorder this is hyperreflection so when the narcissist is confronted with utter lack of supply or with overwhelming negative supply the narcissist either is modified loses his full self or withdraws from reality becomes technically second to soothe and solve the pain disillusionment the challenge, the disintegration the falling apart and the threat, the existential threat as Francis says could end up in suicide the narcissist administers mixture of lies, distortions, half truths lndish interpretations of events but what if this fails too what if the narcissist is undergoing modification and all his strategies all the instruments he had developed since early childhood are not working anymore because there is no supply to drive them what to do then well the narcissist in this case especially the schizoid narcissists the schizoid narcissists has a dual problem not only he is not able to tap into new sources of supply he finds in the interaction with sources of supply very distasteful he is socially averse sexually averse schizoid narcissists are in a double bind so what all these narcissists do when there is no more fuel to the car in 1995 I compared narcissistic supply to fuel that a car engine needs you can have the most amazing car with the most perfect Rolls Royce engine but without fuel it is not going anywhere and if it is left standing for long it decays it falls apart and it is no longer recognizable there is a metal wreck a scrap metal so what to do to avoid this vampire like conversion to dust you know these movies where vampires are exposed to the sun or you run a stake through them or silver bullets or whatever it is that works nowadays and they suddenly go up in a puff of dust what to do to prevent this so narcissists have several strategies last resort strategies and solutions the first one is the delusional narrative solution the narcissist constructs a narrative in which he figures as the hero the protagonist he is brilliant in this narrative in this piece of fiction in this movie script he is irresistibly handsome he is destined for great things he is entitled powerful center of attention etc the narrative is usually counterfactual it is counterfactual that's why it's essentially a delusional disorder the narcissist develops a delusional disorder and the bigger the stream of this delusional charade the greater the gap between fantasy and reality the more the delusion coalesces and solidifies attacking the delusion makes it more coherent evasive, more resilient finally if it is sufficiently protracted the delusion replaces reality and the narcissist's reality testing deteriorates he withdraws his bridges and may become schizotypo, catatonic or full fledged schizoid the next solution is the antisocial solution the narcissist again renounces reality and everyone in reality the people who pucillanimously failed to recognize his unbound talents innate superiority overarching brilliance benevolent nature, entitlement cosmically important mission, perfection or justice these people do not deserve his presence do not deserve the gift that he is nor do they deserve empathy and consideration such as he can muster the narcissist's natural affinity with the criminal, with the antisocial his lack of empathy his lack of compassion his deficient social skills his disregard for social laws and morals and mores his defiance consumatiousness lack of impulse control reactance, in other words the commonalities between narcissists and psychopaths they now erupt they flourish and blossom like an unseemly poisonous blight the narcissist becomes a full fledged antisocial psychopath he ignores the wishes and needs of other people, he breaks the law he violates all rights natural and legal he holds people in contempt and disdain he derides and decries society and its codes he punishes the ignorant and those who cause him injustice he becomes vindictive sometimes obsessively and compulsively vindictive and that is because to his mind these people drove him to this state they are responsible alloplastic defences everyone is guilty everyone is to blame everyone is responsible except of course the narcissist by acting criminally by jeopardizing their safety their lives by absconding with their property he is just rebalancing he is just recreating cosmic justice he is just putting things right the third solution is the paranoid schizoid solution and before I proceed a lot of this would be familiar to you with the recent developments in the United States and so on all these things apply equally to collectives as they do to individuals enough said apply these things to your daily news the paranoid schizoid solution when narcissism so that's the third solution when narcissism fails as a defense mechanism the narcissist develops paranoid hyper-vigilant narratives self-directed confabulations which place him at the center of other people's allegedly malign malevolent, malicious surreptitious attention the narcissist becomes his own audience and self-sufficient self-supply as his own sometimes exclusive source of narcissistic supply the narcissist in this case develops persecutory delusions and ideation paranoid ideation and persecutory delusions he perceives slides and insults and conspiracies and collusions and malevolence where none exist or were intended he becomes subject to ideas of reference, referential ideation people are gossiping about him they're mocking him they're prying into his affairs they're cracking his email or whatever they are out to get him he's convinced that he's the center of malign and malicious attention people are conspiring to humiliate him to punish him to absolve with his property, to delude him to impoverish him, to confine him physically or intellectually to censor him to impose on his time to force him to action or to force him to inaction to frighten him, to coerce him to alter his behavior and all choices to surround and besiege him change his mind part with his values, victimize even in extreme cases yes, he's the target of a plot to assassinate him some analysis goes so far down this rabbit hole we draw so completely from a world populated with menacious and ominous objects that they reach the point of dangerous paranoid grandiose psychosis all these are projections of internal objects and processes of course, that's the problem the problem is that in the absence of supply the narcissist's inner environment is totally disregulated all the levers of control are gone the inmates break out of the asylum all the sadistic interjects all the constructs the dysfunctional constructs they're out in the wild they take over in effect they take over because they're charged with an enormous pent-up energy and they take over and they drive the narcissists to the point of no return this kind of narcissist avoids all social contact except the most necessary, they become in other words full-fledged schizoid narcissists they refrain from this kind of narcissists refrain from meeting people, falling in love, having sex talking to others, or even corresponding with others they become schizoids not out of social shyness, they're not avoidant but out of what they feel to be their choice they say to themselves this evil, hopeless world does not deserve me it's an inner refrain it's like a mantra, affirmation if you wish and I shall waste none of my time and resources on these ingrates and that's the risk of affirmations even positive affirmations are to my mind a very dangerous tool because positive affirmations tend to resonate with introjects and constructs within the personality that very often are hidden repressed for very good reason because they are sick, problematic dysfunctional, disordered and a positive affirmation can bring such an introject or a construct into the surface positive affirmations can render you paranoid can render you narcissistic can render you grandiose and I see these affirmations all over the place like so much cancer so much malignancy and I see the impact of these affirmations in how people become more and more grandiose more and more entitled narcissistic and more and more paranoid the next solution is the paranoid aggressive or explosive solution some narcissists who develop persecutory delusions and paranoid ideation they resort to an aggressive stance so the first case that we draw in this case the approach and the approach is violent a violent resolution of an internal conflict of a dissonance these kind of narcissists become verbally, psychologically situationally and sometimes physically abused they insult, castigate, chastise berate, demean, criticize and deride even their nearest and dearest well-wishers, loved ones, friends, family they explode in unprovoked displays of indignation righteousness sanctimoniousness condemnation and blame it's an exegetic bedlam they interpret everything even the most innocuous, inadvertent and innocent comment as designed to provoke them, to humiliate them to put them down to render them submissive, to subjugate them and this kind of narcissists so fear, revulsion, hatred and malignant envy they flail against the windmills of reality they are pathetic, forlorn but they're dangerous often they cause real and lasting damage fortunately, mainly to themselves the next solution is the masochistic avoidant solution remember, all these are solutions when the narcissist reaches a conclusion that actually he cannot extract supply anymore in a traditional way he cannot find willing collaborators, willing partners who would provide him with supply within a shared fantasy or he cannot establish a pathological narcissistic space because of external circumstances or internal reasons shyness, fragility, vulnerability in all these cases the narcissist reaches the terrifying harrowing conclusion that he has seen the lust of narcissistic supply and now he needs to find other ways either to supply himself to become self supplier or to force to force the environment to provide him supply by becoming a psychopath or a dangerous explosive paranoid etc etc so these are the solutions the next solution is the masochistic avoidant solution the narcissist is angered by the lack of narcissistic supply makes him angry and he directs some of this narcissistic rage some of this fury inwards himself for his failure to secure and obtain supply and this masochistic behavior has the added benefit of forcing the narcissist's closest nearest dearest, loved ones friends, even colleagues to assume the roles of dismayed spectators or of persecutors either way to pay him the attention that he craves some of them take on the role of a savior they have a messiah complex they want to save him some of them take on the role of making his life better, ameliorating so they try to make him happy and joyful and cheerful some of them are simply dismayed and they express their anger and disappointment some of them seek to persecuting actually whatever the case may be he succeeds to elicit attention by damaging self-trashing self-destructive behaviors by self-defeat he actually attracts people because people have a tendency to save other people we see someone drowning you want to help him self-administered punishment often manifests in this kind of narcissists as self-handicapping masochism a narcissistic copout by undermining his work his relationships his efforts the increasingly fragile narcissist avoids additional criticism and censure negative supply because self-inflicted failure is the narcissist doing he did it to himself so he is in control it's a choice if the narcissist destroys himself it's his choice and it's his control self-destruction is a form of grandiosity and it proves that he is the master of his fate masochistic narcissists keep finding themselves and self-defeating circumstances which render success impossible Milan wrote in 2000 that masochistic narcissists are hell-bent on preventing an objective assessment of their performance they make it improbable they act carelessly they withdraw in mid-effort they are constantly fatigued or bored or disaffected and so they passive-aggressively sabotage their own lives their suffering is defined in your face conspicuous and ostentatious they decide to abort and by deciding to abort they are the decision makers it's a manifestation of omnipotence you know only I have the power to destroy myself suicide is actually a grandiose narcissistic act it's very selfish the narcissist pronounces in public misery and his self-pity are compensatory because as Milan says they reinforce his self-esteem against overwhelming convictions of worthlessness his tribulations his suffering his anguish they render him in his own eyes unique, saintly virtuous, righteous resilient and significant you hear me? empaths? right these forms of self-aggrandizement you know I'm a saint I'm an angel I'm blameless I'm faultless I didn't do anything to deserve this these are forms of self-generated narcissistic supply it's self-supply as a paradoxically the worse the anguish the worse the suffering the more the unhappiness the more relieved and elated such a narcissist feels he feels good only when he feels bad and these are the solutions in two big groups self-supply and cannot secure supply in any way shape or form he either begins to self-supply which is sexually autoerotic and psychologically auto-libidon self-supplies and he becomes his own source of supply and that's a total collapse it's a singularity it's a black hole he cuts himself off instead of avoiding reality and becoming a self-supplier the narcissist seeks to force the environment to give him supply by self-destructing or by becoming a psychopath so the absence of supply the vanishing of supply radicalizes the narcissist pushes him into solutions which are recognizable personality disorders such as schizoid or antisocial mortification and collapse as I have said in previous videos are the bridges between personality disorders they are the engines that drive the transformations all personality disorders bleed into each other merge with each other seamlessly we see in the same person symptoms, behaviors traits, signs, manifestations of all personality disorders either someone has a personality disorder and then he has elements of all personality disorders or he doesn't have a personality disorder and then he has no elements of any personality disorder these are the two groups if you are a narcissist you are also likely to be obsessive compulsive and paranoid for example or schizoid if you are schizoid you are likely to be a narcissist at some stage paranoid definitely etc etc these distinctions are artificial they are wrong they are known as the polythetic fallacy and they are caused for great criticism of the DSM there is a badly compiled and written book which does not reflect reality because reality is a dimension is a spectrum of entities we are parts of networks and the network, we are a network effect the concept of individual is very wrong because individual like non-divisible and atom it's wrong, it's not true and there is no such thing as personality it's a confluence it's the Venn Diagram that makes you what you are a narcissist even though they like to think of themselves as exceptions of course, I'm not nothing good lasts forever I gave you a three weeks vacation from Saint-Baknen but it's over I'm back with this video and today we are going to discuss what I call the system of residuals can two narcissists inhabit the same body now this sounds a bit like the exorcist or demon possession or multiple personality disorder known today as dissociative identity disorder but actually it's none of the above I'm going to discuss the loaded question can a narcissist be both overt and covert at the same time and when this rare condition happens what does it mean how do we identify such a narcissist and what can we do about it and what can the narcissist do about it is there any way out to be one kind of narcissist is bad enough to be two kinds of narcissists in the same body at the same time this sub-ultinity or synchronicity is a horror show it's indeed a form of possession it calls for exorcism sanctioned by the catholic church but I can't have this on my show I'm a Jew so I'm going to discuss psychology instead the profession largely invented and propagated by Jews throughout modern history okay anti-semitism aside let's delve right into the topic of the video the problem starts with a concept of the unitary self at some point modern psychology had taken a detour various scholars had come up with concepts such as self personality individual and these concepts had implied that we are all atoms we are kind of self-sufficient self-contained solipsistic universes we do pass each other in the night honking our horns our fog horns like two ships but otherwise we are totally separate we can be studied in isolation in laboratories the context in which we are embedded for example the social context is secondary what matters are internal processes this is where psychology started to become delusional or divorced from reality if I had to diagnose current psychology I would say that it has an impaired reality testing and why would I say that because there is no such thing as individual probably there is no such thing as a self definitely there is no such thing as a personality all these concepts are very misleading we are formed we become in a process which is life long as Ericsson had noted and this process involves other people all the time we are relational outcomes we emerge we coalesce through interactions with other people we are the sum total of our object relations starting with mommy and ending in the grave as we go through life as we find ourselves and mesh with other people we love, we hate we fight, we withdraw yes, withdrawal is also a form of reaction to people as we interact socially even if we are schizoids even if we are avoidant we still interact we are still forced to interact socially all these all these environments phenomena other people they form us, they shape us they make us who we are now this observation is not new of course it has been proposed by various object relation theories in the 1960s but since then psychology had taken an experimental turn psychologists when they grow up want to be scientists it's a form of vanity it's a form of grandiosity psychologists are not happy with being psychologists they want to be physicists they want to belong to medicine they want to become a part of the sciences and so what psychologists had done in the past several decades is that they began to place emphasis on laboratory experiments on studying animals as proxies for people etc etc this was a very wrong turn and so we ended up with a psychology that speaks very little to our common experiences we had become alienated from psychology estranged from psychology we feel as if psychology has nothing to offer us and you know what the truth is that psychology has very little to offer us which is why people gravitate to con artists coaches and other forms of low life so it all started with this error with this primordial sin of the unitary self gradually over the past few decades there have been rebel movements for example the internal family system and others and these rebels intellectuals high powered intellectuals and scholars decided another concept a substitute for the unitary self it's a form of operating system internal operating system a CPU and this internal operating system determines which of several self state emerges at any given time let's revert let's go back one step the new approach in psychology in schools or relatively new schools suggest that we actually don't have a self what we have instead is a family a congregation a parish a group a collective of sub personalities self states what I call pseudo identities now these self states are indeed like a family in the sense there are internal dynamics between them they also share a lot of information with each other so they are only partially dissociative the dissociation wall is permeable what one self state learns the others share mostly not entirely but mostly so there is a common database of experiences which renders identity cohesive coherent and continuous we have these multiple self states they inhabit an internal space this internal space has a shared database of common memories these common memories give rise to a fluid but stable identity core and this identity core in turn arranges the memories in meaningful ways identity core serves as an organizing principle an explanatory principle and there is an operating system there is an overriding guiding principle which determines which of the self states emerges at any given point and how does this determination take place how does the operating system decide which self state emerges at any given minute it evaluates internal and external information now this information is generated generated and provided by internal and external environments so the operating system monitors environments external environments and internal environments all the time and then it renders its verdict this makes a decision right now self state number three the psychopathic self state should emerge right now self state number one the narcissistic self state should take over and right now self state number seven the codependent self state the dependent self state should kind of pervade the personality so self states alternate and kaleidoscopically alternate among each other now in the majority of cases there are stable self states which persist for weeks, months, years sometimes decades but when people are mentally ill for example in borderline personality disorder in narcissistic personality disorder the self states change very often and they change among themselves they take over, they hand the baton they end in a relay kind of they do this because the internal and external stimuli the internal and external information usually overwhelms overwhelms the mentally ill person and creates dysregulation to cope with the threat of dysregulation the operating system trots out pushes out another self state which is better capable and better able to cope with dysregulation so for example when the borderline is faced with a threat of humiliation and abandonment and rejection this threat real or imaginary overwhelms her she becomes dysregulated the operating system of the borderline becomes alarmed the operating system notices that the borderline is about to decompensate and disintegrate then and there so the operating system hurries and replaces the borderline self state with a secondary psychopathic self state the secondary psychopathic self state is better capable of handling rejection humiliation and abandonment even though it has its own drawbacks for example it's defined and reckless so this is how things work this is how things operate within what used to be called the personality and I prefer to call the ego system not the ego not the ecosystem but the ego system or if you wish the personality space and what determines of course which self state will be selected by the operating system is self efficacy self efficacy is the overriding constraint which the system seeks to optimize when hailing forth these sub personalities also do identities operating system wants you to be self efficacious in other words it wants you to secure favorable outcomes from your external environment taking into account your internal environment your narcissism dynamics which are operating in you at any given moment so now we move into what I call system of residuals it's time to introduce myself my name is Sam Baknim and I'm the author of Malignant San Flam narcissism revisited I'm also a professor of psychology this was the general introduction to self state systems which I believe and many other scholars believe is the regular normal state of things everyone has a system of self states not only mentally ill people but people with mental health problems use the system much more they deploy the system much more often they exchange self states they transition or switch between self states much more frequently because they are dysregulated and overwhelmed by external and internal stimuli when all the relevant or available self states at the disposal of the system are equally self efficacious what does the system do and what about the obverse condition what about the situation where all the self states available to the system at the disposal of the system all these self states inept equally incompetent equally lacking in self efficacy equally unable to operate on the external environment and to guarantee to operate on and in the external environment and with the external environment to guarantee favorable outcomes what happens when all these self states are losers when they are not built incapable of functioning in this case the system may opt may decide to maintain two or more self states in operation simultaneously it's a kind of hedging it's a kind of insurance imagine the system as this old matriarchal figure the mother the system says to itself I can't really use self state number three I should have used self state number three the circumstances had changed the external environment is menacing and threatening there is dysregulation in the internal environment so I should have used self state number three but self state number three is good for nothing it's a loser it needs notifications so I can't use self state number three on the other hand the nearest substitute is equally hopeless equally incompetent so I can't use self state number seven as well what am I to do poor operating system so let me use self state number three and self state number seven together they may compensate for each other's shortcomings this is a kind of insurance or hedging if I use multiple self states then maybe the favorable outcome the desired result will ultimately be obtained however imperfectly so the operating system on rare occasions may decide to use or may select two self states three self states and keep them upfront public facing simultaneously in this case we have what I call a state of residuals a state of residuals is a mental state where two or more self states pseudo identities in charge it's like a ship with two captains and so you know in ancient Rome there were constellations of two or three scissors governing simultaneously the triumvirate and so on so it's the same two or three or four self states in charge simultaneously ineluctably leads to dissonance and to internalized aggression because most self states are mutually exclusionary in other words self state number seven has very little in common with self state number three and when both of them are in charge they're likely to clash and confront exactly like two incompatible people in a couple they're likely to fight all the time they're likely to generate a lot of internalized aggression and they're likely to lead the person into a state known as dissonance now I've described in previous in previous videos and in lectures I had given for example the lecture I had given at McGill University in Canada I described my model of personality personality disorders I'm sorry and I had suggested that people can transition personality disorders via what I call a collapsed bridge or a collapsed state but the system of residuals is an adaptation and enhancement of my original concept what I'm now suggesting is that people transition between personality disorders and between subtypes of personality disorders for example between overt narcissism and covert narcissism between overt borderline and covert borderline so people transition between subtypes of personality disorders and even between personality disorders via a bridge a collapsed bridge when they collapse with the original personality disorder no longer guarantees favorable outcomes people switch to another personality disorder or subtype of personality disorder I am now suggesting that subtypes on rare occasions when people try to effect this transition when people try to cross the collapsed bridge from one personality disorder to another for one subtype of personality disorder to another when they try to cross the bridge they get stuck in the middle to complete the transition at that point a collapsed narcissist for example may evolve into a binary system of two residual self states an overt narcissist and a covert narcissist so we have for example an overt narcissist the overt narcissist collapses is unable to secure narcissistic supply at that point of collapse many overt narcissists transition to covert narcissists they become covert they cross the bridge of collapse the overt narcissist crosses the bridge of collapse into a covert state the system, the operating system takes care of that it hides suppresses represses, deactivates disables, switches off one self state which is the overt narcissistic self state and it activates switches on another self state which is the covert narcissistic self state having completed this transition successfully the overt narcissist becomes a full fledged covert narcissist as a covert narcissist he has a chance to succeed as an overt narcissist he had collapsed but what happens when the overt narcissists tries to cross the bridge of collapse and fails to cross the bridge of collapse because both the overt narcissistic self state and the covert narcissistic self state are equally and inefficacious they're equally incompetent they're equally inefficient in other words what happens when we have a narcissist who collapses both as an overt narcissist and as a covert narcissist someone who cannot function as an overt narcissist but equally cannot function as a covert narcissist someone who fails to secure favorable outcomes as an overt narcissist but then goes on to discover that he is equally an equal failure as a covert narcissist so is a failure as an overt narcissist but then is a failure as a covert narcissist in this case the transition from overt to covert will never be completed the person the narcissist who is trying to transform himself from overt to covert the operating system of this narcissist will determine that such a transition is dangerous because the covert narcissistic state is as self inefficacious as the overt state the covert state is as likely to collapse as the overt state head collapse the covert state is as likely to create despair depression self-hatred, self-loading and self-destruction as the overt state had done to fully transition between overt and covert the same negative outcomes are guaranteed and negative affectivity so what to do in this case well the answer of the operating system is we maintain both both conditions we maintain the overt narcissism and we maintain the covert narcissism simultaneously the operating system creates a binary system of two residual self states an overt narcissist and a covert narcissist in the same body at the same time both conditions the overt narcissism and the covert narcissism both self states are equally inapt and incompetent at securing narcissistic supply from outside sources but the operating system hopes that putting together the overt and the covert can miraculously somehow create a third entity so to speak which may be better able, however, residualy better able to obtain supply again it's a kind of insurance, kind of hedging let's take the good aspects of the overt narcissism and the good aspects of the covert narcissism combine them together in a binary state and hope for the best such a constellation is geared to generate self supply it does it in two very surprising ways the overt self state is by definition superior to the covert self state now you remember in this particular case both the overt state normally they would have been a transition from overt state to covert state there's been a collapse of the overt state and there would have been a transition from overt state to covert state via the bridge of collapse normally but in this particular case both the overt state and the covert state are hopeless their losers and inept unable to obtain supply so the operating system keeps both of them in operation maintains both of them doesn't switch off any single one of them but still the overt narcissism is what the covert narcissism wants to be when he grows up the covert narcissism envies the overt narcissism the overt narcissism holds the covert narcissism in contempt the dynamic between these two self states is very negative the overt self state superiority to the covert state leads the overt state to reject the covert self state I repeat the overt state in this binary system holds the covert state in contempt and rejects the covert state the overt the overt state regards the covert state as a good for nothing loser as a nobody as a non-entity as a failure the covert state on the other hand envies the overt state sabotages the overt state undermines the overt state hates the overt state there's no love lost between the overt and the covert state the covert state fantasizes about being and becoming an overt state and the overt state wants to eliminate the covert state because the overt state finds the covert state embarrassing shameful disgraceful in other words a form of constant narcissistic injury and even modification internal modification so there's a war the minute the operating system had opted to not do anything to not switch off any self state to allow several self states to reign supreme simultaneously at that moment the operating system had created a state of dissonance which is so extreme that it can only be described as internal conflict a war the overt state's aggression towards the covert is recycled by the covert now remember aggression is a form of energy and there's a law of conservation of energy there's a law of conservation of aggression if one self state is aggressive towards another self state this aggression simply passes hands the overt state hands over aggression to the covert state transfers aggression to the covert state when the overt state maligns humiliates berates de-means and degrades the covert state the overt state is being aggressive to the covert state and this aggression is transferred from the overt state to the covert state now what can the covert state do with this aggression it has to do something with it again it's a form of energy think of it as a battery now the covert state's charged with aggression courtesy the overt state what to do with it the covert recycles the aggression the covert recycles the aggression in two ways first of all the covert develops depression depression is a form of self directed aggression it's a form of using up the aggression in self destructive self defeating ways the aggression is used up as in hopelessness the aggression is used up via self loading and the aggression is used up via reckless dangerous acts which reflect self destructiveness and dynamics of self defeat this is one way the covert uses the aggression of the overt the covert leverages this aggression to create a state of depression which again is self directed aggression the second way the covert incorporates the aggression into sadistic fantasies you remember the covert's main state of mind is fantasy the covert uses a fantasy defense to survive the covert in itself is unable to obtain supply the covert fantasizes about obtaining supply that's true for any covert narcissism by the way covert narcissism is an extreme fantasy defense even more extreme than overt narcissism both conditions involve grandiose fantasies so but the covert's fantasies is distinct from the overt's fantasies the covert's fantasies often involve aggression violence sadism the humiliation of others and worse so the overt state is aggressive towards the covert state they are both coterminous they both inhabit the body at the same time one of them should have been switched off but the operating system preferred to keep both of them operational and on so they fight they hate each other the overt state is attacking the covert state this attack is a transfer of aggression transfer of energy the covert state takes this energy takes this aggression and recycles it one way by generating depression which is self directed aggression and another way by engaging in sadistic fantasies which is other directed aggression in other words the covert internalizes some of the aggression and externalizes some of the aggression but this externalization is fantastic it's not in real life it's only in his fantasies the overt and the covert states actually collude in creating what we call a sublimatory channel again one step back sublimation is the socially acceptable expression of urges primitive urges and drives for example the sex drive so a sublimatory channel is a very fancy way of saying a socially acceptable way of expressing primitive drives and urges if I have a sex drive or an urge to have sex I would convert it into a socially acceptable way I would sublimate it and I would use a sublimatory channel if I have aggression which is also socially unacceptable I would try to transform the aggression into socially acceptable things socially acceptable behaviors as I convert my aggression into socially acceptable behavior I am sublimating it using sublimatory channels in the binary system when the overt and the covert coexist co-control core reign are both in charge they collude, they collaborate in creating a sublimatory channel for the pent-up rage envy and resentment that the collapse had created when the narcissist collapses it is a very very harrowing and traumatic experience it may lead to modification modification I have numerous videos of modification in this channel and I recommend that you watch them but what modification does it disables the grandiose defenses it disables the false self in effect it leaves the narcissist defenseless skinless technically a borderline it transitions the narcissist into a borderline state so any collapse generates a lot of rage disappointment disphoria, resentment envy and other negative effects this is a volcano this is an eruption of negativity the narcissist experiences it as a form of disintegration in extreme cases or minimally as an extreme narcissistic injury and so what to do with all this energy the overt and the covert the overt and the covert collaborate the overt takes this energy and directs it to the covert so the collapse had created negative energy the overt narcissist takes this negative energy encapsulates it packages it and hands it over to the covert it attacks the covert state it loaves the covert state it maligns and humiliates the covert state it rejects the covert state it berates and demeans and criticizes the covert state this way the overt state hands over the negative energy of the collapse to the covert state the covert state is better equipped to deal with aggression covert state had been dealing with aggression throughout his life so the covert state is in charge of aggression sublimating aggression repackaging aggression recycling aggression transforming aggression aggression is the covert thing the overt narcissist is very primitive when it comes to aggression he becomes psychopathic defined reckless consummations the covert narcissist is much more subtle so the covert state uses the aggression transforms it into depression and into sadistic fantasies both of these are acceptable society accepts a state of depression society accepts fantasy as long as it is not translated into action so the covert acts in a sublimatory way the covert transforms the covert state transforms the aggression into socially acceptable behaviors and means when aggression is channeled via grandiosity it can resolve into one or more speech acts so when the covert takes the aggression and channels it redistributes it recycles it transforms it repackages it the covert generates four types of voice internal voice kind of interject the covert's internal monologue or internal dialogue is comprised of four strands four streams of consciousness four types of speech acts first judgmental contemptuous and superior and unequaled and the best and the first and the most this judgmentally contemptuous voice helps the overt express his negative energy his aggression via the covert so it is a kind of courtesy, courtesy channel provided by the covert to the overt it's like the covert is telling the overt listen you are really a wacko, you're crazy, you're dangerous so here I'm giving you an outlet I'm giving you a way to express your aggression please use it the judgmental be contemptuous to other people or to me the covert state allows the overt to abuse it it encourages internal abuse within the system, within the binary system the overt abuses the covert and the covert allows it to happen this is the only way to safely release this negative aggressive potentially violent energy of the overt having had collapsed collapse generates this nuclear great energy and the judgmental contemptuous channel allows the overt to vent, to afloat the second channel is the victorious channel I'm unique for better or worse for better or worse I can be unique as a loser I can be unique as a failure I can be unique as a victim even then I'm unique the victorious voice is I'm more than you I'm unique, you're not and so the victorious channel is a channel which is used both by the overt and the covert both the overt and the covert don't forget are grandiose both overt narcissism and covert narcissism are founded on grandiose fantasy the only difference is the covert does not succeed to translate fantasy into reality while the overt is much more self-efficacious in obtaining supply but they're both victorious they're both grandiose so this is a mutual channel a shared channel we have one sublimatory channel dedicated to the overt judgmental contemptuous channel we have a second channel which is a victorious channel which is a shared channel the third channel is the merciful empathic channel the merciful empathic channel is again given to the overt it's usually an exclusively overt channel but sometimes it is shared it is a channel that says I pity people because they are inferior to me I have compassion for people I act charitably but I do it ostentatiously so that I can garner narcissistic supply praise for example the narcissist is merciful empathic and forgiving because being merciful empathic and forgiving renders him prosocial and communal and allows him to garner supply in a way the narcissist is saying look at me I conform to social expectations don't I deserve praise for this don't I deserve narcissistic supply so the merciful empathic channel is more typical of the overt but can be used by both and finally the last channel is the educational channel which is also a shared channel we have three shared channels and one channel dedicated to the overt because it is the overt who had undergone the collapse it's the overt who needs the specialized channel the self-state the overt self-state still harbors and reflects the wounds of the collapse it's still a traumatized post-traumatic state it's still a wounded state an injured state so the first sublimatory channel judgmental and contemptuous is dedicated to the overt state but the other three are shared between the two self-states in control the overt the last channel is my favorite and also the most functional by far it's the educational channel it says I'm a guru I'm an intellectual I'm a thought leader I elevate other people to my level by teaching them the educational sublimatory channel or educational voice has three pillars one learning versus ignorance the educational channel or educational voice encourages the overt narcissist and the covert narcissist to adopt a position of learning and teaching so sometimes they learn sometimes they teach in order to learn these self-states have to acknowledge ignorance in other words they have to acknowledge inferiority but this is very misleading because learning learning makes you more learning something makes you superior adding knowledge and erudition and information makes you prevail so learning even though it includes implicitly is founded implicitly on an admission of ignorance learning is a process of becoming superior teaching is about being superior so when you teach you are superior when you learn you are becoming superior in other words learning and teaching fully satisfied grandiosity and so the educational channel is the most sublimatory of all the educational voice is the most socially acceptable of all the four voices because it involves socially commendable socially encouraged activities such as learning and teaching and because it allows the covert and the overt states to acknowledge ignorance in other words to humble themselves they experience humility even though it's fleeting even though it's humility at the service of superiority even though it's humility that leads to added grandiosity it is still humility it's a healing voice it's a voice that causes transformation in the outlines in the features of the internal binary system it reduces grandiosity by converting it into socially acknowledged socially sanctioned superiority in other words the educational sublimatory channel the educational voice converts grandiosity into self-esteem renders narcissistic supply which is pathological into healthy supply or self-supply which is the foundation of self-esteem it converts grandiosity to self-esteem now in the binary system because there has been a collapse and because both self-states are in efficacious in obtaining supply the binary system is always a system of self-supply so this is a very important thing to understand the binary system is created when the with the residual system the binary system is created when the operating system decides that both the overt state and the covert state are equally in efficacious in obtaining supply so now they can't obtain supply the overt state had failed had collapsed in obtaining supply and the covert state is incapable of obtaining supply so now we have a binary system with two self-states both of them very bad at obtaining supply so instead what they do they create a system of self-supply I have a video about self-supply in this channel they create a system of self-supply the overt self-state generates supply by humiliating and berating and attacking the covert self-state it endows the overt state with a sense of superiority so the self-supply in this system is actually an outcome of the conflict and the dissonance the overt the overt's need for supply is satisfied the covert state generates self-supply via the fantasy defense so the overt state fails superior fails on top fails gratified fails grandiose because the overt state has a covert state which it can humiliate, berate, attack, demean, criticize etc it's a kind of sadistic self-supply in a critic, writ large sadistic in a critic harsh in a critic so the overt state converts itself into harsh in a critic and derives supply from what it does to the covert state the covert state derives supply self-supply by engaging in sadistic fantasies and in these sadistic fantasies the covert state prevails its victorious wins on top humiliates other people tortures them we have self-state in two locations one location is overt by humiliating the covert state and one location is covert by engaging in sadistic fantasies and so the educational voice gradually converts the grandiosity underlined these mechanisms into self-esteem and it accomplishes that by engaging in activities which are socially commendable and acceptable so that the resulting supply is very healthy and can garner and yield self-esteem rather than grandiosity the educational voice educational sublimatory channel is also founded on honest communication and on empathy in order to teach someone in order to learn you must engage in open communication in honest direct communication otherwise not really learning and teaching it takes place additionally you need to put yourself in the students shoes in order to teach you need to understand the needs and wishes and deficiencies of the other when you teach someone you impart knowledge in ways which are favourable which are helpful to the recipient so you need to get to know the recipient similarly when you seek to learn something you need to realize what the other person has to offer in both these situations you need to empathize so the educational voice the educational sublimatory channel encourages humility healthy supply self-esteem and empathy it's the beginning of healing the binary system is a unique opportunity for healing because no single self-state is in charge not one self-state is in control the resistance is low the resistance to inside the resistance to change is lower than usual and because there's a lot of dissonance and conflict in the binary system the covert self-state is attacking the covert self-state in order to generate self-supply and because the covert self-state engages or retreats or disappears or vanishes withdraws into a state of fantasy so the covert self-state is now totally a fantastic state and derives self-supply from the fantasy both these self-states become vulnerable and they're vulnerable not only to attack from the outside which would yield to modification they're vulnerable to change they're vulnerable to healing so one thought one direction is maybe to induce artificially in therapy to induce a binary system to induce a chronicity of two self-states rather than one maybe in some ways we can engineer the collapse so as to generate to create to force the operating system to create a binary residual system where two self-states reign supreme at the same time and engage in conflict in order to generate self-supply rendering them vulnerable to intervention from the outside in many ways that is what I had been doing in cold therapy intuitively by re-traumatizing the patient I had created or induced collapse actually modification and some patients were unable to replace the self-states the self-state that had been traumatized the self-state that had been subjected to cold therapy the self-state that had been modified some patients were unable to replace this self-state with another self-state so they remain stuck with two or three or four self-states simultaneously which allowed me in level two and level three of cold therapy to integrate these self-states via the educational sublimatory channel to provide these self-states with a socially acceptable alternative a sublimatory alternative to encourage these self-states not to be judgmental not to be contentious not to be victorious but to engage in learning and to engage in teaching via empathy and via honest communication I've done it and it's doable but we need to render the narcissist vulnerable open we need to render the narcissist humble humble by its own turmoil inner turmoil by its own indecision by the dissonance between the two self-states that had remained the residual self-states only then the narcissist is weak enough his defences are down enough the level is disabled you're able to enter as a therapist and create some change I'm grateful for your topic suggestions and from time to time I even pay attention to them okay totachim and totachot my name is Sam Watlin I'm the author of Malignant Self-Love Narcissism Revisited and a former visiting professor of psychology white today we're going to discuss a topic suggestion and it is the use of self-supply as a therapeutic strategy far superior to anything else we've been doing hitherto hitherto look it up we all know that the narcissist reacts with emotional disregulation decompensation and acting out in other words the narcissist becomes a borderline when he's faced with deficient narcissistic supply narcissistic injury and heaven forfend narcissistic modification let me elucidate a bit on all these arcane terms of the trade emotional disregulation is when you are overwhelmed by your emotions you drown in them you're unable to regulate them you're unable to control them channel them, sublimate them render them socially acceptable this is called emotional disregulation and it's very common in borderline personality disorder actually it's the defining feature of borderline personality disorder decompensation is when all your defense mechanisms break down continuously and you are face to face in reality without the ability to render it bearable, tolerable and palatable to you and acting out is when you act in ways which are usually self-defeating and self-destructive and also destructive to others dangerous, risky, reckless addictive and so on and so forth borderlines react in these ways when they are faced with abandonment and rejection narcissists deteriorate, degenerate into a borderline state they are actually, according to Grouchtime they regress to a borderline state when they don't get enough supply when they are narcissistically injured and narcissistically modified current therapies, current treatment modalities attempt to harness the narcissist's grandiosity narcissist's fantasy defense in order to effect some kind of transformation as a minimum behavior modification in lieu of the typical adult therapeutic alliance with more normal people so a therapist who has the misfortune of working with the narcissist who tried to leverage the narcissist's grandiosity he would challenge the narcissist to attain therapeutic goals to accomplish milestones of healing and recovery by challenging the narcissist's idealized fantastic self-perception as omnipotent all powerful and omniscient or knowing the therapist would say surely you can do this surely this is not beyond you are you sure you can manage this etc etc the therapist would challenge the narcissist's grandiosity that works wonders that's a miraculous cure because narcissists are very gullible very naive and very divorced from reality so they buy into this therapeutic type Machiavellian manipulative technique the other way which is commonly used is to leverage the narcissist's fantasy defense in effect to create a shared fantasy with the therapist and within this shared fantasy the role allocated to the narcissist is that of a recovering or healing patient these are the two majorly techniques used with narcissists many many treatment modalities are absolutely inefficace for example cognitive behavior the narcissist's cognitive distortions the narcissist's cognitive biases and even cognitive deficits are so extreme and so all pervasive so ubiquitous that cognitive behavior therapy breaks down in the face of such carpet wall to wall denial of reality so what's left is to play to the narcissist's prejudices and biases and especially self-inflated fantasy this approach of co-opting the narcissist's grandiosity colluding with the narcissist's fantasy defense this approach results in even more impaired reality testing it is true that the narcissist adapts himself to the demands he faces in order to uphold his grandiosity to maintain the fantasy in the therapeutic space the narcissist is likely to modify these behaviors and even to some extent his cognitions in order to conform to be accepted to belong and to fit in and thus to generate narcissistic supply from the therapist and or from his environment for example from his spouse or children or coworkers or bosses or whatever there is behavior modification this yields this approach of grandiosity and fantasy it yields behavior modification but at an enormous cost the narcissist becomes more and more delusional delusional completely this kind of approach induces dissociation schizoid reactions in other words it results in dissociative schizoid reactance the narcissist adopts a passive aggressive stance of defiance in order to evade and to avoid the constraints of the therapy that dictates the demands the requirements the narcissist becomes more and more isolated more and more atomized withdraws, avoids and the narcissist does this passive aggressively in order to sabotage and undermine the therapy. In short the narcissist becomes a covert narcissist similarly the narcissist becomes dissociative more and more dissociative it's a form of reactance the dissociation helps the narcissist maintain his overall grandiose cognitive distortion the narcissist simply forgets that the initiative for the behavior modification emanated or came from the outside the narcissist convinces himself that it was his idea to change his behavior it was his initiative to alter his cognitions the way he thinks about other people and himself he is the one who cured and healed himself he is the fixer and the saviour not the therapist so that requires a lot of dissociation a lot of self deception and a lot of confabulation in short colluding with the narcissist's grandiosity and fantasy defense results in a worsening of the narcissist pathology on the one hand even as the narcissist becomes more acceptable to other people around him the therapy of narcissism nowadays caters to the needs of people around the narcissist his so called victims it sacrifices the narcissist in order to benefit his human environment his spouse his family his friends his colleagues his neighbors society at large reduces antisocial behavior the emphasis is on rendering the narcissist more sublimated in other words converting the narcissist and the narcissist behaviors into socially acceptable venues and ways the narcissist is thrown together with a bathtub the narcissist is sacrificed annuled, annihilated repressed, suppressed just to limit the narcissist's ability to inflict havoc and hurt and damage and pain on his human environment to prevent an additional string of broken lives it's exactly the same way in exactly the same way we place psychopaths in prison we sacrifice the psychopath we give up on the psychopath's potential for rehabilitation which is admittedly minimal by locking up the psychopath the therapy of the narcissist almost all treatment modalities are focused on locking up the narcissist in his own mental prison they create a holding cell a holding cell a padded cell with a straight jacket inside the narcissist's mind by rather cruelly manipulating the narcissist's proclivities shortcomings failures, biases distortions, deficiencies defects, deficits and deformities it's exactly as if we were to leverage someone's disability in order to prevent them from hurting other people now her preventing someone from hurting other people is a legitimate goal and if we have to either penalize or somehow restrict the freedom of agents of disaster or agents of catastrophe or agents of pain and so on but only if there is an alternative only as a last resort and the problem in psychiatry and psychology today is that we have given up on the narcissist mental health practitioners I'm not a licensed therapist but I'm still involved in the sphere of psychology I used to be a visiting professor of psychology and so on mental health practitioners have given up on narcissists they've given up on psychopaths completely they don't try to treat them they don't try to rehabilitate them never mind the nonsense online self-interested self-enriching nonsense the truth is, ask any practitioner they don't like cluster B patients and so we've given up on this whole pretty substantial subgroup of the population probably up to 10% of the general population and that's not okay that is not okay that is a betrayal of the ethics of the profession and yes there is an alternative the solution is to transition from manipulative dependency on narcissistic supply from the outside to self-reliant and anxiolytic albeit delusional still delusional self-supply let me try to explain this convoluted sentence I love convoluted sentences they reflect my inner world the narcissist is dependent it's a form of dependency he is dependent on narcissistic supply narcissistic supply is attention adulation, affirmation or any kind of reactivity engendered in other people narcissists needs to somehow stimulate other people to provide him with narcissistic supply and this is usually done either via manipulation or coercively via coercion this is a dysfunctional solution people suffer and we need to put a stop to it and then the way to need a stop to it is not to make the narcissists totally psychotic not to push the narcissists beyond the edge so that he becomes totally divorced from reality not to drive the narcissists insane that's not a solution now, today in clinics, in therapy that's not okay we don't do this to any other kind of patient that's horrible the solution is to transition the narcissists from reliance on other people to self-reliance from using other people, manipulating them or coercing them to provide him with supply to self-sufficiency in short we need to teach the narcissists how to be his own source of narcissistic supply process that I christened at the time self-supply yes, it's a phrase I have coined look it up so self-supply is delusional of course it's delusional because the narcissist lies to himself still his self-image is still inflated still fantastic it is a fantasy defense but it has two advantages it doesn't involve other people in shared fantasies and therefore doesn't hurt doesn't end up hurting other people on the one hand and on the other hand it's highly anxiolytic it takes care of the anxiety disorders the depressive disorders and other comorbidities which fuel narcissists the engines behind narcissists if the narcissist becomes his own exclusive source of narcissistic supply he is no longer anxious about obtaining supply because like the government of the united states he owns the printing press he can print as many US dollars as he wants he can print as much narcissistic supply that generates as much supply as he wants and so his dependency is gone the source of the narcissist's anxiety and depression is his dependency on other people and the catastrophizing that maybe one day is going to lose all his sources of supply and find himself in a dissociative schizoid psychotic state in short disintegrate fall apart become dysregulated the narcissist is terrified of a scenario where he can no longer extract narcissistic supply from the environment because he is too old because he is too frail because he has been exposed because he has nothing more to offer because his creativity has died down because he catastrophizes but if the narcissist is his own source of supply there is nothing to catastrophize and no need to worry the anxiety and depression are gone in short we stabilize the narcissist by teaching the narcissist to rely on self-supply we stabilize the narcissist's fluctuating sense of self-worth and vicissitudinal internal world is ups and downs his cycles which are very similar to the borderline self-supply creates an addictive dependency of the false self on internal structures and processes pay attention it's a very important sentence mainly because I'm the one who said it I just love this self-aggrandizement on camera seriously self-supply means that the false self which is the construct that the child had become in early childhood so as to avoid hurt and abuse and pain so the false self now resorts to the internal landscape of the narcissist to the narcissist's mind to the narcissist's playground of internal objects in self-supply the false self is inwardly directed not outwardly directed the supply is endogenous not exogenous the false self cuts itself to the internal world of other people as sources of supply and the false self teaches itself to resort to the voices in the narcissist's mind the internal dialogue between them the psychotic elements of hyperreflexivity and paranoia where the narcissist is the center of attention and he is godlike he is the universe but the false self becomes yet another competing internal object or be it a dominant one similar to the host personality in dissociative identity disorder self-supply techniques teaching the narcissist to rely on himself as the exclusive source of narcissistic supply to pay attention to himself creates an addiction and a dependency of the false self on internal structures and processes immediately the narcissist experiences this as a breakdown in his unitary self the narcissist like every other human being has an illusion or a delusion of a unitary self it's totally wrong no one has a unitary self we all have an assemblage of self states but when the false self of the narcissist resorts to internal structures to introjects to internal objects to voices introjected voices when the false self redirects itself from the outside world to the inside world the narcissist experiences it as if he broke into it begins to develop dichotomous thinking there is the false self and there is the narcissist who is providing the supply to the false self at that moment there's a schism and we call this phenomenon in clinical terms estrangement the narcissist for the first time in his life experiences estrangement estrangement is very common in borderline personality disorder borderline often feels that she is like two people or three people the patient with borderline personality disorder is very very close to some variants of dissociative identity disorder she is highly dissociative for example so the borderline patient is very experienced in this she perceives herself as one or two or three competing entities the narcissist doesn't have this experience the classic I mean the narcissist of all kinds they don't have this experience they have the experience of a single self or single entity and that is the false self but when the false self has to resort to the narcissist's mind has to mine the narcissist's mind like mining bitcoin for supply at that moment the narcissist becomes borderline experiences estrangement there is the false self and there is the source of supply of the false self which is the narcissist so these are two suddenly we are two such the narcissist to himself I've been one until yesterday and now I'm two this estrangement is a very disorienting experience it is as if the false self has been not only introjected but also projected the narcissist experiences himself both when they're in the in the process of self supply I repeat only in the process of self supply where the narcissist is the source of supply and the consumer of the supply the false self only then the narcissist experiences himself as both an internal object and an external object paradoxically self supply this solipsism allows the narcissist for the first time in his life to experience a healthy normal differentiation between external and internal external objects and internal objects as a source of supply the narcissist is an internal object as a false self which consumes this supply the narcissist is an external object first time in his life the narcissist realizes oh my god there is someone besides me even if it's actually me there is the possibility of other entities other objects outside myself I can interact with these objects as if they were not me here I am providing supply to an entity outside myself how do I know this entity the false self is outside myself because it consumes the supply that I am providing and wait a minute if the false self is consuming the supply that I am generating then it cannot be me of course the minute the narcissist realizes the false self is not him is not the narcissist is a construct is an entity is an invention a concoction, confabulation but not the totality of the narcissist the minute the narcissist realizes this it is the beginning of healing it's the beginning of integration yes you are right it's exactly what we do associative identity disorder we integrate the host personality with the alters with the other fragmented pieces of personality same with the narcissist the minute we teach the narcissist self supply is an exclusive method of obtaining supply that minute the narcissist realizes the externality of the false self has every incentive to merge with it to fuse with it to integrate with it to become one and the regulation of the sense of self-worth and of every other psychodynamic the regulation then is totally internalized this is healing this is absolutely healing self supply also guarantees a sense of secure base because the narcissist feels safe there's no separation in security there's no abandonment anxiety if you are your own intimate partner if you are the exclusive source of narcissistic supply which is the only way the narcissistic experience intimacy if you are the only source of supply then no need to worry no need to catastrophize no need to stay awake at night there is safety security is restored you are your own secure base but wait a minute what is a secure base it's a parental figure the first secure base in life is a good enough mother and a dead mother a mother who is depressed emotionally withdrawn narcissistic exploitative, parentifying abusive mother a dead mother she's not a secure base she's a base of terror and horror so self supply in the narcissist allows the narcissist to experience himself as a secure base but if the narcissist is his own secure base then that means that the narcissist is his own parent his own mother self supply allows the narcissist to mother himself there's no need for dual mother she anymore he doesn't need to go out to look for mothers in his intimate partners substitute mothers no need self parent self supply guarantees a sense of secure base and opens the door to good enough self parenting self supply is a bit like self soothing self supply skirts avoids all the pitfalls of narcissistic injuries and narcissistic modifications when the narcissist supplies himself when he is the sole exclusive unique solipsistic source of narcissistic supply he can never ever be narcissistically injured or mortified and he feels finally it is no anxiety inner peace in a good enough internalized mother who allows him to reparent himself the therapy becomes much more productive because as long as the therapist encourages the narcissist grandiosity as long as the therapist colludes with the narcissist fantasy there is a power play between the therapist and the and the narcissistic patient it's a game of one upmanship but the minute the therapist teaches the narcissist to self supply the narcissist no longer needs to compete with the therapist the therapist actually disappears as a source of supply or as an antagonist or competitor the entire game of narcissistic supply shared fantasy the maintenance of grandiosity the entire game is internalized and the therapist becomes irrelevant there's no no counter transference no competition, no nothing therapist becomes a facilitator sounding board at best or at worst the entire dynamic therapeutic dynamic now unfolds and unfolds inexorably in the narcissist mind self supply is regulatory stabilizes the narcissist's sense of self worth restores the internal locus of control because the narcissist is in charge of his own supply and there's no dependency and it diminishes the need or the opportunity for alloplastic defenses accusing others, blaming others and then punishing them for example in narcissistic modification the fact that all good things the supply all good things emanate from the inside this very fact that the narcissist can rely on himself for self gratification self soothing self parenting in short for self love because supply is perceived as love by the narcissist that's why narcissists mistake a shared fantasy for a love affair so the minute all these goodies come from the inside that minute the bad object is dead the fact that all good things supply, soothing, comforting parenting that all these good things come from the inside counters the pernicious effect of the bad object reduces the frequency of antisocial and non-sublimated socially unacceptable misconduct think about it for a minute the narcissist cannot tell himself, cannot convince himself cannot argue that he is inadequate inferior, bad stupid, ugly how can the narcissist continue to say this if he is the source of his own supply the narcissist cannot longer maintain the fiction of a bad object because he is good to himself he has become his own best friend not his own mortal enemy he has converted himself from a persecretary sadistic object a harsh inner critic a sinful superego whatever you want to call it he has converted himself from this to a mothering figure who provides him with supply with love, with affection with compassion with acceptance this is narcissistic supply attention narcissistic supply that comes from the inside converts and transforms the narcissist into a good object only good objects give the narcissist an endless stream of narcissistic supply people who give the narcissistic supply are good objects because the narcissist splits there is a splitting defense anyone who gives the narcissistic supply is all good anyone who withholds narcissistic supply from the narcissist is all bad the same defense exists in borderline personality is all so the minute the narcissist becomes his own source of supply he also becomes all good and the bad object dies look how many advantages look how amazing what an amazing transformation the self-supply technique can create loss of the bad object self-parenting self-love self-regulation pro-social behavior or communal behavior no dependence no anxiety no depression the beginning of healing integration of the same wow what else do you need mr. therapist to transition from adequate adversarial methods to accepting the narcissistic pathology teaching the narcissist to become his own best friend and to abandon the constant need to control coerce and manipulate others in order to secure constant sempitonal supply teach the narcissist to generate supply from the inside and you will have taught him also how to become much better social being the narcissist is a ghoulish and sinister hybrid an adult grafted onto a child the narcissist is often described as a men child but he is actually neither and the reason he appears so outlandish so eerie so creepy and weird the reason he provokes the famous uncanny valley reaction as if he were some kind of almost human an android the reason he provokes these emotions in his human surroundings is because he juxtaposes wrongly he becomes an adult where he should have been childlike and he becomes a child in adult situations and this misappropriation and misallocation of roles render him monstrous or freakish and very frequently both gradually the narcissist is shunned by one and everyone by one and sundry he is left alone he is avoided he is ignored he is mocked and ridiculed exposed he is confined and so in this situation the narcissists sources of narcissistic supply are depleted to the point that they cannot be recovered or reconstructed and it is then that he resorts however reluctantly to self supply the more the child the narcissist is the more likely he is to end his life totally self-reliant self-contained self-subsisting and self-supplying a solipsistic atom drifting in the world with zero interactions the narcissist's mental age is anywhere between two years and at the maximum nine years is a high functioning narcissist the vast majority of people with narcissistic personality disorder get stuck at age two when separation individuation from mother faded imagine that's an infant not even a toddler that's the mental age the emotional age of the narcissist cognitively the narcissist is capable of the most amazing deeds and feats but then when he has to process the consequences of his actions reactions by people input feedback attempts to interface with him or to relate to him he lacks the most basic apparatus the most basic instruments and he doesn't know what to do and then he chooses to become an overbearing coercive, sadistic threatening controlling adult a parody of a man an imitation of some kind a simulation gun or eye artificial intelligence which consists only of a hallucination or he regresses he regresses at the speed of light it's disorienting it infantilizes it becomes a baby in order to avoid responsibility and to broadcast, to signal to the environment I'm a child don't hurt me in both situations self-supply is critical today I'm going to touch upon the eight or seven or eight techniques that narcissists use to self-supply all narcissists go through schizoid phases all of them withdraw from a world that had become injurious or mortifying all of them lick their wounds process trauma all of them get re-traumatized narcissism is a post-traumatic condition a form of CPTSD all of them get re-traumatized pretty easily they're triggered they go through schizoid phases self-supply is a critical component in the armory of the narcissist it's a prime tool for self-regulation in the narcissist's case regulation is usually external the narcissist does not have a self he is selfless so he doesn't have a sense of self but he has a sense of self-worth and his self-worth keeps fluctuating to stabilize it and regulate it and monotonize it if you wish he resorts to outsiders to sources of narcissistic supply so he is very much like a borderline or to some extent like a co-dependent there is external regulation going on when this fails for objective reasons and sometimes for subjective reasons the narcissist undergoes a mental health crisis so develops a kind of micro-psychosis it's a subjective background for avoiding people whenever the narcissist is incapable of extracting narcissistic supply from people at that point he becomes his own audience his biggest fan a member of his own cult his god and the only worshipper he becomes a one-man society a one-person culture and the totality and entirety of history compressed into a single body and that's the narcissist today's topic how the narcissist men-child self-supplies and a proper men-child my name is Sam Watnin I'm a former visiting professor of psychology in Southern Federal University or Stavon Don the thriving Russian Federation and I have been a member of the faculty of C.U.P.S. for many many years now over a decade C.U.P.S. is the Commonwealth for International Advanced Professional Studies an outreach program it has campuses or offices in Toronto Canada Cambridge United Kingdom other thriving location Lagos, Nigeria that was a mouthful wasn't it ok ye ladim ve ye ladot look it up let's delve right in self-supply is the ability to generate narcissistic supply attention, adulation admiration affirmation applause self-congratulation so the ability to generate supply from the inside while convincing yourself that the supply is actually coming from the outside so clinically speaking self-supply is a delusional disorder that's a clinical term delusion and it involves a suspension or impairment of reality testing and a host of defense mechanisms and I refer you to my video on defense mechanisms that I've made about a few days ago and so they're all in action in the case of self-supply but there are ways to engender harvest and consume self-supply there are techniques developed early on in life by the narcissists and I'm going to discuss these techniques today technique number one reframing reality rewriting the narrative reinventing the story in a way that buttresses involves affirms and confirms the narcissists inflated fantastic grandiose view of himself reframing reality involves filtering out countervailing negating and challenging information and data on the one hand and taking in elements of reality which can be profitably recombined into a plausible sounding story or narrative that convinces the narcissist himself that his false self is not false so it's the narcissist treats reality as a kind of raw material and then he processes this raw material to produce narcissistic supply in house like moonshine moonshine factory making whiskey at home during the prohibition period so he generates narcissistic supply inside but he does use elements from reality the reason he needs to use realistic elements is because the narcissist is not actually clinically delusional he is partly delusional but he is still very much in touch with reality through representations of reality in his mind through internal objects so he internalizes reality and then of course he photoshopps it, idealizes it devalues it, processes it reframes it, falsifies it and everything else so while the psychotic raw material is his internal world the narcissist raw material is the external world and he converts it into a 100% internal representation internal tableau so the narcissist reframes reality in a way that helps him to admire himself to pay attention to himself to adulate his own accomplishments to be old, awestruck and speechless faced with his own grandeur, magnanimity charity intellect et cetera et cetera wherever the locus of control may be so this is a reframing of reality mechanism number one now we all to be clear we all reframe reality very frequently but we usually do it in order to avoid hurt and pain unpalatable outcomes in order to protect ourselves from dissonance and the anxiety that ensues and so these are practical functional reasons to reframe reality the narcissist reframes reality needlessly absolutely needlessly just in order to support a narrative or a story that is counterfactual mostly not fully but mostly so in this sense the narcissist behaviour is very similar to the generation of an ideology narcissists are ideological they have an ideology and they are religious narcissism is a form of private religion when the narcissist is god and the only worshiper and the body of the church so this rigidity because religions are rigid ideologies are even more rigid ideologies are secular religions so this rigidity is what forces the narcissist constantly rewrite reality because reality is not rigid reality is surprising and flexible and unpredictable and indeterminate and uncertain and that's not helpful that's not helpful because the narcissist only defends against disintegration against the compensation the only defense is the belief that some things are immutable unchangeable no, not god the narcissist or more precisely his view of himself that is for eternity the second mechanism is to create an inflated counterfactual self-perception in a way that no longer requires external external input so to kind of augment ossify rigidify fossilize the narcissist's perception of himself which is as I said often counterfactual always inflated and fantastic so to cast this self-perception in stone and marble so that it becomes a work of art for the ages so once this is done there is no need for narcissistic supply from the outside the only thing the narcissist needs to do is to regurgitate recycle rehash old supply become, narcissist becomes his own secondary source of supply his own recording mechanism recording and replay mechanism reenactment of his days of glory his accomplishments the reactions from the environment etc so he sits there convinced of his own grandiose self-perception convinced of his own divinity convinced that he is a deity and he recycles memories essentially also refrained also falsified but what he perceives as memories he recycles them to constantly buttress and support this self-perception so if the narcissist for example has an image of himself as a good helpful person if he has an image of himself of someone who is always victimized or if he has an image of himself as someone who is constantly at the center of conspiracies and malign attention by others because of envy or patriot or whatever these are examples of self-scripts self-narratives that no longer require input from the outside the narcissist the narcissist would say and it flies in the face of evidence the narcissist could commit any and every conceivable reprehensible moral act anything from stealing to I mean you name it narcissist would do anything and then he would say I'm a good person I've done these things because I had no choice I had no choice because I'm traumatized or because I'm victimized or because I was forced to do it or because I was manipulated or because I was misled or because I am a people pleaser and I just wanted to please others or because I'm codependent and I'm mentally ill and I can't help it and so this is an example of self-supply similarly when the narcissist constantly casts himself as a victim he can do no wrong he's never responsible for his choices and decisions everything is coming from the outside all his intimate partners are evil and corrupt and horrible and tormented the poor thing and you know you couldn't help it that's an example of self-supply and of course paranoid ideation is a major instrument of self-supply paranoia by definition requires secrecy requires isolation you isolate yourself because you're at risk you're under a threat you're threatened so you isolate yourself but you can perceive the act of isolating yourself as an aggrandizing act you're isolating yourself because you're a very important person you're the butt of conspiracies at the center at the center of conspiracies you are of interest I don't know to the CIA or to some group of people who are gang-stalking you so paranoia is the flip side of the narcissism coin it's a grandiose reaction a grandiose cognitive distortion and when you develop paranoid ideation it's a double yummy as far as self-supply because it legitimizes your isolation and it convinces you that you are a very very crucial person a person of import and so paranoid ideation is very common in self-supply the next technique is to reassign weights to sources of supply so you rank certain sources of supply as low and others as rich poor and rich negative and positive fake and real so you assign weights to sources of supply and it teases your power as an arbiter as a judge as a referee to decide which source of supply would count and which one would be discounted or discarded it is this power that constitutes self-supply so the narcissist who self-supplies this way sits at home alone and ticks off boxes this source of supply is meaningless this source of supply is important but I got all the supply I needed this and so he kind of rearranges the narcissistic supply space the pathological narcissistic space in a way that all sources of supply become extensions of the narcissist under his judgment and control he decides their destiny in fate in hierarchy and ranking and gives him a feeling of being godlike the next technique in self-supply is to convert negative to positive supply when the narcissist receives negative supply for example when he is criticized when he is attacked when he is ridiculed or mocked when he is threatened when he can take this and convert it into positive supply one way of doing it is via paranoid ideation they are threatening me because I mean a lot to them they are stalking me because to this very day I'm a very important person in their emotional lives they can't give up on me they're sad, they're heartbroken that I'm out of their lives they are threatening me they're desperate and there's nothing else they can do they're helpless helpless because I'm omnipotent they are ridiculing me and mocking me because they're stupid they're getting it wrong they can't understand certain things and so ultimately they are they are the derisory figures they are worthy of derision so taking negative supply and converting it into positive supply by refraining the situation making many assumptions and creating many hypotheticals and then constructing a coherent cohesive self consistent narrative around these assumptions and figments and so the negative supply suddenly becomes proof of importance proof of meaningfulness proof of significance so narcissists very often would brag about having enemies they would share the threats they're getting they would be gratified by how important they are how important they still are to the people who are attacking them threatening them, berating them mocking them etc because this is exactly like paranoid ideation the narcissist is still the center of attention this is one way of self supply the next technique of self supply is future or past orientation the narcissist can tell himself I will be recognized only in the future I am so ahead of my time I am such an incredible genius that only future generations will adulate me, admire me and appreciate my contribution and these future generations become real to the narcissists because the narcissists interacts only with internal representations and so he asks in the glow of his future glory yet to be realized actualized and accomplished another way is to go back to the past to develop past orientation and to say well I have changed the world I have been meaningful I have done this and I have done that and then to assume that you are still present in the minds of those generations in the past somehow so it is to impute presence influence to people in the past or to people in the future that is one way of self supply the next way to self supply is very similar to paranoid ideation but not exactly it is self aggrandizing referential ideation ideas of reference it is to assume that any post made on Instagram is about you any video or video snippet has to do with you they are hidden messages they are occult signals there is an attempt to communicate or beg you to communicate so the belief that other people's speech acts behaviors choices and decisions revolve exclusively around you is known as referential ideation and is a major form of self supply the narcissist develops theories multiple theories as to why people behave the way they do especially if they do it in public why they behave the way they do because of him it all has to do with him they are processing grief they are threatening him they are making a promise they are attempting to communicate you name it it is going to create a theory of why they behave the way they do which has to do with him of course in the vast majority of cases these theories are wrong referential ideation is often wrong and finally another method of self supply there are scholars who worked with modification with narcissistic modification it is the delusional revenge fantasy delusional revenge fantasies especially after modification are major ways to self supply the narcissist goes into extreme intricate fine detail in planning revenge upon his enemies real and perceived he leaves the revenge this is known as imagery it is like an imagery exercise he enters his revenge becomes like a theme park and he enters the theme park and he cultivates and nurtures and waters and thinks about and contemplates and analyzes and synthesizes everything it becomes a full-time job it becomes a pastime, a hobby and the revenge fantasy fulfills him with a sense of omnipotence and even omniscience because he knows what he is planning they don't he knows what's coming they don't and this asymmetry of information gratifies him no end and caters to his sadistic side as well this is a form of self supply now there are many other forms of self supply but these are the most common strategies self supply is a crucial maintenance phase in the narcissist cycle of existence narcissists often run out of narcissistic supply and they have to self supply or perish and so they self supply additionally self supply is a mechanism of self regulation that appears to be external regulation so it's ego congruent it doesn't disrupt the narcissist balance equilibrium the narcissist experiences self supply is a natural continuation of external supply because he makes no distinction between external objects and internal objects everything is happening in his mind in his head so self supply is perceived as external especially if the self supply is linked intimately to specific internal objects which represent people out there real external objects internal objects in his mind are infused with the energy of the self supply they are effected with self supply and so they attain these internal objects attain an existence of their own and are misperceived as external the narcissist's classic confusion to internal and external objects in many ways what I'm describing is a bit narcissistic because it involves elements of hyper reflexivity and this is what Kernberg this is Kernberg's observation that's why he called borderline borderline on the border between neurotic and psychotic self supply is the purest form of supply and the crystallization of the narcissistic disorder of the self it is through self supply through the prism of self supply the narcissism better than any other way isolate the narcissist on an island in his narcissism would transition smoothly and seamlessly from external supply to self supply the narcissism will continue unhindered the narcissistic personality structure and organization will not be disrupted or interrupted and self supply would become internal into a very large extent delusional the narcissist's men child is on the border between men and child undecided in limbo borrows elements from both and because it's a very young child self supply is very very reminiscent of childhoods such as primary narcissism and yet it involves adult adult elements such as revenge fantasies and so again we see the chimeric nature of the narcissism the hybrid nature of the narcissism it is a men or a woman of course not fully formed half baked disrupted in a process a human being interrupted similarly which is typical of childhood is an integral part of self supply the narcissist confuses the reality of his internal world with the reality of the external world consequently events and dynamics that are happening inside his mind are misperceived to have occurred or to be occurring in the outside externally in the real world gradually the narcissist comes to develop superstitions and believes that he is capable of affecting the outside world by merely altering his internal landscape by merely thinking about something or wishing something to happen or imagining something or believing in something he induces in his mind he induces change in his environment both human and inanimate this is very typical thinking in childhood children have this more or less until age 36 months but it survives into adulthood in pathological narcissism and is at the core of self supply the narcissist projects his supply onto an unsuspecting environment but because to his mind there is no distinction between in and out internal and external this act of projecting the supply outward is misperceived is receiving supply from the outside actually the supply is 100% internal but perceived or misperceived is 100% external magical thinking is another example of the men child hybrid in narcissism and there is also the issue of the action of primitive defense mechanisms such as projection but also creating projective identification and so on these infantile regressive defense mechanisms no longer operate in adulthood in the vast majority of healthy and normal people but with a narcissist they still very much dominate narcissism, pathological narcissism is a failure at developing adult defense mechanisms and so the childhood ones the childlike ones of the infantile defense mechanisms survive self supply relies on these mechanisms for example the narcissist splits everyone into all good people and all bad people and the old bad people are after him they are out to get him and this fosters paranoid ideation but of course paranoia is a form of grandiosity similarly the narcissist divides the entire world into good and evil black and white, hot and cold loving and hating and so on and so forth this splitting mechanism creates the equivalent of a morality play the narcissist is on the side of good versus evil is on the side of good people versus evil people is being persecuted and prosecuted and threatened by really really bad characters now this is a form of rewriting the world as a theater play rendering the world a theater play the cinematic aspects of the narcissist mind and life are undeniable in self supply that's why I keep saying that self supply is the purest form of pathological narcissism some reminders locus of grandiosity the narcissist is grandiose he distorts reality reframes it so as to support an inflated and fantastic self image grandiosity therefore is a cognitive distortion but there is a mis misperception of grandiosity as usual among self-styled experts online grandiosity is not about being the best the fastest the greatest the most amazing grandiosity is about being special unique one of a kind sui generis unprecedented so listen well even negative input even scathing feedback even the most extreme criticism humiliation put downs you name it even these can constitute narcissistic supply sometimes you attack the narcissist you try your best to humiliate the narcissist to expose the narcissist to derive the narcissist to laugh at the narcissist to mock, to ridicule and so on and so forth only to discover that all this time you have been providing the narcissist with narcissistic supply a plenty thank you very much so if the attack or the criticism or the humiliation if they are sufficiently extreme they constitute narcissistic supply so if you attack the narcissist you are the biggest abuser ever you are the most accomplished con artist you are the most egregious failure you are the most unprecedented ways these are forms of narcissistic supply they will not lead to narcissistic injury they will not result in modification because they aggrandize the narcissist they render the narcissist special unique fascinating amazing the center of attention it's the wrong way to go about it okay so this is the first point the locus of grandiosity a narcissist could be very proud of his failures of the fact that he is a looser of his abuse of his misconduct simply because they are unprecedented they are special and unique and amazing and egregious and extreme and radical that renders him renders him one of a kind hence narcissistic supply I'm a man who keeps his promises sometimes well this is one promise I'm going to keep I'm going to give you bullet points regarding this video so that those of you who cannot tolerate my face or my voice or both for longer than three minutes can log off having grasped and having heard everything I have to say so here it is the summary of today's video some of you who would like to learn more can proceed to listen to the rest of the video today's video deals with self supply the techniques that narcissists use to supply themselves when they are unable to secure the supply from the environment, from other people the narcissists self supplies in order to avoid collapse and in order to avoid dysphoria depression which are usually the merry companions of collapse and this delusional solution self supply of course is delusional renders the narcissists auto-erotic in other words the narcissist is emotionally invested in himself and there is no emotional investment without a sexual dimension so this is known as auto-erotism and because the narcissist converts himself into the object of his own infatuation admiration, adulation and attraction the narcissist is incapable of being attracted to other people and so the narcissist becomes cerebral asexual when the narcissist experiences imminent collapse and begins to self supply and the development of narcissists becomes cerebral even if typically he is somatic even if the dominant type is somatic because he also becomes auto-erotic invested in himself in every possible way and only in himself now plentiful narcissistic supply when there is a lot of external narcissistic supply coming in there is problems for the narcissist the narcissist reacts to an avalanche of overwhelming, drowning dis-regulating supply unexpected supply in by developing a form of fantasy that is resilient that is counter-factual of course it's not related to reality it's a fantasy but contains elements of siege betrayal paranoia, suspicion it is not a shared fantasy it is a fantasy that involves only the narcissist and other people out there who are envious of the narcissist they hate the narcissist renders himself the butt and the center of conspiracies and so on now an overabundance of narcissistic supply creates residual libido narcissistic supply enhances the narcissist's libido the narcissist uses some of the libido and then there's change left, there's libido left now you can read about the narcissist's free libido, reserved libido and residual libido in the link in the description but suffice it to say in the bullet point summary that a narcissist who is exposed to an unexpected deluge flood of narcissistic supply becomes typically somatic because his libido explodes and there is excess libido and he doesn't know what to do with it and he realizes it he sexualizes it he becomes hyper sexual ok the techniques of self supply which I dwell on in this video are future orientation exclusive privilege or superior reference self-referential transcendence self-audiencing self-referential ideation and attribution contemptuous withholding and paranoid ideation and if you want to learn more about these techniques unfortunately you would have to wade through the rest of the video the first part of the video is an introduction to the dynamics of deficient supply and excess supply both deficient supply and excess supply create problems for the narcissist and he defends against these problems, against these emerging issues by developing fantasies a fantasy of self supply and or a fantasy of siege and betrayal in the first case the narcissist becomes cerebral because he is autoerotic he is invested emotionally and sexually in himself in the second of his own desire in the second case of abundant or overabundant supply the narcissist becomes somatic because the supply generates excess libido excess if you wish life drive or life force excess sex drive and he uses it with partners that he objectifies and instrumentalizes and so on and so forth this is the summary now go home and ignore the rest of the video or take out your popcorn and have fun with moi because so very few of you are watching my videos I decided to switch to self supply I got myself a pil pilon and this pil pilon never argues with me never criticizes me he is always there when I need it and always nods its trunk in perfect adulation and agreement with everything I have to say what more can I ask for and this is today's topic the techniques of self supply when the narcissist can no longer obtain supply from the external environment he generates supply from the inside but he does it in highly specific ways which I am going to enumerate in this unwatched video and who the heck am I my name is Sam Vaknin I am the author of Malignan Self Love narcissism revisited I am also a former visiting professor of psychology and I am currently on the faculty of CIAPS Commonwealth for International Advanced Professional Studies and I am the proud owner of this pil pilon thank you V okay shoshanim pil pilonim and pil pilonot it's time to delve right in as we usually do first of all I advise you to watch the previous video on self supply titled self supplying narcissists miracle cure the link is available in the description which is still mysteriously under the video okay the narcissist self supplies in order to avoid collapse let me remind you what is a collapse a collapse is a long period not a single event but a long period of deficient self supply an inability to elicit supply narcissistic supply from the human environment a failure at obtaining narcissistic supply from sources extant and potential a rejection by sources of narcissistic supply the dropping off of such sources and the inability to secure secondary narcissistic supply for example from a spouse so the narcissist finds himself in a vacuum of supply he finds himself horrified by the lack of supply and he catastrophizes he says to himself I'm never gonna obtain supply it's over now when I say he she is a he gender pronouns are interchangeable 100% of all narcissists nowadays are women who are ready for women's liberation so the narcissist self supply in order to avoid this condition known as narcissistic collapse because narcissistic collapse often goes hand in hand with dysphoria or depression and I refer you to my video on the three depressions of the narcissist it's an intolerable condition requiring own modification and so the narcissist results to his favorite strategy and his favorite solution is fantasy it's a delusional solution it's a solution that says you don't need anybody you don't need anyone you are your own best source of narcissistic supply you are so far superior to others that your opinion of yourself matters much more than their opinion of you and so it is delusional but it also creates a redirection the narcissist redirects his emotional investment his cathexis from the outside to the inside it is a transition a reverse transition a regression from object relations to narcissistic self-object relations so it's full full steam backwards to infancy narcissists becomes auto-erotic now I've been asked an excellent question for a change by one of you you asked me when the narcissist self-supplies he does not refer to external sources of supply so he cannot be cerebral and he cannot be somatic what is the type of a self-supplying narcissist is he cerebral is he somatic is he covert is he covert all these definitions become meaningless when the narcissist isolates himself solipsistically becomes schizoid a hermit and does not refer anymore to external objects also known as you so in such a situation the narcissist energies life energies also known as libido libido is comprised partly of sex drive, eros and partly of a long vitale the life force when this life force is directed inwards the narcissist also becomes auto-erotic all his drives including his sex drive are become self-directed in this case the narcissist is far more likely to become cerebral so self-supplying narcissists vast majority self-supplying narcissists become cerebral because they also become auto-erotic and therefore they cannot be somatic they can still be cerebral they can still be creative they can still produce works of the intellect but of course they cannot have sex with someone else so and their bodies are objects of sexual desire they break the sexual desire themselves but this sexual desire is more erotic than proper sexual in short it is far more likely that the self-supplying narcissists would become cerebral or attempt to become cerebral even if he is not intelligent enough to pull it off so many many somatic narcissists or they collapse because they are getting older they are getting sicker they are out of the market they are out of the market many such narcissists suddenly develop pretensions at intellect so somatic narcissists who are faced with collapse suddenly try to become cerebral narcissists they try to become gurus they try to become public intellectuals they try to become philosophers they try to become experts in self-styled self-declared experts in some field so the transition from somatic to cerebral in the case of imminent collapse is very very common now when the narcissist when narcissistic supply is deficient the narcissist is likely to become cerebral exactly the opposite happens when there is plentiful external narcissistic supply that is also a problem both collapse deficiency and plenty are problems there needs to be a fine-tuned regulation of the flow of narcissistic supply if you get too much of it or if you get too little of it the narcissist decompensates and essentially falls apart he even becomes pseudo-psychotic so when there is too much narcissistic supply plentiful narcissistic supply this leads the narcissist to develop resilient ever more counterfactual unrealistic fantasies but these fantasies are not shared fantasies they are fantasies of siege and betrayal the fantasies of paranoia and pain and hurt and shame so the reaction to plentiful narcissistic supply is on the one hand increasing hypervigilance paranoia even sense of siege being under siege a sense of betrayal referential ideation people are conspiring against me mocking me talking about me etc etc and on the other hand the excess narcissistic supply the narcissistic supply that cannot be consumed because there is too much of it is converted into residual libido it generates too much libido so too much supply is translated to too much libido and this renders the narcissist somatic in a predatory way when the narcissist is exposed to fame celebrity adulation sudden abrupt success beyond the narcissist wildest dreams exposure to multitudes of adoring fans etc etc the narcissist would tend to become somatic but not only somatic he would tend to become a sexual predator in the majority of cases so we have these two situations an imminent collapse declining narcissistic supply deficient supply and then complete lack of supply where the narcissist tries to convert himself into a cerebral narcissist and invests all his energies emotional and sexual in himself the opposite situation is when the narcissist is suddenly deluged and flooded with narcissistic supply especially unexpected narcissistic supply this enhances his libido especially the aero spark the sexual drive he becomes somatic even if he started off as a cerebral he becomes somatic and very likely a sexual predator now I've analyzed all this 25 years ago 28 years ago 28 years ago I've analyzed all this mechanism in minute and intricate detail and it's available in the in malignant self-love narcissism revisited I will post a link to the segment section of malignant self-love that deals with these issues so again you can find it in the description if you want to delve much further into these amazing transmogrification and transformations between somatic and cerebral as a way to either compensate for lacking a lack of narcissistic supply or for excess narcissistic supply that threatens to overwhelm dysregulate and drown the narcissist okay so this is in the essay and you can find the link in the description I promise you to discuss techniques of self-supply again to remind you self-supply is when the narcissist gives up on external sources of narcissistic supply and decides that he is his best source of narcissistic supply by far the most qualitative the most superior and he needs nobody he needs no one he can supply himself with narcissistic supply plenty there's no need to resort to an environment which would prove to be injurious and rejecting and the narcissist supplies himself in several highly specific ways and I'm going to enumerate them now number one future orientation the narcissist tells himself future generations will appreciate my legacy in due time history will prove me right I will be proven right by future scholars et cetera so the narcissist reorients himself rather than be grounded in the present where there's no supply there's narcissistic injury there's even modification there's constant reminder reminders of failure and defeat this kind of present the narcissist rejects and he starts to reorient himself to become a denizen of the future his outlook is future oriented he keeps talking about his legacy now he doesn't matter what people say about him now he doesn't matter that he's being rejected and mocked and ridiculed and criticized and exposed none of these matters because the future will vindicate him this is technique number one of self supply second technique of self supply is to refer to exclusive privileged or superior reference to measure the narcissist measures himself against highly specific handpicked chosen people he says to himself I don't care what the hoi po loi say I don't care what people say on YouTube YouTube viewers are low grade low brow, low brow, low level people they are not my frame of reference I don't care what people on the street have to say about me I care only about my peers and my peers are geniuses are accomplished people my peers my potential mentors even are at the top of the game in their profession only geniuses can understand and appreciate my work so he gives up he gives up on the sources of narcissistic supply that they had been tapping hitherto by reframing the situation and saying I'm rejecting them it's not that they are rejecting me I'm the one who is doing the rejection this way the narcissist feels that he is in control he regains and reasserts mastery he is the boss he's calling the shot he's the driver's seat it's not this is a reframing totally delusional counterfactual reframing of the process the narcissist is rejected by potential sources of supply and actual sources of supply but rather than acknowledge this fact and endure devastating narcissistic injuries and modifications the narcissist says that's not true I made them do it or I'm the one who has rejected them and I rejected them because I deserve better I deserve an audience which is much more sophisticated much more chic much more knowledgeable much more intelligent much more everything so I'm transitioning from an audience which is beneath me sources of narcissistic supply which are low grade and whose supply is low grade and fake I'm transitioning from this group to an alternative group which takes time and there's a transition period but ultimately I will be recognized by this new reference group which is far superior to the previous reference group this is the second mechanism the third mechanism is what I call self-referential transcendence self-referential transcendence is when the narcissist convinces himself there is in some ways superior to the overwhelming vast majority of the rest of humanity it is self-referential because it is the narcissist who convinces himself he is doing the convincing and it has to do with transcendence so such a narcissist would say I am hyper-moral my morality is amazing no one is as moral as I am I'm strong I'm inordinately strong I'm a victim of anyone who is as honest and as strong as I am I'm gifted I'm a unique genius there are only eight other people in the world who are as genius as genius as I am I'm a martyr I'm a victim I'm a healer I'm a savior I'm the scourge of evil people I'm going to eradicate evil people I'm a protector then all these are forms of self-supply the narcissist by referring to himself in a way that is self-aggrandizing entrenches his delusions of superiority and grandeur and this way transcends the temporary hiatus or temporary lack of narcissistic supply the next technique is self-odiencing self-odiencing is when a narcissist essentially splits himself into he is the source of creativity he produces works works of art, works of the intellect and at the same time he is also his own exclusive audience not only is he his best audience is exclusive audience so it's a kind of multiple personality the narcissist becomes his own critic his own fan his own audience his own follower his own disciple his own protege and this self-odiencing is manifested in a variety of forms of the journaling the narcissist can write a journal, a diary and then convince himself that it is an amazing work of art the equivalent of Anne Frank's diary Marcel Proust and one day the journal or the diary will be discovered and will become a literary masterpiece that's an example of self-odiency another way self-documenting accumulating every scrap of paper every electronic document that ever passes or crosses the narcissist's variety of devices documenting documenting, documenting even going to the extent of recording oral interviews with others creating a rich all-encompassing, all-pervasive ubiquitous documentation of the narcissist's life living behind a legacy explored by future scholars and will be the only then appreciated for what it is the documentation of a singular mind another example of self-odiencing is self-appraisal when the narcissist analyzes himself and says, objectively speaking I'm a genius compared to others I'm exceedingly handsome so this is self-appraisal of course the self-appraisal is a direct derivative of the fantasy and therefore it's delusional it's delusional self-appraisal and it is intended to provide the narcissist with narcissist self-supply so these are all examples of self-odiency when the narcissist becomes his own most faithful, most loyal most adoring, most fawning audience the next technique is self-referential ideation and self-referential attribution it's when the narcissist projects on to other people parts of himself that he is ashamed of parts of himself that he rejects parts of himself that challenge and undermine his grandiose inflated, fantastic self-perception he projects these parts on to others and then he attributes these parts to others and sometimes he even forces others to behave accordingly something known as projective identification an integral part of this process is self-referential ideation developing ideas about other people and how they see the narcissist so the narcissist tells himself for example everyone envies me that is self-referential ideation everyone envies me everyone is talking about me I am the center of attention I am the life of every party I am being solely missed my ideas are influential everyone is plagiarizing and suffering them so sentences about other people which reflect directly on the narcissist sentences, statements about other people's state of mind as it refers to the narcissist these are self-referential ideation and attribution making assumptions which are fantastic in many cases counterfactual not in all cases but in many cases making assumptions about other people and how they see the narcissist their attitude to the narcissist and even their plans, their agenda when it comes to the narcissist so this leads gradually self-referential ideation and attribution gradually evolves the longer the period of collapse and the longer the period of self-supplying self-referential ideation and self-referential attribution gradually evolve into paranoid ideation paranoid ideation is of course self-aggrandizing it's a form of grandiosity I am the focus of a conspiracy I'm sufficiently important to be at the heart of my lying intention and attention everyone is planning to take me down because I matter because I'm important because I'm critical and so paranoid ideation places the narcissist at the center it's a center of a conspiracy it's a center of a collusion it's a center of malign intentions it's a center of malignant attention it's not a good center but it's still the center and this is supported by the betrayal and siege fantasy that most narcissists have and also by self-referential ideation and attribution now it's very important to mention here that self-referential ideation and attribution and paranoid ideation are both triggered they're triggered by both a lack of supply a collapse and too much supply an excess of narcissistic supply both situations which are out of balance dysregulate the narcissist when the narcissist is exposed to an avalanche of narcissistic supply when he's deluged with narcissistic supply and it's abrupt and it's unexpected he doesn't have the tools to cope with it he develops a siege and betrayal fantasy where he is at the core of some malign malignant attention, conspiracies and collusion and that's because everyone wants to take him down everyone envies him and he's becoming too influential and so the powers that be for example want to destroy him so this is a reaction that is a form of self-supply when narcissistic supply is deficient and a form of desperate attempt to regulate when narcissistic supply is overwhelming and dysregulate now the last technique of self-supply is contemptuous withholding the narcissist isolates himself becomes a hermit and he says to himself withdrawing my presence my absence these are punishments I'm punishing people they could have enjoyed my company they could have benefited from my ideas they could have basked in my personality they and they gave all this up in their infinite stupidity they didn't appreciate me they didn't reward me they didn't supply me they didn't notice me so I'm holding them in contempt because only stupid people would have missed my shining presence I'm withholding myself they don't deserve me they don't deserve my contributions and my output I'm alone because no one is on my level and I know no one is on my level because they wouldn't give me narcissistic supply which I richly deserve so there is contempt here and the contempt leads to withholding withdrawal and avoidance as punitive measures against potential sources of narcissistic supply or actual sources of narcissistic supply who seized to supply the narcissist the narcissist perceives a lack of supply the withholding of supply he perceives it as an act of aggression he perceives it as a malevolent malign act he cannot the narcissist cannot countenance the possibility that he doesn't deserve narcissistic supply he believes that his very existence is in itself a cosmic event of spectacular proportions so when people withhold supply when they refuse to provide the narcissist with supply when they provide the narcissist with negative supply they criticize him they disagree with him when they suddenly cease to provide supply having supplied the narcissist in the past the only explanation the narcissist has is there is malice here there's malevolence this is done on purpose it's an act of aggression or passive aggression destabilize me disregulate me destroy me devastate me take me down ruin me push me to do something crazy to act out in order to entrap me so the narcissist then devolves into a resilient entrenched unassailable fantasy and suspicion he convinces himself that his value his grandiosity is fully justified and buttressed and supported by this evidence the very fact that everyone envies him everyone is trying to take him down everyone is refusing to provide him with narcissistic supply that he so evidently deserves these very facts prove conclusively how important he is how critical he is how influential he is how powerful he is because only powerful influential important people are at the butt of conspiracies and collusions paranoid ideation comes to the main form of narcissistic supply at the end of the process of self-supply self-supply is still vastly preferable to dependency on external sources of narcissistic supply self-supply is the closest that the narcissist can come to I wouldn't say healing but to social functioning by self-supplying the narcissist stops harming other people by confining his attentions to himself only the narcissists abrasive and antisocial dimensions and aspects are all but eliminated he withdraws into a world of fantasy that is essentially psychotic and yes clinically this is very unhealthy but the manifestations of narcissism which are harmful to others hurtful to others and dangerous to others all but vanish when self-supply becomes the dominant mode of narcissistic supply and that's why I think the focus in the treatment of narcissism should be on teaching the narcissists to self-supply in a way that does not devolve into delusionality and paranoia to teach the narcissists to self-supply in a benevolent manner for example to self-audience self-audience is harmless it's innocuous future orientation is okay referring to specific highly privileged superior exclusive people in his mind that's also okay as long as it does not deteriorate the linear delusions there are ways to redirect and channel the narcissists energy so that the narcissists self-supplies and the self-supply is sufficient so the narcissists becomes self-sufficient and self-contained and yet the narcissists self-sufficiency is the behavior that harms other people for example when the narcissists self-supply is no longer in need of a shared fantasy he gives up on the shared fantasy way of relating to other people so people don't suffer anymore they won't become figments of the narcissists imagination captured within his shared fantasy like so many ants in amber when the shared fantasy is gone as a solution replaced by techniques of self-supply no other people are involved except the narcissists so a lot of suffering is ameliorated and reduced and eliminated and isn't this the goal ultimately of all psychotherapy and healing here's a quiz for you on this sunny day guess who is the narcissist and who is his long-suffering partner and the penalty for getting it wrong is you have to watch this video to the end can you conceive of anything worse than this punishment don't answer this don't answer this I'm sorry I asked the question I will draw it please I can't be confronted with harsh cruel the truth happy Christmas today we are going to discuss the narcissists doing you the greatest favour ever the narcissists endowing you bestowing upon you the privilege of being with him and I call this sacrificial entitlement now we all know that narcissists are entitled they think they deserve special treatment just by virtue of existing by virtue of gracing the planet with their immaculate presence they are godlike they are worthy of worship and admiration and prostration and special services and of course the four S's supply, sadistic and narcissistic and safety narcissists feel entitled to this they don't think they have to invest or commit or do hard work or toil they don't think they have to study they don't think they have to progress up the ladder corporate ladder or the ladder of a relationship or evolution the narcissist is into revolution the narcissist regards himself as a catalyst his very presence, his very existence should trigger automatically the chemical or all chemical reactions which would yield to the utter materialization and realization of his goals cater to his emotional needs soothe him and comfort him with narcissistic supply a plenty so within this context of I exist therefore I deserve to paraphrase Descartes within this context you must understand that it is your privilege to serve the narcissist it is an amazing favor bestowed upon you the gift to be able to witness document and record his life he is sacrificing himself to afford you with these opportunities his entitlement in this case is sacrificial or self sacrificial now of course sacrificial entitlement is a form of self supply it combines grandiosity and victimhood and the grandiose part is I am amazing I am perfect I am brilliant I am a genius I am drop dead gorgeous I am one of a kind I am endowed I am gifted I am skilled I am unprecedented therefore I am something or someone and I am such an enticing package that I am irresistible everyone would want desire, crave to be with me that's the grandiose part of sacrificial entitlement or let's say that's the entitlement part and the second part in sacrificial entitlement is the victimhood the narcissist says for me to be with you for me to accompany you for me to provide you with advice and succor to listen to you for me to share my life with you that's a sacrifice I am such an elevated being I am the equivalent of a deity and I deign to come down to earth to be with you my superiority my amazing intellect my gifts endowments and skills my potential future I am sacrificing all this just in order to be with you and you must appreciate it and you should be grateful for my concessions and my sacrifices so sacrificial entitlement combines grandiosity with victimhood on the one hand it elevates the narcissist into a godlike posture in this sense sacrificial entitlement is a form of self supply and on the other hand it convinces the narcissist sacrificial entitlement convinces the narcissist that he is giving up missing out missing out sacrificing being less than he could be just in order to be with you to share his life with you to serve as a companion an intimate partner or friend to you, a father to you a husband to you whatever role may be they all require the narcissist to minimize himself to not actualize the potential because this full potential is divine you in other words you are the human who drags him from heavens you are the one who reduces him you are the one who plunges him into the abyss of reality and humanity he is above all this he is godlike he is a deity you by virtue of your limitations and of the fact that you are mere mortal mere human you force him to reincarnate in your form and shape narcissist therefore is a Jesus complex I am god but I am god incarnate I am god in the flesh of a human being who consents condescends I am a god who agrees however reluctantly to share the human experience with you had you not been in my life I would have been pure unadulterated immaculate perfect being you my intimate partner my child my neighbor you drag me, you reduce me you push me into the imperfection that is the human condition and I am willing to do this I am willing to do this for you but you must realize that I am a victim of my good heart that I am doing this just to cater to your needs and to be there by your side and to hold your hand and you should really really really be grateful for this and appreciate it because this is the most amazing sacrifice most incredible humongous sacrifice conceivable I am sacrificing my essence my quiddity who I am I am sacrificing all this just so that you may survive just so that you may experience well-being and happiness in my presence so I recognize my uniqueness as a god-like figure that's the grandiose part but I am willing to let go of it just in order to be with you and that is the victimhood part the sacrificial part similarly, narcissists would say I am excessively moral I attain the high moral ground I am rigidly ethical I would never do anything that breaches any boundaries or ethics or morality and they would use this morality as a club they would beat you up with their morality they would it's punitive they would punish you with their morality for example of sacrificial entitlement I am entitled to special treatment by virtue of being the perfect moral agent by virtue of being a paragon of ethics so this is the grandiose part and I am sacrificing myself I am constraining my behaviors I am controlling my impulses I am postponing gratification I am doing all this for you that's the sacrifice so this is the moral narcissists for social or communal narcissists similarly, narcissists give they give money they give gifts, they give to charity but their giving is grandiose it's ostentatious and it's manipulative they give in order to receive and so their giving is a form of sacrificial entitlement I am sacrificing I am giving you my money I am giving you my property I am giving you access to me to myself I am giving you my contacts I am giving you I am being altruistic I am being charitable that's the sacrifice but due to this sacrifice I am entitled I am entitled to your gratitude I am entitled to your obedience and submissiveness I am entitled to your sex to your services to your supply and to your presence which makes me feel safe I am entitled to safety giving or narcissistic altruism or narcissistic charity they are manipulative they are a chivalry and they are intended to cater to the narcissistic sense of entitlement by ostentatiously sacrificing you know the kind of mother who says I sacrifice my life for you now you owe me that's a narcissistic mother the narcissists broadcast to you his transmission to you is you have the privilege to be privy to my life you have the amazing gift of being able to witness my adventures and my accomplishments and my moments of glory this is something other people would die for and here it is handed over to you on a plate you should be eternally grateful to me and your gratitude should translate into action by being obsequious obsequious, obedient submissive the narcissist says to you the life you share with me is a transformative experience comprised of hundreds of teaching moments now it's very ironic because that happens to be true a life where the narcissist is most definitely transformative and has thousands of teaching moments however the narcissist believes that your transformation is for the better is improving you somehow is upgrading you from less to more that's his point of view while your point of views of course the narcissist is destroying you ruining you devastating you punishing you, withholding from you intermittently reinforcing you trauma bonding you and so on objectively you are right of course these are the outcomes of the shared fantasy the shared fantasy is the only way the narcissist can relate to other people and it involves inevitably the evaluation and discard is built into the shared fantasy but the narcissist is so self delusional and so self deceptive that he regards the time with you the time he has had with you is a huge endowment a huge gift that he has given you because you will never be the same afterwards you will be far more mature you will be more experienced you will be more worldly you will be more educated you will be more something of course your subjective experiences that you will be a lot less so when you abandon the narcissist finally or when the narcissist even discards you because you are a bad object you are a persecutory object I am sorry and you are an enemy the narcissist discards you because you leave him no other choice when this breakup whether you abandon him or re-abandon him when this breakup finally happens the narcissist regards your behavior as the most egregious form of ingratitude you are ungrateful you are ungrateful because he has given you everything imaginable which millions of other people would be clamoring for dreaming of and would never attain and yet you bite the hand that feeds you you reject him and this is part of your inexorable devaluation your persecutory object partly in big part because you are ungrateful perhaps you are ungrateful because you are too stupid to be ungrateful perhaps you don't even realize or appreciate what the narcissist has given to you perhaps you don't possess the intellect to properly assess and evaluate the narcissist gifts and perhaps you are just a slut immoral whatever the case may be the narcissist has given you the world and you were stupid enough to reject it in his eyes and he will never forgive you this even if he were to over you even if he were to over you it would be with a certain kind of reserve because he would consider you somewhat inferior having missed the first opportunity to be with him having botched up this unique breakthrough that you could have had just by virtue of sharing your life with him then it says a lot about you re-idealizing you in the hovering attempt is not as easy as the first time around because the narcissist harbors the memories of the narcissistic injury and has to reshape the persecutory object in his mind he has to convert you from enemy to an ideal object that's quite an onerous work it's a lot of toil a lot of investment and commitment and the narcissist regards even this as credit a credit to him the very fact that he has idealized you should render you eternally grateful to him eternally in his debt to talk even because whenever have you been idealized whoever treated you this way hasn't he been the first to see the true you your real potential the fact that you're perfect hasn't he provided you with access to his gaze so that you can share this love that he has for this idealized image you can fall in love with yourself hasn't he taught you to self supply in other words yes he has and he cannot forgive you he cannot forgive you for having been too moronic too stupid or too evil or too dysregulated to walk away from all these riches from this treasure chest that the narcissist is