I garbled the ending of my earlier post and meant to go on lol so I'll get to that shortly... I also think based on some replies since that I kinda garbled what I meant to say, again it's been a spangly day and as a traumatised co-dependent myself I have that sometimes wrong assumption that I'm authorised to speak authoritatively about people whose lives are very different to mine.
Anyway, firstly,
@kiely - I don't think I'm gonna disagree with anything you say - but let me see where I might have implied something else...
kiely said:
Isn't [when codependent people are actively being exploited ... trauma bonding somehow though. When someone intentionally looks for someone that is weak and vulnerable and maybe sick or high so they can easily be manipulated into being controlled because they are going to be rescued by that someone who is actually looking to find all of their weaknesses as an easy way to
benefit from this all when it works out so perfectly for them. Because someone happens to fall for it for one reason or another or they are vulnerable from the way they get trapped and tricked into it. Because now they are stuck into the whole game for someone else's own benefit to use them for whatever they can get. Because
that's all that they know and is the life that they live. To find someone to prey off of and feel big and strong. And then say that the vulnerable one is the one that wants them too, because they are the one's that are so very very co-dependent to begin with. Because they then get manipulated and get stuck deep into it even more and the other person must now become convinced they are in fact the bully instead even though they were weak and vulnerable in the first place. Only to be told that they now are the problem ... while the perp is waiting for the next victim to come around that might have something better or just for the thrill of the fact that they know how to manipulate so well and is their game because it is all that
Yeah... this is what happens. It's fucked up...
When I was deep in my own soul-destroying "friendship" phrases like co-dependent and narcissit weren't really thrown around at all - but ceetrainly they can be another weapon. Actually that said the narcissist I used to know who made me hate myself, when things were almost done and I was just grey-rocking during a phone call, the dude was like "you know I think you and me are in a MUTUALLY CODEPENDENT RELATIONSHIP...

heh I mean yeah it's somewhat true I guess. All narcissists are codependent - in a way - unburdened by the empathically-oriented moral compasses of the typical codependent who is not pathologically narcissistic. For the narcissists, if the ends (having created a perfectly loyal, permanent subject and sycophant) then the means are justified, probably fucking deserved, how dare this person not immediately grovel to their greatness...
If we wanna push the boat of bothsides out properly which I guess I started - then...although, to be clear! There are no 2 sides here. In the context of this discussion, the sides are the absolute sociopathic selfish cunts who make every else's life worse, and the people who are just wanting to be liked. But yeah if we wanna push that boat out we can find easier that codependents can often possess many
narcissistic traits. For one though, everyone does, no one is perfect, there are some thnigs we just need to accept so as not to be the escalator. But there's a limit, it's generally a unspoken limit though because we all like to think we're pretty reasonable people and so are most of the people we're likely to meet. In fact - although I do greatly respect and admire the general nonconfrontational nature of civil society in the West, IMO tolerating narcisstic behaviours - even lower level ones - is a token gesture, shockingly exploitable, and shockingly weak.... andit is something that is exploited to such horrifying aptitude by the Narcissism 101 into edict and core prinriple (I just made that up - but this is ,
DARVO -
Deflect (
you're being angry about nothing),
Attack (
you always pick fights with me, nothing I do is every good enough!),
Reverse-Victim-and-Offender (
"it's just abusive, you saying you feel like I'm abusing you" ...a direct quote from my one-time "friend")
kiely said:
they do and the only thing they know and live for. Because it's just what they just do. And they don't even know they are doing it because it's what they do completely intentionally and is in fact exactly all they know. But they don't even know they do it. That's how good they are at it. It's just automatic.
Ah yes, the narcissist reality distortion field.
Anything I did wrong? Didn't happen. Oh, it did happen? It didn't happen like that. DON'T YOU BELIEVE ME?! Are you calling me a LIAR?!"
I will say though... you can break though this, sometimes. You can stand your ground and demonstrate irrefutable fact. But if you do this, it will be taken as a grave insult, and you will be punished for it later. (Maybe I need to check my privilege here too.. not everyone can even try,,,
kiely said:
Because it is what their life is like and the environment that they are from. And they will never know or even realize it because they don't want to and they never will. So they do it naturally because it is in fact their nature too. Yeah, and just because they think someone is that dumb ... because they think they can tell them everything they want to hear because that's what they just do and think someone else is that stupid too and they will just fall for it all and then try to convince them that they can be anyone that they want them to be or say anything they think that someone else wants to hear to try to control them. When they just lie '... about who they are because they don't even know who they are themselves. That kind of deal. So that they can use and abuse anyone and take away their identity too and make them look like a piece of excrement too and because they want to get there own way for their own benefit and their own benefit only and on and on and on.
You are losing me a little here. Nature/nurture, yeah, but most abusive narcissists had fucked up childhoods, and it's a sliding scale, some are more aware than others. Some will seek therapy, talk about their neglectful parents (typically to be able to easily play the victim card, and for more validation, which they will often get from therapy. Therapisfs generally will not tell someone flat out that they are a narcissist, unless they are specially trained, which doesnt happen often given how fiew narcissists realise or have accepted what they are. I had one (again, direct quote) say
"I've been told there's literally notthing else he can do for me, I'm in such optimal psychological health." ...which was pretty fucking wild. But, he also spoke to me often about his ambandonment issues and how many people have abandoned him (I knew then that I'd be next)...
I think we may have had slightly different experiences although certainly no more or less fucked up and awful all round shit in terms of the exact flavour of the narcissits we knew. But actually fuck I dunno why I'm acting like I'm disageeing... some more choice quotes from a certain cunt when I'd flat out said I was out, not gonna be dealing with this shit (less bluntly then than now, sadly).
- "Vastness, it's not about you, I don't respect anyone at all! Except you! You're the only person I respect."
- "I don't see any problem with lying, I lie all the time."
- "'I'm SUCH a good manipulator (giggles almost)."
Like... what the fuck? Why would you think I'd ever trust you after hearing that, even if I did before? (Fortunately, I already didn't).
kiely said:
Totally to get there own way and anything and I do mean anything and everything else they can get out of the relationship to use someone else, like someone is actually an insect or just a nobody now and a nothing more than a thing and a used up one now too and never was --- someone at all, not even a real person to begin with, and then survive and thrive from it and all of this all and getting their great big giant I can do what ever I want ego off of and from them all, until they win the game with whom ever they can get to fall for it at the time until something better comes along. Yeah that's how they hunt someone down. Oh yeah it happens in families through marriages as well. Okay I will give them that much too. There now they have it. Something to have on someone else. To one up them. And to always have something on someone else. So someone else can suffer and feel as bad as them if not worse to make themselves feel happier then.
Live and learn. I guess. And what we have to do and go through to learn our lessons for the consequences for letting it happen too.
In other words it's just someone looking for weakness to have power and control over someone else.
And yeah just to get their own damn way and burn someone else. To feel so superior to them. But they make sure they look good to everyone else.
Because it's always someone else's fault for everything every time too.
Never ever ever their fault. Always something else or someone else.
And that IS NOT a healthy way of being or having a healing life somehow either. Or plain and simple .....
to actually be around it either. So ....
If narcissists gravitated to insects as hosts, yeah, no brainer world would be a better place. All the other stuff you said - yeah. I've witnessed this firsthand in my friend group. 3 of us at different points all though we were best friends, we were all kinda shy in different ways, not reclusive as such but... alternative kids I guess. I stuck around for the longest, either I'm the most codependent, idiotic, or both. Funnily enough, everyone else in our immediate social circle couldn't stand the guy....
Sorry you said some other stuff which I broadly also agreed with but I gotta fuckin' go to bed, I didn't actually watch a video, maybe I didn't read the OP properly, I really didn't want to come accross as some kinda narcissist advocate - I meant specifically to point out care needed when discussing personality disorders. A codependency diagnosis isn't a value judgement on a person, it's just a vulnerability to codependency. Same with narcissim in a sense... except a VULNERABILITY TO NARCISSISM, if caught early enough, means state of the art institutionalization, probably, in humane facilities that help them understand how not to be cunts.
There ARE recovered narcissists, supposedly. It's shockingly rare, but it can happen. Ultimately....
Look, I do find it a struggle. There's a certain person I really wouldn't mind if he died. I made my life a lot harder bailing on a pretty successful midsize business because... just seeing this dude's face every day... the expectation, the praise, followed by hint that I should take compliments more exuberantly, text back faster, keep my phone on me... mind, we were the only 2 directors in a tiny office, so this is all clearly batshit.
I really tried to trat him like a normal person. I'd apologies for some minor thing that was my fault - but typical social mores in navigating delicate human interactions backfire when dealing with narcissists. Apologies or concessions aren't met with compassion, but with "
YEAH, YOU SHOULD BE FUCKING SORRY!" and 20 minutes more rehashing the same to the point you wonder why you bothered....
Christ, fuck, I do gotta sleep. But I wanna say more. This topic is important to me and I was maybe too spangled to engage with it when I did. I do think if narcissim cannot be effectively treated in dedicated, human centeres, then, unfortunately for the narcissist, then in an ideal world they'd be destined only for incarceration (in a specialist, humane facility, even if they don't seem to deserve humane treatment, if we allow our dark need for vengeance to win out).
Aaaand just briefly, regarding my earlier post:
I think presumably I meant to write "I probably would be diagnosed with the almost unheard of "
Codependent Personality Disorder" - instead of the spangly gibberish that came out. Even though now I'd consider myself NOT actively codependent in any way and extremely wary of Dark Triad, probing personalities, I am not 100% confident that the exact right
exactly wrong kind of person could latch on to that latent need for external validation, to be helpful, that nothing you (I) do matters if you (I) aren't doing it for someone else's benefit.... wouldn't it be easier just to trust in someone (or something) that speaks the right words, and projects undeniable power...?

(Please do take that sarcastically but there's a nugget of codependent truth in it, I think - there's also an unsubtle political jibe there, if you missed it.)
The science is there - people who are sure they're right over whatever fuckin' dodgy ScIEnTiSt who said we should vaccinate kids for measles can get fucked... but more importantly, are more likely to be absolutely fine with just fucking people over, inflicting trauma, and generally just trying to revive the aristocracy, a group of elites of which it is their god given right to be a part. People with strong belief in hierarchical division of human society where some are just better and some people are just less, have less to no empathy for others, have no true value system beyond the idea that the status quo that benefits them or SHOULD benefit them (and they all believe it eventually will) should be maintained, and valued above more innately human values like, I dunno, what kind of behaviours or laws or ways to treat people will lead to greater human happiness and flourishing? Narcissists and abusers are massively overrepresented in these groups, for obvious reasons, and is one reason of many why society resists greater accountability for narcissistic crimes.
Anyway... I dunno why, I feel like I answered a bit kinda critically earlier but it's obvious why you posted and I'm nitpicking. I sympathise a lot, codependency made manifest by especiallly deep entanglements with the other side of the triad is oertly traumatizing behind closed doors, or even in the open, maybe more subtle if, sh, fuck I dunno... these Fucking Hateful people come in all shapes and sizes. And the outcome for their victims is generally not good. Honeslty... it's fucked to say coz my own "abuser" who was once my best friend, platonically, heh, dude from my early childhood... I used to idly think, wouldn't it be easier if he just died.