G'day, A.J. Mahari here with a really important message for people with codependency
message sounds like a tv commercial ah whatever hello where are we no i know anyway point is
people with codependency something you really need to know right now because you may have heard
elsewhere uh you know or read elsewhere somewhere else i don't know but people with codependency
are not narcissists they are not narcissistic they are not employing any kind of unhealthy
narcissism when people use the word narcissistic without any context it means only one thing oh
well that would be 11 things or two things depending how you look at it means only one
thing which is narcissistic personality disorder if people talk about narcissism
narcissism this narcissism that oh people with codependency have to look at their narcissism
become aware of your narcissism understand your narcissism
that doesn't mean anything because the word narcissism by itself without any qualifiers sorry
hair in here without any qualifiers without dot pet error here without any qualifiers just saying
narcissism without any qualifiers or anything else again what does it imply narcissistic personality
disorder whether that's what people mean to say or not but um this idea that people with codependency
have to face their narcissism how are narcissistic are uberty selfish no that's the last thing that
people with codependency need to hear because it's inaccurate up the yin-yang and then some
and however else i could put that why well because people with codependency have a degree
so it depends if it's moderate significant or severe codependency but you have a degree
different gradations for different people of a bit of a lost self part of a lost self
not like people with bpd but you know there's a false self in codependency
and so you've learned from a young age in childhood for whatever reasons it's different
for everybody with codependency to externalize out to please to take action to help to enable
to sacrifice yourself to try to get seen and heard by a parent in your childhood and then
going forward that gets suppressed into your unconscious mind and next thing you know so many
people that i work with and have worked as over the years will say but my childhood was great
but my parents but i think it was just this it was and there's lots of it was this that the other
that really has something to do with people's codependency as well in childhood or in the teen
years usually something precedes that in childhood but teen years whatever the case may be but
i don't want to make this a long one i want to simply say to use the word narcissistic
with no qualifiers it means narcissistic personalities order it's associated with that
to use the word narcissism just reading and saying oh codependents need to look at their narcissism
codependents are narcissistic and then yeah people have even said red i mean red i've read
written um codependents are narcissists in other words they have narcissistic personality disorder
or they're so you know it's crazy because that's the last thing that non-cluster b codependents are
right because it's your lostness it's your past why you have codependency what
codependency really means and i'll have more coming on that because i'm going to have an
in-depth presentation of that again video series course not sure how but it's coming
i'm just waiting on one resource i need that has yet to arrive so the point is
what codependency really what codependents are really about what codependency is really about
is feeling like you need in a different way but similarly to people with bpd you need someone
else to validate you from the outside in so you can feel good about yourself or you can feel like
you did the right thing or you made the right decision or you you can feel some self-esteem and
self-worth but you needed to come from somewhere else because you didn't get it in childhood or
at some point your needs weren't met around that in childhood some people severe codependency have
a narcissistic mother or father or a borderline mother or a narcissistic father or a codependent
one parent narcissist born along the other parent all these different combinations
and for some people codependency they don't have a cluster b parent at all so codependence
codependency is not narcissism is not narcissistic is not narcissistic personality disorder
the only exception to that of course is some people with narcissistic personality disorder more
in the covert what masters and called closeted narcissist the fragile vulnerable narcissist
in the covert realm of narcissistic personality disorder can be codependent as well i don't
know about the albert grandiose ones as i've heard it explained doesn't make much
sense to me that just because they're quote dependent on supply they're co-dependent
i don't think that's what it's about at all but like i said there's going to be more comment on
this so other than the fact that there are some people out there with covert closeted vulnerable
or fragile narcissism who can be codependent as well people that are just people that are
non-cluster b right been in a relationship with somebody bpd or npd or whatever the case you're
not narcissistic you're not having this problem with narcissism you're definitely not selfish
and and people with codependency i hope you really hear this message because it's a very important
one because it's not selfish to try to meet your needs in the ways that you do is it healthy no
is it a healthy relational style no does it come from a secure attachment style
no um does it kind of fit really well into that sort of you know terrible fit of a trauma bond
with a cluster b yes unfortunately and so when people have codependency from childhood
i'm not saying every codependent ends up with somebody with bpd or npd or even aspd
but the correlation is there because the voracious hunger emotionally the voracious emotional hunger
of people with codependency to be seen to be heard to be validated to be loved to not be alone
meets with you know a narcissist and a love bombing or a person with bpd and the
idealizing and the mirroring and then the borderlines codependent of people-pleasing
and just agreeing with everything you say because you're the greatest thing
since sliced bread for a little while and then but that people people with healthy boundaries
back away from that they're like whoa what's this about but people's codependency
you have this wound inside you have a wounded inner child you know and and you need to get
into therapy to heal and recover and work on the family of origin and self-differentiation and the
inner child healing and many other aspects to this and the relationship recovery and sometimes that
goes all the way back to a parent in a big way a smaller way but you got to heal and recover
from the ex as well as from your past and find out who you are now because many people after being
with a person with bp or npd or any cluster b uh have really lost themselves even more than you did
in childhood and that's very you know to varying degrees and gradations again in codependency
is not all with codependency are the same not all people with bpd are the same not all people with
npd are the same so it's really important that you hear this because people with codependency are not
full of narcissism narcissistic don't have narcissistic personalities or non-cluster
b codependency and i'm gonna have a lot more coming on what is really codependency because
there's so many different definitions out there right because the apa doesn't recognize it like
complex post-traumatic stress disorder they don't recognize but make no mistake about it
codependents aren't failed borderlines borderlines aren't failed narcissists just toss that one in
and not all narcissists are codependent but some are and people with bpd have codependency
but it's not the same exactly as people who have codependency which is a different kind
of woundedness different kind of manifestation and presentation but within which there are that well
there is this externalized out focus and you have learned in childhood one way or another
to enable to try to rescue to try to please for to get something because in childhood parent you
know the pursuit of a parent or parents is set up when they're emotionally unavailable
for a variety of different reasons or maybe a period of time in your life where it hurt
this is why so many people with codependency don't know how to be alone there's an emptiness and a
brokenness not to the degree of bpd or npd by any means but that overlap which i'm going to talk
more about right codependency overlaps bpd and overlaps cluster c dependent personality disorder
and what's all that about what's it mean well it means that codependency is pretty close to
being a personality disorder but it's not really is it or is it i don't know more comment on that
but it's not anything to do with being a narcissist being narcissistic
it's quite the opposite actually it's people who really don't know who they are and are looking
for love in all the wrong places might be in love with being in love uh not sure what love really
is because you didn't get taught healthy love when you were a child people with codependency have
various different attachment styles but that's not the reason why you end up in the relationship
with the cluster b so i'm going to have a lot more coming on this and stay tuned for more news coming
and the other thing i should have said at the beginning is when i have time adding chapters to
videos so please check if that shows up anywhere on the channel or whatever and if i mean on under
the video and if not open the box below the video description box it'll say you know read more or
something and then you open that up and you'll see the little markers of chapters and you can
click on them because sometimes toward the ends of it sometimes toward the end of a video i will say
more that people really need to hear but people don't always watch or listen to a whole video
so now you're going to have the option when i get this done on other videos and i'm doing it on
newer ones it might not appear on this one right now but i'll get it done in the next couple days
you'll have the option to click on the drop under the video the drop uh the description uh it'll say
more click on that button opens up the window i mean opens up the box and then you'll be able to
see like well maybe in this video i talked about whatever and there's a title and you can click
right on it maybe it's at the 16 minute mark maybe it's at a 22 minute mark maybe it's a live stream
and it's 36 minutes in but this is to help people navigate uh their way around what i'm actually
talking about so in this video the message was and i'm gonna have more coming to support this
uh why it is totally untrue that codependents who non-cluster be codependents are narcissists
or have narcissism or are selfish because they're in these relationships with borderlines and
that should be your motivation to leave them because you're hurting them and you're you know
treating them horribly and no it's you know dynamics in a trauma bond can get very
you know undesirable and can go two ways at times but i'm not saying it's the same you know from
the person bp untreated or narcissist to people with codependency but you're not selfish people
because if you were selfish how come you can't even focus on yourself for 10 minutes a lot of
people's codependency like i'm out here to work you if i resonate with you i'm always busy with
lots of clients and clients who have codependency after these relationships etc need to learn how to
refocus how to focus on self see opposite it's not altruistic love codependency don't get me wrong
but it's the opposite of narcissism it's not narcissistic personality it's not narcissistic
at all people with codependency are in their own way to the own their own degree lost and
after these relationships with cluster b's lost confused really hurting and you don't know how to
meet your own needs because there's something that happened in childhood that you need to get into
therapy do that inner child healing work family abortion work so nothing could be further from
the truth than to say that non-cluster b people's codependency that any definition of that includes
that you are narcissistic selfish or have narcissism or no it's quite the opposite
because you don't care enough about yourself you don't know yourself well enough you lose
yourself to the cluster be relationships and this is the real pain of the trauma bond
and of the needing to go full no contact unless children are involved and you know i've talked
about that and i'll talk about that some more but then it's really low no con or low contact
but needing to go full no contact and it feels totally impossible and it's what you need to do
to be able to take the next steps forward getting into therapy because it's therapy and the steps
in a therapeutic process that are going to help people to really heal and recover from this not
three steps to this and four steps of that or 12 steps in a 12-step recovery group
because codependency we understand now today is much more formidable and much more traumatic
than any 12-step modality is able to deal with or you know it's not the pathway to recovery
therapy is working with somebody like myself who's done this work with people for it's my 31st year
and i help people to get through this you're not if you're codependent and you're non-clustered
be codependent you're not narcissistic you don't have narcissism you're not being selfish all the
opposite you have lost yourself and given yourself over and put all your energy into a cluster b
and now what and there's the trauma bond addiction and the stockholm syndrome and all the chemical
soup and the physi physiological effects of stress and all that which i talked a bit about
in my last livestream bpd relationships um something about how the stress for co-dependence
can impact your health so but it's not that you're narcissistic full of narcissism or selfish it's
the exact opposite you throw yourself away you give the borderline of the narcissist
all your power you lose your empowerment you lose yourself you put so much energy over there you're
like drained and people get isolated people lose friends people fall out of touch with people
there's a lot of shame a lot of hurt and a tremendous amount of pain
and these relationships and trauma bonds can be addicting people with codependency aren't
narcissists aren't narcissistic aren't full of narcissism aren't selfish it's the exact
opposite and people with codependency have to get into therapy and find a way back
to focusing on you instead of focusing always on the cluster b
or trying to meet your needs through someone else i hope that's helpful to someone take care