Out of the goodness of my heart, I am going to respond to your questions. I am known for the goodness of my heart and I am known for responding to your questions.
So today I isolated, hand-picked, selected and chosen three of your queries and I am going to cover them at length, but not too long.
So the first one is, what happens when the same individual, the same patient, the same person or client has both narcissistic personality disorder and borderline personality disorder?
This condition is known as comorbidity. What happens when there is comorbid personality disorders?
It is a problem because, for example, the narcissist does not have empathy. The borderline has empathy. The narcissist has no access to positive emotions, does not experience them. The borderline experiences an avalanche of dysregulated, overwhelming drowning emotions.
The new name of borderline personality disorder is emotional dysregulated disorder.
So how to reconcile the two? Will the individual be emotionless or will it be too emotional, hyper-emotive? Will the individual be dysempathic or hyper-empathic, highly sensitive person?
So this is your first question.
Second question has to do with people pleasing, another variant of people pleasing.
And the third question has to do, what else, with gender roles and sex in modern society following on my interminable series of videos on the topic. And of course I'll take a jibe at MGTOW and similar intellectually challenged movements online because I love to do this.
Ok, and because they are easy targets, I may add.
Ok, Shoshanim, let's start.
The comorbidity of narcissistic and borderline personality disorders, NPD and BPD. This comorbidity is counterintuitive.
Narcissism and borderline seem to be mutually exclusive.
Both borderlines and narcissists are grandiose. But the borderline possesses warm empathy, empathy founded on emotions. The borderline possesses emotions to start with, the whole panoply of emotions, very powerful emotions, dysregulated, uncontrollable emotions, emotions that overwhelm and drown the borderline.
Borderline is emotionality, but the narcissist lacks emotions. He actually has the emotions, but he lacks access to all positive emotions.
So what to do with the same patient who is both a narcissist and a borderline? How this patient is going to react?
The only way to reconcile these contradictions, the only way to square the circle, is by assuming the existence of semi-dissociated self-states.
Let me explain each of these very, very high polluting phrases.
Semi-dissociated simply means that the personality has various self-states that communicate and exchange information with each other. The dissociative wall is permeable.
In classic dissociative identity disorder, formerly known as multiple personality disorder, usually the self-states are totally dissociated and they are known as up altars. So there are self-states which assume the full regalia, the full equipment of a total full-fledged personality and they don't communicate with each other. It's like having multiple personalities which are not aware of each other. This is called full dissociation.
Semi-dissociation is when we have the same thing. We have self-states which do not amount, do not reach the level of a full-fledged personality and they know about each other. They exchange information, they inform each other. So this is semi-dissociation.
What is a self-state? What is a pseudo-identity? What is sub-personality?
I have several videos dedicated to these issues and I encourage you to have a look and watch them, mainly in order to increase the number of my views because it gives me narcissistic supply.
So the only way we can put together congruently and cohesively coherently narcissistic personality disorder and borderline personality disorder in the same physical body is by assuming that the personality is broken, it's fractured, it's fragmented. One fragment has the hallmarks and the attributes and the characteristics of narcissistic personality disorder and another fragment has borderline personality disorder and these fragments are the self-states.
The self-states come to the fore, take over, become visible in a process known as switching, in reaction to changing circumstances, challenges, stimuli and environments.
So the same person can at one point be totally narcissistic and then switch to being totally borderline, totally emotionless, totally emotional, totally dysempathic, cold, callous, cruel, even sadistic and then suddenly very empathic, crying, commiserating, compassionate, affectionate.
Anyone who has been with a borderline knows what I'm talking about. These transitions are very evident and very frequent.
In a comorbid state, borderline personality disorder is always dominant while narcissistic personality disorder is always recessive. In other words, someone with borderline personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder is most of the time borderline and only rarely a narcissist.
The narcissistic structures though are very dangerous because they're highly manipulative and they have access to resources which the borderline does not have.
So the narcissistic structures in the comorbidity hijack, kidnap, co-opt the borderline's empathy and emotions. It's like the narcissist borrows forcibly and coercively, empathy and emotions from the borderline.
And then the narcissist leverages this empathy and emotions which it had hijacked from the borderline and uses them, for example, in love bombing and grooming phases.
So when the narcissist love bombs and grooms and if this narcissist is comorbid with a borderline in the same body, he's going to use the borderline's capacities for empathy and emotions to render the love bombing and grooming much more convincing.
The borderline finds herself, or himself of course, trapped in a narcissistic landscape of shared fantasy. It's like waking up and finding yourself on an alien planet. To the borderline, the narcissistic landscape, this new country feels barren, a wasteland, surrealistic, alien, vaguely menacing.
The self-states which are narcissistic and the self-states which are secondary psychopathic, factor two or F2 psychopathic, these self-states regard the borderline self-state with self-destructive contempt.
I want to explain this. There's a civil war. In such comorbidity, there's an ongoing uninterrupted civil war with many, many casualties.
There's a narcissistic self-state, grandiose, motionless, lacking empathy. There's a secondary psychopath lurking there. It's the protector, secondary psychopath, callous, defiant, contumacious, reckless, impulsive.
And both the narcissistic self-state and the psychopathic self-state, they regard the borderline self-state as weak, vulnerable, fallible, stupid, gullible. They detest the borderline self-state. They haunt the borderline self-state in contempt.
They think the borderline self-state is compromising them because the narcissistic and psychopathic self-state, they're self-sufficient, they're self-contained, they're victorious, they're grandiose, and they regard the borderline as a vulnerability, an intrusion point, a penetration point, a threat.
So they're trying to destroy the borderline self-state.
Both the narcissistic self-state and the secondary psychopathic self-state are trying to destroy the borderline self-state.
And while the borderline self-state exists, as long as they had not succeeded to destroy it, they're trying to protect it, to rescue it. So they seek to protect and rescue the borderline from herself.
And this hardwired, baked-in egodystony, founded on a permanent dissonance, permanent internal conflict between sub-personalities. This results in mood lability, emotional dysregulation, and psychopathic features, which are even more extreme than in a classic presentation of borderline personality disorder.
So ironically, this internecine fight between narcissistic self-state, psychopathic self-state, borderline self-state, all of them jostling and joshing and fighting and this creates even more enhanced dysregulation and lability, and increases the vulnerability of the borderline to the compensation and to acting out.
I hope I answered your question.
Number one.
Number two, people-pleasing.
In one of my previous videos, I mentioned that one of the main sources of people-pleasing behavior is anxiety. People with anxiety disorders seek to ameliorate and reduce their anxieties by pleasing other people. That way, they perceive the world to be a lot less hostile. They want to be loved and accepted.
But there are other sources. The complex of behaviors known as people-pleasing emanates from multiple etiologies.
In an earlier video, I mentioned anxiety, but another source is social phobia. Socially phobic people often become avoidant. They shun all social interactions. They become loners.
But a small minority of socially phobic people disinhibit themselves with alcohol and drugs, and then they proceed to act out. They proceed to engage in dysregulated, shameless, and unbounded behaviors, including and especially sexually. These self-defeating and self-trashing behaviors are intended to accomplish the goals of pleasing other people, fitting in, belonging to a group or to an individual, being accepted.
The socially phobic person wants to be accepted, appreciated, loved, and liked. And to do this, she would give her body away to any individual or groups of individuals. She would do anything. She would commit crimes. She would go the length, not nine yards, but ten yards.
But the phobia never disappears. This constant presence of the phobia drives an escalation in people-pleasing behaviors and the compromising of self-respect, self-esteem, and boundaries. And of course, the more the self-respect and boundaries and self-esteem, the more they are compromised. This renders the phobia even worse.
It is a vicious cycle, which often results in lifelong anxiety disorder, depression, passive aggression, and substance abuse.
Onward Christian soldiers, or Jewish soldiers in my case.
And we're going to talk, last but definitely not least, about sex and gender in today's world.
I've made a series of videos. They're all in the playlist, Contemporary Sexuality. A series of videos about today's gender roles and sex and so on.
Someone asked me a question I would like to answer.
Casual sex had become the dominant sexual practice among the declining number of sexually active people, both men and women.
Yes, you heard me correctly. Declining number.
Hookups, one night stands, sex on first dates. These are now the almost exclusive social, sexual diets of the vast majority of adolescents and adults in the West.
Allow me to repeat this. Hookups, one night stands, sex on first dates. These are now the almost exclusive sexual diets and dishes of the vast majority of adolescents and adults in the West.
Sizable majorities of both men and women find this state of affairs deplorable, but they had lost all hope for any change.
Casual sex sucks. Tiny minorities of participants in casual sex experience an orgasm, for instance.
But if one is possessed of a sex drive, if one wants to have sex, there is no other option.
And this is the dismal outcome of three converging trends.
Number one, women are confusing assertiveness with defiance. Women are adopting the traits and behaviors of psychopathic men. Promiscuity, recklessness, impulsivity, contumaciousness, antisocial misconduct and dysregulation.
Women are proud to be psychopathic men. They brag about it. They flaunt it. They make movies and television series about essentially women with psychopathic traits.
With few exceptions, men are deterred. Men had withdrawn from the dating scene altogether.
Number two, so I'm not discussing the trends, the converging trends that had led to the situation that only casual sex is available.
Second trend, both men and women avoid long-term relationships because they have a bad experience with it.
Previous relationships, previous long-term relationships, they had poor and devastating outcomes. So men and women are avoiding long-term relationships owing to the poor and devastating outcomes of such previous attempts.
Deficient intimacy skills guarantee ineluctable failure in relationships. So why bother?
And if you can't have sex in relationships, in intimate relationships or any relationships, what's left? Casual sex.
The third trend is predatory men had come to literally monopolize the arena. They infest and they're all over dating apps, pick up venues, venues such as bars and clubs. All men there, most men there are predatory, predators. These predators prey on the tsunami, hordes of women who are vulnerable, broken, mentally ill, substance abusing, and refugees of abusive relationships.
Sexual and relationship scripts are the socially prescribed and proscribed ways to effectuate gender roles.
We look to sexual scripts to decide how to behave as men or as women, but all sexual scripts have been upended, have been transformed in the late 1960s, starting in the late 1960s. And they were not supplanted with anything. The old scripts are dead, torn to pieces by raging mobs of women and men, mainly women.
But there was no substitute. There was no replacement. These sexual scripts were supplanted only with ambiguity and equivocation.
So men and women are in vertigo, gender vertigo, in turmoil. They're bewildered and befuddled as to how they should behave with each other, how to be men, how to be a woman.
For example, in a stark reversal to the habits of the preceding two centuries, today, sex on first dates, hookups, one-night stands. As I said before, they are the dominant sexual practices.
And today, these practices are widely perceived as tests, as vetting procedures for potential mates or intimate partners.
You sleep with someone on a first date to decide whether that someone can be your intimate partner or your potential mate. After all, why bother to venture on if the sex proves to be calamitous? Makes sense, doesn't it?
Up to a point.
Because these emerging scripts, sex on first dates, one-night stands, hookups, as a potential for relationship, these emerging scripts led to two perverse outcomes.
Number one, the vast majority of sexual experiences are now coercive, objectifying, outright disappointing. There's no continuation. There's nothing happening after the first encounter. Less than 6% of people expect a second night stand.
People are starting to avoid real-life sex altogether. People are starting to resort to virtual kinds of sex, like pornography.
Number two, outcome. When, rarely, miraculously, the casual sex is good, which is unheard of, sometimes it leads to a relationship.
Alas, these relationships, even when they do happen, again, miraculously, these relationships are founded merely on sexual attraction.
Because here's the sequence. You meet someone for two hours, you have sex, the sex is good, you go on to meet them again. But you don't know them. You don't even have time to talk, meaningfully. You know nothing about them, except that they're good in bed, good in the sack.
So the relationship is founded on the good sex, on sexual attraction. And such relationships are brittle, they're short-lived.
The Stalled Revolution is the label that we had given in scholarly literature to the upheaval in gender roles and sexual scripts in the past 50 years.
Women perceive themselves as increasingly more masculine, while men are still denying, vehemently, their feminine sides, emotions, affect, empathy, attachment, and so on.
So women are becoming more manly, men remain manly. We end up with unigender, single gender, men, some of them with vaginas, some of them with penises, different genitalia, same gender role and psychodynamic.
And this asymmetrical sea change gave rise to two consequences.
Number one, women are far better equipped to deal with the exigencies and challenges of the modern world. Women are gaining substantial advantages over men in education and in a growing number of professions.
Number two, technologies like social media and the contraceptive pill on the one hand, and IVF on the other hand, these technologies have rendered women utterly self-sufficient, utterly independent of men. They don't need men anymore. Many women eschew, avoid, shun men and even sex altogether.
Men are reacting to these transformations and rejection with an admixture of exhilaration at the prospect of free sex and resentment and fear as women are taking over.
And men are also lonely. They also miss intimacy.
Many men had withdrawn, many men shun women and even sex altogether as well.
We're beginning to have two societies, women only and men only.
We are mocking in the West. We mock, we deride, we decry, we criticize. For example, Muslim societies or traditionally societies where men and women are separated. Men and women are never as separated as in the West.
In the West, the separation between men and women is much worse than any patriarchal, any misogynistic, any traditionalist and any religious society on earth or in history.
And we had accomplished this by undermining and destroying traditional gender roles without replacing them with anything meaningful, anything prescriptive and proscriptive.
Generally, we have many misconceptions in the West with regards to men-women relationships and so on. And we tend to propagate and perpetuate these misconceptions and enshrine them as a form of, shall we say, a form of ideology.
We had replaced pragmatism with ideology, which is never a good idea.
And so in the West, for example, people tout the wisdom of having sex on a first date. Everyone will tell you that cohabitation before tying the knot, before you get married, cohabitation is a great idea.
But research is unequivocal. Both these things are seriously bad ideas.
The West, its scholars, its ideologues, feminists, all these people, academics, they are wrong. It is a bad idea to have sex on a first date and it is even a worse idea to cohabit, to cohabit before you tie the knot.
Sex on a first date often becomes a one-night stand. Social stigmas aside, because the parties know close to nothing about each other, the sex itself sucks, the copulation sucks and it leads to disappointment rather than to any enhanced intimacy or prospect of relationship.
More than two-thirds of practitioners of casual sex report not having climaxed and the figure is much higher for women.
Moreover, you can learn nothing about your sexual compatibility with someone from a single encounter with effectively a stranger.
And similarly, sharing living quarters in close proximity does not create intimacy actually, it creates friction and conflict. It results in a much higher rate of breakups and divorces.
Yes, you heard me correctly. Couples who cohabit before marriage divorce much more. Divorce much more.
Counterintuitive, but true, all the same. Takes away the mystery, I guess, if you cohabit with someone.
And mystery is the juice and the essence of relationships.
And in the absence of the mysterious, what is left between a man and a woman?
Not much, not even sex, just mechanical masturbation with another's anonymous body, which is where we all are right now.
Anonymous, mechanical, self-sufficient, dead. Dead.
A very sad state of affairs.