Transcription
Meaning, and I have been in this racket since 1995. Hell, many, and I invented this racket in 1995. And let me tell you this, I have never seen it that bad. There's a tsunami of mental health disorders sweeping the globe, with its epicenter in the United States and the United Kingdom, where the most recent study indicates that 4% of people suffer. That's one third of the population suffer from depression and anxiety, or a combination of both.
But today, I want to discuss with you something completely different. To paraphrase Monty Python, and what I want to discuss with you today is a new proposed mental health diagnosis. In 1999, I came up with the idea of inverted narcissism, which today is called narcissistic codependency. And today, I would like to try to innovate similarly by suggesting a new diagnosis of covert borderline. The covert narcissist, that's possibly covert histrionic. Covert is a very popular word, look it up. So why not covert borderline? But I think there are very good reasons for that. And one of the main things I have been observing, me and many, of course, we have been observing, is that mental health disorders metastasize, they mutate, they merge, they coalesce, they cross-fertilize, they interbreed. And there's a proliferation of diagnostic attempts, attempts to capture this new zoo, this new variety and diversity. It's like the novel coronavirus, so there's a novel mental health disorder for literally every diagnostic category. And so this is not different in personality disorders. If anything, it's even worse in personality disorders. And we already have covert narcissism, and we have, you know, secondary psychopathy, and BPD, and we have that. And today, I would like to add to the confusion, if I can, which I like to do, by suggesting yet another nuance.
But before we go there, I want to answer a very interesting question I had received regarding self-thrashing. Someone asked me, why do people, most notably women, but why do people generally self-trash when they put themselves in situations where they behave recklessly, self-defeatingly, and self-destructively, in ways that later, when they sober up or when they reflect back, make them feel humiliated, ashamed, guilty, blameworthy? Well, people self-trash for three reasons. Some people self-trash big because their lives are meaningless, and everything is meaningless. Drinking is meaningless, sex is meaningless. Other people are meaningless, so they just drift through lives, islands of nothingness in an utterly random, medium, arbitrary, and capricious universe, which has no beginning and no end, no direction and no goal, no purpose and no aim. And so it's easy to self-trash in such a setting.
The other group of people are actually the exact opposite, and that's a segue, that's a leading to today's topic. And these are the people who are overwhelmed by emotions. They, they feel too strongly. They don't have a skin, they don't have protection against the tidal wave of emotions that sweeps over them. So these people are the exact opposite of the first group. The first group find life meaningless. These people find life too meaningful. Everything is imbued with meaning, everything elicits an emotional reaction, etc. So that they self-trash. For example, they get drunk and they engage in promiscuous, unprotected sex, or they drive recklessly, or they gamble away the family's money, or whatever. And they do this sort of to drown, to drown the disregulated emotions that had taken over them, to create such an enormous racket and noise that will kind of stifle or counteract the inner noise, the inner tumult and pandemonium.
And there's a third group, and these are the people who are trying to to traverse, to transition from meaninglessness to meaningfulness. They try to feel something, to try to emote, they're trying to feel alive, they're trying to feel loved, they're trying to feel something. They know there is it, they know about the existence of emotions, but they've never emoted in the full sense of the word. And they judge their appearance. They want to emote also. They want to feel loved, they want to feel passion, they want to feel desire, they want to feel commitment to a goal, a purpose, of course, a person, an institution, even if it's the family. They want, they want to to exist in the full sense of the word. They self-trash because for them, self-trashing is the equivalent of self-harm or self-mutilation. People cut, you know, people who come to burn themselves with cigarettes, they do that in order to feel alive, or in order to drown the demon in noise of their emotions. In in both senses, they belong belonging to group one, or two, or group three. So this is the short and long of of my answer to this question.
Now, today we are going to discuss a variety of borderline. You know, some of you are aware of the existence of a suggested diagnosis called shy or quiet borderline. The shy and quiet borderline is a person, man or woman, with borderline personality disorder, but she internalizes, internalizes all the processes that classic borderline externalizes. So, a classic borderline would be aggressive towards people, for example, an intimate partner. The shy or quiet borderline would be aggressive towards herself. Much more likely, for example, to commit suicide. So we say that shy or quiet borderlines act in, while classic borderlines act out. Now, covert borderlines are like classic borderlines. They act out, they act on other people, they affect the lives and the emotions and the well-being of everyone around them. But they do it very differently to the classic borderline, which is risen, I'm out. With this suggested new diagnosis, I think the existence of the covert narcissist has been largely, a covert borderline has been largely overlooked because the covert borderline is very frequently confused with us, with a narcissist or with a psychopath, secondary psychopath. The covert borderline is usually a male. And then also makes it very difficult to come up with a new diagnosis. First of all, there is gender bias in psychology. There are, there are whole diagnostic categories which are assigned almost exclusively to women. So if you say borderline, the immediate reflex is woman, borderline, female, you know. So it's very difficult to conceive of borderline in the context of a male. In a male, you would tend to think about narcissist, a psychopath, not about borderline. So covert borderline, if it went, if and when it becomes a diagnosis, would probably be diagnosed mostly among male borderlines, while the classic type of borderline is still being diagnosed largely among among women.
But how do you tell a covert borderline from a narcissist or a psychopath? Before we go into the diagnosis itself, well, recall the penultimate video I made, the video, the one before the last. And that video suggested or tried to edify you on how to tell apart the narcissist from a psychopath from a borderline. And the trick is very simple: stability. A narcissist is one island of stability and everything around the scales. So he has a stable family, but a chaotic career. He has a stable career, but a chaotic family life. He divorces six times, has 19 children, half of which are orally illegitimate. So this is the narcissist, one island of stability surrounded by a maelstrom, surrounded by raging oceans and seas of chaos, disorder, turmoil, and mess. That's the narcissist. The psychopath, everything is an ocean. There's no island. Every dimension and aspect of the psychopath's life is utterly, irredeemably, irrevocably, and ineluctably disordered. The psychopath's life is just so messy that it cannot be even arranged on a timeline. It makes no sense. It made no sense. There's no aim or purpose, no direction or goal, no guiding principle or organizing principle, nor hermeneutic principle, something to explain nothing. It's just total random, capricious, arbitrary kills and society. And the bottom line of something which I call enhancing instability or enhanced instability. The borderline has periods in which she is like a narcissist. She has an island of stability and everything around the scales. But then she transitions to something which resembles very much a psychopath. She transitions into periods where she does not have even the island of stability. Everything is guaranteed. So a borderline is a compo, a twofer, a double whammy, or a double whammy, depending which end of the borderline you are over. Narcissist and a psychopath. Sometimes she's like the narcissist, one stable pillar, one foundation, which is very, very predictable in the long term. Everything around kills. And then she suddenly destroys everything, ruins everything, implodes, explodes, and every, every other plot. She becomes effectively like she, her life becomes effectively like a psychopath's life, utter, total, unmitigated mess. Okay, that's not to tell apart these disorders.
Now, what I want to do is a bit unusual. Before we go into the new diagnosis of overt borderline, which, remember, is more typical of men, before we go into this, I would like to read to you, literally read to you from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual V, published in 2000, 2013. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the fifth edition, is proposing an alternative model, an alternate model of borderline personality disorder, much more nuanced, but more subtle. Captures much more of the disorder in my view. Doesn't reduce it to a list of criteria. Realizes the subtypes and differences and distinctions. Is very dimensional, not categorical, etcetera, etcetera. So I'm struck by how versatile and how sophisticated the alternate model is, and it's very rarely mentioned. In preparation for this video, I've watched 18 or 20 videos by six different experts, real and self-styled. And all of them, all they did was quote the DSM-4. Not one of them mentioned, not one mentioned the alternate model. And so I'm going to read to you the entire alternate model.
In the DSM-5, borderline personality disorder, typical features of borderline personality disorder are instability of self-image, personal goals, interpersonal relationships, and affects. So all these are unstable: self-image, personal goals, interpersonal relationships, and affects. The text continues, accompanied by impulsivity, risk-taking, and or hostility. Characteristic difficulties are apparent in identity, self-direction, empathy, and or intimacy, as described below, along with specific maladaptive traits in the domain of affectivity and also antagonism and/or disinhibition. So now they go in the DSM-5 and they suggest new diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder. Proposed diagnostic criteria: A moderate or greater impairment in personality functioning, manifested by characteristic difficulties in two or more of the following four areas. Number one, identity: Markedly impoverished identity, fully developed or unstable self-image, often associated with excessive self-criticism, chronic feelings of emptiness, dissociative states, and distress. Number two, self-direction: Instability in goals, aspirations, values, or career plans. Number three, empathy: A compromised stability, pay attention, and compromise ability to recognize the feelings and needs of others, associated with interpersonal hypersensitivity. So, contra, contract what we think today. The DSM-5 recognizes that borderlines, very similar to narcissists, have severe problems with empathy. I repeat, compromised ability to recognize the feelings and needs of others, associated with interpersonal hypersensitivity, prone to feel slighted or insulted, known as hypervigilance, perceptions of others selectively biased toward negative attributes or vulnerabilities. Number four, intimacy: Intense, unstable, and conflicted close relationships, marked by mistrust, neediness, and anxious preoccupation with real or imagined abandonment. Close relationships often viewed in extremes of idealization and devaluation, and alternating between over-involvement and withdrawal. B. Four or more of the following seven pathological personality traits, at least one of which must be number five, impulsivity, number six, risk-taking, or number seven, hostility. So here they have new, new diagnostic criteria. And to qualify the borderline, you must have impulsivity, or risk-taking, hostility. If you don't, a lot of online. So here are the criteria. Number one, emotional lability: An aspect of negative affectivity. Unstable emotional experiences and frequent mood changes. Emotions that are easily aroused, intense, and/or out of proportion to events and to circumstances. Number two, anxiousness: Again, an aspect of negative affectivity. Intense feelings of nervousness, tenseness, or panic, often in reaction to interpersonal stresses. Worried about the negative effects of past unpleasant experiences and future negative possibilities. Feeling fearful, apprehensive, or threatened by uncertainty. Fears of falling apart or losing control. Number three, diagnostic criteria: Separation insecurity. Again, an aspect of negative affectivity. Fears of rejection, but fear of rejection by or separation from significant others, associated with fears of excessive dependency and complete loss of autonomy. That's very important. It's a change from the DSM-4. What they're saying is that the borderline simultaneously is afraid of abandonment, but also afraid of intimacy, because she perceives intimacy as being engulfed, as being digested, as vanishing. She perceives intimacy as merger, infusion, as becoming someone's extension, as disappearing. And so she's terrified of both falling in love and being intimate, and of not falling in love and not being intimate. Number four, depressed affect: An aspect of negative affectivity. Frequent feelings of being down, miserable, and hopeless. Difficulty recovering from such moods. Pessimism about the future. Pervasive shame, shame feelings of inferior self-worth, thoughts of suicide, and suicidal behavior. 10% of borderlines commit suicide. Number five, impulsivity: An aspect of disinhibition. Acting on the spur of the moment in response to immediate stimuli. Acting on a momentary basis without a plan and without consideration of outcomes. Difficulty establishing or following plans. A sense of urgency and self-harming behavior in their emotional distress. Number six, risk-taking: Taking something. An aspect of disinhibition. Engagement in dangerous, risky, and potentially self-damaging activities unnecessarily and without regards to consequences. If I might end here, it's something that takes, but not only without regard to consequences, but without regards to the effects these kind of actions are going to have on your nearest and dearest loved ones, intimate partners. They don't care. When they're in the throes of such an addiction, division, they, they, you're gone, you're history, you are not in their minds. We call it object inconstancy. And continuing from the text, lack of concern for one's limitations and denial of the reality of personal danger. Number seven, hostility: An aspect of antagonism. Persistent or frequent angry feelings, anger, or irritability in response to slights, any assaults. Wonderful, wonderful description of borderline, much superior to what we have in the DSM-4.
And now they continue to explain specifiers, trait, and level of personality functioning. Specifiers may be used to record additional personality features that may be present in borderline personality disorder, but are not required for the diagnosis. So, for example, traits of psychoticism, cognitive and perceptual dysregulation. They are not the diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder, but they can be specified when appropriate. Furthermore, although moderate or greater impairment in personality functioning is required for the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, the level of personality functioning can also be specified.
Okay, guys and girls, now you have all the novel, the background with regards to classic, or what I call dysregulated borderline. Then let's now survey or get acquainted with what I propose to be a new subtype, borderline covert borderline. Let's start by adopting a table that was proposed in 1999 by Cooper and Akhtar. By the way, I just discovered that Arnold Cooper was a great scholar of narcissism, died on Thursday. He was 88 years old, before I remember correctly. Cooper and Akhtar were the ones who came up with the diagnosis of covert narcissism, and they created a standard table in the, that is used to this very day to describe the various features, diagnostic and otherwise. There are clinical dimensions and manifestations of correctness. In light of this table, and I adopted it to covert borderline. So, let's start by preparing all the time the covert borderline with the dysregulated or classic borderline.
The classic borderline has identity diffusion. She doesn't know who she is. She changes her mind very often, but she doesn't change her mind because she decides to change her life. It simply, she wakes up with another mind. On Friday, she's sexually conservative. On Saturday, she's highly promiscuous. On Friday, she's anti-racist. On Saturday, she got insulted, or she thinks she got insulted by a black man, so she becomes a racist. There's no core, there's no stable nucleus, there's no nothing you can point to and say, this is she, this is never going to change, this is immutable. Everything is in flux: values, beliefs, cognitions, emotions, consequently, memories. She rewrites, reframes memory, memory so constantly. Something called identity diffusion or identity disturbance. This is not the case with the covert. The covert is stable identity.
Number two, the classic borderline feels inferior. She shares in what Adler called an inferiority complex. The covert borderline is a false self, exactly like the narcissist, and he is grandiose.
Number three, the classic borderline has morose self-doubts. She, she constantly blames herself. So she is constantly feels that she is wrong. When we say that she has egodystony or ego discrepancy, some kind of wrongness, or she feels that her emotions are wrong, the way she reacts, her emotions, it is wrong, everything is wrong. And she has autoplastic defenses. She would tend to attribute to herself blame, shame, guilt, anguish, and imputed responsibility for anything bad that's happening around her. She's going to say that, "Oh, I'm good at is traumatizing people. I constantly hurt the people I love. I was a bad mother. I was a bad wife." And so, so she, she has autoplastic defenses, defenses that attack herself. And this is common also of the shy or quiet borderline.
The covert borderline is preoccupied with fantasies of outstanding love. He is absolutely immersed in romance, in perfected love, in. So he's, he's a kind of like the typical, typical consumer of romance and erotic literature, a knight on shining, in shining armor on a white horse, if he's, if it's only if the covert borderline is a woman. And if you're a covert borderline man, then he would tend to idealize any potential partner to the point that their love affair will be the biggest love story ever. Those of you have seen the movie Love Story. And there's an induced sense of uniqueness. The covert borderline feels unique and feels intact. And consequently, has exactly the opposite of the classic borderline: alloplastic defenses. He would tend to blame others for his misbehavior, for being aggressive, for being hurtful, for damaging things, for destroying things. He would always invent a story, a narrative, a script where he was actually victimized, or where he had no other choice but to behave the way he did. He was left no choice, he was cornered.
So the classic borderline has an external locus of control. In other words, she feels that she's at the mercy of other people, their decisions, their rejection, their abandonment, their love, or lack of love, their emotions, their agendas, their timetables. Everything comes from the outside. And all the pain inside. Borderline is about pain. Borderline is a pain disorder. It's a disorder that accumulates pain, pain processes pain. It's like there's a huge toxic or septic tank of pain inside the borderline. So the borderline with this intensity of pain, to the outside, she will say that she is hurt, she's damaged, or she's pained, or she's affected by outside people, processes, events, institutions, and so on and so forth. That's external locus of control.
The covert borderline has an internal locus of control and a seeming self-sufficiency. He would tend to be a control freak. He would tend to feel and believe and act as though he is the cause of everything that's happening in the lives of people around him. If they are sad, they are sad because of him. And of course, if they are happy, they're happy because of him. He has the power to hurt them and to cause them pain, and so on. So for all self-sufficient, he doesn't need anyone. He can survive without anyone. Of course, this contradicts both his psychodynamic and his fantasies of perfected love. So there is an inner dissonance in the covert borderline. On the one hand, he is in a constant quest for the holy grail of perfect love. And on the other hand, even as he pursues love and intimacy, he would communicate to potential partners and to intimate partners, "I don't need you. I can do without you. There's nothing you mean that I want. You know, I'm with you because I choose to be, not because I need to be. No, because I'm addicted to you, because I'm dependent on you, etc." He's very defined.
The covert borderline is defined. The classic borderline is embarked propensity towards feeling ashamed, guilty, or to blame. As I mentioned before, not such thing with the, with the way the covert. The mark, the classic borderline is fragile, invulnerable. And in this sense, the classic borderline is a lot of commonality with the covert narcissist. The, the covert borderline has a lot of commonality with the classic narcissist. These are mirror images, simply, simply mirror images. Whereas the borderline is a covert narcissist, like a covert narcissist, the covert borderline is like a classic narcissist. So he's more vulnerable, he's afraid. And where the classic borderline engages in a relentless search for safety and completion, the covert is self-sufficient.
Now, what do I mean when I say search for safety and completion? The, the classic borderline looks, searches, seeks, pursues intimate partners or potential intimate partners that she thinks can make her whole. She feels broken, she feels partial, she feels incomplete and imperfect. And she's looking for someone to make up for these deficiencies, to make her whole. And when she, when someone makes her whole, she feels safe, she feels it is, she feels relaxed, she feels that she can venture out. And this brings to mind two things: the inverted narcissist, and to some extent, the covert narcissist. But especially the inverted has this feeling when she is with the narcissist, she feels completed, she feels safe, she feels happy. And also, it reminds me of the child during the first separation-individuation phase. The child during this phase ventures away from mummy. Mummy is a safe base, and he ventures away from her, he explores the world. But he ventures away and explores the world because he's grandiose. He feels he can take on the world, that his power matches the power of the world, that he has the skills and capacities to enter the world, to study the world, to be in the world. Why is that? His mummy is behind him. He can always run back and hug her legs and cry, and she's there. She's like a stable, stable foundation, a base, a launchpad, the mothership. And the same with a classic borderline. That's the way she sees her intimate partner. That's why she wants to see an intimate partner. She begins by seeing him this way, and that's called idealization. But she always ends by being disappointed and angry and feeling rejected and humiliated. And that is the predicament of the borderline, of the classic borderline. Even when she does find a perfect intimate partner who totally adores her and loves her beyond words and would make any sacrifice in the universe for that, just to be happy, it still never enough. Because one day he may abandon her. And yesterday, he didn't say good morning with the right tone of voice. He's being, he rejected her. And he has to go on a business trip. That's, of course, he's deserting her. So life itself forces the borderline relentlessly, inexorably, to devalue even the most perfect partners. And the borderline knows this, and she regrets him afterwards, and she accumulates these losses, and they weigh on her, and she begins to believe that she's hopeless. She begins to believe that she's naturally bad, deficient, corrupt, deformed, defective. In the summer centuries, right? The classic borderline is a Marxist sensitivity to criticism and to realistic setbacks. And in this sense, she is socially anxious or even, in extreme cases, socially avoidant.
The covert borderline is very sociable, very gregarious. On the contrary, he seeks to be in company because it is there that he can get his sustenance. And the sustenance of the common borderline is not, not statistics apply. That is something that separates him from the narcissist. The sustenance of the covert narcissist, a covert borderline, I'm sorry, the what the food of the covert narcissist, the supply of the covert borderline, I'm sorry, let me repeat this. The supply, the food, the fuel of the covert borderline is not attention, jubilation, admiration, like the classic narcissist. It's not what he is looking for. It's love, love, comfort, affection, compassion, being held, being babied, in a way. He's a bit of a child. So he wants to be babied, he wants to be accepted unconditionally, loved, with Eden, in a way, not connected to performance. He wants to be a child and sleeping love. He wants to be an adult and still be adored the way a mother adores a child, adores a baby. He wants to infantilize, in a way, even as he makes adult claims, like claims about his accomplishments. Narcissists' supply: attention, modulation, jubilation, being filled. Psychopaths want to be feared, and his goal-oriented. Doesn't care what other people would think, what they say is besides the point unless it affects his goal. The covert borderline is interested in love, affection, support, succor. And this is what he seeks. This is his supply.
And so both of them, consequently, both the classic and the covert borderline, they have mood lability because inevitably life is very frustrating. You can't get everything you want all the time. So their lability is exogenous, comes from outside, reactive, but also endogenous. So it's not only, for example, if the covert borderline or the classic borderline are disappointed, they will both react by, by a crash. They will both crash. They will both be severely down. They will both acquire the blues instantly. But they will also react internally. That it will start a cascade of internal processes over which they have no control. So this lability, and also for no reason whatsoever, they will switch to the opposite pole, the manic pole, the pole where they are elated, happy, joyful, cheerful, lively. And they can tell you, I know, can you tell why? By observing them. So mood lability is common to both. Both types are emotionally disregulated. Both can't control their emotions. They both overwhelmed by their emotions.
The covert borderline is highly hyper-emotional, not like the histrionic. The histrionic is hyper-emotional, but in a theatrical way. Her emotions are acting. They are like thespian, like a stage production. She externalizes her emotions. These trailing externalizes her emotions ostentatiously for everyone to see and admire. The borderline, the classic borderline is also hyper-emotional. She's also very emotive, but her disregulation is real. Her emotions are real, and they're very, very powerful, very potent. They take over, they drown her, they kill her, they smother, they suffocate, they bury. The feeling is horrible. The feeling is like, "I can't breathe." And very many of them have panic attacks, shortness of breath. And so anything else. They summarize the soma times the dysregulation. And so this is the classic. And she reacts to this, she reacts to this constant repeated dysregulation by doing nothing. She simply kills the emotion. She puts them to sleep. She isolates them, compartmentalizes. She pretends they don't exist. And these forces are to be disinhibican forces. Us to ignore other people, their needs, wishes, fears, hopes, cries. She becomes as disinhibican as the narcissist, and even as the psychopath. It's part of the secondary psychopathy process in borderline women. And and at the same time, she feels nothing. She feels like she's in a dream state, sleepwalking. And it is that, is part of the dissociative process in borderline. So simultaneously, in borderline, there's a dissociative process which separates the borderline woman from her emotions in order to survive, in order to preserve her existence, in order to to reduce suicidal ideation, for example. So there's a dissociative process: derealization, depersonalization. She says she is not in reality, own reality, smoke, dream. She feels that she is not herself. She's like, on autopilot. She's observing herself. And dissociative amnesia. Initial, she forgets things. And all this is intended to separate the classic borderline from the emotions that are threatening her very life. And and this is the dissociative part. And then this is a psychopathic part. She becomes disapific. She caters only to her needs. She says, "It's right now, I don't have time for you. Right now, sorry, baby, I'm surviving. I'm busy, you know, call me after the crisis. Right now, I have to be with another man because I need comfort, I need affection, and you're rejecting me, you're humiliating me. So I'm there with another man right now. I, I need to spend all the family's money right now. I don't know, I need to be addressed. If I break objects right now, I need now to misbehave. I need not to misbehave because misbehaving is going to restore, restore me into a state of existence, not a state of happiness, not a state of, but a state of existence. If I trash myself, if I hurt you, if I destroy things, if I prostitute my body, if I drink to excess, if I do all these things, at least I, I will be busy and I will not, I have time to experience my very, very life-threatening emotions." So this is what the classic borderline does.
The covert borderline also, there's emotional dysregulation. But what he does, he, in typical male form, he rationalizes his emotions. He invents reasons as to why do I feel this way? And then invents some narrative, a piece of fiction, a storyline stripped as to why he is feeling this way. And in the near tears, he believes his own story, his own confabulations, his own lies, and they become a part of his biography. And he's going to defend them tooth and nail. I mean, if you challenge him on this, he's going to say that you are crazy or stupid or an enemy. Because when we come to it, a bit later, both types of borderlines have splitting defenses. Either you're all good, or you're all bad. Either you're my best friend, or my enemy. So if you dare to challenge the rationalization of the dysregulated emotions, you dare to challenge the story that the covert borderline had come up with in order to be comfortable with these overwhelming emotions, you're an enemy. And so this rationalization of the emotions leads to reactance. Reactance is externalizing defiance and aggression, the way psychopaths do. And usually it involves, could, to mitosis. Usually it involves a rejection of authority. And the authority doesn't have to be the government, or the men in black, or the Illuminati, or some other conspiracy, or reptilians, or whatever, whatever it is that you believe in. Authority could be a husband, or your wife, or even your child who makes demands on your time. So the rejection of structure, a rejection of order, collectively called it the rejection of life. In this sense, while the classic borderline behaves like a secondary psychopath, psychopath who his emotions, psychopaths who has empathy to start with, the covert borderline, when he is emotionally disregulated, rationalizes the emotions, rationalizes why he is feeling this way, which is what the narcissist does. And then transitions and becomes a primary psychopath. A primary psychopath, a Robert Ayers, aguma, reactance, defiance, impulsivity, total disinhibition, rejection of authority, etc.
See, the classic borderline, one of the reasons she, she has to dissociate from her emotions is that she has something called alexithymia, the inability to label her her emotions properly. When we, when we're angry, we know we're angry. Healthy people, when they're angry, they know they're angry. "What's matter?" "We are angry." When they're in love, usually they know they're in love. "So we are stopped." "One, you're looking at her." "Disco, I'm infatuated with her." "We love with her." They put people know to label it. In order to label emotions, the classic borderline has severe difficulty with this, similar to the narcissist, by the way. Mislabeling, emotional mislabeling is common to both. Alexithymia causes the borderline to wonder not only about the potency, about the power of his emotions. They do, they both like wonders why am I overwhelmed? Why do I feel so bad? Why do I feel that I'm about to drown, about to die, about to get married? So not only this, but you also ask yourself, what is it that I'm feeling? And feeling something, it feels very threatening. Now I feel that I'm about to be unbalanced, and I'm going to be disregulated. I'm about to disintegrate, I'm about to decompensate, about to fall out. But what is it that causes all this? What is the emotion? What am I feeling? Is it love? Is it hatred? Is it attraction? Is it repulsion? Is it results at work? And she can't label. And of course, the main reason classic borderline cannot label, any narcissist, is because they are ambivalent, as opposed to healthy people. Narcissists, borderlines, classic mortals, have can have two contradictory emotions simultaneously towards the same object. So classic borderline can love passionately and hate destructively the same person at the same time. Makes it very, very difficult to label your emotions. Of course, all you know is that there is some kind of nuclear fission going on, some mushroom cloud inside you. But you don't realize the mushroom cloud is the outcome of colliding molecules of uranium, mental uranium.
The covert borderline doesn't have alexithymia. What he does have, he has a low boredom threshold, low boredom tolerance. He gets bored very fast. And when he gets bored, he cannot tolerate. He needs to do something about it. And in this sense, again, the covert borderline is identical to the primary psychopath. Destroy his sacrifice, react this way to boredom. Mini brain. While the covert borderline grinds badly to boredom, the classic borderline reacts very badly to frustration. One of the main reasons for abandonment anxiety, and one of the main reasons she overreacts to actual rejection and abandonment, and to perceived anticipated rejection and abandonment, is because it makes her very frustrated. And she is very first, low frustration threshold, intolerance. In other words, a classic borderline gets frustrated with the tiniest, most minimal things. She clicked on a website, and it took a second, a millisecond longer to end of story. She utterly disintegrates. She goes crazy. She, she smashes the laptop, then she fights with her husband, then she goes out and she gets drunk and she sleeps with the first stranger she meets. The bomb, I'm kidding you not. The cascade is dead men, and that unstoppable. If these causes in the classic borderline a lot of depression and anxiety, because she realizes that she's out of control. And she realizes that she's her trigger, trigger is a, is a clinical term in, in psychology. It's an event, a place, smell, sound, a person who recreates internal mental dynamics and processes, sometimes to the point that you cannot tell reality from illusion. This is a flashback. The, the borderline is a cascade of behaviors, misbehaviors, and emotions, and everything which are triggered, similar to the victim of complex post-traumatic stress disorder, similar to the victim of PTSD. And that's why today we find it increasingly more difficult to press, to suggest a difference, a differential diagnosis, a difference. The clinical difference between a victim of PTSD, CPT, is the end, a patient with borderline personality disorder is they're both triggered. But still, the borderline, the classic borderline is triggered by nothing. Is triggered by, she is, it's a satellite trigger, it's a hair trigger. She's triggered by the most amazing things. I mean, she wanted to talk to her intimate partner, he was on the phone with his boss, and he took five minutes longer than she had anticipated, or that she had been ready to accept. End of story. She will break up with a guy, and she will divorce him with six children. She moved to another city. I have heard, in 25 years of dealing with personality disorders, the most unbelievably shocking stories of transition from minimal frustrations to earth-shattering, apocalyptic actions by people with classic borderline personality. And this creates in them a lot of depression, a lot of anxiety, because they anticipate what's going to happen. They know they're out of control. And it depresses them. They don't want to be like that. The ego-dystonic, they hate themselves. And so a classic borderline would start by internalizing, internalizing frustration, hurt, humiliation, rejection, criticism, disagreement, all kinds of triggers. And that she would externalize.
The covert borderline is exactly the opposite. He externalizes. He starts by acting on his environment. He can be aggressive, he can be charming, he can be manipulative. But first, he will act on other people. And then their reactions will cause in him internal processes. Or, and usually these processes will cascade, they will also escalate and be a bit out of control. So in classic borderline, internalizing leads to externalizing. And in covert borderline, externalizing leads to internalizing. Consequently, the borderline, the classic borderline, doesn't have suicidal ideation. All these aggression is directed at other people. While both the classic borderline, and even much more so, the shy or the quiet borderline, they have suicidal tendencies because they internalize. Then it's everything is happening essentially internally. When they break objects, when they cheat, will unnecessarily with a stranger, when they get drunk and get raped, and when they, I don't know, when they do horrible things, when they misbehave egregiously and unjustly, did they do this because what's happening to them inside is a volcano, and they are just showing you the volcano? They grant you access to the monkey. When this process is convex analyzed, and so classic borderlines self-harm, they abuse substances, they self-trash. I mentioned egregious promiscuity, but there are many ways to self-trash. While the covert borderline doesn't do any of this. There's no self-regulation. There's no, you know, self-thrashing. It's rare. But what does happen with a covert borderline, he has hypochondriasis. He's afraid of disease and illness. He is constantly on the alert. He is hypervigilant with regards to new viruses, new bacteria, germaphobe, your bacteria, new viruses, new diseases. Does he have this disease? Does he have this problem? He, he spends more time in hospitals and clinics than at home. He is like his hobby is his health, or lack of health, actually. In his mind, in his mind, he's dying. And he has addictive behaviors. So this kind of person is likely to drink. Maybe, or if it's not drinking, doesn't to be drinking, he may sublimate his addictive behaviors. He may, he may have addictive behaviors with that which are socially condoned, socially acceptable. For example, collecting things, collectibles, or a hobby which he dedicates an inordinate amount of time to, and it becomes an addiction.
The borderline is a bottle, bottle personality disorder, is founded on dissociation. Dissociation is used to be one of the diagnostic criteria in DSM-4. Immortalizing today, we think the borderlines have dissociative self-states. In other words, that they are a bit similar to multiple personality disorder, in the sense that they, the personality is fragmented, and they present aspects of facets, facets of the personality in different circumstances, to different people, under different stresses and intentions, and and so on. And so the dissociative self-states of the classic borderline involve derealization, not perceiving reality as real, they're feeling a nightmarish feeling that you're not in reality, we're in a dream state. Depersonalization, feeling that you're outside your body, observing yourself, or auto Bimal, you know, like a movie. And of course, amnesia. These are the classics, I mentioned before. The dissociative self-states of the covert, of the covert borderline, totally different. He dissociates. Dissociates by, for example, had pain, selective attention, selective attention. He, he filters out information that doesn't sit well with his internal, with an internal process, a fault, an emotion, is having an idea. So he constantly filters out. Is not open to the totality of the information sphere or information ecosystem. Is highly, highly selective. It's not confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is when you have an opinion, and you select information, rules only information that we support your opinion, and filter out information that negates or challenges your opinion. That's not the case with the covert borderline. His selective attention has to do not with his opinions, but with not Muslim up with cognitions, but with thoughts, has to do with emotions mostly. So selective attention. Oh, when you pay attention selectively, you worn out. You push away big parts of the world around you, which is a very good definition of dissociation. He tends to confabulate. He tends to speculate as to what might have happened, what probably had happened, what possibly, implausibly, can't sure that will have happened, and so on. And then he believes it. Of course, if you believe in in fiction, then essentially you are dissociated. Precisely the process that we undergo when we watch a movie. When we watch a movie, we associate. We believe in the fiction of the screen. Part of our brain knows it is not true, but this part is dormant or suppressed. So there's repression or denial, which are the classic dissociative mechanisms, first described by, by Sigmund Freud, or even before Loyola. So repression or denial. He oppresses and tonight's material that is in convent or discrepant. Amy is a psychopathic protector. Sometimes classic borderlines also have this, but covert borderlines always have it. It's when push comes to shove, when he is threatened, not challenged, but threatened, when he feels that the integrity of his so-called soul is at risk, that he's about to fall apart, and then taken advantage of, that is vulnerable, that is open to attack, he struts forward, he puts forward a psychopath and his protector, that his protector self-state. And this psychopath is a primary psychopath, goal-oriented, is violent, is aggressive, is defiant, and end, and not to be messed with. And this protector isolates like a firewall, the covert borderline from reality, and fends off other people who might try to intrude, interfere, invade, and change something, transform somehow, or take advantage of the, of the borderline.
Interpersonal relationships of both types are also very different. The classic borderline has an inability to genuinely depend on others or to trust them. In other words, she's hypervigilant. She constantly expects the worst. She constantly assumes that she's going to be abandoned, humiliated, rejected, exploited, taken advantage of, raped, messed with, etc. So she's a bit, she has paranoid ideation. She has persecutory delusions. And in extreme cases, she is a persecutory object. She transforms, for example, an intimate partner to be demonic. She deceives him as demonic, not an enemy only, but the demonic, an entity, malevolent. How to get her out, to destroy her? So this is classic borderline.
The covert borderline is more mystical, reasonable. He has paranoid ideation. In other words, he's a suspicious type. He never takes anything for granted or at face value. He kind of is cynical, in a way. He has numerous. The covert borderline is numerous, but shallow relationships. Of course, if you contrast at all, if you're paranoid, it's very difficult to develop real intimacy, to open yourself up, to be vulnerable, to be defenseless. I mentioned before, the covert borderline has an intense need for love. He seeks the perfect love from others. And in sometimes he becomes a people-pleaser in an attempt to God, Allah, to secure love. This regret will please you, but love me. But he has this problem with hyper-vigilant paranoid ideation, and he has a lack of real empathy, especially when he is in the psychopathic phase in his case, the primary psychopathic traits. So this, this combination renders him effectively a narcissist in interpersonal relationships. The only exception is they are the different century is that the covert borderline, while narcissistic in the relationship, usually would truly bond with his children, not because they are social supply, remember, he doesn't need supply, but he would value his children over his spouse, for example, in family life. He would bond mostly with the children, and he would work with the children because there he can suspend his paranoid ideation. He doesn't need to suspect them, to be vigilant, to look behind his shoulder, to expect backstabbing. When his children, they love him unconditionally, and because he's a child himself. So that's the only exception. Narcissists are incapable of this, never mind what kind of show the narcissist puts on that he loves his children and so on. That's nonsense. He loves them as potential sources of supply. The covert borderline really loves.
Now, they, the classic borderline has similar problems in relationships. First of all, she immediately jumps into full-fledged intimacy. It's instant intimacy, but it's fake. It's fake, and you can see it's fake because she creates the very same level of intimacy, for example, in casual sex with a stranger. She'll pick up a stranger in a bar, and within a few hours, she would, there would be, you know, best friends, best friends in the universe. And she would, I idealize it, with idolize him, you know, and she would sleep with him because she, she's grateful to him, she loves him, she's, he loved him as a person, at least. And so some instant intimacy in all circumstances makes us doubt very much that it is what we call intimacy. That is real. Maybe it's wish fulfillment. Maybe it's fake. Not in the, in the sense that she is faking, she's a fraud, but it's fake because it's instant. She needs it, so she invented. She convinces herself it's, in other words, self-deception or self-delusion. And in the classic borderline, as we have mentioned, his abandonment anxiety. But her abandonment anxiety is a derivative of the impostor syndrome. She feels that she's a fraud. She feels she's defective, deficient. She feels she's bad, corrupt, horrible, dangerous. And so, and she says, "If I let anyone, for example, a potential intimate bond, get close enough to me, up close, he's gonna see all these things. He's gonna expose me. He's gonna reveal who I truly am, the impostor, the fraudster, the con artist, the scammer that I am. And so I don't want anyone to get too close to me because if they get too close to me, if they get too intimate with me, if they get to know me well, they're for sure gonna abandon me. They're gonna dump me. They're gonna reject me like a hot."
Potato, because they're gonna realize what they're dealing with, and they would run to the hills screaming. So, better keep them, keep them at bay, keep them at a distance. And if somehow they penetrated the defenses and got really, really close to me, I'm gonna destroy this. I'm gonna ruin this relationship because it's a threat. I'm gonna abandon them before they abandon me, because they're going to abandon me. They are going to abandon me. Once they see who I am, they're gonna reject me. Once they see who I am, so I wait. Why wait? They got through my defenses, meant for me. I'm going to push them away. I'm gonna push them away, never to see them again.
And this is why the classic borderline feels that she is engulfed. She is engulfed by anxiety and fear of intimacy because of this imposter syndrome. And she feels it. The only way an intimate partner can ignore how bad and corrupt and inefficient and ineffective she is, is by digesting her, by taking over her, by rendering her a part of himself. So if he merges with her, if he fuses with her, then he will not reject her. He will not humiliate her. And because she is the way she is, do you know, damaged, broken, damaged goods, he has the intimate partner that has no other option but to digest her and engulf and consume her and assimilate her. It's the only way you can survive. It's the only way he can accept her. And so she has what we call rejection sensitivity. She anticipates rejection very sensitively. And she has no effortless control. She can't tell herself, "This is the way I feel. This is what I want to do right now, but I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it because it's gonna have repercussions for me, for others, then a damage. I'm gonna hurt. I'm gonna have a bad impact on my future and my love life or my relationship, on people I love." She doesn't have this. She has what we call effortful control. Effortful control, control that requires effort, and it usually, usually fails.
And so, when you are like that, it's normal to envy other people. And the classic borderline is very envious, exactly like the narcissist. She is envious of other people's talents, their positions, their happiness, and their capacity for deep relationships, object relationships. She wants love. She wants to be loved. She wants to be held. She wants to be accepted. But she knows she can't. She's in this, this chronic envy makes it very difficult for her to function and gives her another motivation, another reason to push away people by comparison.
The covert borderline is also unable to genuinely participate in group activities, but not because he is envious, but because of, as I mentioned, his lack of empathy and his grandiosity and so on. So the covert borderline has problems with interactions with other people, interpersonal relationships, and in group activities such as business, corporate settings, and so on. It's the same like the narcissist, same reason. And so, consequently, the covert borderline is passive-aggressive, sullen, surly, and his behaviors involve cunning, deceit, and very often premeditated malevolence.
While the classic borderline has a lack of regard for other people's boundaries. She disregards other people's time, limitations, obligations, resources, and she does this by being very clingy, very demanding. Now, she wants everything now, not delayed gratification, and she wants it in full. It's not good enough to give her, let's say, 90% of what she wants. It has to be 110%. So, and this is of course disrespecting the people's boundaries.
So now, all this gives you the picture that the borderline is highly unpredictable, and she is, she's capricious. She's totally shame. From the outside, she looks like a train car out of, you know, on the slope. There's no, and she is unpredictable, and her behavior is explosive. She is impulsive, and she's reckless. And if you look at the covert borderline from the outside, looks the same, but it's totally different. But the covert borderline does, he is also unpredictable and explosive, but he does it in order to bully, in order to control. It's what we call intermittent reinforcement, hot and cold approach, avoidant, love you, hate you, gonna abuse you and torment you, want you and torture you, going to then out you and hug you and soothe you and solve your wounds, then heal you. Intermittent reinforcement. You don't know what to expect, and the bully becomes the sole source of solace and consolation. So you become highly dependent, and this is what we call trauma bonding.
And the covert borderline, his scorn for others, but he is hiding this scorn behind a mask of pseudo humility, false modesty, false humility. He pretends to be humble, but he is not. And many of these behaviors are attention-seeking behaviors. He is a bit of a bit of a histrionic. Yes, even the minute they seek attention, but they don't seek attention like the narcissist. The narcissist seeks attention by displaying either his body or his mind, his intellect, fireworks, pyrotechnics of the intellect. The somatic shows his muscles, his tattoos, you know. The covert borderline is histrionic and he seeks attention, but not the same way. He seeks attention by displaying his vulnerabilities and his neediness. He kind of, for example, he can seduce a woman by showing her how much he needs her, how much of a child he is, and how much she can be his mother, how much she is the only source of succor, support, love, acceptance, how much, how much she means to him, how much she calms him down and rejuvenates him and provokes his creativity and so on. So this is the type of attention he is seeking.
But he is reckless. Make no mistake about it. Exactly like the classic borderline, he is reckless. But opposed to the classic borderline, whose recklessness is intended to self-trash, the borderline's recklessness is intended mostly to damage herself, to punish herself, to destroy herself, to defeat herself. The covert borderline's recklessness is aimed at hurting others, affecting others. So if a borderline woman would sleep with a stranger, she would do this to self-trash, to harm herself, to damage herself, to punish herself, and she would never tell her husband. But if a covert borderline woman would sleep with a stranger, she would make sure her husband finds out so that his property, which is she, she is his property, yes, so that he realizes how much his property is devalued by a stranger. It's like she, by sleeping with a stranger, she has devalued her husband's property. She punishes him this way. So this difference between covert borderline and classic borderline.
The covert borderline is sadistic, punitive, his goal-oriented, and even when the covert borderline triangulates, he or she, they do it because they have a goal they want to achieve. They want money, they ask for money, they didn't get money, they're gonna triangulate. They asked for time, and the husband or the wife were busy with them, triangulate, they're gonna punish, and he's sadistic. I'm gonna hurt you. The classic borderline also triangulates, but she triangulates because she wants to revive the bond. She wants to feel again accepted, wanted, desired by her primary partner. The third partner is irrelevant. She would discard him in a heartbeat if the primary partner shows renewed interest, tries to reclaim her, you know. And so there are different, same behavior in two totally different reasons. And in this sense, the classic borderline is also a people pleaser, but a very limited set of people, mostly the intimate bond.
And so, both types, the classic and covert approach and avoid, they have what Freud called approach-avoidance repetition compulsion. They constantly repeat the same cycle of approaching, then avoiding. Approaching is very confusing, very disorienting, and it creates an unbelievable mess in the intimate partner's mind. And so the borderline, no space. And so she says, "I'm approaching, I'm avoiding. You're approaching, I'm appointing. Who can tolerate this? No one can take this for long. He's gonna leave me. He's gonna bother me. He's gonna leave me. But I have happened. I can't help it. I must approach and avoid. It's who I am. I can't change who I am, my identity, my essence, my quiddity." So, "I know he's gonna bother me. I know it's gonna reject me. Let me do it first." So her own approach-avoidance leads her to pre-emptive abandonment. Leads her to abandon the relationship, to break up before it's done to her. And it's easy for her to do because she has no object constancy. She is what we call object inconstancy, object impermanence. Out of sight, out of mind. The minute she broke up with the partner, she may feel guilty, she may feel ashamed, but she will not. The partner doesn't exist anymore. If he is not in her life physically, he is not in her mind in any way, shape, or form. Perhaps it's a transient memory, and even that passes. So it's very easy for her because no one is real.
And exactly like the narcissist, the borderline interacts with a snapshot, so a snapshot of the person, a representation of the person in her mind, an avatar. So no one is real. So when she's away, she forgets about her partner. And this is why for the borderline, the people with borderline personality disorder are at much higher risk of cheating. By the return of statistics, no one knows if they cheat more or not, or less, or whatever, but everyone agrees they are at a much higher risk of cheating. And the main reason is not because they're in policy, and not because, not because of abandonment anxiety. The main reason is object constancy. If a borderline wife travels away to a conference, her husband ceases to exist, had never existed. He's gone. He's erased, expunged from her mind, from her memory, from her emotions, and from cognitions. She's single again. She's alone. She's free until she returns home, and then he re-emerges, is resurrected, you know, it's like a religious ceremony, ritual, is resurrected, he's revived in her mind. On, off. Yes, object, no object. And this, of course, gives rise to a lot of drama.
And classic borderlines are drama queens. When there is a drama to manipulate and so on, but it's important to understand that the drama, which is very useful and an essential tool in the arsenal of borderlines, they use drama to obtain outcomes in reality, favorable outcomes. But it's important to understand it. It's easy for them to be dramatic because of the aforementioned item, object inconstancy. When you don't really get attached to anyone, when they don't really bond with anyone, when you have highly dysfunctional attachment styles, avoidant, other, it's much easier for you to create drama, for example, by triangulating or by cheating or by doing things with other people which constitute the trail. So the drama is an integral part of the fact that the borderline, classic borderline, is not entirely there.
Now, the covert borderline also has object constancy, but his object constancy is very similar to the narcissist. He idealizes, he devalues, then he discards, and then he reverts or replaces. Reverts to the original partner or replaces. So the cycle of the covert borderline resembles the narcissist, and the cycle of the classic borderline resembles a hurricane, no rhyme or reason, no goal or direction, nothing in principle.
How about functioning in society? The classic borderline, as Karen Horney was the first to describe, has an avoidant human being superimposed on a black hole. This nagging emptiness, void, and aimlessness. And this creates a lot of social anxiety, shallow commitment to anything and everything, including vocational commitment, profession, direction of life, family, relationships. Everything is fleeting, everything is passing, everything is ephemeral, everything is here today, gone tomorrow. Everything is aimless, and everything, of course, is meaningless. As we started the conversation, this creates a lot of social anxiety. You cannot function in society if you do not adhere to some tenets and principles which imply the existence of some sub-mini society, the collectives within which we operate, institutions. They all are based on assumptions, implicit or explicit, that they embody refined meaning and generate meaning. In the absence of meaning, you cannot function socially. You are your attitudes are dilettante and charlatan-like. And the classic borderline knows this, so she's very socially anxious.
Compared to that, the covert borderline is socially charming and charismatic, and actually engages in hard work, and he is doing this work to seek admiration. So it's pseudo-sublimation. What we call is channeling his impulses and needs and urges towards socially acceptable goals, but to seek admiration. Not like the narcissist. The narcissist is indiscriminate. The narcissist seeks his attention promiscuously, first-come, first-served. Anyone can give the narcissist attention, and it's good. The narcissist seeks as much attention as he can from as many people as he can. The covert borderline seeks admiration and attention from his love interests or from people who are meaningful to his ability to regulate his emotions and his internal grandiose space. Again, his grandiosity is tied intimately to emotions. So he would, for example, be grandiose in his love life. He would seek perfect love, perfect intimacy, amazing intimacy, unprecedented, first intimacy. He would write sonnets, you know, like Shakespeare. And this is reduced. So he would seek admiration and so on, but from his love interests, facilitators, towards the goal of perfect love, or you know, he would act within this space. While the narcissist has no boundaries, his regulated space is all over the place. The narcissist is indiscriminate. And this one myth propagated online by self-signed experts is that the narcissist is discriminant. For example, he has a preferred type of spouse or preferred type of intimate partner. It's wrong. It's not true.
Now, the covert narcissist, the covert borderline, I'm sorry, has intensive mission, and he is often successful. He is preoccupied with appearances, and these issues with the classic narcissist, but again, the goal, the direction, the aim is emotional regulation, being more successful at emotional regulation via the agency of another party. The classic borderline, by comparison, is nothing of the sort. He has multiple but superficial interests, is chronically bored, as we mentioned, his aesthetic tastes are imitative. It's a rendition of the covert borderline.
What about ethics, standards, ideals? We mentioned in the beginning, the identity diffusion or identity disturbance. If you don't have identity, you don't have values. And indeed, the classic borderline is ready to shift values to gain favor. She changes values, she reflects in a mirror as others. And in this sense, she's very much like a psychopath. The classic borderline grooms people. The difference between a psychopath and a classic borderline is that the classic borderline does it intuitively, reflexively, instinctively, and unconsciously. While psychopathy is done knowingly, manipulatively, it's a strategy. But both, both of them groom, and they groom by mirroring, by becoming the other person. So it's very easy for the borderline because she's not really there. Exactly like the narcissist, there's nobody there. There's no identity, there's no core. So she changes and shifts values. She lies. She's a pathological liar. Classic borderlines are pathological liars. They tell you, "Good morning." Look out the window, call the meteorological service, and buy a newspaper just to be sure that it is morning. So they are pathological liars.
Liars. Many of them are addicted to a materialistic lifestyle. They externalize cathexis, take effect. They invest emotionally in objects because they can control them. They will never be abandoned or rejected or humiliated by objects. A lot of this is also possible with classic borderline, and some of them have delinquent tendencies. They're antisocial, a bit. That's where the secondary psychopath comes into play.
Compared to them, the covert borderline is moral, but his morality, he is the source of the law. It is idiosyncratically and unevenly ethical because he is the one who writes the rules, his own rules, my way or the highway. In this sense, the covert borderline is very much like a psychopath. We mentioned the covert borderline's caricatured modesty, and many of them are activists. Apropos today's anti-racism activists all over the world, many, many of them, covert narcissists and covert borderlines, covert narcissists obtain indirect attention via their activism, and covert borderlines obtain access to self-gratification. They feel that by being activists, they belong. And as I mentioned before, perfect love, perfect acceptance, perfect belonging, it's very important to them. So many covert borderlines are activists with apparent enthusiasm for social political affairs, and they are involved in many issues that require ethnic or moral relativism. So they are out there. The covert borderline is in there. She is very, very self-centered, but not egotistical, not like the narcissist. The narcissist is self-centered in the sense that it's everything about his supply. You know, the borderline is self-centered because she doesn't have energy or resources to do anything else but to manage herself. Managing yourself is a full-time job, consumes everything she has. So she can't sometimes get out of bed. She resembles very much, as far as the clinical picture, she resembles very much someone with a major depressive episode. She's like in constant depression, unable to get out of bed, unable to function. She's dysfunctional because to cope with a low level of organization, internal chaos of the borderline personality, it leaves nothing for any other pursuits or interests or vacations or activities. The covert borderline doesn't have these problems. Doesn't have this problem. So he's much more outgoing and much more involved in the life of the community, and very many will become pillars of the community, like the narcissist. But he's likely to pretend contentment for money, for materialistic goods. He's likely to present himself as spiritual. So many of the gurus, life coaches, mystics, yogis, and other types of con artists, they are actually covert borderlines. The covert borderline, and unfortunately, many of them are also covert narcissists, and they pull the wool over people's eyes because they tell people what they want to hear. And when any of you has a choice between what you want to hear and the truth, 99% of the time you will choose what you want.
Unfortunately, fact plus there's something called the base rate policy. You will believe 95% of what you're told without bothering to check. Also substantiated in studies, numerous studies, base rate policy. Look it up online, base rate deficit. And so, the covert borderline would be the type of spiritual guru, macro-economist, king philosopher, or public intellectual, or life coach with the secrets and the secret for your happiness, or this kind of nonsense, this con artist. And he would have, he would be irreverent towards authority. He would defy authority, and he would pretend that he's above, above everything, above money, above material goods, as he drives around in his Rolls Royce towards his palace, palatial residence. He will tell you that he doesn't care about money, as he checks his bank account with millions of dollars given to him by brain-dead people like you. He will tell you that he is not in it for the money, he's in it because he loves you, etcetera, etcetera. It's not, I'm sure you know the time. And still, and still, you will pay to hear these people speak. What can anyone do? A sucker is born every day.
What about love and sexuality? Classic borderlines are unable to remain in love, and the same with covert borderlines. There is marital instability or relationship instability. The classic borderline has an impaired capacity for viewing the romantic partner as a separate individual with his own, her own interests, rights, values. While the covert borderline regards the potential romantic partner, romantic partner as a separate entity, but they are a target, a target, an object to be acquired via seductiveness. So the covert borderline is called greedy, and he has many extramarital affairs, and is very promiscuous. His adulteress is cheating. And both of them have severe inability to genuinely comprehend or accept sexual taboos, such as, for example, incest. And both women have uninhibited sexual lives and occasionally engage in kink, BDSM, or other sexual unusual sexual unconventional, non-conventional sexual practices, which some people like to call perversions, whatever that means.
Finally, let's talk a bit about the way they think, the cognitive style. Both have dichotomous thinking. The dichotomous thinking means black and white, good and evil, right and wrong. Everything is in a bit of an answer. No shades of gray. So masochistic or not, nothing in between. It's either or. You're either my friend or you're my enemy, and you can't be, for example, my friend if you disagree with me. So this is everything is painted black or white. One day someone is your friend, the next morning, if you disagree with me, he's your total enemy. You want to destroy him and kill him and burn his body and kill all his family and strangle his dog and hang his cat, just because you disagree with him. Yes. Oh, this is the dichotomous thinking coupled with splitting and aggressive impulses. Affected in splitting, signed connected to splitting. This is why it's very easy for borderlines, for example, to damage or hurt. Both types of borderlines, very easy for them to damage or to cause pain to people they love because they love them one day and they hate them, literally hate them, hate their guts, hate every cell in their body the next day, and the day after they would die for them. And they, they often, they would poison their food. This is the roller coaster of splitting and dichotomous thinking.
And in the case of the classic borderline, you should catastrophize. Classic, classic borderline creates in her mind scenarios of the future where catastrophe is about to happen. She will definitely be up and rejected, cheated, or damaged, hurt. This is catastrophizing. But the problem with borderline personality disorder, exactly like the narcissist, is that these people have no good reality testing. They confuse inner objects with outer objects. If anything happens in their mind, then it is so. It's called magical thinking. Whatever they imagine exists, it had already happened. So if she catastrophizes, it means it has happened, is happening, or will never, for sure, million percent. Because her mind is the world, her imagination is reality, her thoughts transform magically and miraculously into facts. And so she reacts to her own internal processes, creative processes of imagination, imagery, and of extrapolation, and of speculation.
The overt borderline is impressively knowledgeable, while the classic borderline is not. May know a lot, but her knowledge is usually limited to trivia. We call it headline intelligence. The covert borderline has an egocentric perception of reality. Everything revolves around him, exactly like the narcissist. Everything revolves around him. He is responsible for everything. He made everything happen. He controls already bad things that happen. He made them so. I know if his wife cheated on him, it's because he abused her. He made it happen. He caused them to cheat. If something good happened, similarly, he caused everything good and everything bad, like God in the Middle Ages, used to be called the first cause. The borderline is his difficulty with that because she is, as we said before, an inferiority complex and so on. Additionally, she's very, very dissociative, much more dissociative than the covert. Oh, dissociative in a different way to the covert borderline. So she forgets details, she flits names, she forgets days, she forgets. It's very difficult to assume that you are the center of the world if you forget most of the details, most of the information about the world. So the covert borderline is very fond of knowledge and the acquisition of knowledge, and he implements many shortcuts to acquire knowledge. While the classic borderline hates to learn. She hates to learn. She hates academia. She hates. So she has an impaired capacity for learning new skills. And you know, she, many of them who omission may force her to learn, and she may have learned, may even get a degree in. She may even teach, become a professor. I know personally, if you become a professor at the university, but her learning would be a puzzle, would be incidental, would be anecdotal, but there would be huge gaps in the learning when you get down to it, and you get deep into it. While the covert borderline will also have similar gaps and so on, but there will be certain areas, similar like the narcissist, an island of stability, there will be certain areas of knowledge where it is not as we really deep, profound, perfected.
So consequently, the covert borderline is decisive and opinionated, and his decisions and opinions are pretty stable over time. While the classic borderline has a tendency to change meanings of reality when she, when there's a threat to her self-esteem, when she, for example, feels rejected or humiliated, she will reinterpret reality. And so you can constantly reinvent reality, rewrite history, and reframe what you're feeling, and still have knowledge, and still have opinions, and still have stable judgments, clearly, because you're a different person every minute. And so the borderline uses language not to describe reality or any knowledge, because she has none, no access to reality, no comprehension of the world, or of herself, or of others. And so what she does, she uses language for one reason only: to regulate her self-esteem. End of story.
The covert borderline uses language because he loves language. He is articulate, and it is true language. Then he tries to secure his needs for perfect love, perfect acceptance, and unconditional love, that is unconditional performances, or in other words, to find a mother. Okay, that's been a very long introduction to covert borderline. Let's see how this diagnosis develops. I will dedicate in the future and we select elements from the diagnosis and indicate more to them. So future videos will be considerably shorter. Any questions you have and so on, feel free. My name is Sam Vaknin, and I'm the author of Malignant Flower: Narcissism Revisited. It's best you survived this video to the end. I'm also professor of psychology for those of you who are wondering by what authority I am speaking. So thank you for being with me and see you next video.