Do narcissists really prefer kind, caring, compassionate, empathic co-dependence as intimate partners? And what is situational co-dependency? What's the difference between counterdependence and co-dependence? What is dependent personality disorder? We're going to tackle some of these issues and many others in this comprehensive video about co-dependency and dependent personality disorder. My name is Sam Vaknin. I'm the author of Malignant Self-Lab, Narcissism Revisited. I'm a professor of psychology in Rostov-on-Don, Southern Federal University and a professor of psychology and a professor of finance in the outreach program of the CS Consortium of Universities, CSAPS, Center for International Advanced and Professional Studies. Wow, that was long, but not as long as my career in psychology, which is now entering its 26th year. Let's start by answering the first question I myself had posed. Our narcissists do narcissists gravitate towards specific types of intimate partners. Here's the short and the long of it. No, narcissists have no preference for any specific type of intimate partner because narcissists don't do intimacy and they don't do partnership. Narcissists actually detest empathy that they regarded as a form of weakness or, in the worst case, an imposition, an invasion, an intrusion of their personal territory. They don't like empathic people. They don't like kind and caring people. They consider advice to be narcissistic injury. They don't need support. They don't need help. They don't need succor because they're gods. They're omnipotent. They're omniscient. They don't look for anything in an intimate partner except the three S's, sex, supply, sadistic and narcissistic, and services. Any two of these three qualify you as a partner. You can be empathic. You can be disempathic. You can be a psychopath. You can be a narcissist. You can be anyone and anything. As long as you provide two out of these three, you qualify. You can become happy you. The narcissist intimate partner. The myths, the self-aggrandizing myths online, that there's something in you that is special, that you are super empathic, amazingly kind and compassionate. Angels, that's nonsense, intended to take your money, intended to enslave you as victims. It's a form of abuse. Telling you this is a form of abuse. There's nothing special about you. There's nothing special about the narcissist intimate partner. The narcissist partners are insignificant others. They are interchangeable. They are commodities. They are utterly dispensable and disposable. They are replaceable in a whiff, in a jiffy. So it's very difficult for you to accept and digest. It's very painful. It's very hurtful to realize that you have meant nothing to the narcissist. The narcissist is not in love with you. Love bombing and grooming aside. The narcissist is enmeshed in a shared fantasy with you because he needs what you have to give him.  So that's it. Get rid of all these notions that something in you had attracted the narcissist inexorably because you are good people, unique, special, blameless, blemishless, immaculate and perfect like the Virgin Mary. Next thing, codependency and trauma. They are not objective. They are not objective states out there. They are not states of affairs. Codependency and trauma are subjective. They are states of mind. They are not out there in the world. They are not part of reality. They don't involve reality testing. Codependency and trauma are the way you react to external events. I can take 10 people, subject them to the exact same experience. Seven of them would not bat an eyelid. Three would be traumatized for life. Eight of them would walk away. Two of them would stay as codependence. Codependency is a pattern of reactions to the presence of an intimate partner. Now, this intimate partner can be abusive, can be an abuser and many codependents seek abuse. They foster abuse via a mechanism known as projective identification. And that is because abuse, living in an abusive environment, is their comfort zone. They know the rules. They know the ropes. They know how to cope with abuse. So they encourage abusive behavior. But the intimate partner of the codependent doesn't have to be an abuser. It could be a regular bloke, a nice guy. The main role of the codependence intimate partner is to regulate the codependence emotions. Moods to reduce lability, to eliminate or ameliorate dysregulation, to mediate the dialogue, the internal dialogue among the codependence interjects. In a way, the intimate partner is subsumed by the codependent. The intimate partner merges with the codependent, fuses with her so as to be able to reach into her brain, inside her mind and regulate it, keep it stable, maintain an equilibrium, a homeostasis. Now, if the intimate partner is malicious, malevolent, sadistic, narcissistic, psychopathic, he's going to abuse this privileged access to the codependence mind. But that's not a necessary condition. Many codependents live with intimate partners who are perfectly good partners, loving partners, caring and accepting partners. And some of them live with abusers. That's true for the general population. You don't have to be a codependent to end up with an abuser. Still, it's important to understand codependency is not something out there. It's something in here. Trauma is not something out there. It's something in here. It's the way you react. It's the way you have learned, the way you have been conditioned in early childhood to react to specific situations involving intimate partners and otherwise. So in a way, the abuser and his victim are each other's instruments. The victim uses the abuser, leverages the abuser to stabilize her inner landscape, to stabilize her inner world. She needs the abuser and the abuser to feel that she is in a world that is predictable, that she can manipulate her environment in order to secure favorable outcomes. In other words, the abuser makes increases, actually, the victim's self-efficacy. And similarly, the victim regulates internal constructs and internal dialogues within the abuser. So the victim regulates the abuser, the abuser regulates the victim. It's a mutual regulation society. Now, of course, each of these, the victim and the abuser, they have different psychological needs. They have different levels of aggression, different levels of impulse control, of defiance, of empathy. Most victims have much higher empathy than their abusers. So there would be differences in the forms of regulation, in the types of regulation that the victim offers the abuser and the abuser offers the victim. They would be distinguishable. Abusers are not victims. Victims are not abusers. They are distinguishable. But they regulate each other. They become a diet, in a way, an organism with two heads. And this is why it's so difficult to break the trauma bonding, because the trauma fulfills caters too and fulfills crucial psychological needs. And the codependent and the typical trauma victim, people with CPTSD and so on, they don't know how to regulate their internal environment normally. They need someone to do it for them. And in this sense, the distinction between victims of CPTSD, codependents and narcissists is pretty artificial. Because all these three types need other people to help them to regulate their internal environment. The codependent needs and clings to her intimate partner, because otherwise she cannot regulate the sense of self-worth, self-esteem, self-confidence. Her abandonment anxiety is out of control, like a borderline. The narcissist needs other people to regulate his internal environment, because otherwise he cannot regulate his sense of self-worth, self-esteem, self-confidence and his abandonment anxiety is out of control, like the codependents. These are sides of the same coin. It's very, very unpalatable. It's politically incorrect. You don't want to hear this.  I know that, but that happens to be the truth. There is a great confusion regarding the terms codependent, counterdependent and dependent. Before we proceed to study dependent personality disorder, I think we would do well to clarify these terms. As Lydia Gangelowska observes, we all need to be needed. We all want to feel useful. We all crave to be able to give. Giving is reflexive, instinctual. People resent the narcissist, partly because his false self, the facade that the narcissist puts to the world, is so self-sufficient. The narcissist doesn't need anyone. A narcissist typically would tell you, I don't need you. I don't need anyone, but codependents take this to a whole different level. Dependent personality disorder is in the diagnostic and statistical manual, but it's a much disputed mental health diagnosis, because we are all dependent to some degree. We start our lives as dependent entities and creatures. We depend on mommy. And we depend on mommy for survival. If mommy is dead, it's a dead mother. She doesn't notice us. She is emotionally absent or physically absent. She is selfish, not narcissistic. She refuses to let us develop and evolve and put boundaries and so on and so forth. We are in bad shape. Our survival is at stake. We need to be fed. We need to have shelter. And we need parents who are good enough and don't parentify us.  This need to be taken care of doesn't stop at age two or six. It's lifelong. When is this need judged to be pathological? Where's the point we say, well, this person has needs and this person is needy. This person embraces hugs and this person is clinging. Where does it become pathology, compulsive, pervasive, excessive? Clinicians who contributed to the study of dependent personality disorder or codependency use words such as craving, clinging, stifling. Both the dependent and her partner are inside this swamp in a way, quicksand, and it's humiliate. One of the parties is submissive, but the other is not necessarily dominant. He is coerced into his role. He is blackmailed and extorted, codependence blackmail, emotionally blackmail, their intimate partner. These are all subjective terms. They're open to disagreement and differences of opinion, so I can't pretend that this is a science. What I'm saying reflects the latest in research, but the latest in research is still very far from satisfactory. Moreover, virtually all cultures encourage dependency to varying degrees. Even in developed countries, many women, the very old, the very young, the sick, the criminal, the disabled, the mentally handicapped, these kind of people, they are denied personal autonomy. They are legally and economically dependent on other people or on the authorities of the state, and so dependent personality disorder is diagnosed only when such behavior does not conform to social, legal, or cultural norms and more. Codependency is a colloquial term. You can't find it in the diagnostic and statistical manner, and so it's even more debatable than dependent personality disorder. But I find it to be a good catch-all phrase. Codependence, as they are sometimes known, they are possessed with fantastic worries and concerns. They catastrophize. They are paralyzed by their abandonment, anxiety and fear of separation, and in this sense it's very difficult to tell apart codependence from borderlines. This inner turmoil renders codependence very indecisive. Even the simplest everyday decision becomes an excruciating ordeal, and this is why codependence rarely initiate projects, rarely do things on their own. Dependents typically go around eliciting constant and repeated reassurances and advice from myriad sources. This recurrent solicitation, this need for succor, it's proof that the codependent seeks to transfer responsibility for his or her life to other people, whether they have agreed to take this responsibility to assume it or not. Sometimes the codependent targets you. You don't want to assume responsibility for her life, but she forces you to. She forces you to. If she is also borderline, which is a very common combination, she may threaten suicide, she may become defined and impulsive, a secondary psychopath. And this recoil, this studious avoidance of life, of challenges that the codependent engages in may give the wrong impression that she is indolent or incipit. But most dependents are not lazy or half dead, zombified. They are often fired actually by repressed ambition, energy and imagination. The codependent lacks the self confidence. So it holds this lack, this lacuna, this vacuum, this low self-esteem, low self-confidence, this regulated sense of self-worth, they hold the codependent back. The codependent doesn't trust her own abilities and judgment. Again, we see an affinity with covert narcissism, absent and inner compass and a realistic assessment of her positive qualities on the one hand. And limitations on the other hand. Dependents are forced to rely on crucial input from the outside exactly like a narcissist. And realizing this, their behavior becomes self-negating. They resent their dependence. Codependents are not happy with their dependence on other people. They have to behave in ways which countermand and vitiate their self-autonomy, their self-efficacy, their very identity, the core. For example, they can never disagree with meaningful others. They have to please people. They can never criticize people. They are afraid to lose the support and emotional nurtures of the intimate partner. They are addicts with a single pusher. They're junkies with a single pusher. So they have to behave and they resent this. It's another lesson kind of state of mind. I have to pretend I have to behave and I don't like it. I feel grounded. I contributed the article about dependent personality disorder to the Opensight encyclopedia and I wrote at the time, the codependent molds himself or herself. She bends over backwards to cater to the needs of her nearest and dearest and satisfy their every whim, wish, expectation and demand. She's a people pleaser. Nothing is too unpleasant or unacceptable if it serves to secure the uninterrupted presence of the codependent's family and friends and the emotional sustenance that he or she can extract or extort from people around her. You see the similarities with borderline. The codependent I'm continuing from the encyclopedia entry. The codependent does not feel fully alive when she is alone. She feels helpless, threatened, indecisive, ill at ease and very much childlike. This acute discomfort drives the codependent to hop from one relationship to another. The sources of nurtures are interchangeable to the codependent being with someone, with anyone, no matter who, is always preferable to solitude. And there are elements here of the narcissist on the one hand and the borderline on the other. Let's talk a bit about the pathogenesis of codependency. How is codependency brought about? Now remember, the clinical diagnosis is dependent personality disorder. There's no such thing as codependency in clinical psychology. I don't teach codependency in university. I teach dependent personality disorder. But I'm going to use the word codependent as a shorthand. So let's talk about how codependents evolve and develop this issue of inner mother and an inner child. Parents of codependence teach their offspring in early childhood to expect only conditional transactional love. The child is supposed to render a service, to perform, to fulfill the parent's dreams and wishes, to realize the parent's dreams and fantasies in return for affection, compassion, attention, emotion. This is usually a narcissistic parent, grandiose parent. Ineluctably, the hurt child, the child in pain reacts with rage to this unjust mistreatment. With no recourse to the offending parent, the child cannot do anything to the parent, of course, cannot punish the parent, does not dare to punish the parent, does not dare to think bad things about the parent. So with no recourse to the offending parent, this rage at being mistreated, this fury at not receiving unconditional love is either directed outward at other people who stand in for the bad parent or inward. So the anger can manifest in impulsive displays of acting out an aggression or can be internalized. The former solution yields in adulthood a psychopath or a passive-aggressive-negativistic person, and the second solution, internalizing the anger, creates a masochist or someone with a depressive illness. Similarly, when the parent is dead unavailable, the child's reserve of love can be directed inward at himself, and this creates a masochist, or outward towards other people, and this creates the codependent. The child can't love the parent because the parent is not there to receive the love and reciprocate. The parent is gone, but still the child has this diffuse energy, libido, life force, errors, love, call it what you will, and he has to use it somehow. And if he uses it on himself, if he redirects this life force, this love at himself, if he is libidinally infected in himself, if he is libidinally invested in himself, he becomes a masochist. If his libido is externalized, projected, directed at others via object relations, he becomes a codependent. All these choices are pathological, of course.  These choices retard personal growth, arrest the person's development, their self-defeating. In all four ways the adult plays the dual roles of a punitive parent on the one hand, and an eternal vulnerable child who is unable and unwilling to grow up for fear of incurring the wrath of the parent with whom she had merged so thoroughly early on. These people have inner child and inner parent in constant conflict. When the codependent merges with a love object, with her intimate partner, she interprets her new found attachment, the bond, as a betrayal of the punitive parent. That's very crucial to understand. The codependent is an internal, sadistic, narcissistic, selfish, immature, demanding, criticizing, inner, critic, super ego parent. And when she falls in love with someone, that parent feels betrayed, that inner parent, the inner mother, the inner father, the representation of these parents they introjects, they feel betrayed. The codependent now loves someone else, she's supposed to love the parent, the internalized parent, she's not supposed to love someone else, and if she does, she's a traitor. And the codependent knows this, she senses the resentment of her own inner constructs that stand for her parents, so she fully anticipates the internalized parent's disapproval. She dreads the self-destructive disciplinarian measures that the inner parent is going to take against her. The inner parent is going to punish her for loving someone else. The punishment is imminent, inevitable, it's coming. And in an attempt to placate, to modify, to ameliorate, to somehow calm down this internalized, implacable divinity, these internalized parent figures, the codependent turns on her partner. She lashes out at him, she punishes him, and this way she shows her internal parents where her true loyalties and affiliation lie with them, not with her intimate partner. And this is where there is an exorcism between codependent and borderline. Codependent bleeds into borderline, seeps into borderline, becomes borderline in a way, in some situations, because she has to recreate inner equilibrium and balance to ameliorate anxiety. And she has two types of anxiety. On the one hand, she is very anxious, like the borderline, she is very afraid to be abandoned by the partner. But she has another type of anxiety that borderlines don't necessarily have. And that's the anxiety of keeping her inner mother, her inner father happy. And the only way to keep them happy is to show them that she loves only them, she loves no one else. Here she is abusing her intimate partner as proof positive that she doesn't love him. It's kind of an internal dialogue projected on the intimate partner. And the codependent begs the intimate partner to collude and collaborate with her in order to maintain her peace of mind and inner calm. Most partners of codependence will agree immediately, they will immediately identify this dynamic when the codependence abusively, aggressively, viciously actually asks them for help. Her way of asking for help is by misbehaving. Concurrently, she punishes herself as she tries to preempt the merciless onslaught of her sadistic parental interjects and superego. She engages in a monopoly of self-trashing, self-destructive and self-defeating behaviors, saying to the parents, you don't need to punish me, I've already punished myself. Acutely aware of the risk of losing her partner owing to her abusive misconduct, the borderline codependent experiences extreme abandonment anxiety. She mistreats her partner and she knows that he may just pack up and go. She knows that he may abandon. She knows it may be one bridge too far this time. And she swings wildly between self-effacing, submission, object submission and clinging between being a dormant and being a harridan. So this pendulum is very typical of borderlines and more so of codependent borderlines. And there is this explosive, vituperative, invective on the one hand and childlike, eternal child, expressions of punitive parent on the other hand. She swings wildly between these behaviors and she can't settle, she can't find the golden mean, the middle ground. Again, she swings between self-effacing and clinging which is dormant behavior on the one hand and explosive, defiant, impulsive, vicious, verbal and other types, sometimes physical abuse on the other hand. The clinging behaviors are manifestations of the eternal child, the internalized child, the psychopathic behaviors, the defiant behaviors, the secondary psychopathic behaviors. They are expressions of the punitive parent. Such abrupt shifts in effect and in contact are often misdiagnosed as a mood disorder, especially bipolar disorder. But where dependent personality disorder is diagnosed, these pendulum tectonic epithels are indicative of an underlying personality structure rather than any biochemically induced brain perturbations or abnormality. Like dependents, people with dependent personality disorder, like dependents, codependents, they depend on other people for their emotional gratification and the performance of both inconsequential and crucial daily and psychological ego functions. Reality testing, for example, the codependent relies on her intimate partner to tell her what's real and what's not. If the intimate partner is a narcissist, that's a major ego boost. He becomes a guru. He becomes her guiding light, the sage. Codependents seek to fuse and merge with significant others by becoming one organism, by becoming one with their intimate partners, twin flame, soulmate. Codependents are able to actually love themselves via loving the other. And that's what I call the whole of mirrors effect, when the codependent actually falls in love with herself as she is seen by the narcissist. The narcissist idealizes his would-be source of supply, idealizes her, and then it allows him to idealize himself, but she gets addicted to this idealization. She sees herself in his world of mirrors and she falls in love with herself. Sometimes it's her first experience of self-love. Codependents are needy, they are demanding, but they are submissive. They suffer from abandonment anxiety and to avoid being overwhelmed by it, they cling to other people and they act immaturely. These behaviors are intended to elicit protective responses and to safeguard the relationship with their companion or mate upon whom they depend. It's very baby-like infantile behavior. Codependents appear to be impervious to abuse. No matter how badly codependents are mistreated, they remain committed and invested in extreme codependence. This fusion, this merger, this enmeshment with a significant other, this leads to in-house stalking by the codependent as she strives to preserve the integrity and cohesion of her personality and the representations of her loved ones within the personality. So she kind of stalks her own introjects. She engages in snapshotting, actually. She creates a snapshot of the intimate partner. The more she is afraid to lose the intimate partner, the more narcissistic she becomes. It's a narcissistic defense. As abandonment anxiety increases and when it is not ameliorated or reduced by the intimate partner. The intimate partner gives indications that yes, he is about to reject her. He is about to abandon her. He had had enough. He had had too much. He wants out. He's about to break up. Her narcissistic defenses climb. What she does, among many other things, she snapshots him. She takes a snapshot, as a typical narcissist does. And from that moment, she stalks the snapshot. I call it in-house stalking. This in-house stalking, when actual abandonment occurs or rejection or perceived rejection or imaginary rejection, becomes actual stalking. But it starts first in the codependence mind, long before the actual stalking starts. This is where the core in codependency comes into play. By accepting the role of victims, codependence seeks to control their abusers and to manipulate them. It is a dance macabre in which both members of the diet collaborate and they both contribute to the abusive relationship. The codependence sometimes claims to pity her abuser, cast herself in the grandiose roles of saviour, redeemer or lately empath. Her overwhelming empathy imprisons the codependent in these dysfunctional relationships and she feels guilt, either because she believes that she had driven the abuser to mistreat her or because she contemplates abandoning the abuser. There are two possible pathological reactions to childhood abuse and trauma. Codependence and narcissism.  The codependent has a pretty realistic assessment of herself, but her view of others is fantastic. The narcissist is opposite. He has his self-image, his self-perception, our delusional, fantastic grandiose, but his penetrating view of others mediated by cold empathy is blunt, curlingly accurate. Pathological narcissism is a form of addiction to narcissistic supply. The narcissist is caught in a conundrum of his own making. On the one hand, he considers himself superior in Godlike. On the other hand, to maintain his inflated, grandiose and fantastic sense of self-worn, his self-image, the narcissist is objectively humiliatingly dependent on constant input from people whom he considers vastly inferior to him. Who he considers vastly inferior to him? He clings to these people, but he hates and resents them, and he hates himself for his dependence, and this leads to bounds of approach followed by bounds of avoidance, a repetition compulsion. I just described the narcissist. It equally applies to the codependent. So let's talk about types of codependence. Not all codependents are made the same. They are not all alike. Codependence is a complex multifaceted and multidimensional defense against the codependence fears and needs. There are five categories of codependence, the codependency stemming from the respective etiologies. The etiology is how the disease develops, how the disorder develops, the reason, the cause of the disorder. So there are five etiologies and five types of codependence. Number one, codependency that aims to fend off anxieties related to abandonment. These codependents are clingy, smothering, and prone to panic. They're plagued with ideas of reference, referential ideation. They think other people are talking about them, gossiping, mocking them. They display self-negating submissiveness. Their main concern, the main concern of this type of codependent, is to prevent his or her victim, friends, spouses, family members, from deserting them, abandoning them, or from attaining true autonomy and independence. These codependents merge with their loved ones and experience any sign of autonomy, personal autonomy, or any sign of abandonment, actual, threatened, imaginary, as a form of self-annihilation, a form of amputation. That's the first classic type of codependent. Then there is a second type. It's codependency that is geared to cope with the codependent's fear of losing control, not of abandonment. The first type that I have just described, we can call it safely, borderline codependent. Because it has features of borderline together with features of codependency. The second type, perhaps we can call psychopathy codependent. It's again codependency that is geared to cope with the codependent's fear of losing control. By feigning helplessness, by emphasizing neediness, such codependents coerce, force their environment to cater to their needs. They force everyone into ceaselessly catering to their wishes and requirements.   They force their nearest and dearest to treat them as emotional or physical invalids. They deploy their self-imputed deficiencies and disabilities as a weapon. Both these types of codependents, the first and the second, they use emotional blackmail. And when necessary, threats to secure the presence and blind compliance of their suppliers. Codependent type three, vicarious codependents. They live through others. They sacrifice themselves in order to glory in the accomplishments of their chosen partners, or should I say, targets. These kind of codependents subsist on reflected light, like the moon and the sun. On second hand, approbation and applause, and on derivative achievements. These kind of codependents have no personal history, no successes, no accomplishments. Having suspended their lives, wishes, preferences, and dreams in favor of another's. An example of such a subtype, subspecies of this kind of codependent is the inverted narcissist. The inverted narcissist is a subtype of covert narcissist. It's actually a codependent, it's also called by the way, narcissist codependent. It's actually a codependent who depends exclusively on narcissists. If you're living with a narcissist, if you have a relationship with a narcissist, if you're married to a narcissist, if you're working with a narcissist, this does not mean that you are a narcissist codependent or an inverted narcissist. To qualify as an inverted narcissist, you must crave to be in a relationship with a narcissist, regardless of any abuse inflicted on you by the narcissist. You must actively seek relationships only with narcissists, and no matter what your bitter and traumatic past experience has been, you keep at it. You keep looking for narcissists. You feel empty and unhappy in relationships with any other kind of person, non-narcissistic person. Only then, and if you satisfy the other diagnostic criteria of dependent personality disorder, only then you can safely label yourself an inverted narcissist. The fourth type of codependent is also a kind of borderline narcissistic, shall I say narcissistic borderline codependent. These are codependents that oscillate, pendulate between periods of clinking and other codependent behavior patterns, which they interpret as intimacy, and eras of aloofness, detachment and absence, emotional neglect, abandonment, which they regard as legitimate, and the only possible manifestations of personal autonomy and space. They are likely to say, I need my personal space. These kind of codependents also tend to form, with their intimate partner, a shared fantasy, or a shared psychosis, foliarism. These are all the outcomes of overwhelming and all-pervasive abandonment anxiety. These codependents either smother their partner, suffocate their partner, stifle their partner, incarcerate, imprison the partner in an attempt to forestall abandonment, to prevent desertion, or they preemptively abandon ship. They do the abandonment. They do it before you do it. Thus avoiding hurt and maintaining an illusion of control over the situation. I walked out on her. I dumped her, not the other way around. This kind of codependent deploys strategies, such as merger, becoming one with the intimate partner while renouncing all personal autonomy and independence for both of them, up to a point of shared fantasy or psychosis. Co-extensivity, what is called the ventriloquist defense, insisting that the partner mind reads the codependent and acts in ways which reflect her inner psychological states and moods. This kind of codependent is likely to complain and say, I thought you knew me well. By now you should have known me well. You should have guessed what I want. You should have predicted. You should have acted. And there's always shifting boundaries using behavioral unpredictability and ambient uncertainty to induce paralyzing dependence on the partner. And finally, there is a fifth type of codependence. Another form of dependence that is so subtle, so counter-intuitive, that it eluded detection until very recently. And these codependents are known as counter-dependence. Counter-dependence reject and despise authority. They are conchumacious. Counter-dependence often clash with authority figures such as parents, the boss, the law. Their sense of self-worth, their very self-identity are premised on and derived from, dependent on these acts of defiance and bravura. Counter-dependence are personal autonomy militants, fundamentalists of freedom. They are fiercely uncompromisingly independent. They are controlling. They are self-centered. They are aggressive. Many of them are antisocial, even psychopathic. They use projective identification. They force people to behave in ways that buttress and affirm the counter-dependence view of the world as hostile and his expectations of others. These behavior patterns are often the result of a deep-seated fear of intimacy. In an intimate relationship, the counter-dependent feels enslaved ensnared, captive. Counter-dependence are locked into an approach avoidance, repetition, compassion, cycles, hesitant approach, tentative approach, advances, sexual or romantic, intimacy, budding intimacy. They are immediately followed by avoidance, absence, fleeing, lack of commitment, lack of investment. These people, this type of co-dependence ironically and actually, fundamentally, at the core, lone wolves, their bad team players, allow me to quote myself, of course, from my book Malignant Self-Love Narcissism Revisited. Counter-dependence is a reaction formation. The counter-dependent dreads his own weaknesses. He seeks to overcome them by projecting an image of omnipotence, omniscience, success, self-sufficiency and superiority. Most classical overt narcissists are counter-dependent. Their emotions and needs are buried under scar tissue, which had formed, coalesced and hardened during years of one form of abuse or another. Grandiosity, sense of entitlement, lack of empathy and overwinning haughtiness usually hide knowing insecurity in a fluctuating sense of self-worth. Now, co-dependency, exactly like we have, exactly like we have acquired situational narcissism, we have acquired situational co-dependency. Some patients, some people develop co-dependent behaviors and traits in the wake of a life crisis, especially if it involves an abandonment, a rejection and the resulting solitude, so after a divorce or when the nest is empty, children have gone to college. When one's children embark on their own autonomous lives in some other way, they live home altogether. When these vacancies develop, when there's nothing to fulfill the regulatory need of the co-dependent of the person, some people become co-dependent. So, life crisis sometimes creates co-dependency in people who, either to, up to the life crisis, had not been co-dependent in any way, shape or form. And this is a kind of late onset co-dependency. It fosters a complex emotional and behavioral chain reaction whose role is to resolve the inner conflict by reading oneself of the emergent, undesirable co-dependent conduct. Consciously, such a person may, at first, feel liberated.  My wife is dead, I'm a free man. But unconsciously, being abruptly dumped or lonesome, this is a disorienting and disconcerting effect, akin to intoxication. This sense of sudden liberation and liberty and freedom, it's actually a kind of drug addiction. It's intoxication. Many patients rush recklessly, headlong indiscriminately into new relationships, new ventures, new pursuits, new vocations or avocations. Deep inside, this kind of person has always dreaded being lonely. Lonely, not alone. Following a divorce, the death of a significant other or intimate partner, the passing away of parents or other loved ones, children relocating to college, similar episodes of dislocation, she suppresses this dread of being lonely because she possesses no real effective solutions and antidotes to her sudden solitude. And she has developed no meaningful ways to cope with it. We are taught that denied and repressed emotions often reemerge in camouflage, as it were, disguised. The dread of ending up all alone is such that the person becomes co-dependent in order to make sure that she never finds herself again in a similar situation, never finds herself lonely again. Her co-dependency is a series of dysfunctional behaviors that are intended to fend off abandonment and loneliness. And still, people who develop situational co-dependency unlike classic lifelong co-dependency, this late onset co-dependency, so these people are fundamentally balanced. They have strong personalities and they cherish self-regulation and self-control and they do it well. So they always keep other options open, including the vital option of going it alone, yet again. They make sure to choose the wrong partner and then they spectacularly expose the partner's egregious misconduct so that they can get rid of him and of the newly acquired co-dependency in good conscience and at the same time. Sometimes it's called a rebound, a rebound relationship. So to reiterate, the situational co-dependent is characterized by a deep set fear of being lonely, abandonment anxiety, a form of attachment disorder, as an underlying dormant inner landscape. This lurking abandonment anxiety, this dormant abandonment anxiety, separation anxiety is awakened, triggered by life's tribulations, divorced and emptiness, death of one's nearest and dearest. This abandonment anxiety was inactive, disabled throughout life but when this crisis happens, when loneliness impinges, the abandonment anxiety is triggered and erupts and at first the newly found freedom is exhilarating, intoxicating. But this feel-good factor actually serves to enhance the anxiety. The inner dialogue goes something like this what if it feels so good that I will opt, I will decide to remain by myself for the rest of my days?  The person finds being alone so wonderful that she is afraid that this may become the new normal for the rest of her life and she doesn't want it because she has deep inside abandonment anxiety to be lonely. And so a conflict erupts, a dissonance between conscious emotions and behaviors liberation, joy, pleasure seeking and a nagging unconscious anxiety I'm not getting any younger, this can't go on forever I've got to settle down to find the appropriate mate not to be left alone etc etc there's also a lot of ambivalence conflicting emotions to allay this internal tension to reduce and ameliorate this anxiety the person comes up with situational codependency as a coping strategy to attract and bond with a mate so as to forestall loneliness and abandonment any mate even the wrong one mate selection is impaired because reality testing is impaired and so the situational codependent is ego dystonic she is very unhappy with her newfound codependency though at this stage she is utterly unaware of all the dynamics this codependency runs contrary to her primary nature as accomplished self-confident assertive person with a well-regulated sense of self-worth that's how she perceives herself and suddenly she's needy she's lonely she's unhappy she doesn't like it she feels the need to frustrate this new set of compulsive addictions codependency and to get rid of it because it threatens her view of herself who she is her identity and who she thinks she is she is her self-perception surely she says to herself I am not the clingy, modeling, weak out-of-control wippy type I'm not a crybaby I can be alone I love being alone all her life she has known herself to be a strong person a good judge of character intelligent in control codependency doesn't become her it's not her it feels alien she is going through a process called ego estrangement estrangement from herself which if taken to extreme results in dissociative disorders like amnesia, depersonalization derealization how could she get rid of this newly found cancer of codependency well, she chooses the wrong partner unconsciously and then she proves to her satisfaction that he is the wrong partner for her and then she gets rid of the wrong partner by getting rid of him she re-establishes her autonomy proves to herself her resilience and strength and self-control demonstrates to herself credibly that she is codependent no more what about codependence though? classic codependence not situational codependence from early childhood what about codependence who say I can't live without you I can't live without her akin to addiction dependence on other people who feels important mental health functions as I said it is an organizing principle codependency serves to explain behaviors and events within a coherent narrative a fictional story or within a frame of reference you can say I acted this way because you have a because you have a reason second codependency gives meaning to life you know even I would say purpose and goal number three the constant ups and downs the drama of codependency these satisfy your need for excitement and thrills codependence have secondary psychopathy lurking in the shadows and psychopaths they are novelty seekers they are risk takers they are reckless they need excitement number four and most crucially the addiction and emotional ability which result from codependency and sometimes lead to it they place you at the center of attention they allow you to manipulate people around you to do your bidding in other words it's a self efficacious strategy albeit somewhat narcissistic indeed you are convinced that you cannot live without your codependency or dependence and this is a subtle and important distinction you can survive without him his gun he has abandoned you rejected you divorce, breakup you can survive without you can survive without him but you believe profoundly erroneously as it happens that you cannot go on living without your addiction to your partner not the partner but an addiction to a partner you are addicted to your own codependency you experience your dependence as your best friend your comfort zone as familiar and warm and fuzzy and fitting as fitting is an old pair of slippers you are addicted to a dependent on your own dependence but you attribute its source you attribute the source of the dependence you misattribute the source of the dependence to boyfriends mates, spouses, children, parents anyone who happens to be around and fit the bill and the plot of your narrative they come and go your addiction remains intact they come and go you and your addiction stay very interchangeable disposable replaceable your dependence is immutable unchangeable forever there so what can you do about your dependence? extreme cases of codependency dependent or borderline personality disorders they require professional help luckily codependency is a spectrum and most people with dependent traits and behaviors are clustered somewhere in the middle help yourself by realizing that the world never comes to an end when relationships do it is your dependency which reacts with desperation, not you next, analyze your addiction what are the stories and narratives that underlie your codependency? do you tend to idealize your intimate partner for example? if so, can you see him or her in a more realistic light? are you anxious about being abandoned? why? are you afraid to be alone? have you been traumatically abandoned in the past as a child perhaps? write down the worst possible scenario the relationship is over and he lives you is your physical survival at stake? of course not make a list of consequences of the breakup catastrophize write down the worst case scenario and write next to each one each scenario that you can what you can and intend to do about it you will discover that even the most extremely grievous catastrophes are manageable, survivable and forgettable, frankly armed with this plan of action you are bound to feel safer more confident and finally make sure to share your thoughts, your fears and emotions with friends and family social support is indispensable to mental health and healing one good friend is worth 100 therapy sessions guaranteed


Oh, I thought he was gonna counter. Oh, I'm scared. I'm terrified, Beavisist. Ah! How's it going, everybody? Dot to know you're here back with some more Dragon Ball fighters, rank matches. And this time, we are doing something that I almost never do, and that is playing Majin Buu in ranked. This has to be one of my most least played characters in the entire game next to characters like Frieza, et cetera, et cetera. But I actually took some time to try to learn Majin Buu, and now this is my first game out of actual practice. Oh my goodness. Oh, I tried to do the math. Yeah, I would never recommend somebody go into their first games immediately after practice and thinking they can do anything. They practice, but wow, this game is already intense. I'm getting hit by everything. Let me vanish out. Is he gonna reflect? Oh, you know we love the reeds. But yeah, I've only learned so much like I learned block strings and combos, some mix ups, et cetera, et cetera. But I still don't know what assist is actually his best. Let me tag out again. I'm just wasting all my bar on guard cancels. Open up. Open up. Oh man. Oh, I could have got him right there. Command grab? No command grab? Well, I'm out of there then. You know what? It's Majin Buu time. Mid screen. Give me the fat toss. Let's go. All right, I want to see if I can do this, dude. First, I got to get him to block. Okay, I'm safe from that. I'm safe. Dude, it's so intense. I also have the beam assist. Oh, he's trying to, he's trying not to get mixed, but you're going to get mixed. I'm sucking the combos. Oh, beautiful. Oh my goodness. That was sick. Okay, good. That was not even optimal. That was just very basic. I'm just glad I got it to hit. Majin Buu with the first KO. I am focusing. You could probably hear the hamster in my head running on that wheel, trying to get that IQ to spark up. It is going poorly for me. Overhead. Let's go. I could have done something way better than that. Got to do the full combo. That's not actually a DP. That's right. That works to get stuff in the air. Okay, okay, okay. I think Majin Buu's probably dead here, but I'm not going to lie. Pretty good start for Majin Buu. Wait. No, I'm still dead. Oh, Broly's level one hits so hard. It's fine. That was a really good start for Majin Buu. And now we got the old two mains to sort this out. Hold on. Oh, your reaction time is godlike? Having a beam assist is so nostalgic, dude. It's been so long since I had a beam assist. Don't try it again.  He's swinging. He is swinging on me. That was sick. Okay, we got to be a little safer now. In the ground. Broly doing damage. Gujira going to come out. You know what? That's fine. Gujira's a little bit less health. So let me catch him. Let me catch him with a 2M. That's Gujira dead. Oh my goodness. For how much bar? Is that like two? With Yamcha and Krillin, that might be two. Destructive disc.  Just be safe? I did. I did, but I regret it. I did, but I regret it. It didn't need to. That's fine. Broly's coming back out. Sparking. I'm going to solar flare. Oh, he blocked it. My man. My man has these 2L reactions. I got to stop testing him. He will uppercut me and no questions asked. Why does he keep bringing in Yamcha?  Just let Yamcha stay on the sideline. Grab. No grab. That's fine. Right over. Give me the combo. I don't think I can kill yet, but this is going to be close. You know what? We're going to stay with Yamcha. What a depressing failure. Try it. He did it. He tried to uppercut. He did, but I missed it. He doesn't feel like clicking buttons. Let's go. All right. This will be able to kill, but again, I can just, I can step back and throw rocks at this point. Did you see the jab? It just hit everybody. Oh my goodness. Help me, beam. Not going to kill. Just get opened up. Get opened up. All right. That's game. That is game. I will definitely take that Broly come here.  Let's go. That was beautiful. Great first game. Obviously it took a little while to finish the job, but Majin Buu, he was putting in a decent amount of work. We didn't get to do the mix. He blocked the overhead, so next time we'll go low. Next time we get the Yamcha mix, we will go low. Come here. Oh, I don't know the corner. I don't know the corner loop route. Oh, so slow. So slow. Okay. We'll block that then. Oh, the overhead. Get off me. Reflect. It's time for the mix. It wasn't a mix. I'll take that though. I will definitely take that. That was very sloppy. Oh, wow. He got out so fast. He got out so fast, man. That was sloppy. You got to respect it. You got to respect it. Let me sit on them. Never mind. I dropped it. No, am I dead for that? That's a whole 2M. I don't think the scaling's going to be that bad that it'll kill me, but that was huge. That was huge. Two bars. I am dead. No mercy. You know I'm learning the character. You wouldn't dare. No, Majin Buu. Oh, man. Goochy is so cruel, dude. Why? Oh, I'm going to open him up. Oh, so fast. So he is clicking buttons to challenge me. We just got to keep in mind, right? There we go. See, like, guy, do you really stagger those buttons? I'm going to catch that nine times out of 10. Right now it's looking like five times out of 10. But you know what? Let's keep curling out. Let's keep curling out. This is looking mighty fine. I will definitely take this jumping medium. Stop being C assist. I have to hold that. I have to hold that. That's fine. Gojina, why? Stop. Gojina, please. Okay. Understandable. Have a nice day. I'm thinking about level three. Just for fun. Why? Catch the back dash. Yes! We catch the back dash. I'm going in. Do I 2M? No, overhead. Let's go. I knew the overhead sounded way smarter. The overhead was way smarter. Gojina, come here. Let me catch a few destructiveness for you. One? That's it. I only needed the one. All right. Do I self-Sensubin? Like, right away. That would be a little, you know what? Let's go! We eating good. Sensubin has been acquired. Let's go. Do I read the spark? You know what? Why not treat myself to a little read? Well, that did not end very well for me. In fact, we might be dead. This is limit break. Yep. We might. Yep. And we're not dead, surprisingly. I think we're going to live this even with limit break damage. Level three. Do we live it? Oh, man. It'd be a shame if I were to level three. I missed the input. Now it's going to be an anchor versus anchor fight. Oh, I'm scared. I'm scared. I got sparking. I'm going to waste this time. Wasting his time. Look at this.  Thanks for the time, though. Like that. Yeah. Yeah. So far, so good. Not going to use any of this bar. Yeah. He was waiting for that. I knew I shouldn't have, but it just felt so right in the moment, dude. It felt so right. Don't level three. I know you lost your sparking, but be considerate. Be considerate, dude. I haven't lost my sparking yet. He's going for the two-touch kill. If my sparking wears out by now, this is a one-touch game for him. I just can't. Let's go. What a... Wow. He really laid it all on the line right there. Oh my goodness. He just basically said, yeah, I'm just going to risk it. I don't care. I'm making a read. On some level, I can respect it, but on another level, I know there's a parallel universe out there where I got hit by that, and I am upset right now. The great games. Looks like we're moving on to the next one. Majin Buu actually gets two wins. That is, of course, if you count that second win at all as a credit to Majin Buu. Then again, this guy's playing Gojida Blue too, huh? Yeah, there he is. Why is Gojida Blue trying to stop me from learning Majin Buu? Oh, try something, but to me, addition. No. I don't like this addition. Oh, the reflect was bad. Okay, we'll hold that. We'll hold that. I don't know how much more damage I want to hold, though. Emissist. Oh, it's overhead. You've got to hold that, dude. You've got to hold that. I'm just going to EX it because I'm not comfortable with where I'm at right now. I should have just stood there. I'm dead. I'm literally dead. Did I get reset there? All right. I'm not dead. I'm not dead, but luckily we do get a second chance. I'm not dead. Jiren is just doing things right now. Emissist, Yamcha for ultimate safety. Oh, I thought he was going to counter. Oh, I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm terrified, Emissist. I don't like going against Jiren, dude. Fighting Jiren is not so fun. Playing Jiren is fun. No. Nice. What assist, by the way, if any Majin Buu, if any of the 20 Majin Buu players are out there, what do you guys use for his assist? I actually didn't look. I couldn't speak. You saw me struggling on defense. You knew you could practically hear my words start stuttering as I was focusing more on defense. Hello. I'm switching again. All right. I should probably get Jiren out of here because he is causing me a lot of stress and I just don't really need that right now. I missed my media. I'm bad at the game. I am terrible right now. I'm going to be looking for a raw tag here. Should I though? Because I've done that a lot. Wow. If that worked, I was upset. Yeah. Yeah. No, regret. I have a lot of regrets. One of them being Majin Buu's out here. Please, please go down. No, no. Hopefully that's a little out of three bars. So he has to level.  Let's go. Trying to save bar. That was the worst. That was the worst way to lose a character I've ever lost.  I'm struggling. I'm okay. There we go. Dude, I was thinking about that DP still. Man, that sucked. UI tech. Okay. Okay. Hold on. We need to focus up. Focus up. Focus up. Technique. Technique. Back dash. I'm calm. I'm cool and calm and collected. I didn't just get jabbed out of the air. Wow. This would be a comeback and a half if it were to happen. There was just so much health we're working against 2S. Okay, 2S did work out pretty well. Vanish. Oh my God. Oh, that's beautiful. I'll take a putt. That's a whole character I just got right there. That was very lucky. That was insanely lucky. I think I'm going to do 2. Yeah, I think we needed to. All right. All right. Wait a minute. My confidence kind of skyrocketed again. My confidence is kind of skyrocketing right now. No. No. No, I'm sweating. My confidence. Where'd it go? Let's go. My confidence is back, baby. I lost it again. Lost it again. Wait, wait. Hold the phone. Hold the phone. No, no, it's gone. It's gone for good. It's gone for good. All right. So what you saw right there was a very desperate Yamcha player trying to open them up. All right. Oh, I'm trying to see if he... There we go. All right. There it is. Come here then. Come here then. You want to talk all that trash. Come here. Yeah, I guess this was smart. This is going to be a no bar. Ah, the scaling. No. It's so hard to mash Vanish out of that. Don't level three. That would be childish. So we're being childish. On my first day at Majin Buu Club. What's going on? Oh, why did I not reflect? All right. All right. That was a great game. Hold on. Okay. That's one loss for the Majin Buu team. I'm sweating. Okay. Okay. Hold on. Let's bring the heat. We didn't exactly get off to a strong start. We didn't have a good middle game. We meet again. We meet again. We meet again. Why that stamp for we meet again? Is he icing me? Does he know that all of my talent is coming? Please. Please give it all you've got. I'm trying. Please. There we go. Finally. Dude, he was icing my Majin Buu.    I don't want to block it. I want it to attack, but I have to block. All right. Let me get... You know what? I can't block. Should I get Majin Buu out of here? Maybe I get him out of here. Maybe I come back later with Majin Buu. Because I don't... My neutral is not too good with Majin Buu. My neutral is not too good in general. I'm breathing fine dining and blogging. That's all I'm doing. I'm sparking then. Oh! My sparks have been terrible today. Super dashing. I just... I'll take it, dude. This was so basic. All right. I'm expecting a counter. Not going to lie. Dash right into it. Oh, God. I need attack. I need attack. Just tag me out. Tag me out. Okay. All right. Not too bad. Not too bad. Oh! I'll take a Gale Clawz. There we go. We didn't miss the meaty. Oh, my goodness. This game is stressful. We level one with Yamcha here to try to kill the timer. One, two, three, four, five, six. Crazy how that timer's gone. Oh! Why does it...  That counted as a whiff so I couldn't recover time. Reflect that because he's plus. I need to get Majin Buu back in here. Majin Buu! What? That was smooth! That was smooth. I'll give it up. I'll give it up. That was pretty smooth. Majin Buu paid the ultimate price. We did not get to play a lot of Majin Buu going into the second game, but, you know, we knew it was a risk when we played him. It's all... You got to learn. You can't learn and not lose at the same time. I don't think that's actually true, but I felt like saying something inspirational. My dome... My dome just got kicked in. All right. We have got... Oh, that was nice for me, actually. I'll take that. All right. I'm going to try to get his assist out of here, which means we are indeed going to play the snap meta. Come here. My buttons today are trash. Jiren, stop. All right. He's going to step on me. That's fine. Out of my face, Jiren. I don't recall asking to tech dragon rush today. I'm going to take it with a level three. That was sick. All right. If we get Gojira down, I'm feeling good. If we can't get him down within the time limit, I'm feeling pretty bad. Oh, that was so bad. I staggered way too long. Uh, Krone's going to die for that. It's going to come down to Yamcha again. Wait. No. Oh, he didn't do it. Why? I wonder why. I wonder why. All right. All right. Playing with your food. I see. I see. I see. Oh, I'll take it to age. I will take it to age. You know what? I'm going to save some for later. Let's save Krillin. Okay. Level three. I'm not going to lie. I'm mostly expecting a UI tech. I could have killed right there. Oh, bad. Bad Super Dash. I could have killed. Maybe I should have been more safe with that. Oh, I just felt like raw tagging that time. All right. Uaigoku is almost dead, but he could probably switch out to Gojira. So maybe we stand our ground here. I didn't. I said I was going to, but I didn't. Dude, give a close on that. That's nice. All right. We did say we wanted to kill Gojira. I'll take it. I'll take it. A little risky. Definitely risky. Where are you? Get back here. Talk to Yamcha a little bit. Mingle with Yamcha. All right. Uaigoku. I'm still going to say we have to work for this a lot. Keyblast would kill right now. Oh, and he just gave us the game. Just gave us the game. A little donation goes a long way. I'll take it. Geo Claus. I don't know if that was nerves. I don't know if they were throwing, but I will take that game. All right. This gives Majin Buu another chance. Majin Buu is popping off this game. Don't hit me with the save the stamps for later. Save him for after this. Oh, I'm getting stamped.  My Majin Buu is on fire right now. My Majin Buu, okay. That's good. We're in the timeline. Majin Buu, look at him. He is upset. Turn that smile upside down. You are getting mixed out of your shoes right now. Okay. I'll be over here if you need me. What? I'll take it. I will take that. I will take a Dragon Rush instead, though. It wasn't fast enough. Beautiful, beautiful stuff. Do I try to 2H this? Guard cancel that. Guard cancel. Get out of there. Oh, nice. One of the best beginnings we've had so far. And that is unfortunately saying something. Ex-counter? No ex-counter. Majin Buu is surprisingly got us out of that. All right. I don't mind getting hit by that. I don't mind getting hit by some stuff like that. Majin Buu, where you at? I thought I had more time. Medium starter against Jiren. We're dead. Oh, God. Oh, we should have been dead anyway. You know what? We got a character out of that. I'm surprised. We definitely... We should spark, by the way. We do have spark. It's like a phone call. It better be from the defense organization. You better be... Damn it. Damn it. No. Okay. We're good. We're good. Playing Majin Buu. I don't care what Gojita says. No, Gojita, please. Let me play Majin Buu. Damn it. Damn it. I definitely still got a lot to work on with this character. Oh. A second chance? A second chance? Yeah. No, I thought that... Oh! A third chance, perhaps? A third chance? I love it when a third chance comes together. I knew I shouldn't... I knew I shouldn't go for anything. I could feel... I was thinking more along the lines of a DP, considering I had one health. But a level three is invincible too. Okay. All right. That's fine. We're in a better position than we've ever been. I am getting made into a liar right now. That's fine though. We can definitely overcome this. Just going to take a little bit of work. A little bit of work that starts now. Gojita is dead for how much bar I'm thinking three, which is unfortunate.  Do you want Goku? Please get out of the way. I need to take out Jiren. Jiren's the one I'm worried about. Reflex! Oh, God. X-Wolfang Fist! Hit right there. I don't know what animation that was. Do I Wolfang Fist? It's all three of my bars. Wolf! Fang! Fist! Please don't UI tech. Please don't UI tech. Please don't UI tech. The one thing... Why? I was like, okay. Last time he didn't, so I was like, this time I'll just 2M. I should have known, dude. All right. Don't tag. Don't tag. Don't tag. Don't tag. Don't tag. Believe in Yamcha. Believe in Yamcha. All right. Now we need to tag though. No. No. Yamcha! I wanted to give him a Senzu bean. It's on you, Krillin. It's all up to Krillin. I was jumping. Let's go! Jiren's down. Jiren's down. Nice. Just me and UI Goku. The two most powerful beings canonically. Dragon Ball right now. Oh, lucky. Got him. It's limit break Krillin after a beam. Is it possible to kill? No, but it was a decent bit of damage. Well, I don't know what all the level 3's were about. But I'll take it. Hopefully you enjoyed this video of me struggling with Majin Buu. Definitely gonna need some more time in the laboratory fixing him up. He's still pretty broken right now and not broken as in good, but broken as in. I can't work. I can't do any work with him. But I'll do that in my own time. In the meantime, if you enjoyed this video, make sure to let me know down below in the comment section and while you're down there, make sure to like button and subscribe to the channel to help support these videos and keep them coming out. Other than that, if you want to watch even more videos, there should be some on your screen right now. So click any of those that catch your eye. I have been Datsudoya. Thanks again for watching this one all the way to the end. And I will see you in the next one.


One of the reasons that we see the mining industry in British Columbia coming back is because we've seen commodity prices come back, but we have also seen, I think, a thoughtful, responsive government policy. And I'm not saying that because I want to argue for what I've done. I want to argue for the work that Bill Bennett, our Minister responsible for mining, the most passionate, determined advocate and champion for the mining industry that this country has had in a very long time. And now, thanks to Bill's advocacy, we are extending the flow through tax share, flow through share tax credit, a non-refundable tax credit of 20%. And when Bill brings these things to cabinet, he makes it absolutely clear that this is what you want. This is what industry needs. And he's also made the case for Geoscience BC. We have put about $60 million into Geoscience BC since 2005. Every single dollar has been an incredibly good investment because it returns five times plus over to the BC economy. And that's one of the reasons we have become the premier destination for mining exploration in North America. A fifth of all exploration in Canada happens here. And that's why for the next over the next two years, we're committing another $10 million to Geoscience BC so that they can continue to do their work and attract mining exploration to our province.


The Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria has told the federal government that removing fuel subsidy will worsen the suffering of a majority of Nigerians who were already impoverished. The president of the PFN, Bishop Walioqi, urged the government to shelve the proposed policy in order not to worsen the hardship of the people and trigger crises in the country. Well joining us to discuss this is financial analyst Richard Inuyo and Chairman Christian Association of Nigeria Cadunus State Chapter Revan Joseph Hayab. Thank you very much gentlemen for joining us. Thank you for having us. Yeah, thank you for having us. All right, I'm going to start with you Richard because you are into the numbers. It's interesting because every single day that goes by, Nigerians are forced to tighten their belts every day. And the case doesn't seem to be easier by the day. You hope that as the days go by, the government would come up with policies that would one way or the other lighten the load of the average Nigerian. But that doesn't seem to be the case. But let's zero in into this subsidy removal issue. This is one of the things that our president was then a presidential candidate. He and many others who are now members of this APC political party walked through the streets of Nigeria occupying Nigeria on this issue of subsidy removal. But here we are again with the same issue. But this time the government seems to be on that side. Richard, can you hear me? Let me start by saying it's sad that we're going to have the president. Yeah, I can hear you, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Go ahead. Yes, go ahead. Now it's sad that we wouldn't have a president contemplating contemplating to increase the price of oil in Nigeria. It's it's hard to be honest with you.  What I'm saying this is because if you look at the statistics for what poverty clock it is said that over 105 million Nigerians are currently living below the poverty line. They're living in extreme poverty, not just poverty, but they're living in extreme poverty. And what that simply means in the real sense is that for every two Nigerians one is technically poor, okay? And that is why some are false in the financial markets. We're already thinking or coming to the conclusion that the president of Nigeria seems to have a national poverty expansionary plan. A national poverty expansionary plan aimed at dragging more Nigerians into the poverty net. Aim at ensuring that every family at the end of the day produce people who can be classified as poor. People living below $1.9 a day. Why would that be the plan of Mr President when he promised us to give us a better economy to fight corruption and to give us more employment? I'm trying to understand where you're coming from. No, you see, a wise man once said that don't listen to what they say. Watch what they do. Focus on the action. Okay, so if you're to focus on the action of the president, not the speeches, you know, we have to focus on his action. Now let me put it clear to you. This is a country where the cost of doing business is already high. That's one. Two, when you take that cost of doing business, okay, into the metrics of doing that will have constant energy, what we call electricity in Nigeria, that simply means by increasing the cost of assessing the PMX. What you're trying to do technically is to increase energy costs for business oppression. And you want me to explain to you what that implies in terms of running business in Nigeria or what that would mean for manufacturers who have to choose between rukutimolsters investing money, supply the need to be able to car their plants. Laterally, we are going to be faced with not only just rising costs of production, we'll also be first as in face with rising costs of moving our products from one place to the other. So on the overall, this policy is in the real sense when it comes to remove our subsidy, which I don't even think the issue is about subsidy here. It's about an attempt by the presidency because we have more of the presidency than the president. This is an attempt by the presidency and NNPC alongside the international collaborators to ensure that they creep into the Nigerian economy, okay, with this policy. So first we're going to have increasing the cost of doing business in terms of how you get your energy and what is cost to get energy. Also, the cost of moving your products from point A in Nigeria to point B in Nigeria. If you put these two costs together, transport costs and energy costs, I'm not even talking about the cost of raw material that will be impacted with the increase in the price of the PMX. I don't go into that, but if you take these two costs together, what you're going to have is what I call the equivalent of what it's going on in Lebanon where people have money, but yet they cannot use their money, okay, to buy tangible goods that they need. And I'm so, so afraid that's where we're headed to is a place where not only that we want to have more Nigerians dragged into the pit of poverty, we're going to have massive insecurity problems because when people can't get job because companies are folding up, because companies can't stand the cost of energy and the cost of transportation logistics, what that simply means is that they're going to fold up, people lose jobs, insecurity will rise and at the end of the day, we all would be sorry for it. Okay, Reverend Hayab, I know that you have to stand on your pulpit every day and preach that message of hope to the people that are in your congregation, telling them to hold on that God is going to, I really don't know, I'm just trying to presume what you would be saying to people, because people are in church looking for some shred of hope, but then of course Bishop Francis Walloke is saying that we're going to be facing some form of multi-dimensional suffering and from what the financial analyst is saying, it's not, it's not a, it's not a story where we see light at the end of the tunnel, is it? Truly speaking, the situation. Reverend Hayab, are you there? I think we're having a connection issue with you. Well, it is a sad one because when you see someone, a group of people who advocated to stand for the masses, who advocated to defend the masses, who advocated to give services to the masses, turning back to begin to make things difficult for the masses, then it's unfortunate, because all of us are aware that this current leadership came on the platform of telling the masses that the previous leaderships we are not doing right, they were not serving the interests of the people, they were instead exploiting the people, but socially speaking the exploitation at this moment is bad. I don't want to be too technical, it's time God that our brother has actually shared his view as a financial analyst, but let me put it from the practical point of view. Even the solution Government is presenting to Nigerians. It's a big problem. How can Government tell us that they want to remove subsidy, but they are going to pay for it? Again, I think we have lost Reverend Hayab. Reverend Hayab, can you hear me? Are you there? Well, apologies. We're having that connection issue with Reverend Hayab. We'll try to bring him back, but back to you, Richard, while you hold forth for Reverend Hayab. I was speaking with some people over the weekend who said, one person said, I took 30,000 naira to the market and I wasn't able to buy anything. And another said, I bought gas for A5 the other day and now it's almost 10,000 and who knows what it's going to be in December. Let's not forget the Yultide, it's just around the corner naturally. The prices of things literally hit the roof. What is the fate of the average Nigerian is the December going to be dirty in any way? Well, first, you see, okay, there's a saying that how the weekend is going to be, we're going to know by Friday. So the truth is that I don't see Nigerians even celebrating. I think someone made a joke recently and said that he's received the Christmas carol no longer playing. He's received the jingle bell songs and no longer singing. Who stole the bell? That goes to show that we're getting to the point where people don't feel like celebrating anything anymore because the money you have is competing with so many other needs so that you don't even want to celebrate where it matters. And it's sad to know that the president is already indirectly through his proxy telling Nigeria that the biggest gift we're going to get in a new year would be something that will torture our lives. And it's worrisome. Isn't that safe? Some of us enjoy coming to talk on TV or attending to interviews or radio, but when you see the policy and the direction of the policy and what it implies in terms of poverty and insecurity, business costs and all of those things, you come to realize that we are in a very serious problem. And the only way out is for us to reverse the policy. In fact, the idea that we have the presidency thinking in this direction makes me feel very sad. Don't forget that one of the reasons why the likes of Jonathan lost the election was because it was proposing increase in the price of the PMS. And that was what actually led to all the persons coming together to form a coalition to rest power from him. So if that is the fundamental reason for which power left the PDP, for instance, all views that Nigerians want him to do exactly what he stood against and also stood for him for standing against tax. So it does not really make sense in the real sense. I think there's a cartoonist that came up with a joke where a man was standing upside down and the wife was particularly asking the man what I tried to do. He said he's trying to understand the policy of this government. All I can see right now is that there's a total disconnection that's under Nigerian people. The price of oil, Nigerians would pat him on the back, get at the end of the day would just be increase in agony and likely in nationwide protests because he's no longer about he's from south, he's from the north, or he's a Muslim, or he's a Christian. He's about, also in this country, get affected by policies. It seems to me something dangerous to us. Finally, before I let you go, quickly before I let you go in a few words, the presidency that you have been referring to has great economists. There's an economic team that is being headed by the vice president and I know that I know one of the most intelligent people in terms of the economy, Bismarck Rewany, actually walks in the presidency. Are you trying to tell me that these people have not necessarily looked at the aftermath of this fuel subsidy removal before they're okayed it for the government to even bring it to the fork in closing? I don't even believe that they have been listened to because I have high level of respect for the likes of everyone. Okay, so I don't even believe that he's been listened to. I don't even believe that the vice president has been listened to. Maybe they are part of those who choose to actually okay this dangerous economic disaster, the core policy, but I believe they're not been listened to, but let me quickly chip this in before I leave. It's very important for us to understand the question. That is why I'm saying we have to construct this policy. The question here is that why is working? If we fix our refineries and we have the three refineries working, the all issue about subsidies as it would go away, how can us as a country with over 70 billion have functional refinery? So we should not make it look as if it's a debate around subsidy removal or increase in price of four. It's about the dysfunctionality of our refinery system. So we have to fix our refinery and that will help us to reduce the price of four and all Nigerians will have cost to tighten this government for doing the right thing. All right. Well, thank you very much. Richard Inoyo is a financial analyst. We apologise. Reverend Hyab was disconnected as a result of the internet connection. Thank you so much for speaking with us. What would leave you with what Nigerians have to say about the cost of living in the country because this is the order of the day, but I want to thank you for being part of the conversation. I am Mary Annacon. I'll see you tomorrow. Anything about the country. And we are hoping for 2022 for another election, but they are not doing anything. The individual that can afford food, they are not many. And the one that are suffering for this food, they cannot get anything from it. Today they said onions, it is like this. You know, Gary, everything, nothing is going well. Everyone, even the little ones knows that everywhere the economy is, you know, like everybody, the mass are suffering due to the high cost of goods in the market. So these admit some people, you know, if there are people that are feeding thrice in a day, you see them, they feed twice and some even once in order to do what, in order to make sure that there are other things they can solve problem with money. And secondly, you see that even in the case of the price of goods, hiking, the salary are not being increased, both in the government sectors, in all parts of the house anyway. So it has caused more of suffering to the mass. It's not easy. The truth is, most of us have adopted the 101 feeding for feeding.  EFCC will have to probe you. Things are not all that easy for every Nigerians. I don't talk saying that only me because the price of everything now is skyrocketing. I see yourself, no. So everybody is just managing. All what we are buying in the market, the price has gone up starting from the full stock, starting from gas that we are using for domestic purposes and all sorts of things. But the question is that the salary that the salary earners are taking is nothing to write or me about. And there is no increase in salary. But the price of things keep on going higher and higher. So, and there is nothing we are going to do.  Nobody knows where to go. We are suffering. Everybody is living beyond. Everybody is living beyond 10, 10 error per two days. It's not good. So please, we have to improve the economy. Our readers should know that what we are going now is not good. For the common people like us, things are not really going smooth. We work from relaxing hand to mouth. I know the foreigners but the price of buses is getting high, the full stock is getting high. But the finance part is our salary is not being increased. So it doesn't make sense. At least, even if this price goes up, they should try and make out and see the reasons with our salary. You can imagine any like 50,000 having a budget, a monthly budget of like 80k. So you don't have to spend the person to go forward to buy a car or to get the desire kind of lifestyle that he or she wants. Everything is going expensive and salary is not increasing. People are just suffering in this country. The government should try to help people. People are the best here. People are the best here. People want to die here. People are the best for this country here. We got to manage this. See, people are the best here. It gives us money.


be courageous. To be timid and political correct, it's the contrary to Christian.  And this is, this gives your dignity, your personal dignity also, enhances your personal dignity, to be a courageous person.  To him I am faithful.