Narcissists and Codependents are two sides to the same coin

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It’s because they are a biproduct of the same system.

Both groups have a lost sense of self which puts them on the same coin. How they handled it was different which put them on different sides of the same coin.

There are two basic types of narcissists. There is the one that is created from being spoiled rotten and having the world revolve around them and were rewarded for ‘winning’ but never truly was appreciated as an individual. They were rewarded for being what their caregivers wanted rather than for being themselves so they have a lost sense of self from pretending to be someone they were not their whole life in order to secure praise and adoration which they mistake as love.

Then there is the vulnerable narcissist who may have had a similar over praise periodically but were much more neglected, abused, and rejected than the spoiled rotten kind. Humiliation was used as a behavior modifier which created a deep sense of shame that they need to avoid at all costs because it literally feels like some form of death is coming for them due to the impending depression it can create.

These are the narcissists that tend to want to find a mate that is famous or well respected so that they can glean their adoration through connection rather than being in the spotlight themselves because they fear the spotlight.

In both cases the narcissist was emotionally neglected and was not accepted for who they are so in both cases the person has a lost sense of self from aspects of their personality that never got a chance to develop. They suppressed those aspects of themselves that were criticized in favor of the showing the caregiver what they want to see in order to get attention which they equate to love.

The people pleaser, the Borderline, the codependent - they too have a lost sense of self. When they were young, they too were emotionally neglected and were not accepted for who they were as a person. They too sacrificed some aspect of who they were in order to please their caregivers.

The suppressing of one's self in favor of behaviors that are applauded and in favor of positive attention behaviors is what puts these people on the same coin. They all experienced something similar in terms of emotional neglect.

Why they are not on the same side of the coin is found in how they handled the emotional neglect and the need to get attention in place of love or acceptance.

Both groups sacrificed some aspect of who they were but the narcissists went for the route of being the best, dominating, getting control of their environment and suppressing anything that didn’t fit within their narrative by either rewriting history in their head, stopping having anything to do with the person or thing that worked in contravention to their narrative and by focusing solely on their own needs to help protect them from their shattered self-esteem and horrific superego that hates them unless they are perfect.

The people pleaser went the other route and instead of focusing on themselves to control the environment they went the route of remove all of the dangers or triggers from the environment by anticipating and becoming what that caregiver wanted them to be which more often than not was a little mini me that adored them. So, interests and characteristics outside of that parent's scope were discouraged and doing what that parent wanted at the expense of the child’s needs became a way of life.

To sum up - both narcissists and people pleasers sacrificed some element of themselves which puts them on the same coin as having a lost sense of self. The reason why they are on different sides of the same coin is because of how they approached the problem.

Narcissists became about controlling their environment through domination and the people pleaser became about controlling their environment through by sacrificing themselves to obtain that security and control within their environment by becoming indispensable to their mate. So, one seeks safety and control through domination and the other through people pleasing and manipulation.

Both groups are inherently broken but the people pleasing group can adjust their behaviors through self-awareness and working on their sense of self. The other group needs therapy because part of their defenses is using cognitive distortions or self-deception to rewrite the narrative - so they don’t really have a good self-awareness when they so automatically rewrite history to remove shame from themselves. It’s subconscious often times so they need therapy to truly get better