The Importance Of External Validation For Narcissists.

External validation is what keeps the narcissist alive.

Their false self, that is.

Without it, their alter ego gets no confirmation of their existence or worth.

Narcissists only know who, or even IF, they are, by other people acknowledging them.

They use people as a mirror to reflect back at them, what they are.

Narcissists suffer from NPD, which entails:

• They go through life, using a false self. An outer shell that's everything the narcissists real self, is not.
• Due to living with an exterior only, they have no sense of worth, no self-esteem and no sense of self, they don't know who they are.
• Because they can't do it themselves, they're constantly assessing people’s reactions and opinions of them, to get a sense of who they are and what they're worth.

So they have to use external sources to regulate their self-esteem.

Without external validation, their NPD wouldn’t be able to function.

The narcissist wouldn’t know who they are, have zero self-worth and zero value.

NPD runs on the validation of others.

It protects the narcissist from their shame and their subsequent feelings of worthlessness and inferiority, by the validation (supply) the narcissist obtains from external sources.

Without external validation the narcissist can’t exist.

The narcissist would lose the barrier that protects them from the shame they’re avoiding, every minute of the day.

Which would lead to a confrontation with that shame,

And, in all probability, cause a narcissistic collapse.