Sam Vaknin’s Instagram Epigrams (archive only)
Narcissism with Vaknin on Instagram (active account)
Entitlement and a sense of victimhood inexorably lead to aggression (even violence) and to the exclusion of others. Nazism was a victimhood movement.
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To be seen is a prerequisite for mental health. If you are not seen, you are bound to develop mental illness. If you are addicted to being noticed, you have already developed a mental health pathology.
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The meaning of the word
“narcissism” has been devalued, misconstrued, manipulated,
and mutilated. Misinformation is the norm.
Interview with Trisha Goddard of TalkTV. Btw, I
granted the interview from Macedonia, not from Israel. The full interview is
available on my YouTube channel (search for “TalkTV”).
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Paranoid
ideation has two components:
1. Self-punitive (“I am a bad person, I did
something wrong, I deserve to be punished”); and
2. Grandiosity (“I am so important that I have become the
potential or actual victim of malign intentions and malevolent conspiracies”).
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Deprogram
the Narcissist in Your Mind.
Translation courtesy of @maria_larios78
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Narcissists
are infuriated when they are finally made to pay for their
misbehavior, crimes, and abuse.
They deny everything, reframe their choices and
actions (“I had no choice”, “they made me do it”), and claim victimhood. They
are never to blame, always to be pitied.
They lash out at their “tormentors” and compound
their troubles by externalising aggression and acting out.
Nothing more pathetic and revolting than a covert narcissist claiming the high moral ground or an overt narcissist claiming victimhood.
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Capitalism is founded on the outlandish maxim that altruism is the sum total of selfish acts.
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Psychopaths are enamored with having power over you, so they actually SEE you. As far as the narcissist is concerned, you exist only as an internal object in his mind.
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@mirna_liz37 ‘s haunting, eery, and heart-rending visualization of the void at the core of the narcissist, the child trapped in there, and the futility of attempting contact across this deep space.
Another heartbreaking and haunting chapter in the Baguette’s Life series by @mirna_liz37 . This time, she explores the introjects. With a palette of tenebrous, creeping despair and rending pity, she succeeds to capture the terror of nonbeing, the ghostly nuances and subtleties of the futility of an emptiness that seeks to become and interact with penumbral others - to no avail.
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Sunshine disinfects abuse. Throw open the blinds.
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How to figure out if someone is a real victim or a narcissist faking victimhood?
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I experience people as dim apparitions, inert characters in a boring novel or a tedious, overlong film – lifeless, except when they provide me with narcissistic or sadistic supply at which point they spring to life (like so many nutcrackers or gingerbread men) and become radiant, kinetic, idealized beings.
People pass through my perimeter, devoid of all significance, their limbs askew, their mouths gaping. They invariably exit stage left, never to be brought to mind.
Stuttering, then freezing frames in obsolete films or in burning celluloid photographs.
They cease to exist when they cease to give and I expect to be treated as transactionally.
Nostalgia for the period, for memories of abundant, high quality supply – never for people. I don’t miss anyone ever: they are mere sepia memories trapped in the amber of my mind.
The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas
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Definitions of terms used in this lecture at @35:56
Entraining, Hypnotist’s introject (hence posthypnotic suggestion).
Hypnosis as a shared fantasy with role-playing:
Outsourcing reality testing. Fitting into narrative (scripting) and affirming the delusions as realistic, acceding to goals. Suspension of disbelief/judgment of right and wrong (narcissist's introject). External regulation of moods and emotions, sense of self-worth, self-perception and self-image. Confusion of external and internal. Assigned role playing.
Symbiotic-infantile merger/fusion with secure base parental figure.
Self-states.
LITERATURE
Cleveland JM, Korman BM, Gold SN. Are hypnosis and dissociation related? New evidence for a connection. Int J Clin Exp Hypn. 2015;63(2):198-214. doi: 10.1080/00207144.2015.1002691. PMID: 25719522.
Hypnotic suggestibility in dissociative and related disorders: A meta-analysis, Lillian Wieder, Richard J. Brown, Trevor Thompson, Devin B. Terhune, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, Volume 139, August 2022, 104751
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Narcissists
are infuriated when they are finally made to pay for their
misbehavior, crimes, and abuse. They deny everything, reframe their choices and
actions (“I had no choice”, “they made me do it”), and claim victimhood (“I am
being punished for acting morally, for being boundaried, for exposing them”).
They are never to blame, always to be pitied. They
lash out at their “tormentors” and compound their troubles by externalising
aggression and acting out.
Narcissists get away with it all the time:
superficial charm, plausible deniability, exculpating narratives, inundation
with details, nitpicking and hairsplitting, mutilated language, flying monkeys,
delay tactics, intimidating aura, outlandish charges and counterclaims,
crazymaking and acting out.
Impunity and immunity are parts of grandiosity.
So, being exposed and penalized constitute narcissistic injury or mortification.
External vs. internal solution.
Nothing more pathetic and revolting than a covert
narcissist claiming the high moral ground or an overt narcissist claiming
victimhood.
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Borderline, narcissism and codependency involve a
fantasy defense. The codependent has a dual role as both parent and child,
reflecting her punitive inner parent and inner child.
The codependent’s inner parent feels betrayed when
the codependent falls in love. It pushes the codependent to punish her partner
as a loyalty test, to placate the implacable inner parent. Riven by guilt and
shame, the codependent then punishes herself as well. This is a borderline
dynamic.
Codependents and their intimate partners engage in
co-regulation (via symbiotic merger/fusion).
The codependent suffers from object inconstancy,
separation insecurity aka abandonment anxiety, and catastrophizing. She seeks
to attach to a secure base via people-pleasing, control from the bottom and
emotional blackmail (an external object), and aggression directed at an
internal object.
The codependent outsources her ego functions, such
as reality testing.
The codependent feels alive only when in a
relationship, she maintains a vicarious life. In solitude, she finds her
constricted life intolerable. She loves herself by proxy, through the gaze and
agency of her intimate partner.
Daria Zukowska's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl_hm5r5Osb818eIB5t7j-g
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Freud (starts 24:10) was the intellectual father of substance abuse and drug addiction. Holmes was their literary progenitor.
LITERATURE
WATCH Transient Narcissism Induced by Substances, Circumstances: Cocaine, Alcohol (Conf. Presentation) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pjx_w-qRauc
Freud, S. (1984). Über Coca. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment 1(3): 206–217. (Originally published in 1884.)
Gay, P. (1988). Freud: A Life for Our Time. New York: W. W. Norton.
Lebzeltern G. S. Freud und das Kokain [Sigmund Freud and cocaine]. Wien Klin Wochenschr. 1983 Nov 11;95(21):765-9. German. PMID: 6369804.
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The False Self usurps the very being of the narcissist.
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Narcissists are children, so treat them as such!
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Introjects are amalgams of representation of external object, affects,
memories, and cognitions combined with a representation of the self.
Creating internal objects is a primitive way to
reduce anxiety (anxiolytic). The narcissist creates anxiety and triggers
introjection in his victims.
Early childhood introjects are confused with the
authentic self. Later life introjects are not.
Most introjects are aggressive and sadistic.
Narcissist’s introject is no exception.
Introjects are not the small people in the TV
(photoshopping).
The voices are not merely recordings of the
originals replayed.
Introjects are created instantly (snapshotting)
and are not a function of the length of exposure to the originals but of their
significance and function (e.g. infant-mother, narcissist-others).
We are born with capacity to introject but with no
introjects.
Empathy is a form of introjection-identification.
But, it is instinctual and, therefore, a threat to the ego and split it off.
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In the process of Snapshotting (introjection), the narcissist converts you into an internal object and proceeds to interact with it in his/her mind. This helps the narcissist allay his/her abandonment anxiety (separation insecurity). Introject constancy compensates for object inconstancy (compensatory introject inconstancy).
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Borderline Personality Disorder
Identity disturbance (unstable identity, fragile sense of
self)
Emptiness, false self, fantasy defense
External regulation
Impaired reality testing (e.g., paranoia,
overestimation of intimacy like in HPD), psychotic microepisodes
Self-harm, suicidal ideation, self-destructive
cognitions and actions: self-punitive, silence internal turmoil, call for help,
feeling alive (dead inside)
Recklessness, impulsivity, secondary psychopathy
Emotional volatility, affective lability,
emotional dysregulation (DBT): anger, reactive mood shifts and changes
Intense interpersonal relationships involve
idealization-devaluation (relational disorder)
Twin anxieties:
abandonment/rejection-engulfment/intimacy, approach-avoidance repetition
compulsion
The role of psychological defense mechanisms in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).
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The three worst ideas ever:
Everyone should have …
The right to free speech;
The right to a vote;
The right to own and use mass communication
technologies.
Rights - like respect and trust - have to be
earned.
The illiterate, the dumb, the insane, the
criminal, and the penniless (who have nothing to lose and no skin in the game)
should have none of the above three rights.
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Narcissist’s
inner child is not his/her true self: it is a compendium of
needs, especially the need to find a substitute mother and the need to separate
and individuate.
IDEALIZATION in shared fantasy
She is ... GOOD MOTHER (breast)
Perfect, ideal, all good
Secure base: safe, trustworthy, reliable,
resilient, responsive
Loves unconditionally: forgiving, accepting,
authentic, rewarding
Power couple
DEVALUATION in shared fantasy
She is ... BAD MOMMY (breast)
Imperfect, all bad, persecutory
Unsafe, untrustworthy, unreliable,
fragile/weak/vulnerable
Manipulative, transactional, fake, denying,
rejecting, frustrating
Traitor, envious, passive-aggressive
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When you grow old
Your fingerprints
Start fading.
The lines and whorls
That make up
Your identity
Break down
Disjointed.
You are rendered
Hard to tell,
To capture.
Safer to commit crimes
With gloves off.
Or just to touch
Someone
Post mortem
With your blurring
Fingertips.
Poetry of Healing and Abuse by Sam Vaknin http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/contents.html
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The availability of multiple options (choice) creates anxiety and people hate it.
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Intermittent
reinforcement creates trauma bonding, a form of self-harm.
Meme courtesy of @mirna_liz37 creator of Baguette’s Life.
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People seek self-improvement for a goal: more money, sex, power, friends or a happier, more resilient relationship or children. This is a wrong, self-defeating orientation.
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This article was published 25 years ago, long before the vast majority of people have even heard of narcissism and 5 years after I started my pioneering online educational work on Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).
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Every
generation has its pathologies and the leaders that resonate with them. We have transitioned from the Age of Psychosis (religion) to
the Age of Fantasy (narcissism). Now, we are on our way to the Age of Delusion.
I misspoke in 2:30. It should be HYPERREFLEXIVITY.
Too many simultaneous thoughts! Apologies.
Adriana Ferreiro https://adrianaferreiro.com/
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I don’t care what happens after I die. I will not
be present in my own death. It is my life that I am concerned with: the
pleasure it affords and the risks it poses.
I deserve and demand credit for my work as long as
I am alive because I expect to be respected and because plagiarism is theft.
But post-mortem legacy is for suckers. It is a narrative intended to facilitate
social control.
Why would I care about what people have to say
about me after I have died and have become worm menu? It is the height of
nonsensical irrationality!
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Black hole in autistic children first suggest by Frances Tustin in 1972.
Metaphors of narcissisms and borderline personalities: rot, vampire, virus, cancer, black hole, quantum objects (uncertainty and information)
Bad memories are the tuition fee we pay in order to learn from our mistakes and grow. Narcissists and borderlines are dissociative: they have vast memory gaps and are, therefore, incapable of growth and learning.
Quick scramblers
LITERATURE
WATCH Why the Emptiness in Borderlines, Narcissists? (Introjection Failure and Compulsive Introjection) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuLf1gvOLq8
WATCH Haunted Minds of Narcissist, Borderline: Schizoid Empty Core https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHfYPEf_8ZM
WATCH No Identity Without Memory (Lecture for Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1TudmLThyA
Black holes scramble information – but may not be the best at it, New Scientist, https://www.newscientist.com/article/2429489-black-holes-scramble-information-but-may-not-be-the-best-at-it/
The ‘black hole’: a significant element in autism, Frances Tustin, (1988).Free Associations,1L(11):35-50
Eshel O. 'Black holes', deadness and existing analytically. Int J Psychoanal. 1998 Dec;79 ( Pt 6):1115-30. PMID: 10036623.
Clark, G. "A black hole in psyche." Harvest 29 (1983): 67-80.
The “Black Hole” as the Basic Psychotic Experience: Some Newer Psychoanalytic and Neuroscience Perspectives on Psychosis, James S. Grotstein, Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis Vol. 18, No. 1, March 1990
https://doi.org/10.1521/jaap.1.1990.18.1.29
'Black holes': escaping the void, Sharn Waldron 1 J Anal Psychol, . 2013 Feb;58(1):99-117. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-5922.2013.02019.x.
Pecotic, B. (2002). The “black hole” in the inner universe. Journal of Child Psychotherapy, 28(1), 41–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/00754170110116736
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Introjects are amalgams of representations of external object, affects,
memories, and cognitions combined with a representation of the self.
Creating internal objects is a primitive way to
reduce anxiety (anxiolytic). The narcissist creates anxiety and triggers
introjection in his victims.
Early childhood introjects are confused with the
authentic self. Later life introjects are not.
Most introjects are aggressive and sadistic.
Narcissist’s introject is no exception.
Introjects are not the small people in the TV
(photoshopping).
The voices are not merely recordings of the
originals replayed.
Introjects are created instantly (snapshotting)
and are not a function of the length of exposure to the originals but of their
significance and function (e.g. infant-mother, narcissist-others).
We are born with capacity to introject but with no
introjects.
Empathy is a form of introjection-identification.
But, it is instinctual and, therefore, a threat to the ego and split it off.
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The 2024 presidential elections
in the USA are going to be the last free and fair ones.
Even if Trump were to lose the popular vote (the way he did to Hillary
Clinton), his armed militias will take to the streets and to the Congress and
this time, the insurrectionists will make sure they successfully “obstruct
official proceedings”. Blood will be spilled.
Never mind who wins the elections, Trump would end
up in the White House. There is no force left that can or dares oppose him.
About half the electorate – the Republicans - do
not regard such an outcome with dread. They perceive democracy as a ruse of the
progressive-liberal coastal elites and the Democratic Party as a bunch of
authoritarian, godless traitors.
The gulf between the two camps is unbridgeable as
they fiercely and violently differ on all issues, from family values to
immigration and from the role of the Federal Government to America’s place in a
globalizing world.
A one-party alternative – with the Democrats gone
and their leaders incarcerated - seems very appealing now. Hence the ubiquitous
popularity of the likes of Orban, Netanyahu, and Putin, role models among the
rank and file as well as the leadership of the GOP.
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I
experience people as dim apparitions, inert
characters in a boring novel or a tedious, overlong film – lifeless, except
when they provide me with narcissistic or sadistic supply at which point they
spring to life (like so many nutcrackers or gingerbread men) and become
radiant, kinetic, idealized beings.
People pass through my perimeter, devoid of all
significance, their limbs askew, their mouths gaping. They invariably exit
stage left, never to be brought to mind.
Stuttering, then freezing frames in obsolete films
or in burning celluloid photographs.
They cease to exist when they cease to give and I
expect to be treated as transactionally.
Nostalgia for the period, for memories of
abundant, high quality supply – never for people. I don’t miss anyone ever:
they are mere sepia memories trapped in the amber of my mind.
The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Dylan
Thomas
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When you possess rights, they impose obligations on others - as well as on you!
If you insist on having rights that translate only
to other people’s duties - this is narcissistic entitlement.
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The state, the tidal wave of narcissism, and duplicitous and craven public intellectuals all but dispensed with private empathy. Case study of Macedonia. Empathy is big business and cowardly, unscrupulous public "intellectuals" are cashing in on it.
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In conditions of extreme stress, psychotic microepisodes
cause hallucinations.
Co-idealization and co-devaluation lead to
regression (sensory misattribution in infancy).
Synesthesia across the divide between external and
internal (external stimuli trigger internal ones).
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A @shadowdeangelis 90 second capsule that sums up perfectly the most foundational insight in pathological narcissism: the narcissist is not wearing a mask - the narcissist IS the mask and nothing but the mask.
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The USA is declining and decomposing and the Republican party have zoomed in on the sole agents and catalysts of these alarming processes: the Democrats and their democracy. The GOP also brandish a prescription for healing: the 2nd American Revolution.
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The quack and charlatan of today are the professors of tomorrow.
Dr. Bell, a professor of medicine in Edinburgh,
taught Arthur Conan Doyle and served as the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes.
The movie is “The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes (Murder Rooms)”.
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Baguette’s accurate views on narcissism never cease to amaze me! Courtesy of @mirna_liz37
Meet Pirouette, Baguette’s borderline approach-avoidant girlfriend. From the “Baguette’s Life” series by
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Dementia
Simultaneous impairment of various mental
faculties, especially the intellect, memory, judgment, abstract thinking, and
impulse control due to brain damage, usually as an outcome of organic illness.
Dementia ultimately leads to the transformation of the patient’s whole
personality. Dementia does not involve clouding and can have acute or slow
(insidious) onset. Some dementia states are reversible.
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3 Types of Malignant Narcissist
LITERATURE
WATCH Malignant Covert Narcissist Becomes Primary Psychopath to Compensate for Collapse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlaDDwzJG-E
Otto F. Kernberg (2020) Malignant Narcissism and Large Group Regression, The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 89:1, 1-24, January 2020
DOI: 10.1080/00332828.2020.1685342 ( https://doi.org/10.1080/00332828.2020.1685342 )
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The three epochs in the history of the modern pseudo-science of psychology: 1. The lab study of the dead brain in its correlation with live behaviors; 2. Theorizing about the mind: its structure and functioning; 3. The study of observable phenomena in populations or cohorts, using statistics.
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Jung's collective unconscious, Zizek and Lacan, Narcissism Reconceived, Jews and victimhood, Gaza and Israel, Antisemitism.
Matthew Biberman, Director of the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture, Professor of English, University of Louisville
https://louisville.edu/english/people/current-faculty-new/s-matthew-biberman
The LCLC PODCAST: https://soundcloud.com/lclcoralhistory
https://www.thelouisvilleconference.com/
Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture
https://louisville.edu/artsandsciences/conferences/lclc
and the call for papers is there.
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/@universityoflouisvilleengl5660/playlists
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There is no memory without emotions, no identify without memories, and no attachment without an identity.
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I am one hot narcissist! 40 celsius here (105 Fahrenheit). A globe in heat. Scroll left.
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Listen to my BBC World Service/PBS/NPR
Interview (starts 14:21):
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w172zb8ynfjzwxy
Active links available here:
https://samvak.tripod.com/mediakit.html
Type the links into the address bar of your
browser.
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The Wunderkind narcissist refuses to grow up and become a full-fledged adult. Why is
that?
Meme courtesy of @mirna_liz37