CZBZ said:
As long as we feel unsafe, we are not healing.
What a bizarre thing to say…especially as when we feel safe among people who seek to prey on us were are any combination of:
a) Defective in our reality testing
b) Psychotic
c) On our knees begging to get harmed again.
“Healing” is about learning to feel safe among the good healthy people, threatened among the predators and screwballs, and having the insight to know the difference.
GD
Dear Blitzen/Gaye,
I never heard anything about a man being stabbed on the street. And I don’t necessarily want to hear your sad/not so sad/debilitating/not so debilitating story. That is not what I meant by telling “your story”. I just started this forum for my own personal reason. What I was reading was strange to say the least, for a forum. It doesn’t matter your story, really. My point is, I don’t think you belong on this forum. I don’t get your drift. I really don’t. What are YOU looking for? You are a very angry person, and you are knowledgeable, but you talk “text book” stuff. I, and maybe you have shared it with others, have no idea why you are here, why you sought out this place; that is all I meant.
I don’t have to decipher pathological narcissism, I lived it and now I have moved on. I also don’t have to communicate with you any longer. I have chosen to move on to what I came here for. If you find some pertinent information that I can find useful, I will surely listen, other than that, good luck with your quest.
mariel lee,
You never “heard” because you did not read the posts.
Careplace is a public forum. It set membership to this specific forum as “Open to all members” of Careplace. The topic is Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Nothing restricts membership to those who have self diagnosed people they were or are in a relationship with to be NPD. Nothing restricts membership to those who have self proclaimed themselves to be victims, despite the desires of some as has been expressed, who would rather control and limit discussion to their narrow perspectives of related issues.
Nothing restricts the topics of discussion. Challenges to misuse and abuse of the term NPD are certainly more appropriate on this board than the misuse and abuse of the term are, and people claiming to have lived with NPD when in fact, that may very well not be the case.
I actually have only seen two people post who did have professional formal diagnosis of NPD, both cases related to TBI. One was just last week. Even mamolie herself responded she wanted no discussion of brain disorders causing NPD on this forum. It could be noted that in her case, she and her husband went to a number of therapists and he never was given the diagnosis of NPD, that is her diagnosis of him.
Maybe a month or so ago, a member who was himself NPD, posted that he was withdrawing participation on this forum due to the same narrow focus and limited perspectives, and the increasing line of conversations directed towards persecuting those with NPD for their being abusers, vampires, evil, etc.
There may be strength in numbers, but that does not make the mob right.
Phoenix and CZBZ:
I wonder what you think (if you ever bother to think about it, and I doubt if you do) it does to real victims of abuse to be constantly bullied and played on by people like you?
GD
Phoenix (real victim of abuse looking toward real bully’s direction) : I dont know B-Unit why dont you ask me and I’ll tell you?
Mariel lee,
The posters just before me are only here and their only agenda is to interact with Sam V. They want to discredit him, and anyone who is involved with him, no matter how slight. We are merely bit actors in their play.
I have never seen a forum with such language and insults (and I’ve been on a lot of forums), even Invicta herself, oh excuse me, Blitzen herself on her own forum was not this degrading of people around her. She has found a new low.
We CAN talk around them, but they take up so much space. Is there a limit on space here? Or can we just tread lightly around them and let them misconstrue everything that is said?
Take care.
wahela
"So I take it you will stop doing that in future? Good."
LOL...don't worry though! I have so many things to do with my time that 'discernment' might be appropriate at this point.
"Meanwhile, if you don't mind, we will continue to try and discuss Narcissistic personality disorder in the terms in which the medical and academic community defined it."
Okie-dokie. I'll look forward to learning more about the NPD then!
CZ
Wahela said:
The posters just before me are only here and their only agenda is to interact with Sam V. They want to discredit him, and anyone who is involved with him, no matter how slight. We are merely bit actors in their play.
Well all I can say, is that I hope, for your sak, that is just regular defamation, with no element of projection in it because I think he is GONE now.
BTW…I think you know perfectly well I am not INVICTA and may not realise quite how silly you are making yourself look by pretending otherwise?
GD
"I have never seen a forum with such language and insults " ~Wahela
Nor have I...unless I was reading one of those teen-ager sites trying to prove who could be the TopDog-of-the-Day through insult and bully tactics. Seriously...this place is not healthy for healing.
It might be useful for sharing clinical information about the NPD and arguing with how the criteria ought better be defined.
Maybe clarifying the purpose of the NPD CarePlace forum would help everyone??
What is the intent here? And I might also ask: WHO is the founder/manager of this website?
CZBZ
CZBZ said:
Nor have I…unless I was reading one of those teen-ager sites trying to prove who could be the TopDog-of-the-Day through insult and bully tactics. Seriously…this place is not healthy for healing.
So I take it you will stop doing that in future? Good.
What is the intent here? And I might also ask: WHO is the founder/manager of this website?
Now THERE is a question.
Meanwhile, if you don’t mind, we will continue to try and discuss Narcissistic personality disorder in the terms in which the medical and academic community defined it.
GD
And far better links:
GD
You are a very angry person, and you are knowledgeable, but you talk “text
book” stuff.
Sam:
Insane she is - but knowledgeable???
She has no idea what she is talking about. She spouts nonsense by the metric
tonne. She copy-pastes texts she finds here and there.
Ask CZBZ how Gaye Dalton self-importantly informed her that there is no such
thing as a psychopathic narcissist (of course there is - it is narcissism
101).
Gaye Dalton PRETENDS that she knows - but she knows close to zilch.
Read this about the Narcissist as Know-it-all
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/narcissisticabuse/message/4945
Sam
Here is the entire “google scholar” search for “psychopathic narcissist” -vaknin (and dial in users, don’t worry, because, heaven knows, IT DOES NOT TAKE LONG TO LOAD :o) )
And a little piece of my own “ignorance” inspired by Sam Vaknin in late 2000:
The Socialized Psychopath is perhaps the most quietly terrifying creature on earth. Often seen as a charming Ted Bundy who aspires, and studies, to sit, ultimately, on the Judicial Bench while conducting a one man holocaust in his leisure time.
The greater reality of the Socialized Psychopath is far subtler than that. Every so often a voice is raised to put forward the hypothesis that most, if not all of our national leaders and captains of industry are, in reality, Socialized Psychopaths. In real terms this is unlikely to be the case.
No matter how cold blooded, ruthless and intelligent, the Socialized Psychopath simply screws up far too often to achieve true greatness. A lack of empathy disables more than kindness, and he has has too many intuitive blind spots. Apart from which the Psychopath lacks “emotional intelligence” he is too easily sidetracked by the pursuit of instant gratification. He lacks the determination and drive that produces sustained effort. He greatest and most pressing need is to avoid boredom, so that perhaps unconsciously he orchestrates his own obstacles and crises.
Regardless, forever handicapped by his blindness to the deeper meanings and motives of others, the Socialized Psychopath is usually driven to seek or create an environment that is under his control. The more totalitarian the control, the more comfortable he is.
Though on a far smaller scale than the nightmare scenario of a world under covert, totalitarian, psychopathic control, the microcosmic controlled environment of the Socialized Psychopath can become a devastating organism with far reaching effects.
In one of it’s worst form the Controlled Environment takes on many of the characteristics of a cult.
Generally even a Psychopath of quite average intelligence has the ability to home in on the vulnerabilities of an individual or group that appears almost supernatural. It isn’t. It is rather focus without empathetic distraction. Once having established those vulnerabilities he exploits them. At first there is no specific agenda beyond usurping existing control mechanisms, rather as you would rock an heavy object to destabilize it before attempting to push it.
He will spot anxieties and covertly maximize them. For instance if there is a local burglary he might show every sympathy for even the most neurotic fear of recurrence while amplifying it and insuring it becomes contagious. He will pinpoint and utilize the dysfunctional and morally flexible as “adjutants” in his endeavor to impose control, playing their fears and inadequacies towards his own agenda, almost always at one remove.
A Socialized Psychopath is very hard to oppose. Those strong and healthy enough to oppose him for the right reasons, are hopelessly handicapped by their own morality. The Psychopath is completely unconcerned by the damage his actions may do to others even quite incidentally, more than unconcerned, he is oblivious. Healthy people are as concerned with the secondary effects of their actions on others as they are with the primary effects. Healthy people are intrinsically incapable of being sufficiently unscrupulous to “beat him at his own game” which often uses other people as weapons or threats. As Psychopath sees taking an innocent hostage (in whatever sense) as either an expedient move, or not. Other people would find the notion of taking an innocent hostage somewhere between “only in extremis” and abhorrent. Even if they could overcome that the Psychopath would remain unmoved and immune.
On the other hand, there are those who would oppose him for the wrong reasons. Perhaps because he is threatening their own aspirations to abusive control. Those he can often find a way to “buy”, not with money, but by furnishing their needs, and ultimately gaining control of them by rendering them dependent upon him.
The reality is that once a Socialized Psychopath builds his Controlled Environment within a community it can become impossible to challenge until the Psychopath either trips himself up or becomes bored and moves on.
As for the ongoing devastation. Imagine real people being used and abused, without conscience, as though they were no more than toy soldiers, to accord with the whims of one person.
On one dramatic occasion 600 or so “toy soldiers” had kool-aid laced with cyanide, instead of lunch, in a remote camp in Guyana. That, of course is extreme. More usually the Controlled Environment of the Psychopath is an hermetically sealed world where the guilty and abusive are supported and upheld, while the innocent and victims are blamed and condemned. Not as a crisis, but as an whole way of life to which the community becomes anaesthetized and inured, regarding it as “normal”, even blindly defending it against their own obvious best interests.
GD
I didn’t say she/he was brilliant. I said she was knowledgeable. You claim she quotes things from books or photo-copies. She/he is taking in that information. Is it correct information? Is it out-dated information? Personally, I feel (intuition) that Blitzen/Gaye/? is narcissistic and is trying to mess with some heads. I feel very bad for those people who come to this forum looking for support and unfortunately have to deal with this back and forth debate.
Sam Vaknin, I even wondered if Blitzen could be you in disguise.
I find that instead of this being a support group, it’s a game of mental ambush. If this continues, I am going to get very bored and go back to what I do best–live life to the fullest; let’s not lose sight of the importance of why we are here, and why healing is so important.
The key is getting reacquainted with ourselves. Has anyone here heard of EMDR?
Mariel Lee
CZ wrote: Seriously...this place is not healthy for healing.
No it isnt is it? I had hope in ignoring the garbage we could pretend it doesnt stink around here, but this isnt healing. It is probably a very close and persistent recreation of the very abusive relationships we just left. And for anyone who is a N who comes here to find support its merely more example of behaviour that causaes them the most grief in their lives anyway.
I feel sad that this place doesnt look like it can be saved. I've been on the newer forum that was set up as relief to this one and its like day versus night. I am not q uitter, I hate giving up, and I've committed myself to staying on until a certain date arrives, but I'm losing faith that anything constructive or supportive can take place when there is such toxicity.
Its one thing to disagree and debate theory. A whole other to attack survivors of abuse in order to force an opinion down their throats. And I hate the idea of any survivor of anything painful having to be forcefed anything when all they really need for awhile is a sanctuary from the storm. Its awful to be a person with heart, consistently attacked by the heartless.
She is NOT knowledgeable. She spout nonsense. She PRETENDS to know.
I am most definitely not “Gaye Dalton” (if that’s even her real name).
She has been stalking me - and many others - for years.
You are right that she is here to play cruel mind games and revictimize
people. I warned everyone against her on day 1.
'Nuff said.
Sam
----- Original Message -----
From: “mariel lee” npd-cpt3474@lists.careplace.com
To: palma@unet.com.mk
Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 9:44 PM
Subject: Re: [npd] I would like a concise but detailed description of the…
Mariel
I’m not trained in it but a therapist who got her Phd in it did some work with me using it. I liked what I saw and would recommend anyone who thinsk theyd like to try, to indeed give it a whirl.
Sam,
Why have you consistently spent 9 years publicly misrepresenting people you know to be, predatory, unscrupulous and manifest all the attributes that YOU call “Malignant Narcissism” as providing valid sources of support and healing?
GD
"And I hate the idea of any survivor of anything painful having to be forcefed anything when all they really need for awhile is a sanctuary from the storm. Its awful to be a person with heart, consistently attacked by the heartless." ~Phoenix
Yes. It is. The only way to heal is to break through defenses protecting us from threat. As long as we feel unsafe, we are not healing. Period. We can study books all day or google through the nite; but the first step towards self-reclamation is SAFETY. Sanctuary. Connection. Validation. Being able to trust other people to hear us with their hearts.
HOW people choose to heal is up to them. IF they want professional counseling, then a support forum can serve as an adjunct to that. But for me at least, it's none of my business which path someone chooses nor do I ask them to tell me all their innermost secrets before I deem them worthy of my empathy and support.
Keeping some things to ourselves is another aspect of healing unhealthy boundaries.
And personally? I have a library of books about Narcissism that have been written by respected psychologists. None of them views the NPD in exactly the same manner. Learning about NPD by listening to people's stories teaches us HOW the NPD impacts people's lives, including the Narcissist.
And one bit of resentment I'm feeling right now is this: Assuming all of us are trying to demonize and blame the Narcissist is an inaccurate judgment! We are most generally, trying to understand even more deeply than we could otherwise.
Rather than label the X-husbaNd as a BAD/SINFUL/JERK-OFF, I have been offered the gift of understanding through my hard work studying personality disorders.
I felt he and I both deserved that much considering how many years we tried to work with his narcissism and failed.
CZBZ
"What a bizarre thing to say" ~Blitzen
Bizarre to anyone who has not worked through the healing process, perhaps.
Listen, GD, are you truly going to argue with me about the Healing Process when I have been actively involved on a daily basis, helping people recover from the N-relationship? People whom I've maintained relationship with for five years now?
I have based a great deal of my understanding about creating a healing Forum on the work of Judith Herman. Go google her name this afternoon. And yes, there's a great deal of criticism surrounding her work. Don't post me any URL's to psychological criticism of Judith Herman. I've likely read them already.
I'm also very interested in current methodologies helping people heal from trauma. It's my experience that most of us have experienced trauma to some degree and the first step towards healthy healing is SAFETY.
CZBZ