Our partner

Info on Sam Vaknin

Narcissistic Personality Disorder message board, open discussion, and online support group.

Re: Info on Sam Vaknin

Postby wooster » Thu Jun 17, 2010 11:59 pm

sum1 wrote:
Johannes? My best guess is that you're German or Swedish. How close did I get?


^ eh I was trying to crack one of my inane jokes upthread (just got a bit frustrated at the time by the booklists / music-threads here & stuff, that's all...) Johannes is not me but young Kreisler (the kappellmeister in Hoffmann's book 'Tomcat Murr' - although I'm toying with the idea of having him as a 'doppel', now that I lurk around much on the DID forum (somehow I got this fixa idea that my life would improve tremendously if only I could pull out of the hat my old bunch of childhood 'headmates').

Neither Swedish, nor German: nowadays Irish since long (but one can't fool the Irish, they mostly presume I'm French or Flemish - or sometimes Icelandic). In fact I hail from a communism-plagued (but fairly pretty) Central-European wasteland (Pannonia Superior) - that fact alone saddles you with a nice bunch of Axis II characteristics at a tender age. I was a fully fledged misanthrope as far as I can recall, way before primary-school age. (The People's Enemy, yours truly! :mrgreen: ) < While at it, initially it was Vaknin's CER reviews what convinced me of his brilliance, so I've cast aside the Narc. book for good, half-read, for the better fish. Then found his other stuffs, kept me reading for weeks (pity my pea-sized brain can take only thismuch - it's like a black hole...) Sod the 'credentials', some select few come von haus aus without the need of having to rely on 'credentials'. Yup, life is that "unfair". (or I'd rather call his case one the few instances when it's thoroughly "fair".)
Let me add that his (half-read) Narc. book helped me an awful lot indeed. (savoir c'est pouvoir, heh!! :wink: I'm quite back on track now.)

~ johannes

sum1 wrote:How do you feel about this one?

Secret Source wrote:Even though others may point the way, everyone must fight his
own battles. To each of us the world may appear as we shape it
for ourselves - a thought poetically expressed by the composer
Wagner, who said: "the world exists only in our heart and
conception". This shaping, if done by weakly hands or influenced
by a troubled brain, may not always prove symmetrical.
A sensitive imagination, sharply attuned, jars discordantly amidst
inharmonious surroundings, which will be all the more harshly
apparent if made possible through a known impotence.


What do you think, and where does it come from?

Like it!
Perhaps a tad too close for comfort...? :)
Where's it from? A bit like Proust ("What we call reality is a certain relationship between sensations and memories which surround us at the same time" :lol: ).

~ Wooster

Hey - I DO like your posts a LOT. Let's say, the most. Seriously. I'm green with envy for anyone with a decent rein of the language (any language).
sum1 wrote:Regarding my writing, I really have little understanding of how it comes across to the reader. If my style seems unusual it may be explained in part by the fact that English is not my native language, and by my somewhat unusual reading and listening habits. E.g. I read mostly scientific articles and abstracts, encyclopaedia entries, and factual or theoretical texts relating to topics of interest to me. Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series is one of the few examples of fiction I read. I very rarely watch TV or read regular newspapers or magazines, and when I do so, I usually read in Swedish. Therefore, I lack familiarity with street slang (except some drug-related terms) and other commonplace forms of English which come natural to native speakers. Occasionally, in my pursuit of accuracy and variation in my writing, I use thesauruses.



(^ Am much like that m'self (apart from the Swedish part, obviously).

Except that I usually cannot quite comprehend with whatever I happen to read :shock: (or I just lose interest), being somewhat an airhead. I'm hideously uneducated. :D All style, no substance.)

~ Friderika
Last edited by wooster on Fri Jun 18, 2010 10:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
wooster
Consumer 6
Consumer 6
 
Posts: 11798
Joined: Sun May 09, 2010 12:00 pm
Local time: Thu Jul 10, 2025 8:12 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)


ADVERTISEMENT

Re: Info on Sam Vaknin

Postby wooster » Fri Jun 18, 2010 1:19 am

Happy Bloom's Day y'all!
(Oh well, it's 2 days past now..)

~ estragon
User avatar
wooster
Consumer 6
Consumer 6
 
Posts: 11798
Joined: Sun May 09, 2010 12:00 pm
Local time: Thu Jul 10, 2025 8:12 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Info on Sam Vaknin

Postby sum1 » Sun Jun 20, 2010 1:24 pm

Apologies in advance for not proof-reading this, and sending it somewhat unfinished.

wooster wrote:
sum1 wrote:
Johannes? My best guess is that you're German or Swedish. How close did I get?


^ eh I was trying to crack one of my inane jokes upthread


Upthread? Excellent word; I need to remember that, since it''s very useful. I would have said "previously", "before", "earlier", and the like, but "upthread" is really the most accurate. Indeed, it's more accurate than the cumbersome phrase "in a preceding message" and a great deal more concise. If nothing else, it's useful at least for variation. It's missing from the dictionary my browser uses to check spelling, so I had to add it manually. Somewhat irritatingly, I've had to add a great many words manually to this same word-list. It lacks even simple terms like "methylphenidate", "piperidine", "psychopharmacologically", "dopaminergically". "noradrenergically", and "serotonergically"! I had to add THREE words just to make the red underlining go away from under all of the quoted terms. Can you believe THAT? Have they never heard of the three major monoaminergic neurotransmitters? No, apparently NOT, lest I would not have had to add "monoaminergic" to rid the previous sentence of underlining.

Crack? That's a word I should use more often. It's more concise than "come up with" or "dream up". I'm not sure "coin" would work here - what do you think? "Invent" certainly sounds inappropriate given in this context. Other alternatives?

Also, I like "crack" for its associations to crack cocaine and to the cracking of passwords, copy protection schemes and the like. Cocaine has a special place in my heart (or mind), and I'll be revisiting it later in this message.

I'd like to take this moment to point out that your writing is, in fact, more illustrious than it seems at the first glance. That is why I'm making an effort to point out instances in which I feel you surpass me. For the same reason, I shall also attempt to call your attention to aspects that detract, or at least distract, from your grandiloquence. I like that last word, perhaps because it contains the part "grand", and perhaps also because of "Grandi", which is a very tasty fruit juice sold in the shops around here.

What detracts is "^ eh ". First, the caret is superfluous since you say "upthread", so it adversely impacts the magnificence of the impression you leave in people like me, for no reason whatsoever. If you wish to make things clearer, then I would strongly advise you to QUOTE the relevant parts to which you are referring - this is the gold standard, although it does make your posts look more lengthy, which people may perceive as daunting, causing them to skip ahead to the next post. The "eh" is somewhat questionable too. It makes you're style more conversational, and less magnanimous. I probably does attract a different subset of people, though.

wooster wrote:(just got a bit frustrated at the time by the booklists / music-threads here & stuff, that's all...)


The use of the and-sign (&) in place of the word "and" is quite clever, and I like to use it myself from time to time. However, it imparts a measure of sloppiness and nonchalance to the impressions you leave. I personally use it in some e-mail subject lines, and almost invariably when composing SMS mobile phone messages - if that's the correct term; I'm not much of a mobile phone aficionado, and have little command of the associated terminology.

wooster wrote:Johannes is not me but young Kreisler (the kappellmeister in Hoffmann's book 'Tomcat Murr' -


Here, you expose my ignorance.

I know of Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who first synthesised LSD (LSD-25, or Delysid), which he was also the first to test, both accidentally and intentionally. He wrote a book on it, entitled "LSD: My Problem Child", but I haven't read it, nor have I read "Tomcat Murr", which I presume he did NOT write. If I'm not mistaken, he also discovered the chemical identity of another psychedelic drug, which had long been used by a tribe of Indians. Hofmann visited the tribe, and they thanked him for providing them with some amount of the chemically refined drug, which they could use for their ceremonies at any time of the year, in contrast to the plant from which it was derived, which was only available during a limited season. I have no familiarity with LSD or other psychedelics, however. I might BECOME interested some day, as psychedelics hold some potential to help you think outside the box.

I think I also know of a Dustin Hoffmann, who is an American actor.

wooster wrote:although I'm toying with the idea of having him as a 'doppel',


Why not shorten it to Johann, as in J. Sebastian Bach, or the J. Strauss series? Johannes, reminds me of the Bible, and more specifically, what we in Swedish refer to as the Johannes evangelium, which is the Gospel of John. John is actually a rather cool name, and actually beats Johann for most practical purposes, although I would say Johann is the most grandiose. It funny how all the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew names of the Bible have all been transformed almost beyond recognition in English translations of the mythology. Johannes, Lukas, Markus, Mattheus have been changed into John, Luke, Mark, and Matthew. Strangely, they didn't change Jesus and Josef to Jesse and Joe, respectively, but they did change Christus or Christos to Christ, Maria to Mary, Petrus to Peter, Andreas to Andrew, etc. etc.

On the topic of Johannes and it's variations, in Swedish we spell Johann with one "n". There is a nice female form of the name, too, namely Johanna, which was the name of Hitler's maternal grandmother mother, Johanna Hiedler, and which is the name of a cousin of mine a few months younger than myself. Johanna is also the name of a particular woman who works at a local department store. She is of particular note, because I secretly have a bit of a crush on her. The only reason why I know her name is that the other girls have a habit of shouting her name out loud, because they need her help with the computers and various other matters. In plain text, Johanna is smarter than the rest. She has nice blond hair and blue eyes, but her most impressive features are her pretty face and her height... she's taller than me. If she has muscle, I don't know, but it's plausible, as she's somewhat overweight, and that's OK, because it doesn't show as a double-chin and she still has an hourglass figure. She probably knows she looks good, because she doesn't wear make up. Somewhat amazingly she doesn't have earrings or any other kind of jewellery, suggesting that she's not engaged or married. She doesn't smile for no reason, and she tends to have a bit of a poker face, and for this reason, her face is free from any noticeable wrinkles or other signs of ageing. Her attire is likewise low profile; like myself, she wears blue jeans and doesn't show cleavage (I'm not even capable, but she is). I wonder whether she's a narcissist or schizoid and thus lacking in empathy and emotionally blunted, but at least she's not as depressed as I am. So why have I not made any advances? Brainstorm, please?

Continuing on the Johannes theme, Giovanni is the Italian version of it, and i kind of like that, too. The feminine form, Giovanna, does not appear quite as good. As you may know, Don Giovanni is an opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Quoting Wikipedia:
Wikipedia article on Don Giovanni wrote:The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote a long essay in his book Enten – Eller (Either/Or) in which he argues, quoting Charles Gounod, that Mozart's Don Giovanni is “a work without blemish, of uninterrupted perfection.” The finale, in which Don Giovanni refuses to repent, has been a captivating philosophical and artistic topic for many writers including George Bernard Shaw, who in Man and Superman parodied the opera (with explicit mention of the Mozart score for the finale scene between the Commendatore and Don Giovanni).


Notice the parts I emphasised with boldface. Uninterrupted perfection? Wonderful! Refused to repent? Sounds like myself! Man and Superman? Like what I am, and what my subconscious insisted that I was until I shattered the delusions of grandeur? Is Don Giovanni like myself? I suppose I should read the rest of the Wikipedia article.

That concludes my ramblings on the topic of Johannes for this time, I hope.

wooster wrote:now


Wait... did you say wooster"? As in Bertie Wooster? The English gentleman who's rich enough to afford a clever and even more gentlemanly butler, namely Jeeves? He is one of the "idle rich", according to the Wikipedia article on "Bertie Wooster", much like I'm one of the "idle middle class", which is why I cannot afford a Jeeves. I've watched some of the TV series. While I like the style of the gentlemen a lot, there's not enough ACTION to sustain my interest. You probably know that Hugh Laurie, the actor known for his role as Dr. Gregory House in recent years, also played Bertie Wooster. It's only now that I recognise the likeness of the faces of the characters clearly, although I've watched all of the House, MD serious except parts of the most recent season. Do you like House? I do, but I probably would never have bothered with him unless I had heard of him on this very forum. I think that was what led me to read the Wikipedia article on "House, MD", which taught me several important facts about Dr. House; more specifically:
  • House is a pun on Homes, which is a pun on Holmes, or Sherlock Holmes to be specific. I love Sherlock Holmes.
  • House is an opioid addicts. I like opioids, although I've never been an addict.
  • House diagnoses is a consulting diagnostician, much like Holmes is a consulting detective.
  • House is unconventional, and pays attention to clues others overlook, eventually leading to the correct diagnosis. It's not unlike my own methods of diagnosis and scientific hypothesis and modelling, for example of neuroscience and psychopharmacology.
  • House lives alone, much like a schizoid like myself, although he's intended to be a psychopath. As Kane noted on this forum, House is a poor portrayal of a psychopath.
  • House would not have his leg amputated. Of course not; that's for normal people. It's better to die, or to live with pain and narcotic painkillers and limp around with a cane than to limp around with a pain-free artificial limb, which one has to keep track of and attach and detach from the body repeatedly. Most importantly, a prosthesis is less aesthetically pleasing.
  • House has a single friend, namely Dr. Wilson, who is an analogue of Dr. Watson - the companion of Holmes. I have approximately one friend, too.
  • House doesn't like speaking to patients, like a schizoid. He doesn't wear a white coat, because he doesn't want to be recognised as a doctor.
  • House lives at the address 221B, like Holmes. I live at 88, though.

However, some kind of impetus was still required to make me give up my regular reading, writing and disorganised researching, in favour of not only watching TV, but first downloading a lengthy TV series over the course of weeks. That final impetus was my temporary loss of access to the psychostimulants that make me think and which make me loquacious and reasonably speedy at typing. I was apathetic and lethargic, and the only kind thought I seemed capable of was suicidal ideation. To distract me from my preoccupation with death, I downloaded and watched all of House, MD. You know what? I don't regret it. I don't particularly regret anything, except going to the psychiatric hospital and almost be tortured to death slowly by means of boredom. I must remember to kill myself in time before I end up in a nursing home... a fate worse than death. My mother works in a nursing home. Two months at a boring hospital, as in my case, is bad enough, I can promise. The only relief from a nursing home is... Valhalla.

The so-called mental health professionals at the hospital mistook me for a schizophrenic even though I patiently (pun unintended, but welcome!) explained that my psychosis arose out of sleep deprivation secondary to months of excessive use of stimulants to stay up for two or three days with insufficient intervening sleep. They sent me home apathetic, lethargic and with death wishes. Wishfully, they imagined my symptoms would respond to high doses of the latest and most heavily marketed antipsychotics. More knowledgeable about clinical psychopharmacology than them, I knew that even a SSRI would have been better, and on one occasion, I took some sertraline (generic Zoloft) left over from previously failed attempts to treat depression. It relieved the suicidal ideation by making me apathetic and indifferent enough to lie in bed until hunger forced me to get up. Indifference reduced the allure of death to the same point of insignificance as life and everything in it. I didn't take a SSRI again. I decided to distract myself with House, MD instead.

I was trying to mitigate my agony with ephedrine. I managed to order acquire a supply of it by means of ordering a so-called weight loss product from the UK. It was delivered by registered mail so that I had to pick it up personally from the post office. This was significant, and may, possibly, have saved my life for some times. Who saved my life to this day? A sympathetic drug dealer, who did they job the mental health professionals neglected to do.

I contacted my old supplier of the powerful psychostimulants that made me sleep deprived and psychotic. He promptly dispatched a shipment of a product he orders directly from a chemical supplier in China. More potent and much longer-lasting than the methylphenidate (Ritalin, Concerta) the doctors refused to prescribe for fear of psychosis, and which is a controlled substance not readily available, the "research" chemical is perfectly legal to trade openly because it is not yet popular enough to have caught the attention of the establishment of zealous but thankfully incompetent fools who seek to ban everything of a chemical or herbal nature which really works, and who care little how much blood on they get on their hands, as long as they succeed in preventing a significant number of people from attaining better living through chemistry (BLTC). It' may seem to be mere Schadenfreude or malicious pleasure at first glance, but actually, their condition is that of pathological sadism. Fortunately, their amount of death and suffering they cause has hitherto been limited by their modest expertise, intellect, and capacity. Someone with my skills in their position would be capable of inflicting unprecedented damage onto society, because I know that methylphenidate and cocaine are just two examples of potent dopamine reuptake inhibitors. What I'm now using to write this is another example. At least hundreds, but more probably thousands of other alternative chemicals with the same mode of action exist. Each time the sadists ban a new drug, such as the cocaine-like stimulants of interest to me, the users interested in legal drugs available from professional chemical suppliers move on to a new research chemical that has usually only been tested on rodents before. Who cares about clinical trials when it's a matter getting high? THAT is a rhetorical question most users don't even THINK of asking, even for a moment. For a hedonist, having fun is THE meaning of life. Huge drug companies, like Pfizer and GlaxoSmitKline require millions, and indeed, billions of dollars to test and introduce a new drug onto the market of approved clinically available medications. Amateur hedonists require a few hundred dollars at most. In the good old days, chemists and pharmacists who had succeeded in synthesising a new chemical compound, or isolating one from a plant such as coca, first tested the substance on rodents, dogs, or cats. Then they tested it on themselves. If it seemed promising, they either used the substance in a patent medicine which they invented and marketed to the public, or they passed the new chemical on to friends, and to medical doctors. The doctors first tested the new drug on themselves, to see if the chemist's claims were true, or whether there were other notable effects. If all seemed well, and no-one seemed to die or become ill, the doctors proceeded to test the new drug on their patients. If the drug worked, they continued to use it extensively, and they published reports of their successes in medical journals, leading other medical practitioners to attempt to reproduce the claimed successes. Some chemists and doctors still work the same way, but they generally don't publish their results, for fear of condemnation. Drug companies and medicinal regulatory agencies are powerful and don't tolerate competition from little people, or grass-roots like patients, chemists and doctors. Hedonists, and the entrepreneurs that service them, however, dare to speak openly about the hedonic properties and other virtues of new substances. There are at least two major forums dedicated to the discussion of recreational drugs, including research chemicals. It was on one of these forums that I first learned about the drug I'm using now.

Sorry, I got carried away.

Anyway, the stimulant ordered didn't seem to arrive. I thought it had been lost, or that customs had somehow decided to confiscate it although it was legal. My supplier sent me another sample, which also failed to arrive. Unlike the so-called mental health professionals who thought I was schizophrenic, the drug dealer recognised the importance of the treating life-threatening depressive illness. He came up with the idea of making a trip across the border to dispatch the drug to me, making it a matter of domestic mail, and thus circumventing customs. However, I suspected that it was not the customs. I suspected the people even more incapable of keeping their hands and noses out of other people's business. I came up with the idea of dispatching the next shipment across the border as usual, but with the tiny modification of addressing it to a friends of mine instead of to myself. Accordingly, the dealer dispatched a small trial shipment of the drug to my friend's office located along the main street of my town. In connection to getting a haircut at a nearby salon, I dropped in to the office, and we chatted for a while. After some time, the friend noted that a letter had arrived for me,. I pocketed it, and later examined the contents at home. There was a document in Chinese. I e-mailed the dealer and described the contents. He replied, suggesting that if I looked again, I would also find a sample of the substance around which our interactions and business revolved. Indeed, it was true.

I used my digital scale to weight up a know amount of chemical which I dissolved in a know volume of distilled water. I administered the first dose for months by means of a graded pipette, with which I squirted a known quantity of drug into my nasal cavity, then tilting my head sideways and upside down to spread the solution over the intranasal mucous membranes for more efficient and rapid absorption. Onset is slow, rather than rapid as with cocaine or methylphenidate (eg. lines of coke or crushed Ritalin tablets). Therefore, there is a lack of the kind of highs of enthusiasm and hilarity reported by Sigmund Freud and other users of the latter two stimulants. On the other hand, this stimulant lasts much longer: from 12 hours or so with small doses, up to several days with large doses. The therapeutic index (safety margin) is excellent, and I've seen reports of people taking massive overdoses (hedonists; who else?) and living to brag about it, with prolonged wakefulness and paranoia as the only adverse effects. Overdoses of most antidepressants by similar orders of magnitude would cause rather unpleasant symptoms of overdose, or indeed, death in the case of the more toxic ones, such as the tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs), which are arrythmogenic - somewhat like cocaine, just more toxic.

What will my next drug of choice be after this supremely safe one gets too popular to remain legal? I am certain that the hedonists will have come up with a number of relatively safe, tried and trusted alternatives. Alas, they don't care to systematically record adverse effects, so it's possible for a drug that is toxic to a small minority of users to fall through the cracks of the safety net of hedonistic trials. While this is true of clinical trials as well, it is less likely than with hedonistic drug trials, not only because the hedonists are less systematic, but because they tend to neglect such things as regular tests of liver function, or regular ECGs. If a drug is hepatoxic enough to cause jaundice and liver failure, it's likely that even the hedonists would notice and report it, but it's very probable that they would miss trends hinting at the potential for serious liver toxicity They might even notice such a thing as marked QT-prolongation, but there would undoubtedly be a number of unreported deaths too. There little use in sacrificing oneself in the name of science, if science takes no note of one's sacrifices. An obvious problem is that no-one compiles all the reports of adverse effects into a single comprehensive database, as is done with clinical drug trials. Therefore, rare side effects easily escape one's notice. This was the case with myself and the popular stimulant MDPV (methylendioxypyrovalerone), for example, which seemed to be rather neurotoxic to me, but I fortunately I seemed to escape unscathed in the end. Really, it would be much easier if the just gave me the methylphenidate prescriptions I'm entitled to, if nothing else due to my status as a victim of treatment resistant depression and holder of an official diagnosis of severe ADHD-inattentive, from a leading expert on top of it.

Whoops! I wrote a lengthy piece on drugs, and on my suffering! How did that happen? Let see... Wooster -> Bertie Wooster -> Hugh Laurie -> House MD -> my suicidal ideation (reason for watching House) -> my hospital stay (reason for suicidal ideation) -> my psychosis (reason...) -> my sleep deprivation -> my drug use -> mental health professionals and their incompetence -> long exposition on drugs. That how Wooster turned into psychopharmacology.

Alas, I have to take a break here to prepare for the upcoming football match between Italy and New Zealand. Do you watch the FIFA 2010 World Cup? I do, but it's really the only thing on TV I've watched for months now.
sum1
Consumer 6
Consumer 6
 
Posts: 823
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 7:10 pm
Local time: Thu Jul 10, 2025 8:12 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Info on Sam Vaknin

Postby sum1 » Sun Jun 20, 2010 5:26 pm

I thought I was finished with my exposition on the topic of Johannes, but apparently not. Obviously it is a name that has possibly spawned more derivative names than any other name.

I totally forgot about the Spanish form of it, namely Juan. The current king of Spain is name Juan Carlos. Since Giovanni is also a form of Johannes, we can conclude that Don Juan equals Don Giovanni. I never considered that before, so it appears that I've reached a new breakthrough in thinking, prompted by your use of the name.

I also failed to mention that the German Hans is another form of Johannes. It may seem somewhat implausible at first glance, but it makes sense if you consider than Hans is derived from Hannes, which is quite obviously derived by removal of the prefix "Jo" from Johannes. "Hans och Greta" is the Swedish name of the popular fairy tale you may know as "Hansel and Gretel". Hans is also the first of my father names, as well as one of my middle names. It has been inherited for a few generation, so I'm the latest incarnation of this superior form of Johannes, and probably the last, as I don't like those noisy babies. Meanwhile, my brother's middle name is Johan, so he is a Johannes too. The first name of my current main friend is John, although he goes by his second name, which is not related to Johannes.

That's not all. According to one source, Evan, Ivan, Ian, Jan, Gianni, Jenkins, Jens, Joao, Jack, Jock, Johnny, Jon, Jean, Sean, Shawn, Shane, and Zane are all variations on the same theme, and then I've only listed the male names, and it's still not exhaustive, because I've left out all the variants I've already mentioned, and there were some more unusual forms in the list where picked most of these names from, which is itself hardly exhaustive either.

In other words, Jack the Ripper is a kind of Johannes.

So is Jack the Nipper - the naughty young star of the Commodore 64 (and Sinclair ZX Spectrum) computer game Jack the Nipper, and my one of my all time favourites, Jack the Nipper II, where Jack find himself in the African jungle. Naughtiness is measured by a device called the naughtyometer, which increments with each ill deed you help Jack commit, for example, by picking up a can of grease from one place in the rich jungle environment, taking it to a different place, and throwing it onto a vine, causing Tarzan's boy to lose his grip and slide down and disappear into the water, if I recall correctly. By throwing a mouse (a rodent) onto an elephant, Jack scares the elephant to jump several metres up into a tree, where it lands on a branch. At a compulsively laughing hyena, Jack throws an onion, causing it to cry for the rest of the game.

Sorry...time's up again. Brazil vs. Ivory Coast.
sum1
Consumer 6
Consumer 6
 
Posts: 823
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 7:10 pm
Local time: Thu Jul 10, 2025 8:12 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Info on Sam Vaknin

Postby wooster » Mon Jun 21, 2010 12:54 am

sum1 wrote: It's missing from the dictionary my browser uses to check spelling, so I had to add it manually.

What, did you put THAT into your spellchecker??! I am flattered to the core Sir. Never featured on anybody's spellchecker as far as I'm aware. (Not that I ever use any spellchecker either, all those red dots annoy the heck out of me. But still.. wow! Thank you.)

sum1 wrote: Somewhat irritatingly, I've had to add a great many words manually to this same word-list. It lacks even simple terms like "methylphenidate", "piperidine", "psychopharmacologically", "dopaminergically". "noradrenergically", and "serotonergically"! I had to add THREE words just to make the red underlining go away from under all of the quoted terms. Can you believe THAT? Have they never heard of the three major monoaminergic neurotransmitters? No, apparently NOT, lest I would not have had to add "monoaminergic" to rid the previous sentence of underlining.

I am lost here - what's "piperidine"??? Sounds like an adjective for a highly-strung, overly chirpy and hyperactive ginger-head niece in her early teens - cheerful and endearing at first, but after 15 minutes you want to swat her with a flyswatter.
The rest are psychopharma-argot I s'ppose?

sum1 wrote: a measure of sloppiness and nonchalance to the impressions you leave.

Ha! Nonchalance is me, and I am nonchalance personified. Nonchalance is my middle-name. I have taken the liberty of taking your remark as a sloppy compliment. Takk.

sum1 wrote:
wooster wrote:Johannes is not me


Here, you expose my ignorance.

> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Opinions-T ... 0140446311 (scroll down a little to "product description") :wink:

Cannot write more right now but shall be back later - gotta fry some kippers first. Urgent. For high-tea. And crack open that Sardinian white from Friday.

sum1 wrote:more illustrious than it seems at the first glance
Hey - just occured to me. You aren't taking the piss (cracking scorn at my poor literacy and pidgin-English) by any chance, are you? Pffft... (hisss!!!)

But anyway, thank you for the reply!
Last edited by wooster on Mon Jun 21, 2010 6:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
wooster
Consumer 6
Consumer 6
 
Posts: 11798
Joined: Sun May 09, 2010 12:00 pm
Local time: Thu Jul 10, 2025 8:12 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Info on Sam Vaknin

Postby sum1 » Mon Jun 21, 2010 1:10 am

wooster wrote:Johannes is not me but young Kreisler (the kappellmeister in Hoffmann's book 'Tomcat Murr' - although I'm toying with the idea of having him as a 'doppel',


A doppelgänger? Do you not think 1) alias, 2) alternative persona, or 3) alternative nom de plume would be a more appropriate term? I take doppelgänger to mean a person who closely resembles another person, usually by appearance, but possibly in other ways too, as if a twin. I've heard that Saddam Hussein made heavy use of doppelgängers to confuse potential assassins.

By the way, there doesn't seem to be an English word for doppelgänger. These are the synonyms suggested by the Moby Thesaurus: actual thing, carbon copy, co-walker, copy, dead ringer, ditto, double, doubleganger, duplicate, equivalent, etheric double, exact counterpart, facsimile, fetch, homograph, homonym, homophone, idem, identical same, no other, none other, replica, selfsame, spit and image, spitting image, synonym, the same, the same difference, twin, very image, very same, wraith.

Of these, carbon copy, copy, double, duplicate and replica seem to come closest in meaning to doppelgänger. However, they don't really come close enough as far as I see it. Doppelgänger can easily be translated directly into Swedish to form a Swedish word with the exact same meaning as the German original, but in English, doublewalker just seems awkward and inept.

It's interesting how languages differ in what they can express with clarity. English has the greatest number of words of all languages, and I almost compulsively take every opportunity to revel in this simple fact to a great extent, limited only by the wealth of my vocabulary and my current level of access to it. Sometimes, there are several words with the exact same meaning, while at many other times, there are numerous words differing subtly in nuance and connotations. Sometimes, it can be difficult to decide which choose to go with due to the large number of possibilities. Yet it is also often true that a word that would be just right or even quite right for your needs seems to be somewhat mysteriously missing. This applies to other languages as well, although the choices are typically fewer.

Some things are much easier to express in English than in Swedish, although the latter is my native language. Some examples of this are psychopharmacology and psychology. For example, in Swedish, a single word is used to refer to both (drug) dependence and addiction, although there are significant differences between them. Also, there's no longer any neutral term to refer to drugs that includes both medications and other drugs. "Chemicals" is too general, "drugs" invariably has negative connotations, and "medicines" almost invariably has a positive imagine to it. In other words, in Swedish, "drug" means that the speaker has a negative opinion about the chemical under discussion, whereas "medicine", "medicament" or "pharmaceutical" means that the speaker's views of the chemicals in question is overwhelmingly positive or at least significantly slanted towards the positive. This sadly makes drugs virtually impossible to discuss objectively in Swedish, and this probably contributes greatly to making Swedish drug debate and policy some of the most supremely dysfunctional and irrational in the world. The issue is further complicated by the fact that some people fail to understand that the term "drugs" encompasses alcohol and nicotine, too, and not just forbidden substances like cannabis.

Meanwhile, a number of things are much easier to express clearly in Swedish. When it comes to describing familial relations, Swedish is the most expressive language I know of. Specifically, it surpasses at least English, German and Finnish. For example, "grandfather" expands into two different Swedish words, referring to a maternal grandfather and a paternal equivalent, respectively. The systems used in the other languages simply break down at the point where it is desired to speak clearly of "great grandparents". Obviously, a "great grandparent" is any of eight (8) separate individuals, and in Swedish, there are specific and concise terms to refer to each of them. Thus, a single Swedish word can translate into a clumsy English phrase such as a "paternal grandfather's mother".

wooster wrote:now

that I lurk around much on the DID forum (somehow I got this fixa idea that my life would improve tremendously if only I could pull out of the hat my old bunch of childhood 'headmates').[/quote]

"Fixa idea" appears to be Hungarian, meaning "monomania" in Englush. Yet, amusingly, I immediately recognised it, because in Swedish, there is the term "fix idé". Monomania or "fix idé" means, approximately, an unhealthy preoccupation with a specific idea or concept, or in other words, a fixation upon an idea. However, I'm not sure what this has to do with the Dissociative Identity Disorder, which is the Multiple Personality Disorder, or the "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde syndrome". Perhaps you mean psychoanalysis? Please clarify.

Psychoanalysis usually involves examining memories of one's childhood by means of free association. Often, it is also hoped that some repressed memories will be unearthed. The aim of psychoanalysis is to relieve anxieties and psychic tensions by bringing the subconscious to consciousness. This was in fact essential to my recovery from personality disorder. In other words, I think you are on the right track. Don't let it become an obsession or monomania, though.

Wikipedia's Monomania article citing an author wrote:What is one of the strangest diagnostics of madness--what is the first appalling sign of mental aberration? The mind becomes stationary; the brain stagnates; the even current of reflection is interrupted; the thinking power of the brain resolves itself into a monotone. As the waters of a tideless pool putrefy by reason of their stagnation, the mind becomes turbid and corrupt through lack of action; and the perpetual reflection upon one subject resolves itself into monomania.


You probably know this, but psychoanalysis is the technique developed and popularised by Sigmund Freud, who also popularised cocaine in Western society, and the drug was probably influential or even essential in his development of much of psychoanalytical theory, especially earlier revisions of it. Freud has become a favourite historical figure of mine in recent years, and especially now that I've so successfully used psychodynamic and psychopharmacological techniques similar to his.

wooster wrote:Neither Swedish, nor German: nowadays Irish since long (but one can't fool the Irish, they mostly presume I'm French or Flemish - or sometimes Icelandic). In fact I hail from a communism-plagued (but fairly pretty) Central-European wasteland (Pannonia Superior) - that fact alone saddles you with a nice bunch of Axis II characteristics at a tender age.


A fairly pretty wasteland located mostly in Hungaria? Now your use of the term "fixa ideas" makes sense!

It also makes sense that people mistake your origins for various other things than Hungarian, because Finno-Ugric languages, including Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian are relatively rare languages in Europe and the World. These languages are fairly unique in Europe, in that they don't belong to the large Indo-European group of languages, which encompasses Latin or Romance (Latin, Italian, Spanish, French), Germanic (English, Swedish, German), Celtic (Irish, Scottish, Welsh), Slav (Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Polish) languages. Therefore, Russian, despite the funny letters it is written in, is more closely related to English than Hungarian. Finnish is made simpler by the fact that it incorporates a great many loan-words from Swedish, yet it is uniquely complex in its grammar. The writer J.R.R. Tolkien, an academic linguist, was very fascinated with Finnish and used it as a template to invent his own unique languages that exist only in his "Lord of the Ring" stories, which I haven't read, by the way, or even seen the movie of!

wooster wrote:I was a fully fledged misanthrope as far as I can recall, way before primary-school age.


It seems that I developed Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) symptomatology first, and I think the Narcissistic PD (NPD) came alongside of the BPD. At the time the decided to force me to stay in a prison camp (day care) on a daily basis, I exhibited BPD features such as 1) frantic efforts to avoid abandonment, including severe separation anxiety, 2) frequent cycles of idealisation and devaluation of others, or love-hate relationships, and 3) explosive emotional outbursts, including screaming, crying, anger and violence. After repeated merciless separations over a prolonged period of time, I learned that my frantic efforts to avoid abandonment were all futile. It was pointless to scream, cry, swear, rage, and fight. Indeed, I learned that anything I could possibly do was meaningless. I was powerless to avoid separation and abandonment. On at least two occasions I tried to set the daycare place on fire, and had considerable success once time, but alas, they managed to put it out. Therefore, I started to develop a schizoid defence. By the time I was in Kindergarten, I had become emotionally stable and I would say I had the Avoidant PD rather than BPD. By the time I started school, I was seriously schizoid (SPD), and I had successfully severed all emotional bond to anyone outside of me, which meant that abandonment and separation no longer hurt me. In fact, I loved to be left alone. In the breaks, I would stand solitarily with my back against the school entrance door waiting for the bell to ring and signal the end of the break. If given an excuse, I would gladly unleash violence onto anyone, and I did it so successfully that the bullies left me alone, with few exceptions. One memorable incident was when a gang of boys my age gathered in a half-circle around me as I was leaning against the door. Suddenly, without warning or additional provokation, I hit the biggest boy hard in the solar plexus, and watched him gasp for air for some time. After that, the gang left me alone. My SPD/NPD condition continued to deepen, and I eventually lost my capacity to feel pleasure, or in other words, I became anhedonic. Only in May this year.did the personality disorders begin to dissipate. I no longer have delusions of grandeur, and I'm ready to love and to form emotional bonds again.

Can you see how your disorder(s) developed? Did you have separation anxiety, or were you emotionally abused in any way that might have triggered the development of schizoid or narcissistic defences? Of course, if it's sensitive, feel free to ignore the questions, or to reply privately.

Good night.
sum1
Consumer 6
Consumer 6
 
Posts: 823
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 7:10 pm
Local time: Thu Jul 10, 2025 8:12 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Info on Sam Vaknin

Postby wooster » Mon Jun 21, 2010 3:50 pm

sum1 wrote:Good night

:lol: Brilliant!!! :lol: :lol: The neatest Scandinavian "midsummer"-joke I've heard in years.... Lovin' it. Encore, Milor'!
Brings me to, heard this one yet? "What Hilmar Olm Hilmarssson said to Sir Olof at 9.20AM on winter-solstice day?" (find out at http://wondermark.com/477/ ) (< that's how I imagine BPD)


sum1 wrote:A doppelgänger? Do you not think 1) alias, 2) alternative persona, or 3) alternative nom de plume would be a more appropriate term? I take doppelgänger to mean a person who closely resembles another person, usually by appearance, but possibly in other ways too, as if a twin. I've heard that Saddam Hussein made heavy use of doppelgängers to confuse potential assassins.
^ heard the same about Nikolai Ceaucescu (or was it the orphans' blood rumour?) - must be one of the perks of being an "executive", huh? :wink:
I chose the world 'doppel' notsomuch as an alias nor a shortcut for 'doppelgänger', but more like as in 'doubleur' (~euse) - but you bring many excellent synonyms too. I like 'co-walker', 'fetch' & 'wraith' the most. May I add perhaps 'agent spirituel' to the list? I like MrBates' "headmate" term very much as well, has a nice ring to it.
Also, doubleur is an anagram of 'doublure' (lining, futter) - which brings me to 'dibuk' on one hand (so we're back to square1), and to 'fodder' on the other. Katzenfodder. Katzenjammer. (no katzenjammer for me, just a bit sleep-deprived perhaps - even on this puny little wishy-washy latitude there wasn't much 'night' to speak of: when I started to type the previous short reply it was still dusk and dawning already by the time I finished (yes, I'm typing with the trusty old "eagle-method". Cue long blank stares: "Now where the f*ck is the 'u'-key gone??!")
As

(shoot I must excuse myself once again, the sun is back. (We have an unexpected high spell going on since 2 days, hence the small cloud-sized chunks of writing - can't see well the screen against full sunshine. Sorry for now....) 8)

'Till later,
~ Bros. Fetch, Wraith & Co. Ltd

(P.S. now I think I got sunburn on the sole of my feet, is that ever possible?! Never ever got burnt before, even though I hardly ever use sunscreen. Ouch.)
User avatar
wooster
Consumer 6
Consumer 6
 
Posts: 11798
Joined: Sun May 09, 2010 12:00 pm
Local time: Thu Jul 10, 2025 8:12 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Info on Sam Vaknin

Postby Characteristics » Mon Jun 21, 2010 9:11 pm

Sum1, it sounds like you get off to the English language.

. . . I don't blame you <3
Lannibal Hecter wrote:Apparently watching it on the Discovery channel is fantastic education, but helping Mr Croc eat IRL is a 'heinous crime'.
Characteristics
Consumer 6
Consumer 6
 
Posts: 777
Joined: Sat May 22, 2010 12:53 am
Local time: Thu Jul 10, 2025 8:12 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Info on Sam Vaknin

Postby wooster » Mon Jun 21, 2010 10:15 pm

sum1 wrote:shorten it to Johann
- or even Jehan (a favourite of mine - shows up a lot at Villon, and while there, Janin (~ Janin l'Avenue, a perfectly immaculate rondeau - even if a bit unwashed). Jehan is an old version of Jean - as in Jean-Hubert (who painted Voltaire in a negligée), or Jean-Jacques R., or the late, great Jean-Louis Dumas (who appointed Jean-Paul Gaultier - both to be sadly missed); Jean Paul (~ Friedrich Richter), John Paul II (a Polish pope! Sweet Suffering Jaysus!!! And now even a German one!! Where's the world coming to... :shock: ), John Dee, John Deer™, John Dillinger, John Wilmot (2nd Earl of Rochester, old bud') and Johnny Depp who once played him; Johnny "vraiment! tu n'est pas an ange" by E. Piaf, John "Masada" Zorn (< I think I prefere the Electric Tekufah to the Acoustic Tekufah - and you? Mind you, it changes on a weekly basis); johnny (< Victorian cockney for chamberpot), Jan "Hic Fuit" Van Eyck (not to forget Johan Huizinga of course), Jan Garbarek, Janus the Bipolar, Johann Sebastian Bach indeed (the Deposuit Potentes* (#4 in Magnificat) is crying out loud to be performed on tenorsax - by John Zorn, no less. The bestest Magnificat I owned thus far was with John Eliot Gardiner & The English Baroque Soloists - sadly a jar of pesto broke all over it in the check-in luggage in 2002, that was a right mess. Never came around to replace it since (the pesto I did.). Johnny Rotten, John the Baptist, St. John the Oil-cooked (< came upon that one in some orthodox calendar long ago, don't ask...), Hans Magnus Enzensberger (now, that's a grandioso one), H-Heini W. (an impoverished ex-creative accountant of my acquaintance who watches much too much soccer for his own good if you ask me), Hans Christian Andersen, Frans Hals (okay, maybe not him..), Ivan the Terrible, John Galliano for Dior, etc. etc. - just to name a few with polite omissions, and haven't even started with the Italians yet. 'Tis a good name.

~ Sua Sancta

* Et Exultavit Humiles
Last edited by wooster on Fri Jun 25, 2010 9:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
wooster
Consumer 6
Consumer 6
 
Posts: 11798
Joined: Sun May 09, 2010 12:00 pm
Local time: Thu Jul 10, 2025 8:12 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Info on Sam Vaknin

Postby wooster » Thu Jun 24, 2010 8:39 pm

Characteristics wrote:Sum1, it sounds like you get off to the English language.

. . . I don't blame you <3

It's a sad and beautiful world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2enuY5smZYY

Hey - I like your avatar! Where did you get it?
User avatar
wooster
Consumer 6
Consumer 6
 
Posts: 11798
Joined: Sun May 09, 2010 12:00 pm
Local time: Thu Jul 10, 2025 8:12 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

PreviousNext

Return to Narcissistic Personality Disorder Forum




  • Related articles
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 16 guests