Just found this in a link and I had to post it- it's eating away at me. It feels like the blog has a lot of huge dismissals of things that make sense to be pissed and sad about (trauma, insults, shame) and seems to be implying they're all the result of narcissism? Now I'm torn as fuck because 1. I've only been stable due to understanding and trying to recover from ADHD based on assuming that adhd exists. But 2. A lot of their observations and conclusions seem true? But also kind of toxic and weird? And I don't want to just give up my only coping mechanism for forgiving myself for being tired all the time.
I dunno it reminds me of Slate Star Codex or old rationalist blogs or any of those kinda blogs that say stuff that includes technically true inputs and sometimes technically true outputs but uses the few correct conclusions to justify a lot of other really fucked up shit
I think by posting this I'm technically seeking approval (narcissist behavior) so I guess I'm one of those now lol
Linked is an example of one of the blog's most disconcerting and confusing articles for me. I mean, in my opinion, spanking IS intrinsically wrong to do. Maybe less so with the yelling but that can cause permanent harm besides just the conditioning of the full context, too, like being scared of objects that were in the situation or feeling guilty about things that weren't actually the thing you did wrong.
Also a lot of their differentiation between internal values and caring about what other people think feels like it's either meant to be much less clear than it sounds or is just blatantly not a thing. The idea that people just don't internalize others as real people with their own autonomous lives and existences is very implausible to me. I think there are people who don't care or find ways NOT to care but...
Also I disagree with the idea that empathy is inherently more narcissistic than sympathy. Autistic people tend to try and empathize with people more than sympathize, and, well, TLA writes...
Of course you feel nothing. Why would you? – it’s not your loss. What’s wrong isn’t your lack of feeling, but that you think you have to feel something, that you have to tell this woman, remind this woman, how horrible is her loss. You think the only way to connect with people is to have their emotions. You think she wants to connect with you. You think she wants your help.
The problem isn’t your lack of feeling, it is that you think that unless you feel it’s not real. You forget that she has a life that doesn’t have you in it.
WHY DID SHE BRING IT UP TO ME IF SHE WANTS ME TO JUST NOD AND MOVE ALONG HUUUUUH
Edit: he has like a dozen articles that all seem to be taking positions on autism that are actually close to neurodivergence theories ahead of his time, countering directly what I just wrote before this. I have no idea what to think. This person is either delusional, a genius, shitposting, or really bad at communicating.
edit: they're just a freudian hitlerite. move along.
Honestly, the sheer amount of referencing narcissism in others, especially children, makes me think this person has NPD and is projecting their own faults onto other people. You can't psychoanalyse someone from a single blog post though.
I wouldn't go that far, it just seems like someone making reckless assumptions by treating the knowledge of their field as universally applicable and giving them de facto authority on all subjects. Many such cases.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but psychiatry IS a different field from neural and childhood development, right? Like they obviously have to have a vague idea of how it works but expecting them to figure out exactly how NPD arises all by themselves sounds like expecting a general practitioner to do heart surgery all by themselves. So very dangerous and shaky. I'm assuming a lot here about how neural / psychological fields work.
The field seems to be mostly about figuring out how to diagnose and treat mental conditions, not figure out where exactly they come from.
Yeah, like I said, it is impossible to diagnose someone via a random blog post. I've dealt with some awful narcissists in my life so I tend to see it a lot, even when it isn't there. It's far more often just someone with an inflated ego than someone with an actual mental illness.
In the US, a psychiatrist has gone to medical school. A psychologist generally has a PhD focused on a type of psychology, something like social psych, clinical, neuro, etc. and likely already has a lot of research experience because of that.
Yeah, this article definitely gives me the impression that this person doesn't know what they're talking about. Hyping up how the parents feel shame for yelling and completely overlooking the shame imposed on the kid? In fact, completely overlooking the kid altogether?? The only time they mention doing right by the kid is in context of doing right by the parent. But yeah spanking is just wrong: getting angry and hitting your kid seems like it has a different term associated with it. And yelling fails to effect positive change, and easily causes negative impacts. This reads as someone trying to justify old-fashioned (and almost always wrong) methods using new-fashioned ideas of authenticity and avoiding shame.
They hyperfocus on the shame because they see that as diagnostic criteria for being a narcissist. So their claim is that avoiding yelling is bad because people avoid yelling because they don't want other people to notice them doing bad things, rather than feeling internal guilt about it. And also that it's bad because you'll inevitably slip up and instead get angry when you're annoyed so not yelling at your kid out of a sense of moral obligation is bad too because you're satisfying your moral image of yourself while hurting your kid by conditioning them wrong.
Saying it like that out loud makes me very angry at this person. We still quote him for theory???? Why???? When he misgenders people on purpose and seems to think ADHD isn't real??
Getting real academic larp vibes from them. I'm not exactly an expert, but something feels very wrong.
your feeling appears correct. I'll admit the stuff I've read from them has shaken me enough that I'm genuinely still questioning if I'm focusing on this stuff as a defense mechanism to maintain my narcissistic worldview, but they seem to think feminism just straight up... isn't relevant anymore? and views "gender identity politics" as irrelevant. Not in a "be normal about trans people" kind of way but in a "they are making this whole thing up for the media frenzy" kind of way. This combined with their "life is about hard work 4head also stop worrying about your own happiness and focus on others and it'll cure your "depression" which is actually narcissism btw" stuff reallly makes me think they're just a particularly eccentric reactionary, just with a particularly nuanced "elites" conspiracy theory that focuses on their choice of profession.
altogether i feel like the trans and feminism stuff is a result of what appears to be that core "elite" conceit they have, which is that they think that society at large is dominated by groups of narcissists and encourages people to be narcissists. i think this is true, actually, but this person appears to have observed that and come to the incorrect conclusion that, therefore, narcissists cause everything ("are the the #1 cause for human suffering"), rather than the idea that there is a third variable (such as... gosh idk... our economic system?) that creates narcissists en masse and puts them in power.
when you view the primary progenitor of narcissists in power as our economy's incentives and not as other narcissists, it becomes much harder to dismiss things like ADHD or depression or PTSD or any other mental disability, because those can just as plausibly be ALSO affected/particularly punished/created in the case of trauma and depression, by the economic system we live in, as narcissism is. It is much more likely many of these are neurological "quirks" that are inconvenient for the ruling class and therefore stomped out or ignored, than for them to be rooted in the same mental problems the ruling class often has (narcissism).
i would like to add that they appear to actually be a practicing psychiatrist. this makes me more concerned for their patients, rather than making me feel more confident about what they're saying.
I would be a little careful calling all these things narcissism, though. Narcissist personality disorder is a real thing, and people have no control over that. The harm these people cause to other people is not a result of mental illness, but as you said, a series of systems that discourage treating people like people and more like commodities.
yes that is true. i should not have used their language. it's dangerously and concerningly imprecise (for instance, as you're saying, most of the bourgeoisie do not view themselves as the only independent beings- far from it, many of them actively take advantage of their understanding of how independent and decision-making other individuals are. it's more so that they are apathetic to other's problems)
i'll say that a lot of what they describe as narcissism sounds like it describes a masking autistic person (albeit in most of their writings, a very negative view of one). the confusion about what stuff like love is actually "supposed" to feel like, the feeling of needing to empathize by connecting with one's emotions and not just going through a social script. Missing, rather distinctly from this profile is the intense internalized sense of justice most autistic people have; a trait TLP seems to think is either at odds with narcissism or part of it? i can't tell. As far as I CAN tell they seem to think having an internalized sense of morality requires the acknowledgement objective morality AKA some sort of god-morality which seems silly. This is supported by the fact that they seem to also have a negative view of people who have an internal sense of morality but... idk... only sometimes????
https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/11/transgender_man_is_on_womens_b.html
nevermind chat. it's Freudian shit, yet again. Unlimited rejection of papers upon all Freudian psychologists
https://www.reddit.com/r/thelastpsychiatrist/comments/cafblr/is_this_inherently_narcissist/
I wish a plague upon all self important unfalsifiable science assholes
have people considered that you can have a conception of others as their own beings but still care what they have to think and feel hurt when they invalidate you? no? oh I guess I'm a narcissist then... Look at this! I'm making space for people's existence while still getting angry when people insult me! I'm an impossible creature!
edit: he also doesn't seem to think patriarchy is, like, real https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/01/no_self-respecting_woman_would.html and opposes feminism altogether. fuck this dude "oh he's being sarcastic it means the opposite somehow" SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP YOU MOTHERFUCKING SCHRODINGERS ASSHOLE DOUCHEBAG
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a lot of the philosophical/psychological/anti-therapy stuff really feels cult-y. at the core of it leading into my discomfort is the implication that seeking treatment for narcissism, as a narcissist, for one's own happiness, is basically impossible. you have to do it exclusively for other people and "fake it until you make it" by helping them with good deeds. in my opinion, that just sounds like toxic people pleasing and a way to get burnout/relapse. or more accurately the kind of semi-altruistic but ultimately socially harmfully stuff cults ask their members to do all the time as part of developing a core cult identity
then