Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or "I, Psychopath"?

[Filachi]

Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

Hi Purplehaze. Thanks for responding. "There's nothing wrong, IOHO with being a victim - but don't turn it into a lifestyle! We believe the word Victim needs to be reclaimed because there's POWER in it."

This is exactly my thinking. And the power is within us. Being a victim was not my fault, but staying a victim, wallowing in self-pity after 10 years, 15 years, etc, continuing the same behaviours, and justifying them all by saying, "I was a victim"? That robs me of my power.

That's what I tried to discuss on the other site. Learning what strength I possessed and used to survive, and learning to re-focus it in a positive direction. At that site, I got slammed for it, it went against the staus quo.

"The site owner could care less, now she's out promoting her book about Online Dating! (um... a lot of her members were hurt by online dating... duh!)"

Yes!! A book!! Well, here is my suspicion about AAC. I wonder if the owner of the site is writing about cults. But it's hard to observe one unless you are in it, or there is a glass roof over the commune, right? I sense the site is trying to use Sam or his tactics to create a cult mentality. I can't figure out the similarities between WD and Free and Sam and Femfree, though- unless it ties into narcissistic cult leaders and its followers. Some of the legitimate posters come to that site at their lowest ebb, beaten, broken down emotionally and financially, no means of counseling, and they are always told "Read Codependent No More" and then the mind f**k just progresses from there.

And take out my far-fetched theory of make-your-own-cult-to-research-it, assume it's just a playground for some real disturbed people to canter around in. Consider what Equitoria said "It's pretty risky to assume an active and unqualified expert role (especially in not allowing dissenting opinions) when people are showing up in all kinds of conditions of mental health as a result of abuse. It's not enough just to have site disclaimers if you're harrassing and demeaning members already in frail mential health, and the net just isn't going to be this big free for all forever."

I tried googling online research ethics but got very little.

 

[purplehaze]

Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

We'd differ with you in only one respect. You are a victim - you will always be that person's FORMER victim. And you have a right to be hurt to because of how they victimized you.

Saying you were a victim robs you of nothing. It tells the truth. There's more power in truth than anything else.

It's fine to say you're a VICTIM - just not a WHINER. ;)

Try googling "online bullies" since that's what you dealt with.

Hi Purplehaze. Thanks for responding. "There's nothing wrong, IOHO with being a victim - but don't turn it into a lifestyle! We believe the word Victim needs to be reclaimed because there's POWER in it."

This is exactly my thinking. And the power is within us. Being a victim was not my fault, but staying a victim, wallowing in self-pity after 10 years, 15 years, etc, continuing the same behaviours, and justifying them all by saying, "I was a victim"? That robs me of my power.

 

[Filachi]

Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

Thanks Purplehaze. I appreciate your clarity. I guess sometimes I don't express myself well, and this "It's fine to say you're a VICTIM - just not a WHINER." is what I meant.

Thanks for the links - I'll check those out.

 

[piranah]

Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

What I have learned from sam vaknin and his forums is not to trust anyone online and if I have to post I disguise the details somehow. It took me a while to work out that my narcissist possibly had my email details and was logging in and having great fun reading my mail and working out what was happening in my world and then sabotaging it. There is a senior poster on one of the sites at careplace who seems to rule and divide. Narcissists are very very very clever and organized people. Nothing they do is by accident and none of the flare ups that happen on these forums is incidental imho. I think that most people going there will be damaged emotionally and will not be aware of the undercurrents to begin with. At present on Careplace three narcissist forums are on lock down. Due to trolling and flayming and no one new can join. The moderators are supportive of the senior poster though who seems to be part of the problem. It is sad to realise that a forum set up to help victims is actually doing the reverse.

 

[Filachi]

Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

Piranah,

May I ask you a question? Or anyone? Is the term senior poster a commonly used term on many forums, or just on the N sites?

 

[purplehaze]

Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

This sounds very much like Femfree from the Vaknin forums. She appears to also infiltrate other forums and berate anyone who doesn't buy the "world according to Sam." She gets banned a lot.

She admitted to some older members that she uses proxies, other identities and so on to "set up" members on the Vaknin forums she doesn't like. A couple members she banned BEGGED her to remove their Ns' information because the ex-N was harrassing them. But Femfree just won't. She just tortures these members. What would it cost her to just delete a member's stuff that's no longer there? Nothing.

Narcissists are well known to stalk and harrass - of course they accuse their VICTIMS of doing this to them when the exact opposite is true.

Also, she indoctrinates her moderators and they often go out to other forums and do the same bullying tactics. Same with Stefani (sp?) from Womansavers. Apparently, she doesn't check - let's flame wars go on - the ends up banning the victims and listens to the perpetrators. Its all very "ponerized" as Laura would say.

What I have learned from sam vaknin and his forums is not to trust anyone online and if I have to post I disguise the details somehow. It took me a while to work out that my narcissist possibly had my email details and was logging in and having great fun reading my mail and working out what was happening in my world and then sabotaging it. There is a senior poster on one of the sites at careplace who seems to rule and divide. Narcissists are very very very clever and organized people. Nothing they do is by accident and none of the flare ups that happen on these forums is incidental imho. I think that most people going there will be damaged emotionally and will not be aware of the undercurrents to begin with. At present on Careplace three narcissist forums are on lock down. Due to trolling and flayming and no one new can join. The moderators are supportive of the senior poster though who seems to be part of the problem. It is sad to realise that a forum set up to help victims is actually doing the reverse.

 

[piranah]

Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

Piranah,

May I ask you a question? Or anyone? Is the term senior poster a commonly used term on many forums, or just on the N sites?

Filachi to be honest I don't know. I take it to mean a poster who has been there from the beginning of the forum and I did pick it up after using the narcissist forum.

 

[anart]

Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

Most forums have a notation system based on the number of posts a person has made - this is pretty standard, but having never been on any of the forums you mention, I can't be certain. You'll notice on our forum, we went with a Star Wars theme (to have a little fun) - new posters have 'The Force is strong with this one' and as a person posts more often, that changes to other different labels. I'd not be surprised if the same sort of system was in place on all forums - though, if you ask, me 'The Living Force' is a heck of a lot more fun that 'Senior Poster' - ;)

 

[piranah]

Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

This sounds very much like Femfree from the Vaknin forums. She appears to also infiltrate other forums and berate anyone who doesn't buy the "world according to Sam." She gets banned a lot.

She admitted to some older members that she uses proxies, other identities and so on to "set up" members on the Vaknin forums she doesn't like. A couple members she banned BEGGED her to remove their Ns' information because the ex-N was harrassing them. But Femfree just won't. She just tortures these members. What would it cost her to just delete a member's stuff that's no longer there? Nothing.

Narcissists are well known to stalk and harrass - of course they accuse their VICTIMS of doing this to them when the exact opposite is true.

Also, she indoctrinates her moderators and they often go out to other forums and do the same bullying tactics. Same with Stefani (sp?) from Womansavers. Apparently, she doesn't check - let's flame wars go on - the ends up banning the victims and listens to the perpetrators. Its all very "ponerized" as Laura would say.

What I have learned from sam vaknin and his forums is not to trust anyone online and if I have to post I disguise the details somehow. It took me a while to work out that my narcissist possibly had my email details and was logging in and having great fun reading my mail and working out what was happening in my world and then sabotaging it. There is a senior poster on one of the sites at careplace who seems to rule and divide. Narcissists are very very very clever and organized people. Nothing they do is by accident and none of the flare ups that happen on these forums is incidental imho. I think that most people going there will be damaged emotionally and will not be aware of the undercurrents to begin with. At present on Careplace three narcissist forums are on lock down. Due to trolling and flayming and no one new can join. The moderators are supportive of the senior poster though who seems to be part of the problem. It is sad to realise that a forum set up to help victims is actually doing the reverse.

what are her other names she goes under? I had a few wierd comments from someone called freespirit on one site. I felt that she was sending private messages to others on site to ignore me and If I posted a reply to others she would post a sarcastic reply. It was so horrible just like the narcissist experience I was having in real life! No one could really see this and then to have it happen on line! The subtleness was just the same. The reply would often be a veiled attack directed at turning others on forum against you. Anyone who has had a narcissist in their life knows the feeling and learns to trust their instinct. Mine is to avoid these forums like the plague.

 

[purplehaze]

Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

piranah - we have no idea what all her identities are.
We just know "femfree" - her real name is Darla Boughton.

http://profiles.yahoo.com/femfree

She's manager of the Yahoo Narcissism Groups and the MSN Narcissism & Psychopath groups... and practically all forums related to Vaknin.

Could be her - we just don't know.

 

[Filachi]

Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

I appreciate all of your responses. AAC makes more sense to me. This happened a lot - "The moderators are supportive of the senior poster though who seems to be part of the problem. It is sad to realise that a forum set up to help victims is actually doing the reverse." It's treated as a joke, with gentle chiding, while sincere posters are raked over the coals for expressing their honest emotions, "being vulnerable", which the site encourages. It's bizarre!! The names this Free goes by are Destinystar, and Soofoo. Those are the only ones I know of - she's been at that site a lot longer than I have, but I wasn't paying that close attention the entire time I spent at the site. I just didn't respond, because I knew I couldn't relate to some of them!!

I'm certain one of the other "senior posters" does some trolling. I can tell by the writing style. Those nicknames are usually some sort of trolling name, or one that indicates something that disrupts the status quo. It's a strange place. Gadfly, Horsefly. Survivor.

Thanks again.

 

[Filachi]

Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

Oh- I just thought of something else. In the last month or so, the site has been pretty much devoid of any real posters. It's like everyone did what I did and just lurks now to watch the trollchatter. A couple of weeks ago, there was a flurry of new posters with Nikki somewhere in the nickname. How odd!

 

[piranah]

Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

Oh- I just thought of something else. In the last month or so, the site has been pretty much devoid of any real posters. It's like everyone did what I did and just lurks now to watch the trollchatter. A couple of weeks ago, there was a flurry of new posters with Nikki somewhere in the nickname. How odd!

That is exactly what happened at careplace. But with different names. The senior posters who seem to be the ones there from the get go either ignore or post sarcastic comments aimed at the ones they don't like. New posters emerge like you say who seem to be sock puppets or whatever and no one else posts. The moderators ignore this and keep stroking the egos of the senior posters. The moderation of certain forums was offered and one of the key offenders was chosen to moderate. HELLO... Well at least if we offer feedback on our experience hopefully others will be able to take courage from the facts and it is an important thing to learn if you are to join forums of any sort online. The only way round it is to form your own forum and make sure the rules are watertight against such a thing occurring. But it is impossible to prevent misuse if others are committed to this kind of activity.

 

[purplehaze]

Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

We heard that one thing that happened on Womansavers - an offender was moderating and went after one of the site workers (someone who was helping members?) The offender was de-moderated and banned. She then proceeded to GET IN TOUCH with the very exes that some women were healing from (she gleaned the info while moderating!) and harrassed all these women on the net by posting their names, addresses, phone numbers, kid's names. The FBI had to be called and she said "the other women did it!" Are we 5 years old?

These forums are like a playground gone bad.

 

[Filachi]

Sam Vaknin - Narcissist or Psychopath?

Piranah thanks again for discussing this with me. "one of the key offenders was chosen to moderate. " This was suggested by another senior poster at AAC once. Since the "Site Coordinator" chooses not to intervene or participate much, this male poster, WD, was offered to mediate. Everyone involved declined! Now he just steps in and gives his opinion. It usually kills the thread. I noticed the same effect on the Vaknin sites.

You said sock puppet. I have read quite a bit about trolling in the last year. There is a poster at that forum that goes by the nickname "Nappy!" whose writing style is kind of Ebonic. Sometimes. Other times it isn't. I had to wonder at that when "she" first appeared - nappy headed trolls, ho's? Someone has a weird sense of humor over there!

At this site, the sock puppet Nappy will lash into someone, particularly women in abusive situations, and the other trolls band around "her", creating an outcast in the person she lambasts. It was SO hard to watch, wondering if it was ALL contrived, or if these beaten women were actually going to that site for support or suggestions. Real or not, the original poster usually beat feet and got out of there.

I've watched several types of dynamics play out there and wondered what was real and what was simply chumming for responses.

I thought about it, but I don't think I want to dedicate the time to maintaining my own forum, I have some projects to finish and I want to take some more classes. I've made contact with a couple of friends I made there, so I have a little network for encouragement or discussion. And - I like reading this site.

I have to say, though that spending the time I did at Allaboutcounseling and reading the posts about and by "N"s wasn't a loss. It helped me to achieve some insight into my mother, my childhood, and me now. Many times, I would watch what was unfolding, and have deja vu about growing up in Mom's house.

Thanks again y'all. :)