I think many autistic people have a rich inner world. I never felt a black hole as a child or an adult, I just found it tough to relate to the way people communicated and made decisions.
Funny I always described my mother as a black hole… she absorbed everything in her path. Ironically, I also have an autistic child. But he has incredible and disabling amount of empathy.
@@cheekytitaable It's actually wrong. It's a misdiagnosis. Autistic people are OVERLY emotional, remember rain man - he had extreme emotional outbursts. And this caused him to shut down in public. ( the REAL rain man the film was based on.) So to say autism is a condition that you feel nothing is completely incorrect. It is either 2 conditions at the same time or a misdiagnosis. I know, i am autistic. I have too much empathy in a cruel uncaring world and self isolate. And if the literature does not say this clearly then it is the wrong referenced literature.
@@ghostlyphantasm2352 that’s not what I said. Please re read the second half. My son is autistic and could be perceived as self absorbed as a narcissistic. My mother, however, is a narc, for example. Everything was about her. What separates them both is my son’s crippling sense of empathy.. he feels too much. Whereas my mother was not that way at all. It is something I struggle to explain to others, but it is very challenging
@@jKLa my mother suffered a lot of abuse and witnessed domestic violence as well. It leaves a stain that can never be washed away.. as for the memory issues, my mother experienced that as well. I assumed it was learning disabilities but I feel it was closely linked with ptsd.. didn’t realize it was a bpd thing as well
I also have wondered many times if i have NPD. But i feel as though i have extremely high levels of empathy. I just know that my version of my behavior, never has any bad intentions towards anyone. Like i dont purposefully try and sabotage or manipulate people to get my way. I have with conscious choice repayed the favor if someone hurt me on purpose. My point, when im told that i did something to someone and it was taken in a negative way, i get really confused and it sounds like i cant accept responsibility but my intentions were never to hurt anyone. And in those moments i guess my empathy is severly lacking because my version prevents me from seeing it from their perspective. When you internally believe that your behavior is kind and considerate, but externally its viewed as manipulative and toxic, its so frustrating and to fix that means wiping and installing new hardware. Its not a simple upgrade.
As an autistic person who has gone through a lot in life in general and struggled to maintain a coherent identity until my mid 40s I must interject. Identity has always been a mirage not because I can't find and maintain my true self - in fact, many autistic people are quite the character - but foremost I simply do not see the point. At around age 8 I started masking to fit in. During teenage years, fitting in becomes more important and many autistic people struggle to maintain their values and self during that phase but almost all will return to find it later, with damage done. Yes, you can be autistic and narcissistic. It happens. Perhaps this is the best counterpoint to be made against a false equivalence right there. Socially acceptable choices of identity are, to us, who are chronically aware of the monkey-brained circus spectacle around us, incredibly limiting; it's a form of social performance following strict rules and patterns. It is tiringly trivial and banale, not worth imitating. I am simply myself and the possibilities within my mind. There's no realistic option to externalize that because it would be too much, and it's much too fluid and dynamic anyway. If i were to build an identity around my self, if you will, it would be quite the freak. (And some autistics do just that, more power to them, society does view them as freaks, or if they are successful, as eccentrics, or at the very least as agitators, activists...) Add to that the fact that autistic people generally speaking try to avoid unwarranted attention from typicals. Additionally, especially in less self-aware autistics, masking becomes their default mode. The self then becomes inaccessible, having been suppressed to the point of atrophy. Legend has it that some autistics make great actors; the same is probably true for most Narcissists. In both cases, it is everyday practice and intense observation that makes perfect. The autistic person masks to sneak under the radar and conform to norms it finds confusing, redundant and indeed in many cases quite harmful. There is no void inside that could be filled, and it does not consume others, though often it imitates and integrates. I would argue that character-building and self formation in autistics is probably a vastly more conscious process than you would normally find in a typical person. Any parallels i would recon are due to a) the double empathy problem and b) autistic comorbidities like RSD, CPTSD etc, and c) generic biases or priming. The narcissistic person has no choice in the matter - at least that is what I learned from Prof. Vaknins work. I could, in theory, chose to be my true self. I would be arrested shortly afterwards for causing a commotion for cussing out people for just talking too loudly in the street in front of my window at night or littering or revving their car, etc. I would also be arrested for going shopping without pants, because the weather is fine, all my pants are in the wash, and the notion that seeing naked people is somehow harmful to anyone is frankly ludicrous. I would also attempt to completely revolutionize transport, computing, the social system, .... But that's me. And I'm not like most of you. So I conform, to keep to peace. For whatever that will be worth at the end of the decade. Please take note that i am a layperson and by no means should you take any of what i said as a professional opinion. In closing i must thank Prof. Vaknin, for doing great work. Please do excuse the somewhat rambly format and occassional mistakes, I did not have time to refine my writing.
I agree with you about identity SO agree. I have memory of telling college professor who mentioned my lack of a unified style of presentation of self that I found them skin deep in others and really intolerable over a 24 hour period. ❗️ But what about disjointed memories? Do you relate to that portion of this topic?
@@lisarodriguez8681 i have disjointed memories but they're a result of self-inflicted betrayal trauma. it's normal apparently (not nice though, has been debilitating)
If someone were to ask me who am I, what do I have to offer, I wouldnt be able to give you a strong definite answer, because i never developed one. I was to be whatever my parents needed me to be. Until i became a teenager and started to rebel against it, but by then rebellion is treated like mutany and being shamed for wanting to break free from the hypocrisy. So i lived my adult life in a strange combination of shape shifting in my relationships. Like, ill be whoever you show me you want me to be but i dont want to feel like its demanded or expected. As soon as that happens then i realize that they never really loved me. How could they? They never knew me because i dont know me. But i do know that hold value.
@@MissK504 it’s true … I send you the intention that you will see where your higher power is mothering you in all ways. It takes time to glimpse ourselves and we forget and learn again. In the very long run we see what a gift it is to work it out consciously.
My life has followed a very similar pattern. I only know how to give you exactly what you want. I basically hand people the keys to my own manipulation and then get mad when they use me. Thank you for putting this into words!
Reminded of highlights and long held motivations in pursuit of BIO/PSY studies, circa 89’-91’, relative to development of behavior. In being aware of the word “hyper-reactive” at an early age, as so oft heard in discussions including name - and it having been defined primarily as “bad” when inquired as to meaning - thus, began a quest to “be better” that inevitably would also include learning the word “dictionary”, among other things, in needing to find how I came out that way via “connecting the dots” (per se). Firking fascinating content this still is, so, very many years later…
Maybe this can easily explain why it seams that autism and the other disorders seem to be on the rise. its understandable that more mothers could be in the danger of periodical severe depression or similar incidents that makes them unavailable for their newborn children. btw im a self diagnosed autistic, and have always wondered if this disorder has to do with being sort of detached from your parents (specially your mother) during childhood. its so strong i have always felt i have heard or read about this some time ago, but i know that i havent, because until a year ago that i started reading about autism i didnt know anything about it. its so strange!
Yes all mothers need support and to be in community where there are lots of role models. Maybe your memory of it was from a higher perspective you have had for some time rather than from any research you’ve been doing lately. I find the disjointed memory aspect in myself so strange and yet I have learned to accept it as only one frame of reference in a multidimensional existence. I e being me here on planet earth.
I am the good enough mother to my partner and borderline sibling. I love the best of them and I let their types of punishment roll off me. I give them unconditional love and the belief that I will always be there
I have a history of dating a recent malignant narcissist and a autistic doctor before him. I suspect others I have dated may be on the narcissism spectrum, as well. I don't understand why I am drawn to these men. They were all handsome, intelligent, charming, and educated. I also felt like they all seemed intense and I was intrigued and drawn to that. I don't know how to stop being drawn to these types. Could you please make a video with guidance on this?
Wow! I can confirm that a highly abusive narcissist confirmed this to me as we “broke up”. Disintegrated actually. Diffused more like it. The toxic negativity is infinite and infectious.
I was wondering is the black hole concept somehow related to the galactic centre of our Milky Way galaxy, alternatively known as Sagittarius A*...? Maybe all of psychological theory relates to astrology & somehow the black hole describes how people feel when their personality is being subconsciously affected by this gravitational force in our lives & existence? I would also like to ask how does the concept of the black hole relate to trauma, PTSD & subsequent near death experiences? I have never had any mental health issues despite various traumatic events in my life until recently. I experienced depression due to external events in my life, but I survived, had therapy to help me cope for a few months, then carried on. A few years ago however, I had a variety of traumatic experiences all together, in a short period of time, a few violent attacks, a bicycle accident & experienced concussion twice. I then had various black outs afterwards & reinjured myself falling over. My nervous system changed & became deregulated. I was experiencing complex PTSD. I've since been studying psychotherapy, alongside studying trauma & concussion therapy. I've learnt how to identify episodes where my nervous system has been triggered by traumatic memory & how to centre on my somatic body, to calm myself down. I've identified that my amygdala has the potential to seek to protect myself from harm. I know that sometimes if I experience feelings of isolation or vulnerability now, I can experience what feels comparable to a black hole experience. However, I know that it is a trauma response because I am reliving the traumatic experience of blacking out after injury. I know sometimes I've felt vulnerable & alone & antisocial in those moments. I've also observed myself sometimes when I have felt threatened that my personality seems to split into a vulnerable somatic crying child, & an angry parental figure that appears to replicate a copy of an internalised parent defending myself against an external threat. My personality was never like that before. Since the accident I had & doing the course in trauma therapy last year, I saw how the ability of an individual to be able to heal from trauma also relates to your primary relationship with a caregiver during childhood. So therefore I know that when I experience the "black hole near death" memory trauma, it means early childhood trauma due to insecure attachment to my primary caregiver (my mum) is triggered. That means because I've been able to identify it, & what's going on, I've been able to work on integrating my own inner wounded child & protective parent. At the moment I'm also working on my inner teenager & integrating the internal narrative between traumatic disjointed aspects of my past, as well as working on my relationship with my mum now as adults. If she or anyone else tries to parentify me nowadays as an adult, for example I just respond with simple logic, & don't react emotionally or defensively any more. I've realised maybe other members of my family & friends have narcissistic traits also, they have blind spots & black holes sometimes when they get fixated or disassociated on certain points. I've realised that the internal concept of the black hole can be like a gravitational attractant. You might be attracted but you don't want to be sucked in. It's best to skirt around the edges, observe from a safe distance, learn the lesson & move on. I feel less depressed & much happier in myself nowadays I'm not waiting for someone to save me & rescue me from any potential near death experiences & not regressing into any traumatic memories, & better able to avoid any confusion or conflict with others by remaining cheerful & looking after myself more. I don't know the answer, how PTSD, early childhood trauma or concussion or deregulation of the nervous system contributes to narcissistic personality traits or autism or ADHD. I guess all these traits develop as survival mechanisms & relate to attachment theory & whether or not individuals are able to bond to their primary caregivers & social groups or not. I watched another video the other day about the other side of oxytocin, how it's both the bonding hormone of love, but it also has another side that can trigger a disassociative tribalistic them or us narrative, typically seen in the typical alpha male behaviour who becomes toxic when confronted with antagonistic situations. This behaviour can also be observed during narcissistic rage in any person whether male or female, when the self questions the other, & asks if they are not on the same side, they must be the enemy. Evidently it takes time to calm that aspect of the psyche down. Maybe one day in the future, we will work out how to heal & repair our collective confused fragile traumatized minds, & have better self awareness & self control. ✌️
I have a son with BPD. His father left when he was 6 weeks old. My life revolved around my son. I gave him everything I had and loved him unconditionally no matter what his behaviour. I’ve been told I love him too much, I spoiled him, I make him too much of a priority, and now, after 30 years of dedicating my life to loving him and doing everything I can to get him help, I’m a refrigerator. Hmmm.
You gave him everything you had but maybe and possibly not what he needed; mother and a child can be very different and have different needs. Your relationship is the product of your interactions, him and you. So if the only responsibility you take is 'I loved him too much', I'm sorry to say but that can't be right. There isn't such thing as too much love btw.
Dear Dr. Sam Vaknin, do you think "healed" narcissists might still be autistic? Btw, have you read the book "All my children" by Jacqui Lee Schiff and Beth Day? It's awesome!
At least not yet. Question is why. The book is about a psychologist couple who chose to raise young schizophrenic adults from scratch by letting them regress to a very young age and parent them from there. Schizophrenia, to my knowledge, is considered incurable as well.
I get what you are saying. My theory is that adopting a narcissistic stance is potentially a go-to survival strategy for autistic people who have no support and/or experience trauma (common) - especially when it is modeled by caregivers in childhood. It provides a simplistic framework for interpreting and surviving social overwhelm. But that doesn’t mean it is a “natural” or “good” fit for autists, who are OFTEN highly empathic, justice-oriented, and truth-tellers.
Mr Vaknin, I'm very impressed with your fluency in the nature of a black hole and hawking radiation. It's less of a metaphor, but ive noticed some people with "blck hole" personality traits do something that looks a lot like putting certain parts of their mind into a mathematical superposition by removing working memory(not a real superposition because the outside world had already made observations) , then they attempt to put another's psyche into the same superposition through various tactics to to get the target to detach from trust in their working memory, then attempt to swap out parts of information in superposition in each of their minds. The real information has already been observed by particles, but if they both lose sight of the original observed state the person initiating this process has ground to use the superposition to plant parts of their psychic wave pattern into the target to use the replacement wave received(the 'negative' of the wave "photo")to reconstruct information in the psyche or to get relief.
They cannot produce their own energy they are energy vampires literally. Thank you Dr. Sam, every time i listen you give me more tools to deal with the nightmare
As a member of generations of an AuDHD family, I can say that autistic mothers are often burnt out from daily efforts. So that they are unable to continuously cope with their children’s emotional needs. AuDHD children are very,very, needy, more so than neurotypical kids. Which makes it even harder to soothe that highly sensitive child. Almost impossible to do. My own mom wasn’t very present. I put a focus on emotional support for my kids but it’s still not 100% possible with my own tiredness. Fast road to being emotionally unreliable towards your children. And I can see, that some autistic mothers in burnout could accidentally create a narcissist by being unable to cope and push the child and its needs away to soothe their own need for peace and quiet. Also, I believe you can be both. A narcissist and have Asperger autism for example. A psychologist can have humans as their „special autistic interest“, seems like the perfect combo for someone with high IQ.
As you have called them before, they are Zimbos.... not zombies. The differe being that a zimbo needs to infect anything it comes in contact with, whereas a zombie exists almost in a vacuum
@@skachorThe disordered man in my life told me he never wanted love after we argued. He looked me in my eye without flincing. His body language conveyed the truth.
Twins girl is so Smart at two years old her brother have Problem my daughter's gonna have to get him special help beautiful bady boy have ti Autism thank you so much god bless you Sir go to get my grandson help
Autism is truth yes ti is i believe my grandbady is Twins my grandson is going to have the same problem lord have mercy jesus thank you Jesus my to heart ti hurt ❤❤
Why in the USA they like decades behind the UK etc forever ? in psychology autism social issues etc It's frustrating oh USA get outta your Freaky funk Thank you UK academics per usual i got no beef with it
I think many autistic people have a rich inner world. I never felt a black hole as a child or an adult, I just found it tough to relate to the way people communicated and made decisions.
I agree. Tustin's views on autism are no longer accepted.
@@samvaknin that's good to know!
I really love Vaknin's work. I doubt anyone can beat his academic and anecdotal understanding and conveyance of these topics.
I agree
He’s a legendary scholar
"The child who doesn't feel embraced by the village, will burn it to the ground to feel its warmth." -A black hole.
Funny I always described my mother as a black hole… she absorbed everything in her path. Ironically, I also have an autistic child. But he has incredible and disabling amount of empathy.
Funny my black home mother is now described in her senior years by my brother as being on the spectrum.
@@lisarodriguez8681 interesting. There are some characteristics that overlap between Narcs and ASD folks
@@cheekytitaable It's actually wrong. It's a misdiagnosis. Autistic people are OVERLY emotional, remember rain man - he had extreme emotional outbursts. And this caused him to shut down in public. ( the REAL rain man the film was based on.)
So to say autism is a condition that you feel nothing is completely incorrect. It is either 2 conditions at the same time or a misdiagnosis.
I know, i am autistic. I have too much empathy in a cruel uncaring world and self isolate.
And if the literature does not say this clearly then it is the wrong referenced literature.
@@ghostlyphantasm2352 that’s not what I said. Please re read the second half. My son is autistic and could be perceived as self absorbed as a narcissistic. My mother, however, is a narc, for example. Everything was about her. What separates them both is my son’s crippling sense of empathy.. he feels too much. Whereas my mother was not that way at all. It is something I struggle to explain to others, but it is very challenging
@@jKLa my mother suffered a lot of abuse and witnessed domestic violence as well. It leaves a stain that can never be washed away.. as for the memory issues, my mother experienced that as well. I assumed it was learning disabilities but I feel it was closely linked with ptsd.. didn’t realize it was a bpd thing as well
I also have wondered many times if i have NPD. But i feel as though i have extremely high levels of empathy. I just know that my version of my behavior, never has any bad intentions towards anyone. Like i dont purposefully try and sabotage or manipulate people to get my way. I have with conscious choice repayed the favor if someone hurt me on purpose. My point, when im told that i did something to someone and it was taken in a negative way, i get really confused and it sounds like i cant accept responsibility but my intentions were never to hurt anyone. And in those moments i guess my empathy is severly lacking because my version prevents me from seeing it from their perspective. When you internally believe that your behavior is kind and considerate, but externally its viewed as manipulative and toxic, its so frustrating and to fix that means wiping and installing new hardware. Its not a simple upgrade.
Name on discord?
@@Hittmane995 I'm not on discord
❤❤❤❤ I feel this
As an autistic person who has gone through a lot in life in general and struggled to maintain a coherent identity until my mid 40s I must interject. Identity has always been a mirage not because I can't find and maintain my true self - in fact, many autistic people are quite the character - but foremost I simply do not see the point. At around age 8 I started masking to fit in. During teenage years, fitting in becomes more important and many autistic people struggle to maintain their values and self during that phase but almost all will return to find it later, with damage done. Yes, you can be autistic and narcissistic. It happens. Perhaps this is the best counterpoint to be made against a false equivalence right there.
Socially acceptable choices of identity are, to us, who are chronically aware of the monkey-brained circus spectacle around us, incredibly limiting; it's a form of social performance following strict rules and patterns. It is tiringly trivial and banale, not worth imitating. I am simply myself and the possibilities within my mind. There's no realistic option to externalize that because it would be too much, and it's much too fluid and dynamic anyway. If i were to build an identity around my self, if you will, it would be quite the freak. (And some autistics do just that, more power to them, society does view them as freaks, or if they are successful, as eccentrics, or at the very least as agitators, activists...) Add to that the fact that autistic people generally speaking try to avoid unwarranted attention from typicals.
Additionally, especially in less self-aware autistics, masking becomes their default mode. The self then becomes inaccessible, having been suppressed to the point of atrophy. Legend has it that some autistics make great actors; the same is probably true for most Narcissists. In both cases, it is everyday practice and intense observation that makes perfect. The autistic person masks to sneak under the radar and conform to norms it finds confusing, redundant and indeed in many cases quite harmful. There is no void inside that could be filled, and it does not consume others, though often it imitates and integrates. I would argue that character-building and self formation in autistics is probably a vastly more conscious process than you would normally find in a typical person. Any parallels i would recon are due to a) the double empathy problem and b) autistic comorbidities like RSD, CPTSD etc, and c) generic biases or priming. The narcissistic person has no choice in the matter - at least that is what I learned from Prof. Vaknins work. I could, in theory, chose to be my true self. I would be arrested shortly afterwards for causing a commotion for cussing out people for just talking too loudly in the street in front of my window at night or littering or revving their car, etc. I would also be arrested for going shopping without pants, because the weather is fine, all my pants are in the wash, and the notion that seeing naked people is somehow harmful to anyone is frankly ludicrous. I would also attempt to completely revolutionize transport, computing, the social system, .... But that's me. And I'm not like most of you. So I conform, to keep to peace. For whatever that will be worth at the end of the decade. Please take note that i am a layperson and by no means should you take any of what i said as a professional opinion. In closing i must thank Prof. Vaknin, for doing great work. Please do excuse the somewhat rambly format and occassional mistakes, I did not have time to refine my writing.
I agree with you about identity SO agree. I have memory of telling college professor who mentioned my lack of a unified style of presentation of self that I found them skin deep in others and really intolerable over a 24 hour period. ❗️ But what about disjointed memories? Do you relate to that portion of this topic?
@@lisarodriguez8681 i have disjointed memories but they're a result of self-inflicted betrayal trauma. it's normal apparently (not nice though, has been debilitating)
Omg! I've always described the narcissist in my life as a black hole!
If someone were to ask me who am I, what do I have to offer, I wouldnt be able to give you a strong definite answer, because i never developed one. I was to be whatever my parents needed me to be. Until i became a teenager and started to rebel against it, but by then rebellion is treated like mutany and being shamed for wanting to break free from the hypocrisy. So i lived my adult life in a strange combination of shape shifting in my relationships. Like, ill be whoever you show me you want me to be but i dont want to feel like its demanded or expected.
As soon as that happens then i realize that they never really loved me. How could they? They never knew me because i dont know me. But i do know that hold value.
But you do know YOU hold value. Please let me be a mirror to you for this one minute😀❣️🌈
I tell myself i do. I have to believe that or whats the point in all of this?@@lisarodriguez8681
@@lisarodriguez8681thank you for saying that. Its very much appreciated.
@@MissK504 it’s true … I send you the intention that you will see where your higher power is mothering you in all ways. It takes time to glimpse ourselves and we forget and learn again. In the very long run we see what a gift it is to work it out consciously.
My life has followed a very similar pattern. I only know how to give you exactly what you want. I basically hand people the keys to my own manipulation and then get mad when they use me. Thank you for putting this into words!
Thank you Professor 🙏
Reminded of highlights and long held motivations in pursuit of BIO/PSY studies, circa 89’-91’, relative to development of behavior. In being aware of the word “hyper-reactive” at an early age, as so oft heard in discussions including name - and it having been defined primarily as “bad” when inquired as to meaning - thus, began a quest to “be better” that inevitably would also include learning the word “dictionary”, among other things, in needing to find how I came out that way via “connecting the dots” (per se). Firking fascinating content this still is, so, very many years later…
Maybe this can easily explain why it seams that autism and the other disorders seem to be on the rise. its understandable that more mothers could be in the danger of periodical severe depression or similar incidents that makes them unavailable for their newborn children. btw im a self diagnosed autistic, and have always wondered if this disorder has to do with being sort of detached from your parents (specially your mother) during childhood. its so strong i have always felt i have heard or read about this some time ago, but i know that i havent, because until a year ago that i started reading about autism i didnt know anything about it. its so strange!
Yes all mothers need support and to be in community where there are lots of role models. Maybe your memory of it was from a higher perspective you have had for some time rather than from any research you’ve been doing lately. I find the disjointed memory aspect in myself so strange and yet I have learned to accept it as only one frame of reference in a multidimensional existence. I e being me here on planet earth.
I am the good enough mother to my partner and borderline sibling. I love the best of them and I let their types of punishment roll off me. I give them unconditional love and the belief that I will always be there
I have a history of dating a recent malignant narcissist and a autistic doctor before him. I suspect others I have dated may be on the narcissism spectrum, as well. I don't understand why I am drawn to these men. They were all handsome, intelligent, charming, and educated. I also felt like they all seemed intense and I was intrigued and drawn to that. I don't know how to stop being drawn to these types. Could you please make a video with guidance on this?
Watch the shared fantasy playlist.
@@samvaknin thank you!
You might be kind, affectionate, maybe motherly and a good cook … Just what they are drawn to. Match!
speechless❤
I had to take that break 😢😢 in the middle
Brilliant thank you
Wow! I can confirm that a highly abusive narcissist confirmed this to me as we “broke up”. Disintegrated actually. Diffused more like it. The toxic negativity is infinite and infectious.
Amazing topic. 🕳💯
i call it the event horizon soul
THAT SIRMAM IS A QUALITY CALL
FUCKING WOW THAT WAS A STROKE OF JEAN-YUSS
Gold star from me. Wish I didn't suffer from it
@@sphowaable me too thass how I know
I was wondering is the black hole concept somehow related to the galactic centre of our Milky Way galaxy, alternatively known as Sagittarius A*...? Maybe all of psychological theory relates to astrology & somehow the black hole describes how people feel when their personality is being subconsciously affected by this gravitational force in our lives & existence? I would also like to ask how does the concept of the black hole relate to trauma, PTSD & subsequent near death experiences? I have never had any mental health issues despite various traumatic events in my life until recently. I experienced depression due to external events in my life, but I survived, had therapy to help me cope for a few months, then carried on.
A few years ago however, I had a variety of traumatic experiences all together, in a short period of time, a few violent attacks, a bicycle accident & experienced concussion twice. I then had various black outs afterwards & reinjured myself falling over. My nervous system changed & became deregulated. I was experiencing complex PTSD. I've since been studying psychotherapy, alongside studying trauma & concussion therapy. I've learnt how to identify episodes where my nervous system has been triggered by traumatic memory & how to centre on my somatic body, to calm myself down. I've identified that my amygdala has the potential to seek to protect myself from harm. I know that sometimes if I experience feelings of isolation or vulnerability now, I can experience what feels comparable to a black hole experience.
However, I know that it is a trauma response because I am reliving the traumatic experience of blacking out after injury. I know sometimes I've felt vulnerable & alone & antisocial in those moments. I've also observed myself sometimes when I have felt threatened that my personality seems to split into a vulnerable somatic crying child, & an angry parental figure that appears to replicate a copy of an internalised parent defending myself against an external threat. My personality was never like that before. Since the accident I had & doing the course in trauma therapy last year, I saw how the ability of an individual to be able to heal from trauma also relates to your primary relationship with a caregiver during childhood. So therefore I know that when I experience the "black hole near death" memory trauma, it means early childhood trauma due to insecure attachment to my primary caregiver (my mum) is triggered. That means because I've been able to identify it, & what's going on, I've been able to work on integrating my own inner wounded child & protective parent.
At the moment I'm also working on my inner teenager & integrating the internal narrative between traumatic disjointed aspects of my past, as well as working on my relationship with my mum now as adults. If she or anyone else tries to parentify me nowadays as an adult, for example I just respond with simple logic, & don't react emotionally or defensively any more. I've realised maybe other members of my family & friends have narcissistic traits also, they have blind spots & black holes sometimes when they get fixated or disassociated on certain points. I've realised that the internal concept of the black hole can be like a gravitational attractant. You might be attracted but you don't want to be sucked in. It's best to skirt around the edges, observe from a safe distance, learn the lesson & move on. I feel less depressed & much happier in myself nowadays I'm not waiting for someone to save me & rescue me from any potential near death experiences & not regressing into any traumatic memories, & better able to avoid any confusion or conflict with others by remaining cheerful & looking after myself more. I don't know the answer, how PTSD, early childhood trauma or concussion or deregulation of the nervous system contributes to narcissistic personality traits or autism or ADHD. I guess all these traits develop as survival mechanisms & relate to attachment theory & whether or not individuals are able to bond to their primary caregivers & social groups or not.
I watched another video the other day about the other side of oxytocin, how it's both the bonding hormone of love, but it also has another side that can trigger a disassociative tribalistic them or us narrative, typically seen in the typical alpha male behaviour who becomes toxic when confronted with antagonistic situations. This behaviour can also be observed during narcissistic rage in any person whether male or female, when the self questions the other, & asks if they are not on the same side, they must be the enemy. Evidently it takes time to calm that aspect of the psyche down.
Maybe one day in the future, we will work out how to heal & repair our collective confused fragile traumatized minds, & have better self awareness & self control. ✌️
Dobry DEN! WAH! survive this video Luv it Brilliant!
I have a son with BPD. His father left when he was 6 weeks old. My life revolved around my son. I gave him everything I had and loved him unconditionally no matter what his behaviour. I’ve been told I love him too much, I spoiled him, I make him too much of a priority, and now, after 30 years of dedicating my life to loving him and doing everything I can to get him help, I’m a refrigerator. Hmmm.
You gave him everything you had but maybe and possibly not what he needed; mother and a child can be very different and have different needs. Your relationship is the product of your interactions, him and you. So if the only responsibility you take is 'I loved him too much', I'm sorry to say but that can't be right. There isn't such thing as too much love btw.
@@zelenizec632Do you know this person you are judging?
this sounds very similar to an article I read that talks about infanticidal attachment and its role in the aetiology of schizophrenia
Dear Dr. Sam Vaknin, do you think "healed" narcissists might still be autistic? Btw, have you read the book "All my children" by Jacqui Lee Schiff and Beth Day? It's awesome!
No such thing as healed narcissists and autism is not the common cold: it is lifelong.
At least not yet. Question is why. The book is about a psychologist couple who chose to raise young schizophrenic adults from scratch by letting them regress to a very young age and parent them from there. Schizophrenia, to my knowledge, is considered incurable as well.
I get what you are saying. My theory is that adopting a narcissistic stance is potentially a go-to survival strategy for autistic people who have no support and/or experience trauma (common) - especially when it is modeled by caregivers in childhood. It provides a simplistic framework for interpreting and surviving social overwhelm. But that doesn’t mean it is a “natural” or “good” fit for autists, who are OFTEN highly empathic, justice-oriented, and truth-tellers.
Great video
Mr Vaknin, I'm very impressed with your fluency in the nature of a black hole and hawking radiation. It's less of a metaphor, but ive noticed some people with "blck hole" personality traits do something that looks a lot like putting certain parts of their mind into a mathematical superposition by removing working memory(not a real superposition because the outside world had already made observations) , then they attempt to put another's psyche into the same superposition through various tactics to to get the target to detach from trust in their working memory, then attempt to swap out parts of information in superposition in each of their minds. The real information has already been observed by particles, but if they both lose sight of the original observed state the person initiating this process has ground to use the superposition to plant parts of their psychic wave pattern into the target to use the replacement wave received(the 'negative' of the wave "photo")to reconstruct information in the psyche or to get relief.
Vaknin. My work in physics: samvak.tripod.com/time.html
So sorry, my mistake. Wow, I had no idea youve done writing on this. Thank you for sharing. Im excited to read! Thanks for the work you do
Relief
They cannot produce their own energy they are energy vampires literally. Thank you Dr. Sam, every time i listen you give me more tools to deal with the nightmare
So useful!
As a member of generations of an AuDHD family, I can say that autistic mothers are often burnt out from daily efforts. So that they are unable to continuously cope with their children’s emotional needs. AuDHD children are very,very, needy, more so than neurotypical kids. Which makes it even harder to soothe that highly sensitive child. Almost impossible to do.
My own mom wasn’t very present. I put a focus on emotional support for my kids but it’s still not 100% possible with my own tiredness. Fast road to being emotionally unreliable towards your children.
And I can see, that some autistic mothers in burnout could accidentally create a narcissist by being unable to cope and push the child and its needs away to soothe their own need for peace and quiet.
Also, I believe you can be both.
A narcissist and have Asperger autism for example. A psychologist can have humans as their „special autistic interest“, seems like the perfect combo for someone with high IQ.
Brilliant and spot-on about autistic moms of high-needs children. It’s a burn-out situation.
BEST TALK EVER
Thank you
and what's with the father figure? does it always have to be the dead mother (I'm more interested in bpd)?
Search the From Child to Narcissist playlist.
Can you cover dyslexia as well?
Not my field.
Yes I'm convinced he's right
So what hope is there for this with an inner black hole? Is there a remedy? Or is it a life sentence?
Watch the cold therapy playlist and the therapies playlist.
I would say YES!
Interesting, as always
I wish i could have a therapy session with this guy. I'm worried that I have BPD or autism.
If you’ve had more than 8 sexual partners. Then it’s most likely bpd
It’s okay you will learn how to be okay❤️
As you have called them before, they are Zimbos.... not zombies. The differe being that a zimbo needs to infect anything it comes in contact with, whereas a zombie exists almost in a vacuum
He alway call me mother all time
Can a narcissist recover if they are aware of what they are doing ? Or is there no hope for them ever .
Watch the therapies playlist. Narcissism is not the flu. You don't "recover" from it.
@maijensen3317 You also need love and empathy, giving it the narc will get you no where..save yourself
@maijensen3317 what if some people don't need or deserve love or empathy?
@@skachorThe disordered man in my life told me he never wanted love after we argued. He looked me in my eye without flincing. His body language conveyed the truth.
I don't want love from my parents at all each time they help me I want to tell them to go away and I don't want their love at all@@MelisentiaPheiffer
Twins girl is so Smart at two years old her brother have Problem my daughter's gonna have to get him special help beautiful bady boy have ti Autism thank you so much god bless you Sir go to get my grandson help
Autism is truth yes ti is i believe my grandbady is Twins my grandson is going to have the same problem lord have mercy jesus thank you Jesus my to heart ti hurt ❤❤
Why is Sam Vaknin so good?
Why in the USA they like decades behind the UK etc forever ? in psychology autism social issues etc It's frustrating oh USA get outta your Freaky funk Thank you UK academics per usual i got no beef with it