Three years ago, on November 30, 2006, I received an e-mail from Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.
Perhaps you’ve seen Vaknin’s name on the Internet. He wrote and self-published a book called Malignant Self-Love—Narcissism Revisited. He promotes the book heavily online, so if you Google “narcissism,” his website on narcissistic personality disorder comes up on the first page of search results.
Here’s what Vaknin said in his e-mail:
You haven’t responded to my last two e-mails to you. Have I done anything to offend you?
(puzzled)
Take care.
Sam Vaknin
Now, I didn’t remember seeing any e-mails from Sam Vaknin. So I wrote:
Sam,
What emails? I haven’t received anything.
Donna
His reply:
Dear Donna,
I much appreciate your response, thank you.
My e-mail messages to you are probably relegated by your e-mail program to your spam or trash folders.
I wrote to offer to collaborate with you in any way you deem fit. For instance, I can respond to questions about narcissism, or write a short monthly column about the intersection between narcissism and psychopathy.
Here is a list of links which you, the visitors to your Website, and the readers of your (great!) newsletter may find of interest.
His e-mail included 17 links for articles on his website, articles he’s written on other websites, and articles in which he was quoted. The guy seemed to know what he was talking about, so I invited him to send me an article to explain the difference between narcissists and psychopaths. He immediately sent another link to another one of his pages. I read the information and determined that it was poorly written and explained nothing.
So I looked into his background. Right on his homepage was a link to his disclaimer:
The author is NOT A MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL. The author is certified in Psychological Counseling Techniques by Brainbench.
Brainbench was an organization that offers online business training and assessments. And his Ph.D., according to his own website, was in philosophy. Delving further into his website, I read his page about Narcissists and Women. Here’s what Vaknin wrote about himself:
I am atrabilious, infinitely pessimistic, bad-tempered, paranoid and sadistic in an absent-minded and indifferent manner. My daily routine is a rigmarole of threats, complaints, hurts, eruptions, moodiness and rage. I rail against slights true and imagined. I alienate people. I humiliate them because this is my only weapon against the humiliation of their indifference to me.
Sam Vaknin, it turned out, readily admitted that he was a narcissist. I decided not to publish any of his articles.
Sam, the movie
Now, Sam Vaknin is star of a documentary called I, Psychopath. The documentary followed Sam Vaknin and his wife, Lidija, as Vaknin was examined and tested by experts to determine if he is, indeed, a psychopath.
It is a world first. As we all know, psychopaths don’t think anything is wrong with them and so are unlikely to seek evaluation or treatment. The only ones who are examined are in prison. But Vaknin voluntarily submitted to the process, and it was captured on film.
We see Vaknin take a personality test and be interviewed for the PCL-R (SV) diagnostic tool. Then we see other experts examine his brain in an MRI machine.
Along the way, Vaknin offered some chilling insights. “Most psychopaths are more like poison than a knife,” he said. “And they are more like slow-working poison than cyanide.”
He also explained proper bullying technique—verbally attack, then back off. Attack, then back off. Eventually, he explained, the victim is done in by his or her own stress reactions.
The documentary also addresses Vaknin’s academic “credentials,” which are, not surprisingly, highly exaggerated. (For Vaknin’s response to questions about his qualifications, see his rant about “malicious gossip.”)
Attacking the filmmaker
The film was written and directed by Ian Walker of the Magic Real Picture Company in Australia. Walker offered a first-person narrative through much of the film, describing his observations of Vaknin’s behavior. “Making a movie with a psychopath,” Walker stated, “Is a little like poking a snake with a stick.”
Slowly, Vaknin turned his verbal abuse on Walker. According to the I, Psychopath web page, “By the end, Walker almost calls it quits on his own film rather than spend another day with its main subject.”
I can understand that. Looking back at my e-mail correspondence with Vaknin, I suspect that he never sent two initial e-mails that he claimed I failed to answer. The “have I done anything to offend you?” language was probably contrived to put me on the defensive right away. Classic psychopathic strategy.
If you want a good look at the behavior of a psychopath, and at research about the disorder, watch this documentary.
I, Psychopath on Top Documentary Films.
Thanks to a Lovefraud reader for sending the link for online viewing.
anger levels high is normal. Of course anger levels are high. Be understanding of yourself. Have no shame about asking for help. Ask for support. Help. guidance and it will be showered on you. We have all been through shameful messes, felt anxiety and self hatred but if you can just stay here and vent, and let it out I won’t judge you and I wont abandon you whether you come back or not, or believe in human beings anymore or not…take a risk and just be yourself whatever that is. I hear you.
I like this: Passing along from Kathleen Hawk’s blogs.
We thought we were brave, but I’ve come to think it’s braver to face the truth. Which, in our case, was a dance of the walking wounded. Facing truth can take romance out of a story, but facts may be more nourishing. Truth may lead to spontaneous forgiveness, as I forgave my old boyfriend and my mother. It also can show us that we did the best we could. We see the burdens we are carrying and the innocent and good soul who is trying to bear them.
Blaming ourselves is a function of anger. Realizing that we are not perfect, that we live with handicaps, is part of grieving and letting go. Facing it doesn’t mean we give up trying to heal. And forgiveness has nothing to do, ultimately, with the people we are forgiving. It is a choice of what we want to care about, what burdens we decide not to carry. Being mad at a sociopath for being a sociopath and exploiting or hurting us is like hating the sun for shining and giving us sunburn. Facing reality empowers us to deal with it. Wear sunscreen. Trust conditionally.
The best reason to invest in healing from unresolved trauma is because it is crippling. It blocks our ability to mature through experience. It constricts personality structure with fear-based blinders and self-limiting rules that should only be interim strategies, rough protections until we see through what happened. The more we understand the confluence of events, most of which had nothing to do with us, the more trauma tends to lose its glamour and terror. It becomes simply a variety of human experience that we integrate into our knowledge of the world. When we stop mistaking a snake for a goose, because we now know that snakes exist, life becomes that much easier, safer and richer.
sotired, thank you for posting this here. crippling. my word now.
stayingsane, thanks for hearing my need for permission.
Dear One step. I hear you. Your nick name is no coincidence, I think we choose it with our subconscious!
One step at a time!
First: get out! Go for a walk, feel your body, feel your feet one in front of the other. If you have not gotten your bl****dy boots, go clean the kitchen, one drawer after the other! Or the windows, or the bathroom, whatever. But DO something, get that energy OUT!
Second: do some inventory of edible things in your kitchen. There are wonderful recipes in the internet on old bread and apples baked together, or how about Spaghetti aglio/olio (garlic and oil, you do NOT need premium extra vergine stuff; when I was a student I lived for ages on it, just to save money.
(Are you entiteled to food stamps or the like?)
Three: go to bed early!
Four: stop beating yourself up!!!! (should really be First as well but goes as “basso continuo” throughout the whole thing) Why are you SO angry?
If it is because of yourself: stop it! It won’t get any better and you need this very helpful energy to accomplish something. You are invigorated right now. Use this force to clean up, garden, kitchen, whatever.
Then when your body has calmed down you can start to think about what train had hit you. Whom allowed you to go so deep into your soul to make you feel so angry?
I recommend you the series of Kathleen Hawk who helped me enormously finding the right words for my barely noticable feelings resurfacing from my deep burried soul that has been kept in a deep cellar since early childhood.
I personally was very happy when I FINALLY could experience SOME anger. (It needed my father today to getting angry at X! Remembering the “Escort”-letter I almost had forgotten)
Anger is wonderful.
The first two words I have learned when I came to England to learn English was the difference between shit and manure. There is none really, it depends on its use. Now you are in the shit-phase, and it is your task to find out where to put it or how to look at it that you can see the manure part.
My manure part was that X was opening my eyes to the whole transgressions my whole family was doing to me.
Today was a completely “normal” visit in my father’s eyes who wanted to invite me for lunch! (I declined the offer).
I also stopped feeling ashamed. The shame is also something that has been implanted by my family; I would have felt ashamed by my father’s behaviour towards me in front of the other woman 18 months ago, but I refused letting him implanting this feeling into me too. I just got rightfully angry and I even told him in front of this woman that he has to use my bathroom in such and such way, and that I am not amused of cleaning after him. The blame was all his, and the other woman said well it is mr Libelle we all know and cherish for what he is. So it was no big deal for her as well. But quite embarrassing as well.
I found out that lots of my inside myself packed shame stems from things like this, a constant irritation towards me being in charge of watching people who do horrible things and I am supposed to be part of the pack and smoothing it out and make them look good. Not any more!
If it was not for my progress I had made in the last 18 months I would have acted in a complete different way. I went to lunch and I had contacted X who FINALLY came to his senses!
You are not alone! There are tons of understanding, wonderful, empathic, great, clever, adorable people in all shapes and colors and time tables 24 hours here! Blog, vent, rant, whatever; this too will pass.
I will lit a candle for your inner peace now. (((Hugs)))
libelle, Awesome post, ty. I am gonna go get out.
One of the huge issues is that my house is actually toxic to me, and i have to move AGAIN. (i lived 7 years in the same place before i moved to this city and have just moved in july to get away from the smoke seeping into the last place). my home is not safe. so, being here is in no way calming and i cannot nest. and the longer i am in the house, the more muddled my thinking is and getting out the door is harder.
okay, I am going to get out of here. ty.
one step
and ty for the candle too.
I just ment get out for a short walk, 15 minutes or so, not to MOVE!!! Move the body not the household! (I am sorry my English is so poor).
But what can you expect from someone whose first words in a foreign language are shit and manure? 😉
ty = thank you?
one of the wonderful entries Kathleen did in June 09 that became some kind of my inspiration:
“And sometimes it also offers us a gift of purpose. In my case and, in the case of several of us here on LoveFraud, our traumas have given us a clear sense of what we want to do with our lives.
I know I talk about God a lot here, and you probably know that my concept of God is not a traditional one. I depend much more on the God spark inside me than any idea of an big, external power. At the same time, I use my old Catholic upbringing to come up with some of the images I use in healing.
And one of those images is my soul standing at the door of life, giving God my laundry list of what I want to be born to. I wanted a family that was exceptionally smart, physically strong, good looking, born leaders and gifted in handling the materials of the world. And I got all that. It never occurred to me to ask that they were emotionally healthy and happy people.
But at the door, God said one thing to me as he sent me out to this life. It was that he had chosen something special for me, a big challenge and a chance to change the world for the better, if I could understand the meaning of that challenge. He said, “No matter what happens, you can always find the right path by asking yourself ’what am I going to do with this?’ Everything you need is there. You just have to look at it all, and think about what good thing you can do with it.”
The more well I get, the more I realize that my whole life has been about that. And I think that’s true for everyone one of us. We just don’t see it that way when we feel overwhelmed by things that have happened to us. The sense of victimization is all about feeling like the world is big and strong, and we are small and weak. As we emerge from it into the simplicity of wounded innocence, we realize that we are simply learning and grasping again all that we have to work with.
And we go on, smarter and more resilient, to the next important “pleasure” in our lives and to meet the next learning experiences along the way. Because there is one more important thing about successful trauma processing, and that is our comfort and increasing speed with the process. The more we do this, the better we get, the faster we learn, the less it costs us, and the more quickly and effecting we can get back to setting our God sparks loose on creating more good in the world. ”
Have you all a peaceful sunday!
Oxy…I think the filmmaker was more than irritated with Sam…don’t you? I think he was profoundly shook up by him and had to end it early, and cleanse himself like a rape victim. But like you, I was only irritated. Maybe because I didn’t see the wife crying, falling apart, etc…though surely she must? I didn’t quite get her.
But watching also gave me this insight: If you know from the start what you are dealing with (as thoroughly as many on LF do), and you refuse to personalize it or take it seriously, then his tantrums and tricks etc are like watching a two year old in a grown man’s body. As long as they truly don’t have anything you need or want and you don’t personalize it, doesn’t hurt much. Just rather boring and tiresome. But Sam could get to the filmmaker….the filmmaker needed him for the film!
And unfortunately in most cases we don’t know what we are dealing with right from the start.
I think I would have been more sickened by Sam had his victims shown THEIR hurt more graphically. But it almost was as if everyone in the film KNEW what Sam was, but were chosing to interact with him anyway, but weren’t under the spell, not very much. Except the wife. Is she in denial still? That seemed to be what that one woman who tested her was saying. Must be, to still be with him!
I don’t know what the arms out of sync means in psychological terms… that maybe she is a misfit, won’t have a lot of friends? I picked her too, but I thought she just looked too happy or carefree….and that would put her at risk.
On the test where Sam flatlined….do you think he faked that? Purposefully shut off his feelings? I guess not, based on the other tests. I thought they would do a brain scan while he reacted to words like rape, blood, etc. that draw forth emotions in most of us, but not P’s. I wonder, with both tests, can a normal person make it flatline by choosing to shut off their feelings, esp. someone who came from an abusive background and knows how to disassociate? It seemed if the person learned to use the feedback to score higher, they could also purposefully choose not to score. Sam? Or was he really trying.
?
Anyway, if he wasn’t faking, that is what impressed me the most. They are truly emotionally retarded and it is very comparable to mental retardation. They act age inappropriate and the retardation can’t be fixed. Even if they try real hard.
The filmmaker’s final point is don’t listen to Sam’s advice about how to live your life! Amen to that.
I got some information on that fMRI a research study about it probably not being valid. They did a scan of a DEAD FISH and got “reactions” from it. Of course the purpose of this “study” was to show that the scan isn’t all that reliable. so I do not know if the scan they did on Sam was reliable or not, or the one they did on her was reliable or not.
I think the BEHAVIOR and the answers to the tests were what showed for sure that he was a P.
I looked at the wife’s face as she watched those tapes of Sam insulting her and it was so filled with embarassment and pain I thought. Yea she is in denial or trauma bonded to him. Whatever, she sort of kinid of “knows” but she can’t leave him.
I think all or most of us here can identify with that stance of wanting him to love her back.
The “victim” woman just to me, and I can’t say why, seemed to be “walkign like she was defeated” or scared. That’s all I could pick up on.
Just like a dog shows fright by his body language I think we do too, show our fear or our timidity or whatever. It was interesting though.