Next we'll learn that the polyvagal system almost directly correlates to Chakras and that the polyvagal system can be directly manipulated for positive health results.

And thus the cycle of medical-financial trauma begins.

I'd love to see a response to this as well. I've seen some improvement in my own carpal tunnel through hemp spray, sleeping with a cast and drinking less. Would be nice if capsaicin was a one-stop though.

damn that's a great explanation

And good lord do we not live in a world that loves to keep you emotionally dysregulated.

You could unleash an army of Ultron style helpers for the first couple of centuries to monitor humans and curb their worst instincts.

After a few generations of monitoring humans to ensure that the ways in which they generally traumatize each other are minimized, you can use those Ultron-bots to model better behaviors and eventually take your hands off the reigns.

In other words, even if an AI had to 'use force' with us, that doesn't necessarily mean it's necessary to kill everyone. Remember, all the resources humans need are literally already here, 2 things are happening:

1. It's really a vampiric-oligarch class that has been distributing those resources unevenly due to a miscalibrated technology called "the state".
2. The vast majority of poor human behavior has been caused by the long chain of abuse necessary to enable "the state".
3. Get rid of the state and you solve most of the issues, not the individual humans.

That exists and it's amazing. Uncle Bud's. Best lube ever.

This is more than likely one of the ways that serial killers, criminals etc seem to have a preternatural ability to just know who to rob/stalk.

I once watched this interview with a serial killer where he talked about being able to identify a potential victim by their *gait*...their walk.

Some people are closer to their 'lizard brain' than normies and it's kind of frightening.

Big ooof for me in high school jazz band. I was seriously in my head too much in my solos even though I was pretty decent and this study kind of reminds me of that. It was to the point where I'd be soloing but also kind of 'talking to myself' to figure out the next pattern I should throw in. Always tripped me up.

This is great to know; only thing is that this stuff kind of keeps making it around the world ya know?

When you throw clothes out (Goodwill etc), they often end up in African re-sale markets so yeah even though you've done your due diligence, these get 'recycled' to places where they can't necessarily do that.

We need a ban on microfiber textiles (other than for specialty, work, hiking or camping gear) asap. We're choking on fast fashion.

...depending on the pipes in your home and neighborhood.

We've found out in the US over the past couple of years how many lead pipes are still left in the country.

Well you're asking like 20 PhD level questions here so bear with me while I try to answer. Right now the question of "what to do with narcissism" is the therapy equivalent of asking 'what is gravity'. Really no one knows fully but we can measure it's effects (because we have statistics on things like rape, assault, crime, bigotry, racism, etc) and if I can sum up decades of amateur research I'd say it's at the root of most poor human behavior. So trying to wrap our minds around this beast is important and incredibly complicated.

>Why is it only true to "an extent"? It's literally what it is. /Surely it is a spectrum

The 'to an extant' part is me referencing that it is indeed a spectrum.

>It's entirely an interpretation of a human being based on the words of another human being.

I think you're being unfair to the scale of the problem. I'm going to rant here but stick with me--if you want to semiotically break it down, 'narcissism', as defined by the inability to fully understand that another person or group of people, are indeed people, is probably responsible for most of humanity's issues today and throughout history. Racism? It's really just a type of narcissism. Pedophilia? Really just narcissism. Rape? Narcissism. And to complicate things, it's on a *spectrum of intensity* as well. A pedophile is not the same as an ephebophile, etc. Emotional abuse is a little different from physical abuse. But what all of these things have in common is that the narcissist violently breaks a boundary (emotionally, physically, financially, socially) because they don't really see another type of person as a person, just an object to be acted upon for gain, power, or entertainment.

So yeah, it's an interpretation coming from other humans, from outside, but we do have enough data on these behaviors (and narcissism research if anything is actually increasing) to see that they do hold up across many different types of pathologies. A wife abuser has a lot of similarities to a pedophile who has a lot of similarities to a serial rapist who is similar to a dirty cop...on and on.

>Sure certain behaviors of patterns could be destructive. But I don't see any practical use of categorizing and labeling a complex set of behaviors into "NPD" or "not NPD". Is there a clear cut off line of what is NPD and what isn't?

Well it's because it does help 'on the ground' in terms of therapy. For some background I have had a life-long interest in abnormal psychology and I have a side-gig where I run virtual workshops for a therapy institute. I'm not a professional but I get to sit in on a lot of workshops and hear therapists talking between each other and doing trainings.

>Also its possible one person with the same exact behavioral patterns as another could be widly successful in a different environment. Does that mean one has NPD and the other does not?

Your question is not disimilar to one I heard in a workshop with Dr. Laila Ramani who is an NPD expert. Her answer is that it's complicated. You have to hold what it means for something to be a disorder (negatively affecting a subjects life AND/OR the lives of those around them) ALONG WITH the idea that the disorder could be the comorbid expression of something else. ALONG WITH the idea that if it truly is NPD it just may not be treatable.

So for example, if someone walks into your clinic expressing depression and narcissistic traits that are both DISORDERING their life, when you treat them, you treat them for the depression and see what's left. It's a subtractive process. If the narcissistic behaviors also disappear, then what was happening was that their depression was causing them to 'turn inward' and become more and more 'narcissistic' in the sense that it's hard to care about others or yourself when you're in such an emotional hole. But as the depression goes away so does that poor behavior whether it's harming others or self.

BUT, and this is the fucked up part, if you treat the depression but the patient comes in and they're like "My job sucks, my partner is a worm, blah blah" then...that person actually kinda-sorta still does have narcissistic traits, it's just not *disordering* at the moment. If their partner is fully codependent, that partner will ignore or participant in their behavior. If their job is on wallstreet, it's likely rewarding their Machiavellianism.

So you've treated the depression...but now you have a happy narcissist. At the moment.

But there's always a high chance with these people that they will indeed hit some form of rock bottom, even if they do seem to 'get away with it' on the surface.

Dr. Ramani ended answering that question with a personal anecdote about a patient exactly like this. They just flat out had NPD, were basically successful externally, but kept burning through personal relationships.

They eventually self-isolated and was doing ok. Lonely and whatnot but OK. And Dr. Ramani was sad about that but also realized that may just be the actual solution.

But just personally, look we have nuclear weapons and all kinds of world-ending technologies coming down the pipe. If you have kids you'll realize these are not traits we can keep passing into the future unchecked.

I know everyone likes to dog pile onto things like the DSM, but what you're saying is only true to an extent when it comes to practice in the field.

I'd say that the "disorder" part is where you do have to draw a line and call a spade a spade after a certain point. Like when a person is clearly burning their life down over and over...

Not necessarily. Unfortunately attachment disorders can often be linked to personality disorders and it's a chicken/egg scenario.

For instance it has been found that very finicky babies do have a strong leaning towards having narcissism or borderline disorder in adulthood. But is that what causes the NPD/Borderline?

On the one hand, Finicky behavior that makes parenting more difficult could affect attachment (many parents end up being quite ashamed to admit that there's one child or just parenting in general that they don't like because dealing with certain babies can be rough), leading to NPD.

At the same time, the finicky behavior could just be genetic temperament.