Confessions Diary of a Narcissist

by Sam Vaknin

A first-hand account of the anatomy of a malignant mental illness (Narcissistic Personality Disorder): its traumatic origins, its inexorable unfolding, its pernicious outcomes.

Genres: Psychology, Memoir

268 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 10, 2005

About the author

Sam Vaknin ( http://samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant Self-love: Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East, as well as many other books and ebooks about topics in psychology, relationships, philosophy, economics, international affairs, and award-winning short fiction.

He is the Editor-in-Chief of Global Politician and served as a columnist for Central Europe Review, PopMatters, eBookWeb , and Bellaonline, and as a United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent. He was the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite101.

Visit Sam's Web site at http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com

Reviews

[Alienor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is phenomenal. I've waited my whole life for such a book, even if it strikes great fear in me, almost as if I was reading a book written by Death itself. For the closest experience to death I have known, over and over, was my own emotional/mental evisceration by my parents.

This is he, who was eviscerated by his parents AND became like them. He is the Evil of my childhood AND he is also me. I feel for him, knowing he can never feel for me. I am feeling the deepest sorrow, the most righteous rage, the desire to scream 'See what you made us, you lineage murderers, you soul suicides!', I feel the whisper of what could have been, I feel recognition and utter alienation, I feel attraction, broken compassion, and revulsion and horror. I also feel admiration, frustration, my old compulsion to reach the lost ones awakened. I want a resolution that can never come.

Sam Vaknin is such an nuclear writer, such an anomalous presence. He speaks to us from across the divide, beyond sanity. I thought they were all liars there.
Sam is not a liar. He is one of the most honest and lucid people I've ever seen, and this confuses me. Could he, then, be 'good'?

But no. Over and over, he reminds us that if his glorious intellect was saved, the same cannot be said of his soul. He is Damned. He is a Vampire. He cares nothing for anyone. And yet, he takes the time to talk to us.

I've always wanted to know what the Beast would say. This perspective is incredibly freeing. All the shame, the guilt, the horrendous self-sabotage - not my fault! Sam liberates me yet if he knew this, it would simply feed his monster. What a selfless act, then? I don't know. I feel he's deserved my slice of narcissistic supply. He's helping me look evil in the eyes and be less scared. That's something.

Thank you, brother

[Dorcas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the funniest books I've ever read. I've read and reread the chapters on his website over the years but went ahead and bought the book because he deserves to get something for it. I deducted a star only because when I did buy the print book it was surprising that he had just copied and pasted the full text from his website with the hyperlinks included. There is a table of contents, with each chapter title faintly underscored like the hyperlinks on the webpage, but no page numbers throughout the book. Each chapter ends with [return]. This adds a little humor because it leaves the impression that he thinks he's so great he doesn't even have to take a second glance at the wall of text he must have dumped into a word processor years ago. No editing or formatting. That has its charm. But then, maybe he did it on purpose and we just don't get it? A private joke he has with himself at our expense. Obviously, the typos and formatting are not the important part.

As far as the content goes, it's like a somewhat evil version of Eeyore was keeping a private diary with the belief that it would be discovered after his death and go on to win its place within the canon of classic literature. Most of the diary appears to have been written by Sam when he was around the age of 40. He contradicts himself frequently from entry to entry. (e.g. "I NEVER lie." and then a few pages later, "EVERYTHING I say is a lie." Stuff like that.)

What Sam actually writes is quite sad and heart-breaking at times but the unironic, maudlin tone throughout honest-to-God cracks me up just because it's so melodramatic that it's cute. And then he includes quotes of himself and excerpts from essays he's written and interviews he's granted. He waxes and wanes in this tendency to write an academic essay over something more personal and candid that you might normally expect to find in a private journal. Like, hello? People want to get to know you, or at least this character you've made up, and now you're turning back into a boring professor or something. But that's who he is. He just kind of goes into a fugue and doesn't pay attention to what he's doing. (That could be why he never learned to drive? Ohp! Spoilers, sorry.)

I'm somewhat disappointed that there was nothing in the print book that I hadn't already read on the website. It's nice that he makes so much freely available online, but I was hoping there'd be something more in there that he wouldn't have already put up for just anyone to see. Maybe a story he'd never told before? But I like him too much, so that's not fair. Anyone else will be content.

Anyway, I love it, and you probably will too if you haven't read it yet. Sam Vaknin, at least the one of this diary, is a sweet, sensitive, gentle soul (who insists otherwise, but he IS a liar) whose main struggle in life is the feeling that he'll never be worthy of being safe, even from himself.

[Rachelle Supica · Rating 5 out of 5]

i loved it. thank you Sam. more people could heal if they read your book.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

No, I am not evil. Merely callous.
I care about you only as a source
Of adulation. Peering from my palace
Of self-deluded greatness, I can force
My way through your defences, make you love,
Admire me or pity me or hate me
(Whichever serves my purposes) then shove
You brutally the moment you frustrate me.
Abuse is just the intimate perverted
(A lesson that I learned at tender age).
Whatever heart I had has long deserted
Or fortified itself inside this cage.
I simulate compassion and affection.
I endlessly deceive and fabricate,
Addicted to my glorious reflection,
Unable to be human, thus I hate.