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The true horror of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories lies in their confessions

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Re: The true horror of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories lies in their confessions

#31

Post by sho »

esseph wrote: post #28
strken wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the impression you could be confusing suicidality with the little voice that says "what if I stuck my finger in the candle wax?" or "what if I forgot to put on clothes before going to work?" and only mentions tall buildings once or twice a year. I'm pretty sure the latter is really common. I've always thought it was my brain generating failure cases for risk assessment. We think "What if I dropped this bottle…

These are called intrusive thoughts. I have learned about these through a family member with ADHD. With ADHD, you can have the dual problem of both the wandering, intrusive thoughts, with sometimes the lack of impulse control. It can be really dangerous for some. What the poster is talking about is different, something that occurs in a deep depression where your mind is struggling to find a way out of the situation.…

There's another term for the certain-death variety which I prefer - the "call of the void". I think that captures it nicely.

Re: The true horror of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories lies in their confessions

#32

Post by vintermann »

jan_m_savage wrote: post #22

The author of this article needs to hit the books--yesterday. The conditions she describes as 'perversity' is just the heightened response of an over-stressed brain. The suicidal thoughts (that still horrify the person thinking them) aren't due to a so-called Freudian perversity as the author implies, but are a first step towards total mental breakdown (which actually ends up in suicide, due to to the struggle with s…

I also feel like they don't understand what self-destructive impulses are. Forgetting your wallet on your car and driving away? Seriously?

I think it's better captured by this line from a Tunng song:

    When I see land you will conjure up a storm
They clearly haven't seen self-sabotage in action if they think forgetting your wallet is it! Think more throwing away a long term relationship whose stability you've longed for all your life, or getting drunk on the day of your bar exam.

Re: The true horror of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories lies in their confessions

#33

Post by vintermann »

strken wrote: post #23
jan_m_savage wrote: post #22

The author of this article needs to hit the books--yesterday. The conditions she describes as 'perversity' is just the heightened response of an over-stressed brain. The suicidal thoughts (that still horrify the person thinking them) aren't due to a so-called Freudian perversity as the author implies, but are a first step towards total mental breakdown (which actually ends up in suicide, due to to the struggle with s…

I have the impression you could be confusing suicidality with the little voice that says "what if I stuck my finger in the candle wax?" or "what if I forgot to put on clothes before going to work?" and only mentions tall buildings once or twice a year. I'm pretty sure the latter is really common. I've always thought it was my brain generating failure cases for risk assessment. We think "What if I dropped this bottle…

Yes, intrusive thoughts are common, and are fairly independent from actual self-destructiveness. You can have intrusive thoughts without being especially self-destructive, and you can be self-destructive without thinking much.

Re: The true horror of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories lies in their confessions

#34

Post by Fricken »

vintermann wrote: post #32
jan_m_savage wrote: post #22

The author of this article needs to hit the books--yesterday. The conditions she describes as 'perversity' is just the heightened response of an over-stressed brain. The suicidal thoughts (that still horrify the person thinking them) aren't due to a so-called Freudian perversity as the author implies, but are a first step towards total mental breakdown (which actually ends up in suicide, due to to the struggle with s…

I also feel like they don't understand what self-destructive impulses are . Forgetting your wallet on your car and driving away? Seriously? I think it's better captured by this line from a Tunng song: When I see land you will conjure up a storm They clearly haven't seen self-sabotage in action if they think forgetting your wallet is it! Think more throwing away a long term relationship whose stability you've longed f…

Her personal example was odd, but there are many other valid examples of destructive impulses cited by her (and Poe) in the essay

Re: The true horror of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories lies in their confessions

#35

Post by [deleted] »

jan_m_savage wrote: post #22

The author of this article needs to hit the books--yesterday. The conditions she describes as 'perversity' is just the heightened response of an over-stressed brain. The suicidal thoughts (that still horrify the person thinking them) aren't due to a so-called Freudian perversity as the author implies, but are a first step towards total mental breakdown (which actually ends up in suicide, due to to the struggle with s…

[deleted]

Re: The true horror of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories lies in their confessions

#36

Post by a96 »

michael0church wrote: post #15
ricardobeat wrote: post #11

A little tangent, but > With a peak circulation of forty thousand—enormous for its time How was it possible to make a living - I imagine a full editorial team, writers, printers, office workers - with this volume of sales, while today, magazines with zero distribution cost, and with millions of subscribers are going under. Were magazines insanely more expensive at the time? What gives?

Very few people made a living on writing. Poe was one of the first to attempt, and it didn’t go well for him.

The expression "starving artist" does exist for a reason.

Re: The true horror of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories lies in their confessions

#37

Post by jjpones »

vintermann wrote: post #32
jan_m_savage wrote: post #22

The author of this article needs to hit the books--yesterday. The conditions she describes as 'perversity' is just the heightened response of an over-stressed brain. The suicidal thoughts (that still horrify the person thinking them) aren't due to a so-called Freudian perversity as the author implies, but are a first step towards total mental breakdown (which actually ends up in suicide, due to to the struggle with s…

I also feel like they don't understand what self-destructive impulses are . Forgetting your wallet on your car and driving away? Seriously? I think it's better captured by this line from a Tunng song: When I see land you will conjure up a storm They clearly haven't seen self-sabotage in action if they think forgetting your wallet is it! Think more throwing away a long term relationship whose stability you've longed f…

I think about that article of the travel-blogger who admired Anthony Bourdain and her experience with self-sabotage. Partying out late at night in a sketchy unfamiliar country. Letting herself head home alone at 3 AM with her senses impaired just from a sense of not-caring clearly bordering on severe negligence. I've brushed on some thoughts the same and it's nothing like forgetting my wallet or keys, sometimes you're aware with what you're gambling and just don't really care about the outcome.

Re: The true horror of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories lies in their confessions

#38

Post by hiddencost »

jan_m_savage wrote: post #22

The author of this article needs to hit the books--yesterday. The conditions she describes as 'perversity' is just the heightened response of an over-stressed brain. The suicidal thoughts (that still horrify the person thinking them) aren't due to a so-called Freudian perversity as the author implies, but are a first step towards total mental breakdown (which actually ends up in suicide, due to to the struggle with s…

Psychology is so much more complex and varied in its manifestations and etiologies than you're suggesting here.

I'm glad that you found a framework that helped you with your experiences, but it's very important that you understand that many other people had deeply different experiences than you did for very different reasons. Suggesting a single cause of suicidality as due to stress is profoundly irresponsible, and enforcing that framework on other people could quite literally kill them.

I agree with you that the author of the article is wildly off base, but so are you. Suggesting she needs to "hit the books" and then describing your personal journey as universal is a particular study in not taking your own advice.

Re: The true horror of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories lies in their confessions

#39

Post by watwut »

saltcured wrote: post #4
polotics wrote: post #2

OK so there is a better angle to look at all this, there really is: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357868645_Edgar_All...

Hmm, what is the psychological label for people who do not distinguish artist from art? It's one thing for a biographical analysis to look at the person's real life experiences and relationships. It's another thing entirely when you start conflating the characters in the fiction with the author's own character...

> Hmm, what is the psychological label for people who do not distinguish artist from art?

It is called reading with context. Famous examples being, writing "Age Ain't Nothing but a Number" song and then their career ends with long term sentence over underage abuse. Or making movies that center old men in relationships with young women again and again and then ending up in host of scandals over similar.

Re: The true horror of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories lies in their confessions

#40

Post by tecleandor »

nephihaha wrote: post #18
tecleandor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's terribly bad. Badly written, barely three pages long, bad references... Half of the list of references are of himself, but almost all of the references in the text are just from one book from 1965. And lots of affirmations of that text aren't unsustained or don't make sense. Terribly bad angle.

Amazed to see it's from TCD. I don't think posthumous psychological diagnoses are particularly helpful. To diagnose someone you need to interact with them, observe them etc.

I just checked that guy's page in Research Gate [0] and it's a collection of hundreds of two page essays where he reads a biography of a famous person and ends on a "conclusion" declaring that person was autistic. They're so badly written than some of them declare the "autism" in the title, but then on the "conclusion" say something else.

On his website he says that in 2010 reached "...a milestone of diagnosing over 5,000 individuals with autism and Asperger’s syndrome, showcasing his extensive clinical expertise and commitment to patient care.".

Even if I do the math from the beginning of his research in the 70s, that's a diagnose every two or three days non stop including weekends. He's either a) counting all the diagnoses done on the clinics he owns (I've seen referrals in Reddit), b) Counting his quick diagnoses that he makes from a biography he reads in the morning, c) really doing 3 or 4 diagnoses a week, while doing his research, giving interviews, appearing in Hitler documentaries [1] and writing books.

--

  0: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael-Fitzgerald-6
  1: https://professormichaelfitzgerald.eu/695-2/
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