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

Post by jan_m_savage » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:33 AM UTC

kranner wrote: post #24

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…

GP mentions concurrent extreme stress and multiple variations of suicidal ideation, along with a prediction of the relief that would bring. Also, that the thoughts stopped once the stress did. Not sure how they could describe suicidality more clearly. Speaking as someone who has also experienced it due to chronic health conditions that had gotten particularly bad for a while.

Post by jan_m_savage » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:45 AM UTC

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…

Post by nephihaha » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 9:56 AM UTC

a96 wrote: post #36

michael0church wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Post by quickthrowman » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:35 PM UTC

jan_m_savage wrote: post #51

quickthrowman wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see how the author of this piece is the one who called those things “perversity”, here is a direct quote from the piece that refutes your claim: > he wrote about what he called perverseness: the “unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself”—the mysterious desire he felt, and believed we all feel, to get in our own way. > Perverseness, Poe thought , was as fundamental a drive as hunger or libido, with its…

She is using Poe as her mouthpiece, implicitly.

Post by ksaun » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 9:16 PM UTC

jan_m_savage wrote: post #50

hiddencost wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

"Psychology is so much more complex and varied in its manifestations and etiologies" >> Yes, but there's also a universality to the human experience, isn't it? "enforcing that framework on other people" >> How did I enforce that framework on others? I merely reported my own experiences which were at odd with what the TFA was claiming. That logically means others might have their own experiences (as you also agreed in…