Re: CHAT: Unsolicited abuse

Danny Wier wrote:

>Quoth Joel Matthew Pearson:
>
>>I once had a psychologist tell me that my conlanging was no better
>>than mental masturbation (whatever that means), and the sign of a
>>maladjusted personality.  Basically, he accused me of being a
>>sociopath.  Boy, did *that* ever make my day...  So take heart!
>>Everyone gets conlang-bashed from time to time.
>
>Huh.  I've never told any of my shrinks about my conlanging fetish.  I'm
>kinda scared to, because they'd think I'd be having a relapse.
I should clarify that the psychologist in question was not my
therapist, nor was he acting in a professional capacity at the time
of our conversation.  But he was something of an authority figure -
viz., the father of the family I stayed with when I was an exchange
student in Sweden, about 11 years ago.  The conversation in question
occurred very shortly after I arrived, and it was rather traumatic.
I was fresh out of high school and away from home for the first
time, not to mention in the throes of culture shock, and to be
accused of mental masturbation and pathologically antisocial behaviour
by someone I barely knew was rather hard to take.

Matt.

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Matt Pearson
mpearson@ucla.edu
UCLA Linguistics Department
405 Hilgard Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1543
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