Let's Spell It Out...Again

I believe this is the fourth or fifth time I have written on this topic since 2016, at least so often I don’t even care to go back to find out.

Let’s just start out with a definition. This one is from Psychology Today, but if you research multiple sources you will find little variation:

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD):  Hallmark characteristics are grandiosity, a lack of empathy for other people, and a need for admiration. People with this condition are frequently described as arrogant, self-centered, manipulative, and demanding. They may also have grandiose fantasies and may be convinced that they deserve special treatment. People with NPD often try to associate with other people they believe are unique or gifted in some way, which can enhance their own self-esteem. They tend to seek excessive admiration and attention and have difficulty tolerating criticism or defeat.

I find constant frustration that the medical community in the United States and the news media are so reluctant to publicly address that the President of the United States suffers from this malady. I am frustrated because this disorder of an individual in his position literally puts the entire World at risk.

To say that Donald Trump puts the World at risk would be ignored by many and discounted as hyperbole by many others. But what if it’s not hyperbole? Then it becomes a guessing game as to what level of risk we face, and that uncertainty deserves acknowledgement.

Narcissism is a human trait, everyone falls on the spectrum. Subjectivity is not an option in the human condition. However, NPD is something else, and it is not particularly common. It is a label for those who fall so high on that spectrum that it involuntarily governs their behavior, i.e. it becomes a disorder. In observing Donald Trump it explains just about everything.

His bazaar pronouncements (which his opponents categorize as lies, already in the tens of thousands), his delusions (think crowd or brain size), his total lack of empathy (especially notable when criticizing an individual’s personal or physical characteristics), his virtual inability to admit error, and his endless self-aggrandizing make diagnosing Trump as a sufferer of this disorder a no brainer.

Yet, this discussion cannot seem to rise above whispers.

I say sufferer, because the anxieties caused by this disorder are real and profound. The primary anxiety is fear, which can often manifest itself as anger and/or paranoia. I know this because my mother had a NPD, and in the later stages she found herself blaming both specific and mythical individuals for actions she could not accept as her own. Her pain was palpable. Not only is this disorder disabling, it is nearly impossible to treat since the sufferer will refuse to submit to treatment because to do so would be antithetical to their understanding of themselves.

A psychologist friend of mine pointed out that the only people they got to treat were those affected by a person who had the disorder. I would love to know how many of Trump’s family are currently under the care of a psychiatric physician. You can be assured that Donald Trump is not.

Moscow Mitch and the Republican Party generally are at least intuitively aware of Trump’s disorder and have manipulated him to their ends enough to justify ignoring his behavior. However, that does not explain why Democrats choose to embrace an explanation of Trump’s NPD as simply bad conduct. They too, I assume, are just politicizing away the risk in calculating their own self-interest.

This disorder of the President is not just a byline, to provide chuckles as he drives his golf cart over the greens. He is setting precedent by making his behavior appear as an aggressive choice, a choice other Americans can choose to emulate, as it’s obvious many do.

His systematic gutting of the Executive Branch of government by replacing disenchanted competency with incompetency, or just not filling jobs at all, has a ripple affect over the entire Nation. His obsession with Obama, as a foil for his own greatness, has made him arbitrarily dismantle good and popular public policy. He is fouling international relationships, both political and economic, so profoundly that it may take decades to repair, and his Constitutional ability to engage this Country in cataclysmic international confrontation should rob sleep across the planet.

His apparent need to enhance his self-esteem by gravitating toward authoritarian leaders may be a catalyst for negatively impacting international freedom.

Donald Trump is a clear and present danger, but that can only be seen if we understand and expose that he has no choice over his behavior. In my mother it made for times that were uncomfortable and often sad. In the President of the United States it impacts and can unravel the very fabric of this Nation.

It can’t be dealt with if everyone considers that tomorrow he may be different or that he will suddenly see the light.

Understanding that Trump has this disorder goes beyond discussions of his removal from office, which would be difficult. However, not removing him as President is no reason not to publicly identify the problem. I feel it is critically important for the people of the Nation to know (in Trump’s own words) “what the hell is going on”. Perhaps healing could start before January of 2021.