“The evidence of Trump’s narcissism is overwhelming—indeed, it would be a gargantuan task to try to marshal all of it, especially as it mounts each and every day.”
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“[A]s with his narcissism, all this evidence of Trump’s sociopathy only begins to tell the tale. ... As a 1997 profile of Trump in The New Yorker put it, Trump has ‘an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul.’”
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“In a way, Trump’s sociopathic tendencies are simply an extension of his extreme narcissism. Take the pathological lying. Extreme narcissists aren’t necessarily pathological liars, but they can be, and when they are, the lying supports the narcissism.”
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“As [Dr.] Lance Dodes has put it, ‘People like Donald Trump who have severe narcissistic disturbances can’t tolerate being criticized, so the more they are challenged in this essential way, the more out of control they become.’”
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“In particular, ‘They change reality to suit themselves in their own mind.’ Although Trump ‘lies because of his sociopathic tendencies,’ telling falsehoods to fool others, ... he also lies to himself, to protect himself from narcissistic injury.”
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“And so Donald Trump has lied about his net worth, the size of the crowd at his inauguration, and supposed voter fraud in the 2016 election.”
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“The latter kind of lying, Dodes says, ‘is in a way more serious,’ because it can indicate ‘a loose grip on reality’—and it may well tell us where Trump is headed in the face of impeachment hearings.”
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“Lying to prevent narcissistic injury can metastasize to a more significant loss of touch with reality.”
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“As [@DrCraigMalkin] puts it, when pathological narcissists ‘can’t let go of their need to be admired or recognized, they have to bend or invent a reality in which they remain special,’ ...”
“... and they ‘can lose touch with reality in subtle ways that become extremely dangerous over time.’ They can become ‘dangerously psychotic,’ and ‘it’s just not always obvious until it’s too late.’”
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“But even that doesn’t exhaust all the mental-health issues possibly indicated by Trump’s behavior.”
“His ‘mental state,’ according to [@JustinFrankMD], a [psychiatrist] who wrote a book about Trump’s psychology, ‘include[s] so many psychic afflictions’ that a ‘working knowledge of psychiatric disorders is essential to understanding Trump.’”
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“Indeed, as [@johndgartner] puts it: ‘There are a lot of things wrong with him—and, together, they are a scary witch’s brew.’”
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