Pathological Narcissists

[sarmonster]

Twice in my life I've been close with pathological narcissists. I'm not a psychologist, and as far as I know neither of them have been officially diagnosed, and admittedly, psychology is still largely in the 'snake oil stage', but here's what I dealt with:

• Lack of empathy and no attempt to see a situation from another person's point of view; kicking people when they're down (metaphorically).
• Victim mentality: Shifting blame off of themselves for mistakes to anyone even remotely close to a situation - the logical contortions they go through can be completely mind-boggling.
• Never learning from a mistake, but avoiding similar situations to extremes.
• If they cannot shift blame, they will block it out. If it is brought up, they will deny it ever happened.
• Due to the above, completely different and false recounting of events.
• When unable to escape blame or deny an occurrence, expect temper tantrums -sometimes resulting in destruction of property- these also can just happen when things aren't going their way.
• Anything between mild chastisement to verbal abuse when someone else makes a mistake.
• Bragging about the above, usually under the impression that what they said was 'ballsy'.
• Overtly manipulative behavior, including threats of suicide to get attention or response.
• They can be generous and will help you out, but are likely to use it as a bargaining chip later.  
• NEVER apologizing with the lone exception of getting back into a necessary resource's good graces.
• Extreme measures taken to avoid fault or incidents (ie: Keeping a child inside at all times so it doesn't get hurt or kidnapped, never introducing their spouse to others so they can't get both sides of a story).
• Obsessive focus on incidents where people got hurt-especially news stories.  "That would never happen to me because I never... " There is no "Shit happens" with Narcissists.  ANYTHING that occurs is due to someone else's stupidity, sometimes up to and including storm or earthquake damage.

Pathological narcissists are noted for their closest friends having only known them a short time, and people they HAVE known a long time they have had limited contact with- three hours every couple of months or less.
 While most of us blame ourselves for many things mostly outside our control, "My Bad" is not in their vocabulary, they will not take even partial responsibility for anything that didn't turn out 100% awesome.

Most narcissists are high functioning:  They have jobs and families and enjoy attending social events.

They are high on my list of people to avoid, side by side with tweakers and violent alcoholics.  Tweakers will just steal your stuff, violent people you can walk away from, narcissists have landed me in court on the witness stand, twice.  If you've ever been involved with a trial or civil case, you know this will take days out of your life and is fairly stressful.

The ONLY thing that kept me from getting dragged farther into their sh1tstorm was my integrity; they could say anything they wanted about me, and people who knew me recognized it as false.   My heart goes out to anyone on the bad side of a narcissist who doesn't have a solid group of good friends.

These are traits I see as glaringly obvious in the leading GoP candidate.
What we can expect (for good or ill):

• Transparency: "He says this is the fault of the Secretary of caucasian affairs, I didn't know we had one of those."
• Almost complete staff turnover, due to either abuse or blame for something.
• Cronyism, the likes of which you have never seen before.
• Isolation from petitioners, secretaries, and anyone he doesn't have complete sway over (the rest of the world).
• Frivolous and outrageous attempts to prosecute members of Congress, the Senate and possibly the Supreme Court.
• Really impressive leaked footage, probably of him throwing stuff at people.
• No compromises that weren't his idea.
• An absolute circus behind the scenes, circumvention of rules and laws.
• Easily manipulated by being presented with scary hypothetical situations.
• Easily frightened and all that goes with that.
• NO public apologies, ever.
• Eventual impeachment.

So yeah.   You give me shitty candidates, I vote third party.
Anyone used to dealing with narcissists will know EXACTLY how to manipulate this guy, and anyone expecting to work with a sane, reasonable human being might get lucky -until one of the former steps in.

I'm waiting to see how the primaries settle out before I make my choice for president, though if you consider yourself a conservative, please look into voting for Gary Johnson in November.