Amidst the schadenfruede that we are now experiencing is the flip side of the situation: What is our president experiencing
really? And more importantly, where will it all lead?
If you believe, as I do, that our president suffers from some form of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) then what is the endgame for him and for us?
As I was pondering this question, one of the questions that popped into my mind was, "Is it conceivable for a narcissist, when finally confronted with undeniable evidence of his failure and/or his lack of perfection, to just end it all and commit suicide?
I am not a psychologist and, with the exception of a couple of very basic psychology classes I took in college, have little to no education on the subject. So I went looking around the web to see what I could find. Naturally, I read the wikipedia entry on narcissism which was mildly informational but did not answer that question..."What happens when a narcissist is finally forced to deal with reality?" So I dug around a bit deeper and found an article that did address it. I am not so naive as to believe that
this one article is the end all/be all on the subject but it is at least a semi-informed opinion (which is more than I have) so here it is:
In response to a life crisis (divorce, public disgrace, imprisonment, accident, bankruptcy, terminal or disfiguring illness) the narcissist is likely to adopt either of two reactions:
1. The narcissist finally refers himself to therapy, realising that something is dangerously wrong with him. Statistics show that talk therapies are rather ineffective with narcissism. Soon enough, the therapist is bored, fed up or actively repelled by the grandiose fantasies and open contempt of the narcissist. The therapeutic alliance crumbles and the narcissist emerges "triumphant" having sucked the therapist's energy dry.
2. The narcissist frantically gropes for alternative Sources of Narcissistic Supply. Narcissists are very creative. If all else fails, they exhibitionistically make use of their own misery. Or they lie, create a fantasy, confabulate, harp on other people's emotions, fake a medical condition, pull a stunt, fall in ideal love, make a provocative move or commit a crime... The narcissist is bound to come up with a surprising angle to extract his narcissistic supply from a begrudging and mean world.
Experience shows that most narcissists go through (1) and then through (2).
The exposure of the False Self for what it is - false - is a major narcissistic injury. The narcissist is likely to react with severe self-deprecation and self-flagellation even to the point of suicidal ideation. This - on the inside. On the outside, he is likely to appear assertive and confident. This is his way of channelling his life-threatening aggression.
Rather than endure its assault and its frightening outcomes - he redirects his aggression, transforms it and hurls it at others.
What form this conversion assumes is nigh impossible to predict without knowing the narcissist in question intimately. It could be anything from cynical humour, through brutal honesty, verbal abuse, passive aggressive behaviours (frustrating others) and down to actual physical violence.
No one knows or will say if our president sees a therapist. He may or he may not. But he does spend some time having "talks" or "conversations" with people who ask him questions with the supposed objective of trying to understand him and discover more about him and those persons would be the members of the media. I find it interesting that in the first year of his second term that the media (some of them, anyway) are beginning to display the attributes of the "bored therapist." Some of the media are beginning to be "fed up" with our president and some are beginning to show "open contempt" for his "grandiose fantasies."
I do believe, though, that the president is getting close to, if not already in the midst of, a "life crisis." His signature legislative achievement (perhaps his only actual achievement) is being destroyed and, worse, at his very hand. 2013 seems to be an abject failure for him on just about any front you care to glance at and 2014, with the ominous shadow of the midterms, seems to be as bad if not worse. Historically, when presidents have trouble in the domestic arena, they head overseas in an attempt to mask failure with foreign policy adventures. This, however, seems a bridge too far because the president and his very un-serious secretary of state have zero credibility with just about the entire world now. The NSA revelations have made him almost entirely unwelcome just about everywhere. Remember that even before the real scope of Snowden's NSA info became known to the world, the president's second big speech in Germany was a big dud. Since the NSA leaks have become more detailed it is possible that he would be greeted with hostility rather than indifference if he were to give another big public speech before the Brandenburg Gate.
So...failing at home (and being given less cover for it with each passing day) and reviled abroad, could the president experience a narcissistic life crisis? And if he does, what direction will it take him, us and the country?
