From Donald Trump this week in his vitriol against various judges, district attorneys, and a special counsel that they are all “Trump haters,” implying that it is only ungrounded persecution based upon only a shared dislike to the self of Donald John Trump, former president of the United States. I have seen his associates and supporters repeat the same assertions, that it is only the hatred of this man’s personality at play. This all may have a political worth to amplify the leader’s sense of grievances, it may bond them together in a unifying group, and give them a sense of safety on a rapidly evolving legal landscape, but to my understanding it is also propping up a sickness. The sharing of the sickness of one man within the group is difficult to ascertain in this scenario, as some may only follow the lead sycophantically, but it is all troubling and interesting to me. And I can see great benefit in understanding the mechanism better. I’m no trained expert in mental health, having only rudimentary college study in it, but I have suffered personally in my time. I consider myself like a former heart surgery patient, who had heart problems for many years discussing heart disease, in my writing and understanding. I will keep my backseat diagnosis to a very minimum however. Mary Trump, a trained psychiatrist and Donald Trump's niece has written that her uncle has a narcissistic personality disorder in her estimation. No one knows for sure of course, and we can only speculate, but I concentrated on narcissism to research my questions.
Anecdotally from the Quora writing platform I found this interesting post from an artist on the question if narcissists feel like the world hates them:
Having known a narcissist, here are their actual quotes:
People never listen to me*. People always ignore my knowledge and that’s why they always screw up. If more people listened to me there’d be fewer problems in the world. Everyone (The World)** is against me. Everyone is jealous of me. The world is trying to keep me from succeeding. People always put down those who have the answers.
* This is a common phrase narcissists will repeat, which actually means: People do not do what I tell them to do.
** the narcissist often said “The World” is against me and “Everyone is against me”. They mean “Everyone in the world is against me”.
Although the above is only from a careful observer about someone he knows, it is easy to extrapolate to a typical Donald Trump reaction, from our familiarity (not necessarily desired) over the last years. But according to a paper on narcissism, which I found very informative and recommended to read in full, what we are experiencing in Donald Trump is his False Self, him having crippled his True Self many decades ago in childhood. It is this False Self which brought him into the White House. It is valued and even worshiped now by millions. It demands outside stimuli to live, and many are willing to feed it to keep it nourished.
In his expression of those who hate him, perhaps this from the paper cited may give a clue the narcissist often confuses his inner mental-psychological landscape with the outside world. He tends to fuse and merge his mind and his milieu [a person's social environment]. He regards significant others and sources of supply as mere extensions of himself and he appropriates them because they fulfill crucial internal roles and as a result, are perceived by him to be sheer internal objects, devoid of an objective, external and autonomous existence. Most likely this statement of someone “hating him” might imply to himself. I found reference to self-loathing accompanying narcissists, as well as self-love most paradoxically.
I primarily wanted to give reference to this paper in my writing today, and recommend a reading of it. I am not truly qualified to address this disorder directly, as I do not suffer from this disorder. I’m only wanting more understanding, as this person, and others similar to him psychologically can do great harm easily. We must use the tools and expertise available to us in this day and age.
Abstract
Narcissists and psychopaths dissociate (erase memories) a lot (are amnesiac) because their contact with the world and with others is via a fictitious construct: The false self. Narcissists never experience reality directly but through a distorting lens darkly. They get rid of any information that challenges their grandiose self-perception and the narrative they had constructed to explicate, excuse and legitimize their antisocial, self-centred and exploitative behaviors, choices and idiosyncrasies.
In an attempt to compensate for the yawning gaps in memory, narcissists and psychopaths confabulate: They invent plausible "plug ins" and scenarios of how things might, could, or should have plausibly occurred. To outsiders, these fictional stopgaps appear as lies. But the narcissist fervently believes in their reality: He may not actually remember what had happened-but surely it could not have happened any other way!
These tenuous concocted fillers are subject to frequent revision as the narcissist's inner world and external circumstances evolve. This is why narcissists and psychopaths often contradict themselves. Tomorrow's confabulation often negates yesterday's. The narcissist and psychopath do not remember their previous tales because they are not invested with the emotions and cognitions that are integral parts of real memories.
In contrast, the narcissist has no private life, no true self and no domain reserved exclusively for his nearest and dearest. His life is a spectacle, with free access to all, constantly on display, garnering narcissistic supply from his audience. In the theatre that is the narcissist's life, the actor is irrelevant. Only the show goes on. The False Self is everything the narcissist would like to be but, alas, cannot: Omnipotent, omniscient, invulnerable, impregnable, brilliant, perfect, in short: Godlike. Its most important role is to elicit narcissistic supply from others: Admiration, adulation, awe, obedience and in general: Unceasing attention. In Freud’s tripartite model, the False Self supplants the Ego and conforms to the narcissist’s unattainable, grandiose and fantastic Ego Ideal.
Once formed and functioning, the False Self stifles the growth of the True Self and paralyses it. Henceforth, the ossified True Self is virtually non-existent and plays no role (active or passive) in the conscious life of the narcissist. It is difficult to "resuscitate" it, even with psychotherapy. The False Self sometimes parades the child-like, vulnerable, needy and innocent True Self in order to capture, manipulate and attract empathic sources of narcissistic supply. When supply is low, the False Self is emaciated and dilapidated. It is unable to contain and repress the True Self which then emerges as a petulant, self-destructive, spoiled and codependent entity. But the True Self’s moments in the sun are very brief and usually, inconsequential.
Perhaps this has been covered by others, those trained to fully understand the intricacies of this condition. I only wish to stress that in my opinion all must realize that we are living in the realm of abnormality, not only in Donald Trump, but perhaps a wide swath of those still connected to him feeding his False Self.
35th posting, April 6, 2023