On a barely related note. The Elvira air freshener I bought at a gas station smelled so incredibly good that I really hope she smells like that if I ever get to meet her.
5 Likes
This âarticleâ betrays an ignorance of branding. Trumpâs branding genius is self-evident. As his bank account will attest, there are many people that seek out things with his name on it. To say they are successful in spite of the Trump label and not because of it is naive. Trumpâs ham-handed branding might be unsophisticated and old-school, but it is not aimed at anyone else. Ask anyoneâs gramma if theyâd rather play the slots at Le Generic or at the Trump Monstrosity and you know theyâll go with Trump.
I wouldnât say that any kind of genius coming from Trump is self-evident. Trump is about as much of a genius as Rob Ford. Our society has a huge vulnerability to completely shameless people, and Trump is one of those people.
9 Likes
Hereâs a clue: Penn Jillette referred to it as Trumpâs âStink-Pretty Juiceâ.
2 Likes
People just instinctively idealize narcissists, especially if they had narcissistic parents. Someone thatâs immune to a narcissistsâs charms are likely to see the narcissist as dumb as a stump, even if the narcissist has a reputation for being a genius. Of course the narcissist surrounds himself with toadies to prevent this.
3 Likes
Good thing the article doesnât say anything of the sort, then!
Also, I âlikeâ your âmisuseâ of âscareâ âquotesâ.
3 Likes
As in Nellie the Elephant. Off she went with a trumpety-trump, trump trump trump.
3 Likes
Self-injury please.
And, Personality Disorders are the ultimate âwhen you have a hammer, everything looks like a nailâ diagnosis. They have the worst evidence base of the whole DSM and probably should have been chucked from this round.
I work with people who self-injure and have had plenty of experience with it in my personal life as well including being married to someone who had a serious SI history. âOmnipotentâ is the last thing most of them feel.
People forget that the âconâ on conman stands for confidence. By default we have confidence in people who have confidence in themselves. We should be working to rid ourselves of that bad habit. (Especially when making hiring decisions)
7 Likes
Thereâs this whole other alternate reality for people whose dad didnât drink themselves to death when they were twelve, or there werenât multiple suicides in their family, or they werenât touched inappropriately. Crazy right? Believe me, personality disorders are very very real. Because if you arenât one, if youâre one of those âbadâ people who dare to get out of bed without a cocktail of klonopin, trazodone, and seroquel, then you have to put on your war face and prepare for another day of workplace stalking. Because your supervisor who grew up under hellish abuse and whose bipolar mother is dying of Alzheimers is obsessed with two ideas: First - they are a born leader and a âpeople personâ who understands others. Second -there is something horribly wrong with you if your parents are married for 55 years⌠they canât put their finger on it, but the whole office is gathering evidence and HR is getting updates several times a weekâŚ
1 Like
Hang onâŚmaybe Iâm reading this wrong, but it sounds like youâre saying thereâs a connection between having a horrific childhood and mental/personality disorders.
There does seem to be evidence that environment can change the effect of genetics to a certain point â whether good or bad â but if youâre predisposed to be bipolar, for example, you could have had a normal childhood and that wonât magically alter your brain chemistry.
1 Like
Generally, although nothing is set in stone. Epigenetic changes are real, but there also seems to be a genetic basis for susceptibiliy to trauma. Some people are at greater risk of epigenetic changes than others, so some people will be scarred by chronic stress rather than more traumatic abuse.
And that doesnât determine a specific fate. Charlie Mason was the son of a prostitute, and we know what happened to him as an apparent antisocial personality disorder. Rudy Giulianiâs wingman Bernie Kerik was the son of a murdered prostititute who grew up to hobnob with royalty and Bush nominated him to head Homeland Security - but he went to prison because he seems to have been a narcissistic personality disorder. But he could have been hugely successful.
I think whatâs going unsaid is that people who have a crappy childhood can do just fine until they have an event that causes them to resort to the usual menu of ego defenses, except that their bad childhood steers them towards regression as an ego defense. Unfortunately many of them have what Adler called a âleadership complexâ - the delusional belief that they have leadership qualities, and they believe that they have a special understanding or empathy for others, which is also, frankly, delusional. Finding themselves in middle management and responsible for managing others, the burden of trying to manage power relationships among adults does not sit well with them. Throw in a divorce, or a difficult teen child, or putting their estranged mother into a home (a litany of family death-match power struggles) and they are likely to regress into a state of obsessive paranoid accusations and practically a full blown personality disorder which they will inflict on their subordinates for the next 18 months. And that can amount to extended psychotic break because they have no objective idea of their own qualities or the ability to understand others, but they are drawn to the worst possible careers like moths to a flame.
1 Like
Youâve met my former manager, I see.
I would be pretty shocked if any but a tiny few people who self-injure feel powerful in their normal lives. My understanding is that self-harm is often a response to feeling powerless. But the actual act of self-harming, at least from my experience, feels super-empowering in the moment. I donât know how Iâm getting to this level of self-disclosure in a thread about the moron Donald Trump, but I seriously have a scar on my arm that I can get a rush from just looking at and remembering what it was like to inflict it. Some days Iâm extremely angry that Iâm not allowed* to do that anymore.
* Iâm not going to unpack this word
Predisposed is what genetics do, and they do it in the context of a culture and of individual factors. I am predisposed to be tall, but if I had been malnourished as a child I wouldnât be tall, though I might be taller than a person who was also malnourished who was not predisposed to be tall. Human behaviour covers a very wide range.
There are definitely organic mental disorders that you are pretty much stuck with if you have them, but people with asthma can mitigate their symptoms with exercise and exacerbate them by smoking. I donât think that anyone would seriously debate the idea that childhood trauma makes for, on average, less functional adults, and that applies to people with and people without mental illness.
As Iâve been told, âYou have a drinking problem if your drinking is causing you problems,â You have a personality disorder if your personality is causing you problems. That could be the result of an underlying brain dysfunction or it could be the result of your cumulative experiences or both.
4 Likes
Iâve got more than an academic interest in the study youâve referenced (5 families total, plus the one I have with my childrenâŚthere is not enough whisky in Scotland to tell the stories), so I do know what youâre talking about. You probably also know about the research done on the long and short form of the serotonin transporter protein gene, which is eye-opening and should be read by anyone interested in becoming a parent, teacher, therapist, etc.
One of my grandfathers was a pediatrician who made the point that studying why some children who grew up in horrible circumstances become adults with significant problems was backwards: we should be studying how it is that a significant percentage of children who grow up in equal or equivalent circumstances do NOT. It seems that the STP gene is one explanation, but we canât assume itâs the only one. Life is too complicated for such a simple, singular answer.
Most people do not have the genetic basis for mental disorders such as schizophrenia. So while it is true that someone with a genetic predisposition for mental illness who experiences a negative stressor in young adulthood (when these things have a tendency to manifest) is more likely than most to suffer a psychotic break, in general itâs not fair to say that bad childhood + stressor in adult life = serious mental disorder. In the vast majority of cases, itâs going to cause behaviors which are not optimal and thus will negatively affect work, relationships, etc., but thatâs not the same thing as saying people with bad childhoods should make sure they never have a negative stressor in their adult life or else they will develop a serious mental disorder such as paranoia or a personality disorder.
It feels like youâre referencing a specific situation in your own work experience. Is that the case?
2 Likes
Itâs not they that they have serious mental illness, its that they are neurotic or have borderline traits, and then personal stress plus the anxiety of managing people sends someone into the state where they decide that this is the perfect time to tell everyone exactly whatâs wrong with them and lapse into a codependent meltdown over what people supposedly thinking and then trying to micromanage people and punish their bad thoughts. Thatâs just an example. Also, putting someone like that in multi-disciplinary environment is more than enough stress to send them on a witch hunt, because their supposed âempathyâ (ironic quotes there) only extends to people exactly like themselves. Itâs not that they have constant âmental illnessâ when they have full control of their environment at home, but put them under a little stress at work and now they act as if they have mental illness that effects dozens of people.
Keep in mind that ruthless exploitive behavior is often rewarding personally and professionally, and that many people (even when a personality disorder is present) are able to show a fair about of selective control depending on the potential for reward and punishment. Work provides both reward and stress, and a pool of people who will support whatever destructive behavior occurs. How many people did HR sack over the years to protect Jerry Sandusky? What about Jerry Savile? They were raping children at work, and Savile even did a fair amount of bragging about it. Apparently is just that easy to get away with deviant behavior at work. Probably the key is to get in there and proactively smear everyone elseâs character, then watch the awards and promotions come rolling in. And speaking of HR, could it even function without mentally ill people turning the crank? .
There seems to be an unlimited pool of primitive denial that enables every sex scandal, horrible industrial accident, and financial fraud. The coal mine blows up and the news cameras inevitably find the âdisgruntled former employeeâ who warned management and got smeared. (âYeah we got that B-roll!â)
My personal experiences are too numerous to list, having worked in start-ups, academia, and nonprofits. Consider that in academia people still routinely sleep with students and what that says about then. I noticed that most of the people that gave me trouble had really awful backgrounds and they would mention it people right off the bat. Iâm not sure what purpose that serves. and I think most people repress remembering the thing they heard, so I got in the habit of reality checking with other people who were present, and if prompted they could remember it before it went down the memory hole. But these problems were not limited to me personally - where these people were present, the groups usually flamed out in a spectacular fashion. And there is absolutely something about chaos in the home such as a parentâs suicide that convinces some people they are leaders, and that their mission in life is to bring their intergenerational mayhem into the officeâŚ
And think about your own bad experiences. Bad things happen when you try to do a little âreality testing.â The âteam playerâ is the one who never questions the basic assumptions of a plan.
Gradually I came up with a personal rule that I will disregard criticisms of my character from anyone who has attempted suicide, self mutilation, had a parent drink themselves to death, been abandoned, suffered terrible abuse, or is simply showing exploitive narcissist behavior. At that point, the background noise in my life dropped to zero, because those are pretty much the only people who feel the burning need to share their opinions on the subject or to try to make them real by projective identification.
1 Like
Hereâs one of mine. Actually itâs Olivia de Havilland in âThe Snake Pit.â But the resemblance is remarkable, including the facial expression and hair. A classic micromanager from a dysfuntional family dealing with the death of their remaining asshole parent. She was doing OK at first, but one day the lights just went out behind her eyes. I think the division chief (an angry little narcissist) beat her with a rubber hose or something.
âŚAnd just to bring this back around to Trump and narcissism: the narcissist is going to run an organization without âreality testingâ of their plans. In order to work in that environment, the individual must have a masochistic surrender to the group where they donât ask questions.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
