I totally agree. We aren’t qualified professionals, we are people who can observe reality and come to conclusions. This isn’t the blue-black/white-gold dress. We didn’t catch him in weird lighting.
Here is a list of things I’d be surprised to find out about Trump from least surprising to most surprising:
He’s bisexual (I have no reason to think he is more or less likely to be bi than the general population, so a couple percent?)
She identifies privately as a woman
He does not have NPD
He didn’t sexually assault dozens of women (Literally impossible)
For anyone who has been a victim of narcissistic abuse, we have started a Facebook page. The reaction and outpouring from readers who have been through what the authors have been through was staggering. It’s a new page and we haven’t started promoting it yet, but thought I’d let this community know. It’s called SONAR - Survivors of Narcissistic Abuse Rising. It’s a private group and you request to be added. Sorry that there’s a need for it, glad that people are coming together and finally understanding this thing. https://www.facebook.com/groups/sonarnarcissisticsurvivors/
Most of us may not be experienced enough to identify NPD. NPD, like many personality traits, are only ‘disorders’ when taken to extremes. There may be no hard test even for the professionals.
So, should we keep quiet because we are not sure? I don’t think we should. Science works when it predicts. Someone has identified Trump as having NPD, and has predicted some likely outcomes. We can wait and watch. If the prediction works, then this gives us confidence that the method may work. This is importantly different to someone saying after some event “I knew that Trump had NPD all along and this was bound to happen”. Such a person may have had any number of theories, and this is the only correct one, by chance rather than by skill: the evidence has been cherry-picked.
For more on this sort of thing, Ben Goldacre is your man.
