Freeper = Narcissism Support Group Member

[PurgedVoter]

Criteria for Determination of Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Narcissists demonstrate a need for admiration and a lack of empathy. They have an extremely exaggerated view of their importance, perception and power and persecution. These traits usually show up in early adulthood. This is indicated by having five or more of the nine following:

(1) Has a grandiose sense of self-importance, in other words, exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements.

(2) Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.

(3) Believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people or institutions. :hi: (Anyone racist fits this bill.)

(4) Requires excessive admiration.

(5) Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations. :hi: (Are their any Neocons or Dominionists in the house?)

(6) Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends. :hi: (Welcome to Rove's America!)

(7) Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others. :hi: (Hard to miss this one in any of their plans or statements.)

(8) Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her.

(9) Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.

Three, five, six and seven, are pretty well a slam-dunk on the core Freeper. This would show a prevalent borderline tendency in their community. It is rare in a freeper post to not find one and nine as well. This gives a clinical indication of narcissism. If you follow their online conversations you can often find single posts that meet clearly with all nine at once. If you examine GWB you will find strong evidence for all nine as well.

It is estimated that about 1% of the population is narcissistic. Sadly, a reasonably large percentage of the population respond favorably to narcissists. They see them as strong, determined, just and even moral. It is quite common for people to to quite reasonably hear both sides of an argument, agree with the compassionate or reasoned view, and then ignore compassion or thought to follow a narcissist.

My own belief is that while we fight the immediate political issue today, unless we can root out and resolve our societies mental health issues we will be continuing to fight the same issues tomorrow. In our current social climate we have to defend compassion as a virtue against those that hold selfishness and greed as the highest ethic. We have bible brandishing religious leaders pushing for more selfish political goals. We have a large body of voters that prefer a selfish leader to a compassionate leader. If the common voter can be brought to an understanding of what narcissism is and means, we may be able to avoid the very real danger of having mentally ill people run our country.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. What causes

this disorder...are there theories? I think I know a few of these folks.

[PurgedVoter]

3. I suspect that it is usually early deprival of appropriate attention.

The examples that have impacted my life have this in common.
However I will gladly hand any further explanation over to Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. at his fairly exhaustive and brilliant article on the subject.

http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php/type/doc/id/419

[EstimatedProphet]

2. The fundamental freeper trait:

They want the world to suck up to them. That's all they're about. Their only real concern is that someone else is getting the attention that they deserve.

[PurgedVoter]

4. That would be four and eight!

That gives us six out of nine.

[MamaBear]

6. They're afraid.

The exaggerated self-worth they portray is to hide their total lack of self-esteem. Anybody who worships a diety who punishes as arbitrarily and capriciously as the fundamentalist God-the-Father would be that scared.

As a kid in a fundamentalist church, I was afraid to think too hard about decisions I had to make, because if you thought too much about anything you *could* be hearing Satan trying to trick you. That was the world: God laid baited traps for you, and left you to figure out whether or not it was Satan telling you to take the cheese. If you were wrong, bam! You are judged!

Their arrogance is a smoke screen for their abiding terror, ahd their intolerance is likewise the fear that they will make the wrong choice and end up damned. Not that they'd ever admit any of that.

My two cents. :shrug:

[BlueIris]

7. "their intolerance is likewise the fear that they will make the wrong

choice and end up damned."

Interesting explanation for why they must be right all of the time about everything.

[MamaBear]

10. When they say "God Fearing"

When they say "God Fearing" (as in God-fearing church-going) they aren't kidding. The "God" they have created is a horrifying tyrant.

That's why they insist he's "loving."

How any members of these extremist religions can claim sanity is beyond me, but then again when I was inside I saw things differently ... in fact, a lot like they do.

[PurgedVoter]

9. Fundamentalism can backfire,

I must confess that I am a fairly fundamentalist Christian. This has led me to become quite liberal socially and politically. Anyone who can actually read the words of Jesus and who holds them to be valid, and remains conservative, is a mess. Plain and simple.

[MamaBear]

11. I agree.

In fact, I found that once I read the scriptures of other faiths (and tried them out in my life), and went back and read "the words in red" that the old teachings lost their power for me. It took a long time, a lot of work, and a willingness to be damned if that was what it took to get to the truth for me.

It's a lot easier to just remain scared and judgmental. See? I guess I'm judging them ...

[BlueIris]

12. I think it's okay to make judgments against intolerance.

Don't get Rovian on yourself.

[LizMoonstar]

5. so what does it mean if you worry that you have these traits?

does that make me a narcissist or just a worrier?


edit: just read the article linked. crap. now I'm really freaking paranoid. grrr.

[PurgedVoter]

8. A lot of theories hold that we all have a bit within us.

The critical trait is number seven, the lack of empathy. Most of us can exhibit several of these traits strongly. The fact that I posted this, and have checked back on it, shows reasonable levels of pomposity, vanity and even a desire for adulation. This would give most of us who post three of the nine at least at the time of posting.