re: #273 MandyManners

One quick point about the notion tha Palin is a narcissist: would a narcissist have carried to term a child who is less than perfect?

As for the rest of your post, I will bow out. I have spent years and years in the bowels of anti-social personality disorder.

True sociopaths are quite frightening and very rare. I think the term gets bandied about a lot - these are not simply people who are mean, or seem to care less. Sociopaths function purely based on a set of rules they create. They have no empathy, and no ability to access a wide range of feelings that most people would associate with being human. I do not think they are curable - I think they are missing certain fundamentals that are impossible to “develop” or learn.

Narcissists on the other hand are defined more by their own self-image. So yes, I believe Palin could easily be a narcissist and carry a mentally handicapped baby to term. Narcissists are not about being “perfect” as we define it - they are about creating a self image that they then align their lives to. The key is that the image and the definition are more important to them than anything else. The self-gratification of attaining that image is paramount. If that image includes self-martyrdom or a madonna complex - than the Palin scenario is very easy to imagine.

-PH