Divorcing The Donald: Cutting Ties with The Narcissist.

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Allison Patton, family lawyer, wrote an eye opening article for The Huffington Post that goes beyond simply describing Donald Trump as an NPD poster boy, which many have already done.

In family law, individuals with NPD are known a HCPs-high-conflict persons. Here, Ms. Patton describes the way Trump’s blatant narcissism has not only alienated him from the Republican Party, but how he could potentially serve as a public example of a serious disorder that family lawyers, judges, and the courts are surprisingly ignorant about–and often unwittingly reward the narcissistic spouse and punish the real victim, due to the narcissist’s glibness and ability to lie convincingly.

Unfortunately, Trump has succeeded in pulling the wool over the eyes of millions of Americans who continue to support him–even though it’s no secret he has been publicly diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Many of these Americans tell themselves, “well aren’t all politicians narcissists anyway?”
Well, most probably have some narcissistic traits, but most are not full-blown NPD like Donald Trump either.

Divorcing The Donald: Cutting Ties With The Narcissist
By Allison Patton, for The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alison-patton/divorcing-the-donald_b_9633460.html

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally, Wednesday, April 6, 2016, in Bethpage, N.Y. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally, Wednesday, April 6, 2016, in Bethpage, N.Y. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

Narcissistic Personality Disorder
A “Cluster B” personality disorder in which a person is excessively preoccupied with personal adequacy, power, prestige and vanity, mentally unable to see the damage they are causing to themselves and often others.

While the Republican Party is desperately trying to cut ties with Donald Trump, the world watches in disbelief. All, that is, but a particular group of women and men with one thing in common: each of them has divorced a narcissist, and some still share child custody with one.

They know the story and could write the script. The successful, gregarious person who swept them off their feet. The promises that followed. Gradually the realization that it was all a façade. There could never be a “we” because narcissists care only about themselves. Then the real nightmare began, the battle to remove this toxic person from their lives. . . . and for those with children, the misery of trying to co-parent with an ex who acts and thinks like The Donald.

As a divorce lawyer, these cases are the most difficult and disturbing. In my family law circle, we refer to someone with a narcissistic personality disorder as “an NPD” (or the more general term “HCP” — which stands for “high conflict person”). The legal battle is always the same: the unaffected spouse tries to explain to the attorneys, judge and appointed psychological expert (if there is one) the narcissist’s behavioral pattern: control, emotional abuse, manipulation, duplicity and the damaging impact on the children. The NPD denies it all and mounts a legal response that consists of blame laying, factual distortions, outright lies and a character assassination of the other spouse.

The experts and the judge are sometimes able to weed through the chaos and confusion, identify the personality disorder at play and make decisions that protect the children and unaffected spouse. Often, however, the legal system gets it wrong. Just as we’ve seen with Donald Trump, the NPD can be very convincing and manipulative. And the court system – like the general public – either gets conned by the NPD or isn’t equipped to manage the level of conflict created by a Donald. Often the court assumes both parties are equally to blame for creating and maintaining a high conflict case, so the innocent parent who is fighting to protect the kids is treated as skeptically as the narcissistic parent.

For decades, there has been little understanding of how to spot and handle personality disorders in family law. As recently as 2011, when I blogged on Huffington Post about high conflict people in divorce court, I received emails from out-of-state divorce professionals indicating the information was new to them and they hadn’t heard the term “high conflict people” used in their family court.

Thanks to Donald Trump and his campaign, the entire world now gets daily lessons on NPD behavior. As disturbed as I am by what the Donald has pulled off, the divorce lawyer in me sees the opportunity here. The Donald is our new high conflict poster child. Those of us who want change in the family law system couldn’t hope for a better example. The common traits and behaviors of this personality disorder are being revealed, in their full horrific glory.

Read the rest of this article here.

Bonus article: Donald Trump’s Amazing Answer to “Do You Cry?”  (Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/19/donald-trumps-amazing-answer-on-do-you-cry/
Hilarious.

28 thoughts on “Divorcing The Donald: Cutting Ties with The Narcissist.”

  2. From what I’ve read and listened to on YouTube from supposed experts, it is impossible to make a conclusive diagnosis of NPD strictly on public behavior without a 1 on 1 meeting and questioning

    Liked by 1 person

    • True, and he may not have a bonafide psychiatric diagnosis of NPD, but the symptoms are all there for everyone to see if they’re looking, and many psychologists have speculated he has NPD.

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      • Yes, but it seems to me there is a very fuzzy grey area between someone who exhibits a number of narcissistic traits and behaviors of varying strength and the magic line where it crosses into NPD. I’ve spent months trying to figure out what that dividing line is mostly in attempts at self diagnosis, and like you I’ve bounced all over the place. I’m coming to realize that the entire constellation of cluster B behaviors, traits, thought patterns, beliefs, and interaction style are poorly understood even amongst the so called professionals.

        Liked by 1 person

        • They are very poorly understood by professionals. In months of studying these disorders, I’m slowly coming to the conlcusion that they are actually severe manifestations of complex PTSD.

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        • I think these dividing lines are very arbitrary. Psychiatry is more like an art form than an exact science. IMHO, people with NPD all have unresolved, severe C-PTSD also. But not all C-PTSDs are narcissists or even have N traits.

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  3. Fascinating article to read thanks for sharing it! Like or hate The Donald I can’t believe that voters can’t see that he has absolutely no clue how to run our country nor how the government works. He thinks he can “CEO” Congress if they don’t let him have his way. He would be a disaster to America because he has no political intelligence or experience. Reading this article makes it make sense how a grown adult, a successful and intelligent businessman, can run his presidential campaign by making fun of people and one of his competitor’s wife like he is in the 6th grade—mine is better than yours nahnahnahnahnah— and why he is OK with inciting violence and wants to use suppression with anyone who disagrees with him. It makes so much more sense to me now. I feel he would ruin our country and not due to being republican or democrat. To me he is a classic narc for sure!!!

    Liked by 1 person

    • I do not hate Trump–I think he’s hilarious–but I think he’s a sociopath and the idea of him running the country scares me to pieces.

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  4. I both like and dislike The Donald but I can’t deny the 6th-graderness in him that Diana mentions….nahnahnahnah mine is better than yours. Well said!

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  5. It’s not strictly true that narcissists are entirely self serving in the political context. Without narcissists there would be no politics. A narcissistic leader is their country and their country is them. There is a limited amount of damage one can do in two four year terms. That’s why that clause is in your Constitution. Both of the Clintons are narcissists, by the way. Hillary is considerably less stable than Bill or Donald.

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    • Both of the Clintons are narcissists, by the way. Hillary is considerably less stable than Bill or Donald.

      You are probably right. Using the terminology, Trump shows the traits of Overt narcissism which is why so many are identifying him as a narcissist. In contrast, both Clintons, probably Obama, and a sizable percentage of politicians are covert narcissists. The grandiosity, sense of superiority, entitlement are all there but just hidden way better than the Overt. How many deaths is Hilary responsible for in her time as Secretary of State. The email issue is a clear example of someone who believes the rules don’t apply to her

      Liked by 1 person

      • I agree about the Clinton’s. I think Bill was/is a relatively “harmless” narcissist though, not malignant. I don’t trust Hillary at all though. I’ll still take her over Trump though.

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      • I’ve seen this. Vaknin thinks Obama is a narcissist, but he thinks Trump is even worse–sociopathic and malignant. I tend to think he’s right on both counts.

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    • What do yo mean by “stable” exactly? I don’t think Hillary would be particularly dangerous, just more of the same we’ve had. Trump, on the other hand… *shudder*

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  6. Oh my goodness…you have found the silver lining…a way to make lemonade out of lemons….a rainbow at the end of the storm….keep writing! You have something good in this topic!

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  8. So! The Frumpious Bandersnatch is a pred! Why am I not surprised? Oh, and this explains both the gaudy package (impression management) as well as the near-complete lack of real content in his Frumpious Spoutings.

    On a more dire note: L. Carroll says one should avoid Bandersnatches especially – as in they’re dangerous. Good advice, if you ask me.

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  10. On a more-dire note: as is common with ‘secular witch-equivalents’ (social predators) they don’t bother explaining HOW. Why?

    1) ignorant prey-items are easier to *game*.
    2) solid information admits weakness – and no pred wants either weakness or its appearance.
    3) confidence – ‘I am the God!’ – Is an explicit tool of domination
    4) the biggest of this lot: our pred honestly believes that he can cause reality to change itself by a sheer act of personal will-effort – much if he were a highly-initiated follower of, uh, Thelema (presuming, of course, that it worked… secular witch-equivalents, indeed, )
    Hence, acting as if the matter is solved actually *solves* the problem.

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