Can you comment on the coherence of Tiny's beliefs? More often then not his beliefs sound like gibberish to me, I'm not sure if he understands what he is saying most of the time. Do you ever get this impression?
Is Tiny's personality disorder (cluster B narcissism as you assert) related to his decision to live so far away from his son, if so how? Do you think he will ever want to fix his disorder or will he die without ever noticing his illness?
Sorry to spam you with questions, I just really enjoyed reading your posts.
No, I don't get that impression. I think one of the reasons Destiny is so effective is because he knows exactly what he's saying and usually he believes what he's saying *in the moment.* That's why people think he's sincere and genuine, even though he frequently contradicts himself later or walks things back, etc. I just think he doesn't really have much of an attachment to anything because of his immature emotional intelligence. But I might be misunderstanding your question, if you have a specific example of what you're talking about, I might have a different opinion.
I'll DM you about your second question because I generally don't like talking about Nathan in this thread, though obviously I have before. As much as I dislike Destiny, this is actually a boundary I would like to respect if I can.
As for your last question, no I don't think Destiny will ever fix it, and I don't think he can fix it, and it's the reason I do actually feel sorry for him and I'm a little bit softer on him than my homies. I've said it before, and I'll say it again here. I think Destiny has a lot of potential and I think it's tragic that the sum total of his life resulted in being such a shitty person. I think he is smarter than the average person, I think he does have a gift for changing minds, and as a liberal, I think it would be great if he used these things as a force for good, but I don't think he actually cares about anything.
Narcissism is a defense mechanism against a fragile ego, and that fragile ego is something that came from his experiences in childhood. With Destiny, there's probably a lot of reasons it happened. Blav's favorite topic. The fact that his parents had to focus on other kids in daycare, or had to ship him off to their grandparents house where the dogs were being killed and he learned to not get attached to things, his speech impediment probably alienated him from the other kids, etc. So he had to develop a superiority complex because deep down he's very insecure. One of the things Blav and I disagree on is his relationship to sex. I don't think sex and cum are his primary motivation, I think they're just his preferred method for validating and reinforcing his fragile ego. Everything he does is based around this. It's why he debates the way he does, it's why he plays games the way he does, it's why he wouldn't pay for sex whereas a lot of sex addicts would. What he's addicted to is constantly having his ego boosted because when it's not, he's going to be that lonely loser little kid again. That's why he's a perpetual adolescent.
The thing about NPD is that it's very hard to treat because the narcissist is literally delusional and sees themselves differently than anyone else does. It's why they're so good at convincing some people that they're so great. So the people around him are going to reinforce that he's great, he himself cannot see the things he does wrong and projects them on other people, etc. So he would have to reach a point where he has literally no defense mechanisms left, and that's the only time he recognizes that he's not a good guy. People have mentioned it before, but he's talked about taking drugs and saying that he should be kept far away from his son. When people who have deeply psychological issues take some drugs, this can happen, because they take down all of their defense mechanisms.
A lot of the time psychchologists will also be convinced by the narcissist's delusions of themselves because the narcissist actually believes what they're saying. So a lot of the time they go undiagnosed. And if a psychologist DOES catch that they're a narcissist, they can't really diagnose them with that a lot of the time. They have to diagnose and treat them for something else. You might be treated for autism, for example, because autistic people are viewed as super smart but have issues with displaying empathy. But the difference is, people with autism usually TRY to act right when people point out that they're doing things that make other people uncomfortable or that they're inadvertently hurting someone's feelings. Narcissists double down. And narcissists learn how to mimic empathy, but they don't actually have it. They learn the language. Kind of like how Destiny knows the language of consent and of respecting women, but when push comes to shove, the mask slips when he talks about how it was his choice to abort or not abort. Or when he records Chaeiry. Or when he releases Pxie's videos to strangers. Or he doesn't worry about the safety of young women on twitter who are definitely jail bait. He knows how to speak the language to get what he wants. He never really cares about consent. He just needs the illusion that he does.
So you have a situation where a guy doesn't see himself how he is, people around him won't see it except for the people he's closest to (like Melina), and anyone who does see it is probably going to avoid doing anything about it because it's not worth it. And because they will make your life hell if you dare to disrupt their view of themselves. And Destiny has tons of DGGers who are willing to tell him he's smart and funny and great and everyone who does him wrong is a whore or an idiot or a bad guy. And you have people like Erudite who will go tell him that actually he's a REALLY good guy.
I had hoped that I was wrong about Destiny, because like I said before, I do see potential in him. I thought that maybe after his friends all abandoned him and he initially seemed apologetic to Pxie, maybe he'd take inventory of his life and consider how his actions led him to where he is. But he didn't and he won't. So no, I don't think he'll change. And I hope that the people in his life, either by choice or because they have to be, realize what he is and understand that he's broken and it doesn't have anything to do with them.
Edit: One of the ways that I usually judge people is going to be based on whether or not I think they would change their behavior if they could. There are some people who do really shitty things, but I think that if you gave them a button and it would change them, they would press it. I think most people with BPD are like this. I don't think Destiny would push the button, he would think everyone else needs to conform to him.