Interesting, but I think there are very different underlying causes that drive these behaviours. If my hands are wet I can block out the sensation but if only one is wet then my focus keeps shifting to the sensation, as if the imbalance makes it more salient. It is less a habit and more a coping tactic to filter out sensory information.
If for some reason I get one of my hands wet I then need to get the other one wet aswell. I dislike asymmetries like this. Same with temperatures, I one hand or foot is colder than the other I need to equalise them.
People are not diagnosed unless they engage in a therapeutic relationship with a trained professional, their public status has no bearing on it. I gave the example of Goldwater because it is well known and it is germane to the current top of US government and the apparent reluctance of pundits to calling out the textbook example of mental disorder disguised as policy. As for people in your live I’d say limit yourself in recognising traits rather then conditions. Someone might appear to lack empathy in situations you find yourself interacting with them but unless you have a clear picture of their internal view and all the motivations that drive their behaviour linking it to a diagnosis might be myopic. If everyone would start out out of the norm or jerk behaviour as disorders the labels would start lose their meaning. In the same vain it is to say everyone is a bit autistic or I’m so OCD because I like my room tidy. Also manic is a specific trait usually unrelated to (the lack of) empathy: a mental state brought on by bipolar disorder or abuse of stimulant drugs, etc, just for your information.
Yeah, I get where you’re coming from but this are the limitations of the context of therapy: it is beyond the scope to help others aside from the patient unless that is the intent of the patient but this requires insight and empathy and those are no strengths of a typical narcissist. A propos people in power and personality disorders: there are ethical guidelines preventing mental health specialists to diagnose people with disorders (like the Goldwater rule). In my own opinion we should do away with these guidelines: not educating the public does more social harm vis-a-vis democratic decline then any other implications these guidelines prevent.
It’s a bit more nuanced than able to work == disorder free and I think you know that and are exaggerating. It is true however that the ideology is to not diagnosing a person unless there’s a level of insight. What good does it do to label a narcissist when they don’t suffer from it or suffer from a different condition even if that secondary condition is brought on by narcissism? A diagnosis should help a person and benefit them, not pass moral judgment.
I convinced my spouse to give it a try on our family laptop. I installed Mint and she never complained. Granted, if there is something more involved that needs installing or fixing she relies on me but I think this isn’t so different if it were Windows. She seems happy using it all these years on a device that otherwise would have to be written of as scrap due to Microsoft shenanigans with 10/11 compatibilities, but the machine works as if brand new. Also our kid grew up using it. He knows basic usage and I glee in the fact he has never used Windows so far in his live.