[borkt]

The more I read about him the more it feels like he had some sort of extremely high functioning borderline personality disorder. I know how unacceptable it is to label people as a layperson, but all of these articles where people were great friends then suddenly dead to him, and the stories of his rage events fits with a few people I know who suffer from this. It is such a strange disorder as some people are complete failures who fall into suicide and drug addiction, yet others go on to lead extremely successful projects and develop a cult of personality around them.

[telchar]

Was he ever known to display any great amount of empathy? I don't know as much about him as many here I'm sure, haven't read the biography. But I have known people with BPD. If the answer to that question is no then I would think sociopathy would be more likely than borderline.

They're both in the same cluster of personality disorders but borderline tends to be associated with more self-loathing and self-destruction since there is still harmful and hurtful behavior like sociopathy but also a good deal of empathy related to an overactive amygdala. Those mix like fuel and air. Sociopaths have reduced empathy so they find harming others and transgressing much easier to live with and move on, so they tend to be less self-destructive as long as they're somewhat high-functioning. They can both be quite manipulative but in my experience people with BPD are less likely to capitalize on it.