[tod222]

> in fact, this struck me as empathetic

This really isn't empathy. Roger is not feeling his friend's pain—he's transferring his friend's situation to himself and feeling his own pain. He's crying in imagined self-pity.

Roger describes crying in self-pity or frustration many times in the document, even into adulthood. A quick word count:

     34 cried
     10 cry
     19 crying
      9 tears

I read (mostly) the first two thirds of the document and this is the closest Roger gets to empathy.

Otherwise Roger's depiction of himself comes off as completely self-absorbed and often unaware or unconcerned with the feelings of others. The narcissism is overwhelming.

[meric]

The narcissism is a defense mechanism for a badly wounded self, it's not especially unsurprising to see an individual who uses 63 variations of the word 'cry' in a document to exhibit narcissistic behavior.