Hitler was really nuts...

One of the fun things we got to do in our psychology class was diagnose two really crazy dudes: Hitler, and Van Gogh. The only hint we got was that there were more than one diagnoses. So, I did Vincent first. He was obviously bi-polar, seriously so, with major mood swings from high elation to the depths of darkness. You can see it in his art, too. Some of his paintings explode with color and energy. Others are dark and muddy. He was also an alcoholic, which was like throwing gasoline on his fire. But I didn't know that the poor guy was named for an older, deceased brother, and that he had to pass the graveyard where the first Vincent lay in eternal rest every day of his young life, so he began his life with serious survivor guilt. Personally, I diagnosed him as a borderline personality, which would account for the incident with the ear. Of course, absinthe had a role in that episode, as well. And oh, my, God, Hitler. He was his mother's favorite, and had a terror for a father. He really never had a chance of health. He was obsessive-compulsive to the max. I kept thinking, man, he was paranoid, and settled for a diagnosis of paranoid personality syndrome, with narcissistic and histrionic overtones, who was fixated in the anal period, too. But, no, he was really paranoid schizophrenic, high functioning, until something went wrong. That was his Achilles heel. He could not accept defeat, not even small ones. That is why we aren't all marching around like automatons, wearing swastikas and zig-heiling all over the place. Evil never prospers, not for long, anyway. And I really don't believe in evil, anyway. I do believe in profound sickness, though, now, more than ever.