Mike Malloy thinks he has an anger problem. I don’t think he has an anger problem. He’s angry, but he has plenty to be angry about, and I am angry, too, about similar things, but I don’t have his type of problems. His anger isn’t pathological. I think he is depressed. On some days his depression manifests as melancholy, and he comes to the radio and questions whether he can handle his job, his life, his sanity; but on other days it manifests as rageful agitation. Malloy thinks he swings between anger and depression, but I think his anger is ‘normal’ and what he is swinging between is one aspect of depression and another aspect of depression. There is no surprise to me that counseling never helped him with his problem; he needs to find an antidepressant drug that works for him, and he needs to be treated for constant, ongoing depression.
Mike Malloy also has a serious, pathological problem with authority figures. He is one of the people I have observed whose poor relation to authority figures manifests as support for conspiracy theories. In Malloy’s case, he goes straight for stupidest of stupid conspiracy theories, insulting his own intellect. I think he unconsciously goes specifically to stupid theories, much as a young pupil might defy the teacher by doing poor schoolwork.
And we found out today, thanks to his wife/producer’s observations of him, that Malloy often speaks with a venomous tone to store clerks and whoever, while his self-observation is that he sounds pleasant. I’ve encountered that kind of thing before; I think it may be another consequence of an unconscious drive to rebel against authority.
Unfortunately, psychotherapists and psychiatrists are authority figures.
