Here is the long post:

I am a nerd. I am a geek. I grew up reading sci-fi and trying (usually in vain) to get a long-term D&D campaign together. We geeks tend to have a self-serving narrative. We tend to say, "Hey, WE are the victims. The jocks bullied US. OUR concerns are legitimate. We have been unjustly ostracized." Well, in truth, gamers are often ostracized. Maybe sometimes that ostracism is justified. But even though it may start with jocks ostracizing gamers, pretty soon gamers try to ostracize their fellow gamers.

That is not wrong, as far as it goes, but it only tells part of the story. A large portion of the gaming-geek community has mental health problems. Many of us had bad childhoods and use gaming fantasies as a coping mechanism. Many of us who survived bad behavior -- whether it was parental abuse or peer bullying -- end up repeating the dysfunctional behaviors we suffered as children. Even if we start gaming with fairly healthy psyches, sometimes gaming itself can encourage our narcissism.

Every few years, someone with pretensions to mental health claims to be shocked by the dysfunctional behavior and psychological "toxicity" of gamers. About fifteen years ago, I tried to sound the alarms and of course gamers did their best to ostracize me out of gaming. Since then, every few years, I noticed a few people trying to complain about this.

A recent article about tabletop RPG personality disorders and bad behavior:

https://archive.is/0Nv3c

A 2018 article that says LARPS have an "asshole" problem. I think they should have said "a narcissist problem," but I agree with their facts:

https://archive.md/bt8Cm