with things like the Mary Lee Walsh and Manajerk arcs, indicating paranoia.
I think that's more prosaic than some sort of paranoia, I think it's more Chris being the special boy was told not to do something and despite whining, or having his parents fight his battles, the authority figures' demands were fixed and Chris couldn't change them. Obviously Chris didn't do anything wrong, so in his mind, those people were just jerks devoting their time to specifically keeping the autistic down. It's a fairly common thing with spoiled, egotistical manchildren.
This goes back much earlier than the merge, and can be seen in stuff like the Tale of the Crazy Pacer (he introduces himself to Anna McLeran as Sonichu, indicating delusions)
According to Anna, he introduced himself as Christian W Chandler when they first met. The only Sonichu thing was Chris's "business card", and it sounds like he didn't even talk about his hedgehog with her. Outside of being a bumbling Casanova, she didn't report Chris being very strange.
His utter inability to recognize trolls even after dozens of trolling incidents could also be evidence of issues deeper than autism. Or maybe he just liked talking to the trolls
Chris has always had this "bring the women and money to me" mindset, even going back to high school. His smug ass 18th birthday party, that was crawling with high school pussy is where you can see this the most. Prince Chris got all the women. So why wouldn't that happen after he became world famous for his Sonichu?
Obviously there would be a ton of people, and women, just lining up to get with him. And why wouldn't they? He created a masterpiece and was the greatest thing to women since they were allowed to vote. Why wouldn't the head of Nintendo in Japan take time out of his busy day to contact Chris about his amazing creation?
Chris always had this nonchalant attitude with the trolls and people contacting him, like he just expected it. And you are right, he did enjoy talking to the trolls and trying to get one ups on them or talking about himself. Autistic people do have this ability to continuously talk about themselves because it's the one thing they "understand" verses trying to figure out the motives or mindsets of other people, which they have difficulty doing.
His "sanity" started to tear at the seams as adult life brought new responsibilities and people like Bob stopped being able to take care of him and started to need care themselves.
I think Bob dying did contribute a lot to his sinking into fantasy land, but only as a cope, not as a bonefied delusion. I think some people have made the point that when Chris was finally 'in charge', the only thing he can see when he looks around his nasty house was just trash, garbage, piled up shit. Chris has two options: Either he cleans, which we know was one of his major refusals, or he does everything he can to ignore it. No, Chris isn't some low functioning tard living in a garbage dump, he's a sexy beautiful goddess that is never wrong and one day, everything will work out.