>>102631938A massive ego that spiraled out of control probably due to the fact that when he was younger not only was he considered to be a genius, not only did he try to overcompensate for his insecurity about his six fingers by thinking them to be something that set apart from everyone else and marked him for greatness, but the person he was compared to most often was someone who was deemed an utter failure and inferior to Ford in just about every way by their family and peers.
When faced with the fact that he is just as capable of screwing up and making huge ass mistakes, he can't accept it because in his mind it was always someone else who was holding him back or responsible for his failures. Stanely was the reason Ford wasn't doing as well as he could have been doing. Stanley was the reason that Ford didn't get into the prestigious school of his dreams. Ford is brilliant, a hard worker capable of doing just fine, no, excelling, on his own.
But once the incident with Bill happens and Fiddleford quits the project Ford really has no one else that he can shift the blame to, and his ego starts to crack. Bill is tormenting him daily, he's being hopelessly crushed by the possibility of his mistakes dooming humanity, and his problems are now becoming too big for him to fix on his own.
In short, both his ego and his fear provide him with two conflicting views of the world, and he didn't know how to reconcile them.
