Three Posted September 15, 2014 Posted September 15, 2014 Have you ever heard of Histrionic Personality Disorder?During a conversation I had recently with a friend about my mother, one of the things he pointed out to me when I was describing her was that she always needed to be the center of attention like somebody who was histrionic. For example, if I walked around the corner and startled her, she would literally gasp or shout off the top of her lungs. This kind of overreacting was incredibly anxiety provoking, annoying, and often enraging. She'd express herself in such an over the top way as if she was trying to be heard by the person who was sitting at the very back of the worlds largest theater. Maybe that's why one of her favorite actors was Nicolas Cage? Anyway, so I thought I'd look more into it. about this and found a video which makes a distinction between Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Histrionic Personality Disorder.(again, I'm no expert. I understand that these labels describe traits which are symptoms of abuse and trauma ) One of the things mentioned in the video which struck me as interesting was that often histrionics, especially female, will incessantly sexualize things or bring the conversation to something sexual, since that's such an easy way to get attention.I then was reminded of a girl I almost got romantically involved with years ago who would do just that. If the topic was about a massage she'd mention that her "massages have been said to be arousing"Later, when she talked about a night she had at the club, she moved the focus to how other guys made comments about her butt. "I'm just so tired of being objectified!", she protested. To which I facetiously minimized by saying, " It's okay, they're not objectifying you. They're objectifying your ass." (I still think that was pretty funny.)This then prompted the essential quesiton, "why was this woman in my life?"Given the fact that our relationship with our parents impact future romantic relationships, and that my mom was incredibly attention seeking, it made sense that this kind of woman would be in my life. Not only that, but my mother would sexualize things as well. I remember one 4th of July she and her sisters wore one of these obnoxiously tacky bikini t-shirts. They would do poses by sticking their butts out and it was really awkward. They did this in front of me a just laughed at my shocked expression. Anyway this is knew to me, so that's all I have for today. The introduction of new words brings light to things which would otherwise have been invisible to me.
Jot Posted September 15, 2014 Posted September 15, 2014 I've seen all of this guy's videos...pure gold. 1
Lingum Posted September 15, 2014 Posted September 15, 2014 It's an interesting video. I've never though of histrionic in terms of sexuality before. In my opinion, Personality Disorders serve much better as general descriptors for types of behavior or people, than medical disorders, where they are counter-intuitive and misleading. Neither of them are identifiable or possible to distinguish from each other. It's that kind of ambiguity that makes the current state of psychiatric misinformation possible. adjective, Also, histrionical1.of or pertaining to actors or acting.2.deliberately affected or self-consciously emotional; overly dramatic, in behavior or speech.noun3.an actor. If you want to read more in depth about the behaviors, check out:SplittingIdealization and devaluationCompartmentalization (psychology)Narcissistic rage and narcissistic injuryWhy Some Borderline, Narcissistic and Histrionic Mothers Sabotage their Children
Three Posted September 22, 2014 Author Posted September 22, 2014 It's an interesting video. I've never though of histrionic in terms of sexuality before. In my opinion, Personality Disorders serve much better as general descriptors for types of behavior or people, than medical disorders, where they are counter-intuitive and misleading. Neither of them are identifiable or possible to distinguish from each other. It's that kind of ambiguity that makes the current state of psychiatric misinformation possible. If you want to read more in depth about the behaviors, check out:SplittingIdealization and devaluationCompartmentalization (psychology)Narcissistic rage and narcissistic injuryWhy Some Borderline, Narcissistic and Histrionic Mothers Sabotage their Children Thank you for sharing, Lingum. Some of the links I've read, but the 3rd and 5th one I haven't. I'll give them a read!
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