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Hosted by Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq. and Megan Hunter, MBA, It’s All Your Fault! High Conflict People explores the five types of people who can ruin your life—people with high conflict personalities and how they weave themselves into our lives in romance, at work, next door, at school, places of worship, and just about everywhere, causing chaos, exhaustion, and dread for everyone else.
They are the most difficult of difficult people — some would say they’re toxic. Without them, tv shows, movies, and the news would be boring, but who wants to live that way in your own life!
Have you ever wanted to know what drives them to act this way?
In the It’s All Your Fault podcast, we’ll take you behind the scenes to understand what’s happening in the brain and illuminates why we pick HCPs as life partners, why we hire them, and how we can handle interactions and relationships with them. We break down everything you ever wanted to know about people with the 5 high conflict personality types: narcissistic, borderline, histrionic, antisocial/sociopath, and paranoid.
And we’ll give you tips on how to spot them and how to deal with them.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to, it's All Your Fault On True Story fm, the one and only podcast dedicated to helping you identify and deal with the most challenging human interactions, those involving someone with a high conflict personality. I'm Megan Hunter and I'm here with my co-host, bill Eddie.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Hi everybody.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
We are the co-founders of the High Conflict Institute in San Diego, California where we focus on training, consulting, coaching classes, and educational programs and methods, all to do with high conflict. And since 2008 today, we're going to continue our five types of people who can ruin your life series this time focusing on histrionic high conflict people and their involvement in domestic violence. If any. Before we start, please send your questions to podcast and high conflict institute.com or on the website high conflict institute.com/podcast where you'll also find all the show notes and links. And if you have questions about our upcoming series, we're going to do a series on resistance and refusal in divorce and child custody cases. We're doing another series called the Radar Series where we'll help you figure out how to spot this stuff in advance. So send those questions on. In today's episode, we are continuing the series, like I said, and we'll be talking about I think, what is a little known topic, histrionic high conflict people.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
So Bill, you started the book Five Types of People who Can Ruin Your Life. And you titled this particular chapter the Dramatic accusatory type. And you start it by saying, this kind of high conflict person is motivat debated by a fear of being ignored, which manifests in a drive to be the center of attention sometimes by making up dramatic stories about their targets of blame and telling the world about them. These HCPs frequently speak in dramatic all or nothing terms. While they're sometimes accurately describing events, many of their stories are gross exaggerations or sometimes not based in fact at all. If you are the target of blame for a histrionic, HCP, prepare for public accusations, dramatic stories about how awful you are to them, and a lot of people making judgements about you based on false information, histrionic, HCPs consider the targets of blame, the reason that they're helpless victims, which justifies them in continuing to be helpless and others to of their problems.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
They be very at getting others them. So Bill, I think that the term histrionic, I know we've talked about this on the podcast before, but it kind of conjures up this image of the hysterical woman in the old black and white movies and she's getting all upset and the clerk gable comes around and gives her a slap and it's histrionic. So I'm thinking it's probably more than that, right? So let's talk about if you were on an airplane and you're talking about this with someone and they say, what does that even mean? What's histrionic mean?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Basically, it is an exaggerated emotions, exaggerated drama, intense excitement, things that will get attention, a lot of emotion. So emotion and drama when you think of those. But that's not all of it. It's that they're really a victim that everything happens to them. I remember doing a training for nurses once, and they talked about the five different personalities and they said, of the five, this is the one we get the most because they claim to have terrible physical, I'm dying of cancer. And you find out that it's like a bruise or something really minor. And so in many ways it's an exaggeration. And as you said, occasionally they do make things up completely, but most of the time it's just an exaggeration and an emotional exaggeration. But what's important here, and remember, we're not teaching people to diagnose anybody, and we're more interested in what patterns of high conflict behavior are. So the histrionic pattern of high conflict behavior is to escalate conflicts by being so dramatic that they kind of suck everybody's attention into them and what they're saying and doing. It's very distracting. It can be very distracting in an office where you have one person that's always trying to grab all the attention and may just do physical things, say at a staff meeting that just keep distracting everybody. What are they doing? They're shuffling papers or they're spilling things and now I have to pick them all up. Things like
Speaker 1 (05:25):
That. That drives me crazy.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah,
Speaker 1 (05:28):
That probably drives everyone crazy.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yes. But what's interesting is because we talked earlier about borderline personality in a prior episode, which may also be very emotional, but borderline has mood swings to the very intense rage. And we don't usually see rage with histrionics. It's much more just surface drama, drama, drama, a lack of depth, maybe dressing in ways to attract attention. One of the characteristics is kind of seductive movements. And I once had a client as a lawyer who was referred by her psychiatrist who I knew, and he said, bill, she's got histrionic traits. And she would sit in my office and just kind of twitch and she just kind of move in strange ways. And it wasn't seductive, it was just weird, but it was part of who she was was these dramatic movements. So in some ways easier to deal with, for example than say borderline extremes, but in many ways hard to pin down and make progress with. So people who are professionals, when you have a client like this, it's harder getting them to focus, but it's worth trying to do that just realize it takes a little more time. And for the average person is just to be aware, this is drama without substance most of the time. Now, there may be occasions they may actually be victim, victims of a crime, victim of abuse, but they also distorted a lot. So you have to really check their stories.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Might their behavior sometimes be confused with a DHD
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Possibly because there's a lot of impulse to it, but I wouldn't say it's directly related,
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Maybe not related, but I wonder if someone might confuse kind of see, maybe you were talking about the movements, maybe that someone's twitching a lot or moving in seductive ways or things, and perhaps that could be mistaken for something else like DH adhd.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah, and that's interesting. With all of the personality disorders and other mental health issues, there often is some overlap too. So there may be some people that have both because in many ways histrionic people do have a hard time keeping their attention focused and kind of going from emotion to emotion to emotion. So I'm sure there's some people where that overlaps, but it also could be misunderstood. And what's interesting, a DD, there's medications that can help with that, whereas the personality disorders, there isn't a medication to change the personality disorder that takes really learning a whole range of behaviors, language use of your body, et cetera, to change. So that's a much bigger process.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Now the DSM five lists up to eight traits of histrionic personality disorder. You say in the book that there's three key characteristics of histrionics that lead many to be histrionic, high conflict people, one being drive to be the center of attention, second being dramatic speech generally lacking in detail, but with exaggerated emotions. And three misjudgment of relationships, thinking people care about them more than they do. So this last one has my attention. So they're kind of speaking of attention. So in their drive to be the center of attention, I guess I'm just trying to break this down, they're getting someone to pay attention to them and in so doing, they think that they have a closer relationship than reality, is that what this means?
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Yeah, they may think people really care about them. They may tell other peoples, because people with this person, I like to make a lot of public announcements about the people around them and their kind of judgment of things. And so-and-so just loves the heck out of me. And everybody needs to know that this person just is so one of my biggest boosters. And you find out that it's a famous person and they met in line and shook the person's hand and had 10 seconds with them. And so they're often very dramatic about how wonderful other people are and how terrible are the people are. And that's where, as you mentioned earlier, they hook other people into blaming their targets of blame with them. They can be very persuasive because of all the emotions.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I just had a thought about another mental health condition called ERO mania. Do you know much about that?
Speaker 2 (10:26):
No, I haven't focused on that, but that comes up with some of the personalities. Yeah, heavy emphasis on sexuality, sensuality.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah. And it's sort of from what I recall, believing that there's a closer relationship to maybe a celebrity or someone famous than they're there really, really is. And it seems to have some similar things here. I recall working with a person years ago who someone else who actually was in the mental health field said, oh yeah, that person definitely has amania. And it was this constant drive to have attention and very needy. So maybe there was a little this little that who knows, not labeling or diagnosing, but it's a curious thing. So in a crisis, such a person can quickly grab everyone's attention and focus it on solving a problem together. And some say that many movie stars, rock stars and other public performers have traits of this personality, though not necessarily the personality disorder. Let's expand on that and then I have a question about Paul McCartney.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Okay, yeah. Celebrities very attracted to celebrities because celebrities get a lot of attention. Yes, their fascination with celebrities trying to rub shoulders with celebrities and everybody, they have these deep relationships with celebrities who maybe they actually met once or maybe they just saw them on TV and just felt like they're speaking to me. It's part of the drama. And one thing I mentioned later in the five types book is I think each of these five personalities really in many ways goes back thousands of years, that these high conflict people aren't evil, they're ancient. And that in ancient times, this such a personality may have really brought people together to solve a problem. And while they're not good at solving problems themselves, they are good at pulling people together, grabbing everyone's attention. And then if other people work at problem solving, maybe as a group, they're more effective. So there may have, once upon a time been a role for this kind of personality, but in an office, in a family, this personality can really be disruptive. But understanding that I think helps us have empathy. People grow up with these personalities, they don't choose them, and that's so important to understand. But by understanding these patterns of behavior, you have a better idea of how to deal with the patterns of behavior.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
So what would a histrionic high conflict pattern of behavior look like in daily life, like everyday life with this person in a marriage relationship or family member, and then separately like a work life with this person?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Well, since high conflict personality is really a description of conflict behavior. And the primary factor with that is a preoccupation with blaming others and not taking responsibility themselves. And this personality is really good at that. So they're really good at verbally blaming other people. They may be physically violent, they may push. And that research study on domestic violence suggests or doesn't suggest, says that all the personality disorders have a higher involvement in domestic violence. But this isn't one of the highest that borderline and antisocial are the most involved in engaging in domestic violence. So that's another possibility. But the preoccupation with blame, and if they have the personality disorder, that means they have a stuck pattern of behavior. That's the enduring pattern. So you have an enduring pattern of blaming others in the family. It's all your fault. This could be husband or wife, could be one of the kids. Sometimes that's stuck here because kids go through this of course, but we don't diagnose kids in most cases. It's very rare because they're not stuck in a pattern of behavior yet in the workplace, this is the person that distracts everybody, draws all their attention and may look very appealing in an interview. In other words, they can be very attractive because they're dramatic, they're exciting, they're appealing to people because of the higher
Speaker 2 (15:13):
At first, at first, exactly. So the higher emotions, but then they figure, oh, it's just because we just met. And then the higher emotions don't go away, and they become irritating and disruptive. So families workplace, it's not that common of the personality disorder, but they do get disproportionate attention.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
So let's talk about how common it's, and then we'll come back to Paul McCartney because I forgot to ask you, so the NIH study of around 20 million people from 2008 indicated that about 2% of the general population of the US has a histrionic personality disorder. Do you think that number is still accurate now that we're a few years beyond 2008?
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Well, it's interesting because being the center of attention has become very important in our culture over the last 15, 20 years. And mechanisms for everyone to be the center of attention have grown with TikTok, Facebook and YouTube, et cetera, all of that. And so I think that people who may have been kind of irritating to their friends, relatives, coworkers and kind of on the fringe of the community are now finding a way to be at the center. And so you get some really strange behavior that may be driven by histrionic personalities, but it's hard to say if it's increased that much. But I do want to add, we often see this in combination with some of the other personality disorders, especially narcissistic personality, because narcissistic is also a drive to be center of attention, but they don't necessarily use drama. So you get someone who's dramatic and narcissistic may have a really big impact. They're kind of a big personality. People often think of people with big personalities. And you may see both of these in some celebrities, you may see some of this in Hollywood. But again, people may have traits but not the disorder, which means they may be more workable and therefore more successful, they may change and learn and grow. Whereas when people have a personality disorder, they have an enduring pattern. And getting those folks to change, learn and grow is much, much more difficult.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
So let's take a break, bill, and we'll come back and I'll ask you that question and a few more and then we'll wrap it up. Okay, we are back. Bill, did we talk about the split between men and women in that study?
Speaker 2 (18:17):
We should definitely. We should, definitely
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Should. Because it's a big surprise in our trainings when we poll our training participants about their thoughts on if there's more men or women of each of these personality types, it reveals a great deal of unconscious bias. So why is that? What are the numbers? What's the split?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
So, well, let me give a teeny bit of background. So histrionic came from hysteria, and this was something Freud was paying very much attention to. And hysteria is like Greek or Roman somehow related to the uterus. And the theory was that women with this very dramatic, et cetera, had a floating uterus that it caused them to be very dramatic. And that was very, I did not
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Know that. Interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Yes. So people say histrionic, it's associated with women. And originally, and Freud certainly associated it with women, but in our seminars, I asked how many people think that the research found this was a male oriented disorder, female disorder, or about equal. And what's fun is everyone raises their hand that it's a female issue
Speaker 1 (19:35):
And it's everyone, everyone, everyone. I mean, we're not being all or nothing. It truly is. And I mean thousands, hundreds of seminars we've talked, it's everybody.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Well, I've been getting where there's one or two
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Only because they're catching on Bill that they might not know.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
In fact, one time it was the chief justice of a court of appeal in a state, and this guy guessed correctly. And the correct answer is it's about equal. The study came out 51% male, 49% female. And this shocked everybody, including me, because we've just, like you said, cultural bias that women are the ones who want to have a drive to get attention and have a lot of surface emotions. But in today's world, men have that too. And today's world teaches to have emotions to young men to drive to get attention, skateboard, hold onto a car and ride your skateboard and put it on YouTube, things that are really dramatic and really, yes, it's something that's really equally distributed. And I wouldn't be surprised if it's increased in the last 20 years. And probably equally because you see men and women all over social media, YouTube trying to get attention. And in many ways these personality disorders are exaggerations of issues in our current culture. And so histrionic getting attention, it's just, it's over the top. And so it's reigning people in helping them realize that they don't have to get massive attention to be an okay person, that they can manage, that they are able to solve problems, they don't have to lean on other people. And the therapy for this does have some hope.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
So this is just really fascinating thinking about this, our influencer culture and clicking and building audiences and growing audiences. And of course there are a lot of people who grow their audiences on social media and they're not histrionic, but you think about what an easy entry into fulfilling your needs to be histrionic, I guess, by becoming an influencer. And it has to be so gratifying and giving them so much supply as they build that audience. And they probably do riskier and riskier things to build that. So if I go back to our earlier discussion around ancient personalities, it becomes really fascinating. So when you talk about ancient personalities, the way I see it is we're born with a lot of this already, not perhaps the high conflict personality, but the baseline histrionic. I'm going to be the attention getter. Maybe the antisocial is going to be the person that goes to war. When we put that all together, it's kind of fascinating. So if the influencers, let's say an influencer has this ancient histrionic personality, let's say that it rises to the level of an actual diagnosis of histrionic personality, then is the, well lemme go back. Let's say they don't have the criteria, they don't meet the criteria for histrionic. Do you think if they have that ancient personality to start with, that becoming an influencer and traveling that path can turn them into more histrionic to the level of a disorder or becoming a high conflict personality?
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Well, a lot of this happens in childhood, and I'd say 95% of personality development is in childhood. Maybe 50% of it is by age five or six. So I think you're right that some people have some genetic tendencies that may lead them to have a more histrionic personality. And one of the personalities we talked about before, antisocial personality disorder has a higher incidence. If they have a first degree relative, a parent or a sibling with the same personality disorder, that they are more likely to have antisocial personality. We don't see that as much with histrionic, but I suspect all of these have a genetic component, especially when I see families with three or four kids, and I see them as adults mostly, but their siblings aren't like this. And so they seem to be born partially with this now childhood experience, especially negative childhood experience, insecure attachments that if a child goes through and attachment starts by six months old, so by the time you're 5-year-old, you've mostly got a secure attachment, or you don't have a secure attachment with a parent or grandma or Aunt Mary or Uncle Joe.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
So the development of this really does start so early. So what I think is they may learn this, let's say by five to 10 years old, and then it gets refined with their interaction with the world. So the world gives them attention. I think of comedians, and I'm sure some comedians are higher on this trait that, and you hear about comedians that started when they were like four or five, and the whole family liked to laugh at them and they got a lot of attention. With that said, I want to say with all of these personalities, we're talking about a small percent of people. So if I say comedians and histrionic personality disorder, I'm talking about maybe five or 10% of people. And it may just be traits, not a personality disorder. They have a personality disorder interferes with success. So it's more likely people with some traits who found an outlet that works for them of getting attention and they're really good at it.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
So I try to see all this as nonjudgmental. It's more what works, what works for them, and what works for the people around them. And understanding this is a pattern of behavior you can't talk them out of. It's more how do you set limits and impose consequences when necessary. But it's a mixed message with all of the personality disorders because the ancient theory is that they really were functional in society long ago in a world that spent a lot of time at war and people dominating and killing each other, and they help people get together and fight back. So they may have been real helpful at one time.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
So a few terms that come up when in relation to history on is irritating emotional intensity. And I think the most common is exhausting. We hear that quite a lot from folks who think they have someone like this in their lives and just really tough. So what's a way, if you're talking someone's really exhausted by their loved one for someone they're working with, what's one key skill they can do to relieve themselves of that exhaustion?
Speaker 2 (27:23):
First of all, telling yourself, it's not about me. This is who the person is. And so they may be blaming me a lot. They may be in my face with drama and emotion a lot. It's not about me. There isn't a reason I have to accept all of this. And so in many ways it's moving to being able to say, if you keep standing like a foot away from me, I'm going to have to lead this conversation. Things like that, that you have the right to set limits on your exposure to the high intensity emotions. And you can do it with empathy and say, this isn't helping either of us because we're not really having a conversation right now. And I encourage you to find someone else to talk to because I've heard that I empathize with you, but there's a limit to what I can do. And in the workplace, this is something that may come up. There may be someone that you need to say, okay, remember we're not going to talk further about that issue that's done, and now I have to get back to work or back to a project or something. So in many ways, telling yourself you're okay and you have a right to set limits and impose consequences if you have to.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
So important.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Yeah, I think people feel like they're not allowed to set limits, and that's one of the big things in our culture. We have to learn how to do that with high conflict people. It doesn't help them to tolerate someone that now you never want to be around. It's better to set some limits so you can be around them to some extent that works for both of you.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
So their dramatic stories bring in others who become negative advocates. So how do you know if you are becoming a negative advocate?
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Well, the key thing with negative advocates is they're emotionally hooked, and this person's excessive emotions often hook other people. I think it's your right amygdala in your brain that gets emotionally hooked, but uninformed. And if you find yourself feeling I have to do something for this person, I have to save them from the drama, whatever it is, that's when you're becoming a negative advocate because you always have a choice. And also it's not up to you, it's up to them. You can assist them with problem solving, but maybe they have a legal problem and you go to court with them or do some research for them, but you can't fix it for them. And none of these personalities can you fix it for, and you shouldn't imply that you can. You say, I can help you, but this is your responsibility. Remember, they shed responsibility and blame others. So don't accept other people's responsibility is keep it on their shoulders and say, I can help you, or maybe I can't help you.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Okay, so two quick yes, no answers, and then we'll ask the Paul McCartney question. Will the histrionic personality lie?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Oh, for sure, but more they exaggerate, but if necessary, they'll lie. All of these high conflict personalities lie more than the average person in order to preserve their sense of life, to preserve their identity, to preserve their relationships. They'll lie and may create very dramatic stories of terrible things like say that they're sick when they're not really sick. I have cancer, I have to go to get treatments for this. And you find out they don't have cancer and they're not getting treatments for this. That's an extreme. It's more likely they're exaggerating, but it's good to check things out, don't accept things at face value. And the reality is a hundred percent of human beings distort some information. And so these folks have a pattern of distorting information. So check things out. Maybe even Google somebody if you're wondering, is this story true?
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Yep, we've done that and we've learned some interesting things, haven't we, bill? Yep. Alright, so let's tell us about the Paul McCartney story.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yeah, so what's interesting, and we're not publicly diagnosing anybody, but for a short period of time, Paul McCartney was married to a woman who seemed to have some of these traits at a period of life after really the love of his life. Linda McCartney died for cancer. He ended up got involved with another exciting woman, dramatic woman, someone with public exposure, top of her field in some ways, and they married and everything was exciting. But then they had an exciting divorce, sad to say, and they ended up in court. What's interesting is she claimed that she did all of this stuff for him, that she rebooted his career. He would've been nothing at that point in his life if it wasn't for her. I think she accused him of some abusive behaviors. I don't know if it was physical abuse, but I think it could have been.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
And she was in the news saying him and his people treating or abusing me. Anyway, I wanted to just read a paragraph from the judge's decision when he rejected her claim that his success was due to her at that stage in his life. So the judge says, I wholly reject her account that she rekindled the husband's professional flame and gave him back his confidence. I have to say that the wife's evidence that in some ways she was the husband's psychologist in quotes, even allowing for hyperbole is typical of her make belief, and that's characteristic of history. I don't know if she had that or traits or anything, but that's characteristic of the histrionic personality. They claim credit for more. They think things are deeper than they are, and from the outside, this judge could say, looking at all the evidence, this just doesn't fit. And that's the kind of thing to be prepared for. And the judge used the word make belief, and I think that's something you have to kind of, is this true or is this part of this person's make belief and that's common with this personality. So that's probably a good one to wrap up with.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Alright, well thank you for that, bill and listeners, thank you for listening to our podcast. We so appreciate that you do. We're going to put the link for this book, five types of people who Can Ruin Your Life in the show notes. Next week, we will be recording our last episode of the five type series on paranoid personalities. Send your questions to podcast of high conflict institute.com or submit them to high conflict institute.com/podcast. Until next time, keep learning and practicing these skills. Be kind to yourself and to others while we all try to keep the conflict small and find the missing piece. It's All Your Fault is a production of True Story FM Engineering by Andy Nelson. Music by Wolf Samuels, John Coggins and Ziv Moran. Find the show notes and transcripts at True Story fm or high conflict institute.com/podcast. If your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.