A personality disorder or most young women?

I see that Histrionic PD is getting removed from DSM V, how does that make you feel histrionics?

In my opinion, looking at the traits of the disorder on wiki it probably occurs to 60-80% of young, beautiful women. Even my two little sisters are seemingly this way. Most girls I meet in town are obsessed with attention, for example they'll talk to a guy and they'll glance at me to see if I am jealous or they'll wear extremely revealing clothing (I mean why... in winter? Yes you want to look good but THAT good?). They'll post hundreds of pictures of themselves on Facebook to get attention. They'll use online dating as a way to stroke their ego because they know a lot of men will message them. I'd say the overdramatic behaviour could actually be as a result of hormones.

What's your opinions on the matter? Are there any histrionic men who could post in this thread? Are there any unattractive ones? Do you think the internet has caused more women to identify as histrionic?

Personality Disorders are rarely diagnosed before adulthood as a person's personality isn't properly formed before then. HPD type symptoms are common in younger people, and may even be a part of normal development when a person is discovering their sexuality and identity, and they don't usually signify a disorder unless they persist well into adulthood and the person doesn't show healthy levels of maturity appropriate to their age.

Not all people with HPD are obsessed by their appearance or good looking, but a person who has not received appropriate levels of love and attention during their childhood may fixate upon their appearance if they find that by doing so they receive romantic and sexual attention, which they might feel eases their feelings of low self esteem.

I think many women like attention. While most do not have a pathological need for it, they like it and if given the opportunity will take it. Just like men and power. Power feels good to all men, but most do not have a pathological need for it. However if given the opportunity, most will take it; most just do not NEED it in massive quantities - although all men need some power/control, just like all women need SOME love/attention/affection.

Facebook provides an opportunity for basically normal women (not with the HPD disorder) to get easy attention. So they take it, because it's nice. If you found a $100 bill on the sidewalk, would you take it?

This doesn't mean they are HPD however, even though their behaviour and appearance may resemble the HPDs to get the attention easily available to them. Fundamentally, HPDs NEED attention. non-HPDs LIKE IT but don't need it. Consequently, many women will adopt the HPD style to take advantage of the opportunities things like Facebook afford them in terms of attention, but they can easily do without that style and level of attention were that opportunity to disappear. Also, you will notice that HPDs ALWAYS dress for attention; while others who appear HPD maybe only sometimes dress for attention. It isn't a constant need, and they can switch their persona to something else depending on the situation. When I attempt this switching, my self-esteem plummets and I get irritable, depressed, sulking, and grumpy.

Non-HPDs don't need it to function. They don't get depressed if they go a day without compliments or attentive looks, or feel compelled to seek it out. Really HPD should be called compulsive attention-seeking disorder because that is what it is, and while the behaviour/appearance speaks to this it itself is not the disorder. The disorder is internal.

"Normal" comes from stats, i.e., phenomenon that are within a normal range of variation in a bell-shaped distribution curve. While traits and styles are closer to the norm and within the range of variation, the disordered behaviors are out there. And because most human beings are social creatures that like security and routine, they often are afraid of things outside the norm. In part this sets up the social problems that those with PDs experience; other problems sometimes come from their lack of empathy and consideration of others, which definately alarms and offends the "normal" world.

For whatever reason, at least 95% of the population of the world -"the normal"- doesn't do the following things, things that could be due to HPD or whatever other Cluster B PD:

(a little collage of observed odd female behaviors, from various ladies, various places; sorry don't mean to ignore HPD males, but I have no experience with them):

-It's normal for young women to behave like young women but It's not normal to behave like you are 14 when you are 18 (or, older, sometimes much older than that).

-it's not normal for young women to prolifically tell obvious lies, most or all of the time (and it's even weirder when they are over 18).

-It's might be normal for a young women to enthusiastically advocate a socialist utopia one day, then make a 180 degree philosophical turn into personal narcissism the next, but it's not normal when you are older than 18 (unless you're trolling to stir up some negative attention? ...peekaboo, I see you,)

-If you are old enough to go out to all the usual places looking for guys to sleep with or date, it's somewhat normal to flirt with a lot of them. But if you are at work, it's not normal to flirt with every guy in the office, as if you want some kind of sexual or romantic relationship with them.

-it's not normal to psychologically withdraw for 5 days, then return and hesitate for a second before you are able to put the names back together with the faces

-If you are an adult woman and some obviously vulnerable guy tells you he really wants to be with you or he even loves you, if you don't feel the same way, it's not normal to string him along, tell him that you care about him as well, maybe even that you love him, and then go home to be with that bad dude you live with and can't seem to reach, and who, ironically enough, just might be abusing you.

-it's not normal to be unable to achieve sexual satisfaction (indeed, a shame)

- and finally, it's not normal at any age (lol, not even for the PF HPD forum) for someone I have never met in person to ask me for my Skype address, so that they might "show [me] [their] [breasts]."

Because I personally witnessed or experienced all these things, It seems to me that as far as HPD disappearing from DSM V, that does't automatically mean that at least some kind of disordered behavior suddenly has disappeared from the HPD forum (and elsewhere) as well.

But, so what? Whatever it is and whatever you want to call it, It's been around for thousands of years, and it won't disappear anytime soon. Ultimately the implications of this question of re-definition and de-pathology are best left to the people who have it: assuming they are honest with themselves, would they prefer their problems 'disappear' with the new edition of a manual possibly constrained by academic politicos, or should they continue to be addressed as real problems, under whatever better diagnostic name?

Crystal wrote in histrionic-personality/topic108030.html

I think this article misses the root of what a PD or HPD is...

It focuses too much on the style, and not the disorder.

HPDs NEED attention and validation. They do disruptive things to get it. All that other stuff, the 'traits', are 'symptoms' that allow for 'objective' assessment; they are not what really defines the disorder.

You can be very stereotypically feminine, but the bottom line is, if you don't disrupt society or make trouble for yourself then you are not HPD.

personality...disorder - the last part is REALLY important

-It's normal for young women to behave like young women but It's not normal to behave like you are 14 when you are 18 (or, older, sometimes much older than that).

Why not? There is nothing wrong with preserving Childish Innocense. The society put people into school and try to make them 'behave' in an 'mature adult' manner so they can be good workers in company/factory that follows orders and do work obediently. Tthere is nothing wrong to behave like young in your order age.

-it's not normal for young women to prolifically tell obvious lies, most or all of the time (and it's even weirder when they are over 18).

Then she must have NPD traits or even BPD traits. she doesn't need to get a label 'HPD'

-It's might be normal for a young women to enthusiastically advocate a socialist utopia one day, then make a 180 degree philosophical turn into personal narcissism the next, but it's not normal when you are older than 18 (unless you're trolling to stir up some negative attention? ...peekaboo, I see you,)

it's not normal.... I don't quite understand if why you want to call this 'not normal'

-If you are old enough to go out to all the usual places looking for guys to sleep with or date, it's somewhat normal to flirt with a lot of them. But if you are at work, it's not normal to flirt with every guy in the office, as if you want some kind of sexual or romantic relationship with them.

if a guy acts like that, do you give him a PD label? Actually the problem is that hpds do not particularly want sexual/romantic relationship even though they "flirt" but let me point it out here,
Males surprisingly often misunderstand woman and believe that she likes him. For example a man would think a clerk, waitress, whatever likes him because she smiled at him, or when woman says 'no' with smile they think it's 'yes'... I flirt with everyone yes, but to me it's 'being friendly and funny' than 'flirt'. Men have problem with interpreting a woman's real intention, but they shifted blame and say HPDs are problems. Blame yourself for misunderstanding HPD's kindness/niceness/feminine sweetness/sexual joke that is without sexual invitation. Just because when a man behaves the same way he is thinking about sex, doesn't mean it's disordered that a woman would behave in flirting way but doesn't really want sex.

-it's not normal to psychologically withdraw for 5 days, then return and hesitate for a second before you are able to put the names back together with the faces

-If you are an adult woman and some obviously vulnerable guy tells you he really wants to be with you or he even loves you, if you don't feel the same way, it's not normal to string him along, tell him that you care about him as well, maybe even that you love him, and then go home to be with that bad dude you live with and can't seem to reach, and who, ironically enough, just might be abusing you.

what? she must be some sort of NPD.

-it's not normal to be unable to achieve sexual satisfaction (indeed, a shame)

Again may be NPD issue.

-it's not normal for any woman, of any age, to apparently enjoy being stalked

NPD issue. ego stroke

- and finally, it's not normal at any age (lol, not even for the PF HPD forum) for someone I have never met in person to ask me for my Skype address, so that they might "show [me] [their] [breasts]."

So what are the tons of strangers males who message me and want to show me his "penis" ?
All of them HPD? nice. I didn't know there are so many hpds on earth.



Crystal wrote in histrionic-personality/topic108030.html

I think this article misses the root of what a PD or HPD is...

It focuses too much on the style, and not the disorder.

HPDs NEED attention and validation. They do disruptive things to get it. All that other stuff, the 'traits', are 'symptoms' that allow for 'objective' assessment; they are not what really defines the disorder.

You can be very stereotypically feminine, but the bottom line is, if you don't disrupt society or make trouble for yourself then you are not HPD.

personality...disorder - the last part is REALLY important

[/quote]


Orion is so conservative, and naive, and cannot even half understand "women" in my opinion...
You grew up without mom or what?

Anyway, I believe that HPD is not really a personality disorder.
since most of Psychologists are males they created this disorder, but it's really NPDs with some dramatic personality...
Like males like sex, but females like it more... 'before sex stage' or 'flirting part' etc
there's nothing wrong with HPDs enjoying that stage but not really interested in sex or relationships.
I don't think there's anything wrong with me being sexual, or suggestive etc, but problems are when i can't be loyal etc or lack empathy like some N
but I believe I have tons of empathy actually. May be much more than ruthless moderators.

so to OP, i will say, most young women.

-- Sun Mar 24, 2013 11:21 pm --

There are researches which prove that if you give information of patients with same traits to psychiatrists they diagnose AsPD if the patient is male and HPD if the patient is female.

I have lots of AsPD female friends and they are as sexual as any sexual male would be and confident about it. They also pathologically lie... A HPD woman will be differentiated from AsPD because she doesn't harm others and has childish personality.

I don't think my childish personality is that bad. It makes many people to laugh, feel relaxed around me, to feel innocent, etc. Girls find it fun, Guys find it lovely. If some 'bad' childish traits like irresponsibility, impatience are problems i'd call it NPD problem. I will be as boring as dry seaweed if my personality was like every other mature woman who "adapts" to society's rule include "acting sexually appropriate like a WOMAN".

- and finally, it's not normal at any age (lol, not even for the PF HPD forum) for someone I have never met in person to ask me for my Skype address, so that they might "show [me] [their] [breasts]."

So what are the tons of strangers males who message me and want to show me his "penis" ?
All of them HPD? nice. I didn't know there are so many hpds on earth.

Could be, but more likely it was some of those dudes from the AsPD forum you boyfriended on Skype. (remember, back when you got in trouble over there?)

Orion is so conservative, and naive, and cannot even half understand "women" in my opinion...
You grew up without mom or what?

I'm libertarian. Unlike some, I have been blessed with a healthy Mum. I enjoy healthy relationships with healthy women.

And as for you 5y, you aren't really all that difficult to figure out, are you?

As to the OP's question and the responses, the postmodern psychology position always comes down to whether or not it is opening up new freedoms, or tearing down essential structures that do good (and so, does it do more harm to the people that it says it is trying to help?)
Is psychology just such an structure, dedicated to studying and managing real dysfunctions, or is it a conspiracy, cooked up by angry men? It is interesting that some postmodernist males make the same argument that 5y does..namely that Anti-Social Personality Disorder is an illusion, produced by the really evil guys trying to keep all the power to themselves. And it doesn't end there...when disordered people come to believe they are the victims, they often victimize others, convincing themselves and others that the crime is just payback for being a victim. And to maintain cognitive resonance they often blind themselves whatever good work 'the enemy' did:

...but I believe I have tons of empathy actually. May be much more than ruthless moderators.

Mods got little or no empathy, huh? Funny how I remember trying to help you when you were about to get kicked out of college, or how I have personally witnessed PF moderators - all of us unpaid volunteers - staying up late into the early morning, sending emails, making international calls, or notifying Interpol, so that a poster thousands of miles away wouldn't take his or her own life, or wouldn't sexually molest a child.
That's my question with postmodernism, as it was expressed here. Is it more valuable civil liberties, or just a reckless indulgence or aggression by people who can't accept life's real responsibilities? Civil liberty is fine, and people with HPD are free to live or suffer, but denial?.
Note that no one has ever described a postmodern military, nor a postmodern police or fire department, nor even postmodern moderators...that hard work is left to people who have to do things for others, who have to make things work (is that's what you meant by "conservative," 5y? ).