Couple of questions on a couple of characteristics

I have been told that the HPD will use pain as manipulation for attention and as well I have been told that sometimes the pain is actually real, due to them supressing emotions such anger or depression. any insight on this.


Also the characteristic of the HPD being easily influenced by others. This seems to contradict their manipulative ways. How does this characteristic works its way into their behavior?

Thanks

That pain is real. The attention is a distraction tool used to ward off depression and anxiety. I think deep down there is extreme depression but it is not presented as a classical clinical depression. We use all the tools we have (sex, drugs, attention, excitement, drama) to keep the depression supressed. When we do not have these distraction tools we then feel very anxious and/or depressed.

As far as being easily influenced...I think it more that we are suggestive. Because our identity is somewhat fleeting from situation to situation, we easily adapt to someone elses opinions, feelings etc. If someone says we are pretty, we will feel pretty. If someone says we are ugly, we feel ugly. Because we hold others opinions so high in our life and identities, we take on their feelings as our own.

If someone is mad at us, we feel bad....even if we know we did nothing wrong. HPD's NEED to be accepted and liked. " If people dont like me, I am nothing". This requires that we more or less "go with the flow". If we were not suggestible, we could potentially have conflict.

The pain is real, but we use it to our advantage. We show it to get attention, not to get help. Something normal people wouldn't do. Well that's the way it is for me.


And what mylife said is right on.

The pain is real, but we use it to our advantage.

this sentence resonates with me almost more than any sentence in re: to hpd. it is very hard for women to get my attention. nothing really gets to me. but, this approach grabbed my attention like no other.

it is very effective on certain targets and very dangerous because if it is effective it touches on a part of the target that is beyond sexual...a feeling from a time long past...or as KX says the provider and protecter instinct.

for those of us, like myself, who came from abusive childhoods it ignites old wounds. for me it brought out the feeling i felt of wanting to protect my waif mother from my physically abusive father. my mom made me her confidant and so i idealized her.

i buried it for years and then an hpd targeted me and used this part of me by trying to appear helpless and making it look like she was a victim. but, meanwhile she was deeply hurting people. god, was she good at her game. she was a full blown hpd with, i would bet, deftly manipulative sociopathic tendencies.

she seemed to target the lonely and the vulnerable...others from abusive backgrounds, the shy...the ones she knew would give her her fix.

Soul -

how exactly did she emotions to get you? What would she do that pulled you in? i am just curious...I think I always act like I have it all together...I rarely use emotions with men (that arent already hooked on me) to get attention. I am curious how these emotions were presented to you and at what point were you falling for them/her?

My HPD was just like soul's mylife.

She would establish a false bond in her targets by telling us deeply personal things about herself when we were first getting to know her.

I know this from talking to the other guys she harmed.

She claimed to be abused by family members and hinted that her father made sexual comments to her when she would get out of the shower and when his friends were over who would also join in but when questioned further if her father actually did anything to her she would go silent adding to the authenticity feeling of things.

From all I've studied it seems just like any person an HPD can be telling the truth about abuse.

The difference is many HPD's use this to their advantage and use it to trap guys by triggering our ancient instinctive protect and provider instinct.

We feel we must protect the innocent little HPD from harm basically even though she is anything but innocent.

Anyway once an HPD like this is satisfied she has hooked the guy with this con she begins making him feel really good through praise. At this stage we really fall for her as it seems to her we are a god and can do no wrong. She is the most loving, great, kind, happy fun girl we have ever met but once we naturally start to return all the love we thought we were getting from her she will absorb what she wants and suddenly become distant or cut us off altogether with no decent explanation.

Well at least the HPD's soul and I dealt with are like this mylife.

From what you have told us of yourself you seem to get guys through being playful and charming but like has been said time and time again on this forum HPD though having some solid descriptors of what to look for can manifest itself in many different ways from person to person.

how exactly did she emotions to get you? What would she do that pulled you in? i am just curious...I think I always act like I have it all together...I rarely use emotions with men (that arent already hooked on me) to get attention. I am curious how these emotions were presented to you and at what point were you falling for them/her?

hmmm? um, she appeared so very vulnerable and really played this part up like i have never seen before. like princess diana times a million. it was her enitre demeanour. i thought she was the most delicate, helpless person i had ever met. she made it seem like her ex-boyfriends were all bad to her and that her life was so sad. she would approach me physically the way a wounded child would. but, in the end i saw her true colors...shrewd, sarcastic, very jealous of other's success, a chronic cheater, manipulating almost every man she came into contact with.

Soulsearch summed it up even better than I did mylife.

What he said is exactly it.

Moi aussi... Even though I had an arranged marriage, it was no different. I guess that the poor little me act was used more as a manipulative ploy. With me- her parents were all BAD people- for unspecified reasons- as in reasons which I could not really understand.... Later she went and told other stories to other people where I was the cruel husband who had affairs etc( full projection of what she did on to me). So I guess it is just a means of getting NS/attention/sympathy and also sometimes- when needed- ability to manipulate.