My friend: for sympathetic readers only, please.

I am currently a junior in high school. For those of you who've been through it, recall that it's hell: tough courses, little sleep, and of course, teenage angst.

It's no secret that I want to be a psychologist when I "grow up". Because of this, my friends generally come to me for advice; usually it's along the lines of "I want to ask someone to the prom but I don't know how", or other equally trivial topics.

My friend's (who I'm going to call Jerry to protect his privacy) came to me one day and asked for help. I sat down with him, and he immediately spouted off his life story. Here are the bare details:

- He was often neglected as a child by his parents. He rarely saw his father (gov't worker, came home late) and his mother worked full-time. He often had to rely on his neighbors for care.
- He feels that his parents' love is conditional. He has repeated stated that he "hates" his mother, but fails to give specific reasons.
- He is severly depressed. He often thinks about suicide, but never seriously considers it.
- His grades are slipping. He is usually sleeping or daydreaming in class.
- His last relationship with a girl ended because he was taking it too seriously; the girl was practically unaware she was his girlfriend.
- He thinks his parents' marriage was a forced one (Asian culture)
- His father used to beat him for punishment (usually as a result of said slipping grades)
- Becomes agitated and cries when he talks about his ex-girlfriend or his parents.

As a person, he's very dramatic. He likes to be in the center of attention (sulking when he isn't), but not to the degree of throwing tantrums when he isn't. His whole speech was punctuated by generalizations, of exagerations.

Clearly, he's got histrionic tendencies. What I wanted to know was, as a friend, how can I help him? I plan to advise him to seek professional counseling, especially family counseling. He's a good kid, and symptions of HPD are supposed to lessen over time, but this behavior is severly affecting his schoolwork.

Most of this board seems to share the consensus of "Run away, save yourself!" but I care about this person. He isn't a hot girl I want to have sex with, this is a friend that I'm worried about. So please, if you have any helpful advice that doesn't involve ditching him and leaving him to deal on his own, I'd like to hear it. Thanks.

Its possible to have a histrionic personality style without having the fullblown disorder.

If your friend has not hurt you or others terribly and doesn't lie about everything be it trivial or important than he probably just has the histrionic style of personality which means he is a real human being underneath everything and not sociopathic in that he becomes what he thinks each particular person he is around would like him to be so he gains their love and loyalty so that he can obtain a particular service or services from them. So to sum up you can tell if he has the disorder or personality style quite easily because if you notice he actually cares about people then he's just got the style and not the disorder.

Another thing that makes me think he just has the style and not the disorder is the girl didn't fall in love with him.

If he were a true HPD he'd have her in the palm of his hand with all the manipulation and charm these people use.

So in short I think your friend is probably suffering from depression as a result of his abusive family life and losing the girl that he loved.

You can help him by remaining a supportive friend and gently suggesting therapy might be a good idea for him.

You would have to do this in a casual caring manner if you expect it to even be considered by him and not give off the impression that he better get treated or else.

"Most of this board seems to share the consensus of "Run away, save yourself!" but I care about this person. He isn't a hot girl I want to have sex with, this is a friend that I'm worried about. So please, if you have any helpful advice that doesn't involve ditching him and leaving him to deal on his own, I'd like to hear it. Thanks."

Just FYI we all cared about our HPD's too. In our case though the people we were involved with were truly disordered with this condition and never once cared about us anymore deeply than you would care about your toaster ie an object that provides a service for you good only until it breaks down or a newer better one becomes available.

We didn't just want to have sex with these hot HPD girls we loved them, they meant something to us but it was all ultimately a lie because Cluster B. All Cluster B's are a type of sociopath (the worst and fullblown variety being ASPD's) and become whatever you want so they can get what they need from you until they are bored or you make the mistake of telling them you love them.

ASPD's are repulsed by love because to them it is a form of weakness.

NPD's hate love because to them to be loved is to be owned and made less great.

HPD's and BPD's hate love for pretty much the same reason. They hate themselves so much that when a person tells them they love them the HPD and BPD thinks that person must be a liar because in their mind there is nothing to love about them. Then they withdraw if not outright end the relationship with you.