Question concerning a friend (rather important)

Okay, I know this is long, but please read it.

I've been having some relationship problems with a friend of around 5 years, and was hoping someone here could provide some insight, because we (my other friends) feel like we're being slowly driven mad.

Our friend, who will be known here as "Henrietta", is only 15, but the problems started around a year ago, with her developing relationships online. In the beginning, she was always quite frank about these relationships, but as of late, she's become increasingly distant, and will lie to us (and her parents) about these sorts of situations. When it started, her playful relationships became serious infatuations, and it worried us that not only did she have one fellow whom she was 'going out' with, she had many from the start. She completely romanticised these relationships after a very short period of time, and would be completely destroyed when she found out that these boys were using her, or when they broke up with her, resulting in bouts of depression. One of her earlier involvements was a 22-year old from Florida, whom we later found out was deeply interested in child pornography, but has this stopped her, or even slowed her down? No.

At the age of 14, Henrietta invited her 18 year old boyfriend from MA, to MI (where we live), for her 15th birthday. Within the period of a week, they had sex multiple times, and we had our suspicions of such during the time, but she denied them (she owned up later). The way we saw her interact with him was what really startled us, because his online persona was different from the way he acted in real life (he was a nice guy in person), she completely pushed him around and insulted him in front of us and her family.

After they broke it off, and countless 'gentleman friends' later, she met a guy in real life (though it stemmed from a MySpace encounter), lied to her parents about how she met him, and quickly fell head-over-heels, though he was 24. She was so completely eager to please him, that she shelled out over $200 on him. Shortly after, he 'dumped' her, and went off with his girlfriend. Still, Henrietta is determined that she loves this fellow, and her parents even invited him to move in (he accepted, but kept getting drunk, so he was kicked out). She continuously complained of how she was being taken advantage of, but still kept the infatuation strong. This isn't the first time she's been used, however, though this is the first time that it was for money. In the past, she would allow herself to be used for phone-sex by people that she didn't know (at all, they were friends of friends), but she was oblivious to that fact.

Her school-work has suffered greatly because of this. She will stay up really late solely for the purpose of chatting with her fellows on the phone, or on the internet, while she tells her parents it's for school. She will cheat on tests, and lie to get out of it, when she is caught red-handed. But, the thing is, is that her mum is aware of the situation, and believes that if she is told about things, it's okay. But, despite her mums' beliefs, we are still quite worried for her and her life, really.

At one point, we were so worried for her, that we actually went through her Yahoo! e-mail, and deleted her porn (just her porn (of herself and boys), nothing else, because that's the whole problem), and we decided it would be the right thing to be honest, and tell her, and not wait for her to find out. The phone conversation was a horrifying ordeal, with consisted of her screaming about how we 'deleted her life'. She victimised herself to her mother, saying that we deleted the non-pornographic pictures, and the innocent conversations, which we were shocked to hear when we found out about.

Our relationships with her have faltered greatly because of this. She'll constantly ditch us and our gatherings for boys, but even before that she would invite us to her house, and then ignore us the entire party, while she would talk on the phone with her boys. And if she does come, she can hardly separate herself from the nearest phone or computer. We try really hard to keep our friendship strong, but it's getting more difficult as her number of boys increases. We've found ourselves disgusted at her behaviour, as much as it pains us to say, and we would love for our old, innocent friend back.

Earlier today, though, we were reading about Histrionic Personality Disorder, and were surprised at how strikingly accurate all of the symptoms were to our dear Henrietta.

Self-dramatisation, theatricality, exaggerated expression of emotions
She'll talk at length about how much she's in Love with some fellow she's only known for a week, and then be down for weeks after, until Mr. Next Fellow comes along
Suggestibility, easily influenced by others or by circumstances
The whole incident with the 24-year old that we mentioned.
Continual seeking for excitement and activities in which the patient is the centre of attention
Whenver we get together, if she shows up, she'll draw the topic of conversation from whatever giddy teen thing we happened to be discussing to how horrible her life is, and how her 'boyfriends' suck.
Inappropriate seductiveness in appearance or behaviour
She's sent inappropriate photographs of herself to over 20 people, that we are aware of.
Over-concern with physical attractiveness.
While we understand that this is an average teen-thing, she is painfully self-deprecating, and constantly brings it up.


Please help! We don't want to diagnose her, or anything, as we're certainly not professionals, but any insight on whether you think this Disorder capture's Henrietta, or any suggestions on how to stop this would be much appreciated. We're completely spent, because we've tried talking to her, and she gets combative, and tells us we don't have "real-people problems".

She fits the criteria perfectly.

You don't have to be a psychiatrist to diagnose this one.

She is an HPD and only a professional can help her as she sounds like a severe case.

She's at extremely high risk of STDs, teen pregnancy and possibly being murdered by one of these older creeps she gets involved with as I'm sure you well know.

Get her help now if you can!!!

She sounds like a very severe case even worse than mine.

Mine at least chose good guys to con.

This one sounds like anyone will do and that is where the danger comes in.

Just my two cents: I don't think it's possible to diagnose a personality desorder at 15 and I have less and less trust in labelizing people.

In any way, this young girl is probably quite unhappy and needs help; why don't you talk to her parents?

She is not a HPD.

Personality Disorders are only diagnosed in people who have become adults.

The DSM for HPD states:

"a pervasive pattern of excessive emotionality and attention-seeking, BEGINNING BY EARLY ADULTHOOD,..."

If she's not I've got a bridge in China I'd like to sell you.

Early adulthood obviously is referring to a teenager as I've read ASPD is diagnosed and can be diagnosed in people 15 years old but no younger and HPD's the general cutoff age is 16-18 but considering this girl is now 15 and still going with this behaviour of hers it seems close enough and not likely to stop when she hits official diagnosis age.

Sometimes you just gotta read between the lines.

You say that you don't want to diagnose her but seems to me that you already have. Usually when there is a problem with a child it stems from the parents.
There is not much of a clue to how her relationship with her parents is.
Is her father on the scene?
If not this is why she is seeking male company so predominantly.
The indices to her mother do not seem that her mother is making a huge effort to fix this problem or even understand it.
Usually this is a breakdown in the mother child relationship and this bond needs to be broken as it is and then re-created. It isn't an easy step but a hard road to take. With children reaching this age, a lot of parents wouldn't go through the pain and extremities of life change that this problem presents.
The child sounds angry and needing attention. Feels love is missing. etc. This is a well documented problem.
I agree that this 15yr old will go on in all her glory and be lost as many other PD's are. She will be a PD later on.
The problem is not so much her as her parents. Which parent in their right mind would ever allow their 14-15 yr old to date an 18 yr old. That is statutory rape where i come from.
Which parent would allow their daughter to date a 24 yr old and allow this scum to live with them? You need to reassess all of the problems presented to you.
Strikes me as it's not surprising the kid is messed up.

May I ask who you are to this child?
You do not write as another 15 year old. There seems to be a reference to gathering as in a religious state, I could be wrong about this. You had no right to access her email account and delete what you thought appropriate, there is such a thing as a data protection act for any individual. She must feel betrayed by this action; it's just one more thing to click up in her little arsenal. That was silly. If she could overcome this, I believe it would have been the first thing she would have had to do.
She has no understanding and there is why.
Sort her parents out if you want to help. Wake her mother up. Get them both to counselling, which will no doubt end up with a psychologist.
Leave her email account alone.
I have a 13, 12, 11 year old girls, I would never dare to enter their email accounts.

regards and good luck jamo

In reference to jamostrat's reply:

Yes, her father is there, and has been. She acts as the average teen does, not pleased with many things he does, but he doesn't really enforce any punishments or anything, which just confuses us to as to why she'd be so angry with him. He's a good dad, other than the lack of punishments.

Yes, her mother feels, as has already been stated, that if she is told about any of Henrietta's rendezvous' she does not punish for anything, because she wants to be more of a friend than a mother.

This, what you've said about her boyfriends, is exactly what I've been trying so hard to grasp. Her mother knew about her having sex with the first boy, and yet she still allowed this 24-year old to move in. I'd rather not judge on parenting skills, but, my god! That just seems completely outrageous.

Well, thank you for thinking we were older, but I myself am 14, and my friends are 15. The gatherings I referred to were merely gatherings of a few friends, nothing religious, by any standing.

Because of our ages, we're rather limited as to what we can say to her parents, because we're afraid we'll be on rather bad grounds with her parents if we were to approach them, chastise their parenting, suggest counselling, and be on our way.

And, trust me, we realise how horrible of a choice the e-mail account thing was, but we were terribly worried about what she was doing (she has a seemingly never-ending supply of new boys, and this was around the time she stopped informing us of her life), and we know how rash it was, and are certainly not planning on doing it again.

Thanks for your regards, and may the same go for you.

I am in agreement with Jamo. Often, individuals are far too happy to slap a label on someone. Remember, once a person is diagnosed, that dx will remain. It may change over time; however, that dx will always be in their psychiatric hx. Simply because someone "sounds like" they might have a particular disorder does not mean they are in fact mentally ill. Often, the presentation of these disorders is quite different in real life - the DSM does not do these disorders justice. In fact, the DSM is not the be-all end-all and merely serves as a diagnostic GUIDE. You have to take a variety of things into account before such an important decision is made.

If someone fits the HPD profile, it's easy to predict how they will act and behave.

The DSM criteria may be vague and difficult to apply, but in most cases you know when someone fits them. With HPDs, it is quite easy to diagnose because of their excessive flirtatiousness and their self-dramatisation.

I really wish people on this board would put an end to their anti labelling b.s.

If it weren't for labels we wouldn't know what goddamned board we were on.

Maybe labels are an evil but I believe they are a necessary evil.

So pretty please with sugar on top stop the anti labelling crusade.

Its unproductive tripe.