Is this HPD?

Hi all,

I'm hoping you can help me figure this one out. There is a woman that I work with that has turned the whole office upside down since she was hired.

Instead of giving you a whole rundown of what's happened over the past year I thought that I would just put some of it in point form to give you an overview in hopes that you will be able to help me figure out if this woman I'm dealing with is HPD.

So here we go:

-She is an older woman - almost 60 - but looks and dresses probably 15 or 20 years younger. For her age she looks phenomenal, she is in great physical shape, is always well dressed, well groomed, and and barely has a wrinkle. (All of which she is always bringing our attention to)

-She is very well spoken, comes across as intelligent, well informed, and well educated. She claims to have 3 university degrees but yet she can't spell and still writes with a ruler like in elementary school.

- No matter what the subject, no matter what has happened to someone - she has been there and it has happened to her, not only once but on several occasions! She tells outlandish stories that if you listen to closely enough will find are filled with contradictions but are so well presented the average person would never question them.

- It is not possible to have a conversation with ANYONE about ANYTHING within 1000 square feet of her that she does not come over, interrupt, take it over and make it about her and her experiences.

- She intercepts calls and reroutes all possible office duties and meetings through her. She takes it upon herself to arrange meetings without checking schedules or availability, gives out misinformation, and contradicts other staff members repeatedly regardless of their knowledge of the subject or even their presence in the room.

- She talks incessantly about herself, her dogs (her only friends), her constant and ongoing health issues, her previous jobs (about 3,000 at last count), and her whole range of life threatening diseases and near fatal accidents that she's had (where she's been mangled almost beyond recognition many times and yet doesn't have a scar to show for). And once she has someones attention it is near impossible to pull away from her.

- She presents herself as brilliant and well-educated but yet does not even know what kind of car she drives (oh, I don't know, I just come out of the mall and look for the gray one - she says!).

- She is controlling, she is smothering, she is everywhere and she is doing everything at once, and she is so sweet about it nobody can get mad at her. And yet she is always the victim, and just wants to take care of everyone (because nobody is capable of taking care of themselves you know!)

- She got involved with one of the guys at work and when he ended it she went on about it for weeks. It has been over for months and still she will not leave him alone, incessantly calling him, showing up at his house several times a day, and arriving at any other place she thinks he might be including private functions as though she was invited.

- She treats all other staff members as though they are completely incompetent and only she has the ability do do anything right, yet she pretty much screws up everything she touches.

- She NEVER gets angry, only hurt, and will turn on the tears or blatantly lie and deny any knowledge if questioned on any of her mistakes.

And these are only a few of the things she does!

You may ask why she's still working there, why my boss puts up with her? Because Like I said she's very sweet about everything! If anyone questions her she starts to cry and it's the whole poor me thing, and how she was just trying to help. (She's very good at elliciting pity out of everyone, even every stranger who walks in the door.)

At one point it came down to him seeing no other option and coincidentaly she suddenly then came down with several serious health issues. According to her the doctors don't know what''s wrong with her but she may be dying so she's always having to go for "tests" and has a bag pull of prescription drugs and several times a week she comes in late because she had to spend the night in the hospital" again!

Everyone in the office now knows that there is something seriously wrong with her mentally but it's "poor thing, how can we fire her when she has no friends, no support system, she has nobody and she may be dying", so they just let her run.

In my boss's mind it's easier to do that then to try and deal wth her and her histrionics. For the rest of us however, she's driving us crazy and we don't know how to deal with her. Do any of you out there have any ideas?

For those of you that have this disorder and are dealing with it, is there any insight into this that you can give us to help us understand better what's going on in her head? Do you have any suggestions as to how we can better manage this situation? Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated!

She does sound HPD. It sounds very similar to those cases described in the book "Emotional Vampires" by Bernstein. You need to get the book from the library and that will advise you how to deal with her.

C****t I am glad I am self employed!

Thanks, I'm all over that! I just hopped on my local library website and ordered it in. Should be in in a few days!

Oh, and I forgot to add the part that she does dress to attract, and that she is the ultimate picture of feminity. So much so that even at her age she has a huge male fan club ranging in age from about 16 - 60. And since our company has predominantly male employees you can bet that's substancial!

One of the guys even told me that a lot of them have figured out that she's crazy but "that doesn't mean she's not good for f*****g". Rude I know, but that's just the way many see it.

Unfortunately now, because of her my boss is refusing to hire any more women for the company. He says from now on he's only hiring men because "women" create too much of a distraction!

ray wrote:She does sound HPD. It sounds very similar to those cases described in the book "Emotional Vampires" by Bernstein. You need to get the book from the library and that will advise you how to deal with her.

C****t I am glad I am self employed!

'Christ' isn't a ######6 swear word!

Thanks for clearing that up! LMAO!

Oh yes she has HPD