Histrionic traits

So, I am a male with bipolar I disorder, ADHD hyperactive type and complex PTSD. I used to carry the diagnosis of ASPD but it was due to childhood onset bipolar disorder and not realizing until the age of 24 that I was responsible for my actions and I developed guilt for the first time. That was the worst day of my life.

So, I was informed that although I don't have the PD itself, I have histrionic traits that are impairing. However, I understand how this happened. My mom was diagnosed as a borderline personality and early on in life, I learned to act cold just because everything set her off and my brother and I were always 2nd priority to her and her problems and her pain and when we were at the point of losing it because it was always wrong no matter what we did, she'd threaten to kill herself just to make us all shape our reality for her experience. I understand now that she was an emotional time bomb so she could never see how selfish she really was and when she was in her short lived happy periods, she seemed to be over the top with everyone else, like she was sacrificing herself and we always owed her and if we didn't act the way she wanted she was raging, irritated and later paranoid. It seemed like we were damned if we do and damned if we didn't.

She was in complete denial because she was a social worker and considered her issue "life experience depression", which later she described as not the same as my bipolar depressive episodes where it was a defect issue but instead because she had a horrible life and if "everyone else didn't make her feel horrible/make her life miserable, she wouldn't act the way she did". She also had a home face and a work face. Although during my last manic episode in 2007, I was sent to the hospital she worked at and she had a psychiatrist coworker she hated so she rigged it to where I had the one she liked and she was later reprimanded for arranging visits on her lunch breaks because her supervisor on her unit and the head of my unit told her know and she went over their heads and said they were monsters for not letting her visit me because her girlfriend at the time made her "a prisoner in her own home", which was nonsense because they felt smothered by her. But she was later accused of staff splitting. So I know how I ended up that way because when I started having my summer manic moods, the house was terrified of me rather than annoyed by my energy level. She passed away and I was sadly relieved and my brother I have no contact with because he and I can't stand each other.

So since my manic states, which I never noticed while it was acute made me the one who made them walk on eggshells, I adopted that behavior to try to play her and my brother who is like her because it was like walking in a minefield and once my teens came along, my mania at 14 resulted in countering her borderline tantrums with a rage that lasted from 4 in the afternoon until noon the next day. And I noticed that I tend to take things up a notch with people a lot. I was also the attractive one of the house and I am also bisexual so I used to emulate the behavior I saw on TV shows like the movie Gia. I was goth and I used to absolutely get off on homophobia and rubbing in both gay and straight people's faces that I dated hot bisexual women, at times more than one and also dated men that gay dudes didn't have a chance with because they were feminine and the guys I landed were bisexual and masculine. I find that I have complete disgust for gay or straight people and will never date them and I seem to really enjoy stating that I am a separatist bisexual and love being stuck up about it but I often hear how undateable I am etc and I actually seem to love the fact that I am hated by them. I am 35 and as I grow older, I am much less apt to be as theatrical but I still seem to push buttons although maturity and stimulant meds seem to really level out a lot of the behavior that makes people want to rip my face off.

My exes tell people who are interested in me that I am an attention vampire and the moment I feel like I am not their priority that I hop on the next man or woman who comes my way. I think it is true because in all but 2 women and 1 man, where we seemed to really click, I find that I just go from loving people to being bored and really losing all interest. I often look back on it and feel horrible although prior to 24, I used to think there was nothing wrong with it. I work as a legal assistant now so I have a very GQ appearance and I like the ability I have to have it easy in the world but my career goals seem to change because I lose interest as well. I have sleeve tattoos and a split tongue too so I feel like I live incognito because rather than the extreme goth look, I come off as very put together but I have that so I have that wild, bad boy appeal too and I seem to love and hate that. When I am manic though, it is like I am possessed and get really delusional and my last one was psychotic and paranoid so I stopped chasing that high because it was horrible.

I also hate therapists so I just see a psych nurse practitioner who does my therapy and meds because I find that once a therapist accuses me of being manic and reports me to my psychiatrist that they are worthless and sneaky so I am best dealing with one person for everything because it prevents conflict. However, I am curious as to whether these seem to change. I have been well for the past year or two for the most part but I seemed to have gone back down that road recently with former classmates in my hometown who I visited and recently realized are very dysfunctional and this one I know said she was diagnosed as borderline and she loved me for the first couple of days but now is smear campaigning me and I am seeming to thrive on the drama and the smear campaign. On some level, I enjoy it and maybe I associate it with the havoc I adapted to creating from my mom. She used to say I was the firestarter in situations. The thing I don't have is the approval seeking although I want people to see that I am not the crossdressing goth freak who loved winding everyone up because I could also fight and if I was manic, people are scared to death of me so I have the "psycho" reputation. I also am hypersexual so I don't really have dysfunction there.

I find I am started to look back in hindsight and find this embarrassing. As long as I take my dexedrine and lamictal faithfully and adhere to a skills oriented, healthy lifestyle, I can be balanced but with some types of people, especially with borderline PD and narcissistic PD types, who make me feel like the world initially, I fall back on this type of pattern. I don't like it because I feel like it makes me look bad and immature and on some level, I don't care but self-preservation wise, I know I am screwing myself. I know I am different and that thinks seem to level out in many ways but does that drama explosion tendency seems to be still there. While I don't cause drama or antagonize it much anymore, once I am on the receiving end of even the slightest drama in my mind, I "confront" it and create a big mess.

I know it socially impairs me so I am wondering, does this ever improve?? or does anyone have any tips to manage this. I am just at the age to where this is getting old and I also am used to being the center of attention because I am "attractive" looks wise. I feel bad about how selfish I am too so I am wondering if there is anything I can do to deal with it because mental health professionals tell me that borderline PD in low functioning cases are really the only PDs that improve at all and I really hate living this way but as hard as I seem to work on behaving with a level and mature attitude, I slip all the time and then people label me as a narcissist or sociopath. I also seem to know how to read people quite well and can sense a cluster B type or socio/psychopath easy. I can click with a sociopath because I relate to some of their ways of dealing with people and dropping them easy but I tend to lock horns with narcissistic or borderline people and tend to try to outdo them and I always end up "a soul sucking monster" when those relationships go sour.

Sorry for the long winded explanation but I have enough diagnoses to where I needed to show where they overlap. PTSD wise, it is specific to triggers about child molesters and rapists and I usually just get into rageful revenge patterns and ADHD hyperactive stuff is all social "troublemaker" antics so I know there is overlap. Mania is a beast of its own and it is obvious to everyone and lasted for years so I know that isn't part of the issue since I don't think I am godlike or that I can levitate or save people from vortexes in the bermuda triangle etc.

Hi spemat

I just wanted to reply. That was quite a long post. I did read most of it though.

I'm also getting to a point where I know I have to deal with my HPD traits. Its exhausting and causing me anxiety and stress but also i'm concerned with how I have been accidentally hurting those around me. Also, some day I might want a real relationship and I won't be able to do that with my HPD in full swing. I can only handle casual, short term flings at this point.

So we're in a similar boat. This forum has been very quiet lately but hopefully some more people will join in the discussions soon.

Anyhow, welcome to the forum