HPD Stare?

Chaosanity wrote:
I don't know if I want to keep thinking about it.

That's the conclusion I came to in my pursuit of understanding the HPD. I think it's worthwhile to seek knowledge of them, because understanding will help brings answers and in turn that can help acceptance, dealing with the repercussions of it, and then moving on. But I found there has to be a line drawn somewhere.
While it's valid to seek and wonder, there's just some things I don't need or want to know.

Roni wrote:I think about 99% of an HPD's existence is an act-a facade-a script. When they have those rare moments when they forget the lines, you see the stare. When you see that, there's no one home. Of course, there never is anyone home, but there usually looks like there is because of the act.

Another time you can see the stare is those rare moments when they themselves are aware of their unacceptable side, their "badness"- then they drop the sweet routine and you only see the cold hate that's underneath. (Maybe those moments are the same as the forgot-the-lines moments?)

411, I loved what you said about their sensitivity to words. My HPD also did that- he could get so caught up in the exact words I used to express something that he would absolutely refuse to consider the meaning behind the words. I could rephrase and explain endlessly, but once he fixated on a particular group of words it was hopeless. He would even insist that he knew what I meant and I didn't because of the words I used!! (This is especially funny, given that they can't write or speak a coherent paragraph.)

Roni well said...When I first saw that no one is home stare it freaked me out hard! I have never seen that look before anywhere and it just startled me. She eventually noticed my stunned look and slipped right back into script

It was like in the wizard of OZ where Dorothy finally pulls open the curtain

Yes they are hypersensitive to words. Mine would be obsessed with songs I would listen to and sing. She would literally stop me and ask if they lyrics is something I was thinking about in her lol. She would read my journals and ask questions...anything to get a read on what I was thinking...and if it was something she perceived as negative, she would either melt into a lil girl voice or worse would become utterly cold/plan some sort of revenge for 'hurting her'. It was just so nutty and reeked of emotional blackmail

cold hate...very apt description

MyWave wrote:

Roni wrote:...and if it was something she perceived as negative, she would eith melt into a lil girl voice or worse would become utterly cold/plan some sort of revenge ofr 'hurting her'.

This, to me, is one of the easiest and biggest flags I am going to be aware of in my future relationships. It seemed impossible to keep my wife from connecting the most distant comments to herself in some negative way. I think this characteristic surfaces earlier and is easier to notice than almost all the others. It will be my invitation to start digging for more possible flags immediately when it happens from now on.

Oh, my wise friends...the things we now know are so valuable. We will all most likely have the resources to narrow our selections down better than most and within that smaller pool of opportunity can pull out our other future mates. In theory, we may all end up in relationships that are much better than most!

"This little light of mine...I'm gonna make it shine."...lol

I just noticed what some one said about misspelled words earlier in this post.

I noticed when i got some self help books. 2 had misspelled words. I immediately deemed the books fraud and didn't want to read any farther. i wonder if there could be a corelation!

How nice to see this thread addressing the "stare". I hadn't recognized it as prevalent amont hpd's and didn't know it was so common among them. I just couldn't figure out why my hpd was looking at me like that, usually during a heated discussion or when they're caught lying, or when you've presented factual evidence of their dysfunctions. At times I thought it was the initiation of the blamshifting act and other times I thought she was genuinely processing what I'd just said. Hindsight tells me now that because of her lack of empathy, she simply couldn't comprehend or recognize her destructive behaviours.

Jay mack

Ya you are right...I believe the stare is when they begin to devalue you and they have no idea on how to empathize with you when you catch them in a lie...or confront there behavior.

During the stare I think they are really dissociating and repressing any kind of emotions in order to protect themselves so that they can continue the behavior. By doing this they believe they are in no fault and the blame shifting begins.

This blows me away...how freaky!

If I wasn't sure about my HPD being HPD before, I am now. Before I started investigating what could be wrong, I remember thinking how odd - as he would do that same exact stare, and I was wondering if maybe he had epilepsy. I don't know much about that disease, but I remember seeing this commercial when I was young where there was a little boy who was playing with a ball, and all of a sudden, he dropped it and just stood there, with that same stare.

I wonder if there's a connection?

According to this website:

"Epilepsy comes from a temporary electrical disturbance inside the brain."

http://www.plae.org.ph/web/epilepsy_information.php



Epilepsy is the most common chronic brain disorder in every country in the world. More than 50 million people in the whole world suffer from epilepsy. In the Philippines, an estimated 750,000 people are affected with this condition, and majority of them are children or adults in the most productive years of their life. About 1 out of 3 people with epilepsy develop the condition by age 18. More than half of all people with epilepsy develop symptoms before the age 25.

Epilepsy comes from a Greek word that means, "to be seized by forces from without". This condition occurs suddenly, without warning. Very often it presents as a convulsion with powerful contractions of the parts of the body. But it can also manifest as a sudden brief change in thinking, attention, sensation or behavior.

To the person with epilepsy and the people surrounding him, this condition can be very disturbing and frightening. Much of the anxiety over the disorder will be avoided with adequate and correct information about epilepsy. Let us learn some basic facts about it.

Epilepsy should be everyone's concern because anyone can have epilepsy.

Even you. It affects young and old persons alike, in any country, of any profession, social class, or background. It should be everyone's concern. Epilepsy is the most common chronic brain disorder in the whole world. It is not rare or exotic. Many people suffer from it.

Epilepsy comes from a temporary electrical disturbance inside the brain.

There is nothing mysterious or mystical about it. It is not contagious. It is not due to witchcraft, demonic possession, or mental illness. It is a medical condition caused by sudden, brief changes in how the brain works. When this change occurs in the brain, a person's movements, behavior or consciousness may be altered for a short time, after which he goes back to his former condition. This is also called a seizure.

The word epilepsy is used when seizures happen repeatedly. The brain is the control center for the body. It controls functions such as walking, talking, hearing, seeing, etc. The brain does this by transmitting and receiving electrical signals along wires of the brain called nerves. Sometimes the wires and the signals become short-circuited or "grounded". This disturbs the way nerve cells work and causes change in the way a person moves, talks, thinks or behaves. After a few minutes, it ends spontaneously, and the cells go back to their normal function. These disturbances in the "wires" of the brain can happen to anybody, even normal people; but it happens more often in those people with diseases or injury of the brain.

Epilepsy can result from many different conditions.

Epilepsy is very often but not always the result of underlying brain disease. Some of the common causes of epilepsy are:

1.

Head Injury
2.

Brain Infections
3.

Strokes
4.

Brain Tumors
5.

Drugs, Alcohol
6.

Chemical Imbalances in the Body
7.

Genetic/Hereditary predisposition

However, several community studies (USA, Italy, Ecuador) show that in about 60-75% of persons with epilepsy, no known cause can be found.

Some kinds of epilepsy can be prevented.

Some kinds of epilepsy arise because of acquired injury or scars in the brain. Scarring in the brain can happen after head injury, brain infections, stroke and after brain operations. These scars are called gliotic tissues and can cause unusual brain excitation leading to seizures. If scarring in the brain can be avoided, the risk for developing epilepsy can be minimized.

Safety in vehicles should be practiced. Seat belts, motorcycle helmets, and infant car seats protect against epilepsy resulting from car accidents.

Proper vaccines and hygiene prevent infections to the brain. In the Philippines, preventable brain infections such as meningitis, encephalitis and parasitic infections like cerebral schstosomiasis continue to be common causes of epilepsy.

There are many kinds of epilepsy. (Not just convulsions!)

There are many different manifestations of epilepsy, as many as there are different functions of the brain.

The manifestations depend on what part of the brain is disturbed. If it is the center in the brain for movement, then unusual movements are seen in the person briefly. If it is the center for memory, then the person can have unusual memories or thoughts. If it is the center for sensation, then a person can have brief numbness or electric like sensations in some parts of the body.

Some seizures are focal/partial or limited only to a certain part of the body and are not associated with a loss of consciousness. Some seizures are generalized, where the person can lose consciousness or collapse and have convulsions of the whole body.

Majority of the patients have infrequent seizures; some can have very frequent (daily) and severe seizures (20%).

Common Types of Seizures

Partial Motor Seizures:
Brief twitching, jerking of one arm, leg or half of the face

Partial Sensory Seizures:
Brief unusual sensations or numbness on one arm, leg or half of face, transient visual disturbances

Partial Complex Seizures:
Brief and sudden changes in their behavior or mental state; appears to be in a trance, stares blankly, unresponsive when spoken to.

Absence Seizures:
Frequent repeated spells of day dreaming or brief staring or blinking spells in children

Drop attacks:
Sudden falls or collapse, head drops

Myoclonic Seizures:
Massive muscle jerks

My HPD is a writer, so he is also sensitive to words. Sometimes though he deliberately uses the wrong spelling...as in "tare me down." He says that his ex-girlfriend would "tare him down," and now I do too.

There are one or two other words that he mis-spells...can't think right now which ones, though.

He would say some really hurtful things to me. One of them was that he was used to talking to adults, implying that I spoke and had the intelligence of a child.

He also would say that I was like a f-ing two year old...but I think he might have borrowed that one from his ex-girlfriend talking about him, as he would tell me how she would "tare" him down.

He also made me feel very incompetent, in effect saying that I had no imagination to say things in a creative, romantic way. I'm just a very straightforward person and am not used to using flowery, poetic words to flatter people.

This stare is the emotional expression of emptiness. If I am in a depersonalized phase, I will have that stare constantly on and will have a very hard time getting out of it.

The stare is the same as that guy with shell-shock on this picture:
http://www.milhist.net/global/2000yard.html

I have this view that every single person with a PD go through life with a void inside of themselves. Some do not have any defense mechanism against "the void", like in schizoid personality disorder, and will drift through life perpetually locked in that state of emptiness with little capacity to look away from the void, leading to the living-dead behavior that you see in schizoids, along with having "the stare" almost constantly on.

However, I have this idea that the ENTIRE POINT of HPD behavior (as well as NPD) is to cover this void out of conscious thought. As if their entire need of attention is ultimately to shift their attention outside of themselves, so they do not have to look inside and see that void. And that dead stare comes out at those moments where they have a flash of insight and come to the realisation, for a few seconds, that their entire maladaptive way of being has for only purpose to distract themselves from the void that is there.

No doubt, the "stare" is a chilling reminder of who you are dealing with. I think I agree with the observation that it is more apparent and frequent when they are on there way out, done with you. Mine had two "stares" as well. The one "nobody's home" look usually there when confronted about an issue or reacting to one, but fighting to maintain composure and work through it, or listen as well as they can, or having to understand something they don't have a clue where to start, or disagree with to begin with. It was also a look she used when the "boredom" was setting in. They cannot stand to be bored.

The other was the "cold hate stare" mentioned by others. This was the one she used when faced with herself, angry, with nothing to say in her defense, or challenged to understand either mine or someone else's point of view instead of only hers. If she hurt you bad, and she knew it, and was called on it, and there were no more lies or defenses she could call on, "caught", it always appeared. Usually followed shortly by the repeat of some devaluing phrase or line played from their internal defensive speech recorder. "I don't see us as long term", "bad feelings", "I don't want to talk", "I thought I loved you", "you have no idea who I really am", Blah Blah Blah.

The last day with my HPD, she gave me that cold hate stare over an episode where she hurt and humiliated me bad, and I called her on it. She immediately went into her angry, quiet, indifferent mode and stayed there through a 5 hour trip home. Midway through the drive at a stop, she made a deliberate, flippant body gesture toward me accompanied with that look. I knew then I was done. There was not a soul inside that empty vessel. She hadn't a clue or care what she had done to me earlier, and never would.

That was a week ago, we haven't spoke since dropping her off that night. Now, I am here, and moving forward, learning, healing, trying to understand myself again and her. Her, for my own future personal protection. I pray I never live through this again.