The will to win of the HPD.

Scarlett1939 wrote:Cirvante,

I am sorry that you feel that way, but you don't know me. I have and am taking responsibility for my actions and I am not claiming I am the only victim in this situation, but you can't tell me that you don't have issues yourself or you wouldn't be on this forum. I am searching to fix myself and you seem to be searching for something as well. I had a really bad childhood and I search to fix myself and have overcame a lot in my life, and am proud that I don't make those same mistakes my parents did. But, it has been a struggle. And up until recently didn't even realize why I used to do some of the things that I have done. I don't do most of it now, and it is an inward struggle that I have so I am not hurting anyone now except that I am not what I want to be. Most of it was in my teen years. I still have the need to want people to notice me. I don't express that openly..... at least not until this forum. I have become more of a home body and wanting to be at home instead of out where I am noticed. I have come a long way, but just want to feel good on the inside. So for you to make judgements, I would just have to say you don't know me at all.

It seems you only want to see that you were probably hurt by an HPD, not why the HPD is the way she is. My husband told me one time that he fell in love with me for a lot of the same reasons that he gets upset with me. Like for standing up to him and others. He loves that about me, except when it doesn't benefit him. He just doesn't know there is a name for what I have. We have a good life and occasionally I get sad or not really know what is bothering me, but I can't control these feelings, I can only control what I do with them. So in that aspect you can't say that I don't take responsibility for my actions because I am doing that.

I have always tried to put myself in the other person's shoes and not make pre-judgements, but you obviously must have been hurt so that is your opinion of me. I am still searching to be completely happy and I will just have to not let your comments torment me in that. You are lumping us all in together and if you read every site that I have that not ALL characteristics are what EVERYONE does is the same. Some have empathy and some don't, etc. I feel bad enough about my past than to have someone else do that to me . I wish you well in your search for whatever you are suffering from. Thanks.

Haha, very well dramatized, my little queen.

But I have to say that I never got hurt by a HPD and neither do I have a real opinion about you. I just stated as a fact that you like everyone else are responsible for your own actions. But yeah, it's all about you.

I'm not suffering from anything except boredom due to my schizoid personality which sometimes leads me to hang around here as it often provides some good amusement. I find most of the posts from HPD victims to be unintentionally hilarious though the posts of the few HPDs in here are quite funny too. Yes, you may take that as a compliment.

And regarding your accusations about me lumping all HPDs together: from most of the Threads about HPDs in here it becomes apparent that people with this disorder tend to constantly screw the ones close to them. I don't care whether this applies to you or not so there is no need for your justifications.

Personally, I would avoid histrionics like the plague. But that is rather due to the fact that they are just not compatible with my preferences.

Cirvante,

You don't have a clue of what you are talking about with me or any other HPDs. If you are here for your own amusement, then it might not be the best thing to post your negativity to me or anyone else. We (HPD)s don't handle rejection well as you may have seen, but I really don't care if you like me or not. My dad being a skitzoid, I know that he is a very self centered individual that did a real bang up job as a parent and partially the cause of my HPD or anything else I have wrong with me. And one thing you might realize is, but doesn't pertain to me because I am not, but a lot of HPDs are suicidal. And maybe one little comment from you could send them over the edge.

I also know that you posted a private message to me and then withdrew it. I am sure it was mean and hateful, but I really don't care to hear from you. You don't bother me and I will not respond to another post to you. We are the way we are for a reason, you have serious issues as well with your own disorder, and please do not respond to any of my comments anymore. Even if you do, I will not respond to yours.

Harrison56,

I have been to a couple of counselors over the years and when my husband and me really hit a low spot I went to a marriage therapists. But all I did is sit there and tell him how I felt that week. He didn't and none of them didn't, ask me questions or dig deeper or try to figure out what was wrong with me. I would try to get them to do that, but pretty much the $200 per week got a little old and I wasn't getting any better except as of my own choice. And that guy was and still is one of the main therapists in our state and gives lectures and wrote books on marriage. That was 7 years ago, and I DO make a conscious choice to not ACT on these behaviors, BUT, I WANT THEM to NOT even be in my mind. I want to not need this feeling or feelings. I want to be "normal". I am beginning to think no one on this board understands that. I am not out doing what a lot of the HPDs are doing, but I USED to and I still have the GREAT NEED to have that feeling. I am a good wife, mother, professional, and DO function on a daily basis.

Second, I have to say that anyone we ever knew that is a counselor, therapist, or psychatrist, was screwed up themselves and that is why they go into psychology to HELP OTHERS because they needed the help themselves. I hate to say that, but it is true. That includes my own mother who has her masters in counseling and she counsels young teens at the school and I sometimes wonder why they didn't do some sort of personality test on her before they allowed her to do that.

I went on this sight looking for answers to why I still have the need for this even though it has been years since we have had trouble. But everytime I post you all look for the one thing that identifies with that one little part of your situation. I am not going to be having affairs, we have been married for 16 years and I refuse to give him a reason to end it. BUT I STILL HAVE this disorder and want to be better and don't know what to do about it other than continue to make a conscious effort to be good.

I am very sorry for you that your gf and you did not work out. I can understand where she is coming from. We do not take critisism well, especially from the ones we love because it feels as you are rejecting us. When my husband talks down to me, it sends a sense of rage through me, but that is a mask for how much it hurts me. I am too strong to sit there and be a victim and cry so I get angry.

I appreciate your honesty. The difference between you and my ex gf is that it appears you have some insight into your behavior. As I said, all people have issues. The problem is that cluster b is a whole nother ball of wax precsiely because most folks in this category lack that requisite insight. I know this from countless personal experiences, including my own father.

One of the big problems is what I will call the "acting out" and then the skin thin when someone is called on this "acting out." For instance, my father, a diagnosed narcissist, would act bombastic and opinionated, as if his opinion was the only one that mattered in the entire world. But if someone RATIONALLY disagreed with his opinion, he would either go into a rage or get his feelings hurt. Understand that the person who was disagreeing with him wasn't rejecting him as a human being, he was just disagreeing with his opinion. There is a world of difference. But my father could never make that distinction. Still can't.

With my ex gf, I found out over time that she was exceedingly self-centered, and attention seeking, and had the emotional age of the average 19 year old. She is 52 and a grandmother. She is also very dramatic and competitive. She knows she is pretty although her looks are fading.

Her behavior is not conducive to a good relationship. She constantly interrupts in conversations, seeking to turn the attention to herself. And I know she does all of this unconsciously. Plus, she is highly manipulative to boot.

At some level she knows this is not healthy because I have seen her project all of these behaviors on someone else. And that tells me that somewhere deep inside, she feels this.

The problem with her is that she cannot consciously admit there is a problem. Thus, she will never manage a solution, or manage her behavior. She will continue to cycle the same thing over and over, although after a year of equivocating and because she is so sensitive, I finally gave her the diagnosis. The diagnosis came from my therapist and other therapists who know her in social settings. She is that obvious by the way.

All of us are "thrown" into the world as one philosopher noted. Things happen. Painful things happen. Many times it is not our fault, especially when we are children. However, when we become adults, it becomes our responsibility to take action when we are suffering and when, in fact, our suffering and defenses and our behavior is causing suffering in other people.

I understand what you are saying about therapists. Fortunately, I found a good one. And I have had friends who have had bad experiences so they won't go back. On the other hand, I have had friends who kept searching until they found the "right" one, a person of compassion with whom they resonated and with whom they could establish a viable therapeutic relationship.

Clearly, you have passed the first hurdle: You have admitted the problem. The second hurdle as I said elsewhere is: what are you going to do about it.

At this point, the only viable option for hpd is therapy.

I believe people can change. If I didn't believe that, then I would feel all hope is lost. I tend to be obsessive, something I realize I will be my whole life. But I have learned to manage it. In fact, I suspect that there really are very few "integrated" personalities out there. Most people have some pretty funky things going on with them.

You happen to have hpd. BUT unlike most, you are aware of it. And it sounds as if you possess the motivation to do something about it. The question is will you take the necessary steps to find the "right' therapist for you. Sure it is expensive, but is only your life and the lives of your loved ones we are talking about. How do you put a price on that?

My ex gf has never darkened the door of a counselor her whole life. I suspect she never will. When I finally ended it, I told her over and over to go to counseling, meaning I was keeping the door open if she would do that. She would respond, "They will just tell me to leave you alone." I told her to not mention me but to just start talking. After a year she has not gone and now blames me for her unhappiness. Before me, it was her ex husband.

The bottom line is that she was willing to throw away a relationship with me rather than face the eventual, if not awful, reality that she was spending most of her time and energy perpetuating a false self, not only to her self but to the world. Of course it was going to be painful, but life is painful. The whole point of therapy is, it seems to me, to get people to a point where it becomes less painful. And it can be done.

I have experienced it in my own life and seen it in others. But it does require finding the right therapist. This will sound somewhat self aggrandizing but I will say it anyway. Through the years, through therapy and love and grace of others who have first loved me, I have learned how to love myself and in turn love others. My children tell me so and I am going with their opinion, plus I do know it at some level. My ex gf threw away a marriage with a man who would have loved her and would have seen her through the bad times, who would have gone to therapy with her had she made some progress, because of her fear of facing herself. Of course it is sad, but in the end it will be sadder for her than for me. That is, in time I will be totally over her, but she will still be living out the histrionic facade, searching, searching, searching for the man who will support her in all her attention seeking ways. And she will NEVER get the thing she most desires: a deep and abiding relationship. Her behavior will not allow it since that kind of relationship requires a level of mutuality that she cannot deliver.

I hope you will continue the right kind of search (the one for a good therapist) and I am confident that if you find the right one, this person will be able to provide you some relief which, in turn, will resonate through the lives of your loved ones. But the bottom line is that if you don't keep searching, you will never find that relief.

Good Luck

Harrison.

Scarlett1939 wrote:I also know that you posted a private message to me and then withdrew it. I am sure it was mean and hateful, but I really don't care to hear from you. You don't bother me and I will not respond to another post to you. We are the way we are for a reason, you have serious issues as well with your own disorder, and please do not respond to any of my comments anymore. Even if you do, I will not respond to yours.

I withdrew it? Whoops. I just wrote it and wanted to clear my box. Didn't know that you couldn't read it then.

But now you really hurt my feelings with all your accusations, you know? Did you know that some schizoids tend to be suicidal? I could jump off a bridge now ... and then swim to the shore because my reptillian brain part's survival instinct kicks in. Meh, I should tie a big stone to my body and slice my arteries before I jump. Much safer.

And just to make clear what I originally wanted to say (and what you took as a personal attack): From what I read here most histrionics can be considered as trash. I don't care whether you fit into that description or not. And please don't write me anymore personal messages, you're ruining my record. ^^

What is this, Alien vs Predator vs the Humans?

Cirvante, would you mind switching any frustration or declarations towards me? I'm HBNA Supertrash. Scarlett's a lady and is doing beautiful, honest sharing and introspection for the benefit of all of us.

I was worried after Scarlett asked you to back off that you would back off, because although I am trying to do what Scarlett's doing, giving my ego the chance to follow what my terribly weak superego has been whispering all along, you titillate my id gorgeously, and are very entertaining to me. You feed my disorders like a lion tamer. I love you so much I want to swallow you, feet first. Why don't we go to a different chat forum to take the entertaining hardcore banter angle away from here?


Harrison, I'm struggling with the word 'shallow'. We don't really use it in England except to mean 'trying not to look stupid'. I can see how it might fit: Trying not to look vulnerable and inadequate, yes, not wanting to look stupid, yes, not wanting to have to go out with someone who is way better than the internal persona, but not as good as the external persona, yes. As long as it doesn't have anything to do with a perjorative label for dumb. Do you mean transparently devious? That would be okay, but I'd then have to try to deny the deviousness!
Now that Scarlett and I are here, would it be cool if we used words that don't trigger? For me it's a compulsion, for you it's deliberate. I think we shouldn't fight fire with fire when our fires are coming from such different places. You're Ripley in the Alien v Predator v Human thing. You're met these things. How are you with SPD's? Could you put in a word to Cirvante?
Despite the occasional vocab hiccup on my part, I love everything you write. The self-awareness you're giving me is giving me so much strength to fight the impulses - I HOPE. You're giving me optimism.

I love being called trash. I hope Cirvante dates an H - oooo please.

Fair enough to define my terms. Shallow as I use it means a lack of emotional depth. I think there is such a thing as emotional intelligence, insight into what makes you tick. For instance, I tend to be obsessive in my thinking. I have noticed that when that goes on, I am feeling a great deal of anxiety about something. Now, it took me going to therapy to get that insight. Thus I have a tool with which to attempt to correct my behavior, the tool of "therapeutic insight." It doesn't mean I will ever be totally cured of my disorder, but I do have a tool.

My ex gf had no real insight into her behavior. For instance, she was oblivious to the fact that she constantly interrupted a conversation to bring the attention back to her. I have mentioned this example in other posts, but I might be telling something serious, or someone else might be sharing something, and she would literally interrupt and change the subject to something about herself or her children or now her grandchild. At the time I thought it a bad habit, but later came to understand it as a symptom. And there were times when I would call her on it. She would stop for a while but then would go back to it. She had to pull the attention to herself.

Or she engaged in projections all the time. That is, projecting the stuff she disliked about herself onto other people. Thus, she would complain about other women being so "dramatic" when she herself was acting dramatic in complaining about them.

Now if she could ever get to counseling, and developed some insight, then she could be more aware and not engage in such behavior.

By the way, the reason I said it was too late for her is because she has shown no inclination to go to counseling at all, and at fifty two it is getting late in the day. She would have to start unpeeling the onion and get to the heart of the matter which is, most likely, the relationship she had with her daft father when she was small. That is an awfully tough thing to do at her age.

Like a river that has flowed the same way for so long, she would be challenged with trying to divert the river and I just don't see that happening with her. I do think that she at some level knows something is amiss. But as I stated, the wise therapist I have seen suggests that her future is one in which men use her and then thrust her aside. I hate that for her in so many ways, but I begged her to go to counseling over the course of a year and that would usually be met with a blank stare. In short, we were not married and had no children together, and I refused to be her doormat, so she could be a star. It wasn't healthy for either of us.

However, ultimately she chose to not go to counseling and to lose this relationship in the process. Indeed, when I pressed her on it, she accused me of not accepting her the way she is. She has so identified her attention seeking self as her authentic self for so long, I don't see any hope of change for her.

I will say Charlie I am impressed by your insight into your behavior which seems to me is the best indication yet that you may be able to grasp the tools to manage your behavior, the way I attempt to manage mine.

Cheers

Thank you, Harrison, oil on the waters and stillness after storm - bleak. I can imagine myself in 13 years time (your ex gf's age) increasing my behaviours, lying to myself about how well i'm doing in life, that i love the one night stands and how them leaving me all the time saves me dumping them, that kind of thing. Increasing exponentially like a smackhead until something pops. or she marries a much younger guy, or something.

My emotional intelligence has always been the application of my brain power to learn how girls tick, get inside their curve to get them. Certainly not empathy, and certainly not a light of intelligent potential shone inwards on my own emotions. There's not very much there, just an amoeba with one mission, to be loved by a fascinating, beautiful woman who will never leave me. And I don't think that that is an emotion. My way over the top emotional behaviour could just be behaviour, I'm sensitive, but only to things that effect my amoeba's mission.

I am compelled to interrupt conversations all the time, because I know that what they are saying is poor conversation, not going anyway, blather, chit chat, not spoken with the intention of changing the listener. That's what all conversation should be. People shouldn't just speak. You've got to speak for a reason. I speak for a reason: to make people feel lucky I'm their friend because I'm so outrageously entertaining. I became aware of it about two years ago and catch myself doing it often, probably do it without noticing still, but most often (during all conversations, especially those with girls) control myself, let them talk and try to imagine where they're going with it. So many people just aren't going anywhere! Normal people on cocaine is the worst. Having to smile and nod and look attentive with my eyes.

We were having lunch sitting on the carpet in the acting department corridor at college one day and one of the girls was telling one of the other girls where she got her pasta from and how much it had only cost her. I farted loudly and deliberatley and smiled at them. They were disgusted and both shouted at me. I loved it. 'Girls, I was just improving the quality of the conversation.' massive arsehole, obviously. I am annoyed by people who think they have the right to be boring. I am amazed that people have given up on life so much that they are content to talk about pasta prices on a lunch break. i object to having to hang out with people that dull. That something as dull as that has the attention, that I'm worth less to these girls than a discussion of the price of pasta. I'm worth more than that! Look at me! That's my compulsion, that's why i interrupt.

Nobody else has rights, nobody else exists. of course you all stop and listen to me, you all know you're just cardboard cut outs. That's how my triggered side thinks.

Chinatown Charlie wrote:We were having lunch sitting on the carpet in the acting department corridor at college one day and one of the girls was telling one of the other girls where she got her pasta from and how much it had only cost her. I farted loudly and deliberatley and smiled at them. They were disgusted and both shouted at me. I loved it. 'Girls, I was just improving the quality of the conversation.' massive arsehole, obviously. I am annoyed by people who think they have the right to be boring. I am amazed that people have given up on life so much that they are content to talk about pasta prices on a lunch break. i object to having to hang out with people that dull. That something as dull as that has the attention, that I'm worth less to these girls than a discussion of the price of pasta. I'm worth more than that! Look at me! That's my compulsion, that's why i interrupt.

Yes my friend, you are worth less than a discussion about pasta prizes. How could you even think that you are more important than pasta? Get real!

Well, it must really bug you that your life has absolutely no relevance in the eyes of other people. The world is cruel ...

And no, I wouldn't date a HPD girl. I wouldn't even let one get close to me. People who dramatize everything, like to talk a lot and always need to be the center of attention are toxic for a schizoid.