Thanks for your reply. However, in my opinion HPD is different in some ways from narcissism/NPD, and moreover it also varies continuously, which predicts that some HPD's will experience more empathy than others.
I asked
Do you think it is different for the 'softer', less severe subtypes (Appeasing, infantile, etc.)
You answered
To answer your question, I would have to say no because the Histrionic Personality Disordered Individual (HPDI) is a variant of narcissist.
...when you say "HPDI's love in a different way" I would have to disagree. I disagree because the HPDI like all other Personality Disordered perceives others as primarily adversarial. "Me against Them" The HPDI is a variant of narcissist and so is primarily self-serving.
Interesting, although I am aware of Cluster B combinations and behavioral overlaps (i.e. Vivacious HPD= HPD x NPD, a la Millon), I have never heard of HPD as a variety (subtype?) of NPD. If you are correct, how to explain the long history of the Hysterical Personality [Freud and Reich] /HPD [Millon and Kernberg] classification, as distinct from narcissism/NPD?...which continues right down thru though the latest DSM (V), in which
the current model, "Histrionism" (now a trait cluster, no longer HPD, which formerly would be considered a type)...Histrionism is now a confluence of three dimensions:
1. Emotional lability (shared with BPD)
2. Attention seeking (shared with NPD), and
3. Manipulativeness (shared with AsPD).
and the last I heard was that NPD had been resurrected as a full type, thus more robust than the lesser Histrionism trait cluster.
You are probably aware that some formerly thought HPD's were simply female AsPD's (female psychopaths), who reside on the narcissistic dimension with NPD's, which you seem to suggest as well:
They access your emotions and attempt to manipulate you with passive-aggressive manipulation in order to get what they want. This is done at YOUR expense. They have no difficulty applying this methodology despite its exploitative means and effect it has on their target.
You must remember, regardless of the manner in which they engage you, the pathology is still the same as they are feeding off you and manipulating you. You are NOT a true person to them so much as a representation of supply for them. (Sort of like a human Cornucopia Horn of Plenty filled with supply.) Basically, they are role-players and will adapt to whomever they interact with in the manner works which best with that particular target individual.
Try to imagine you yourself as a whole person, the HPDI will come along and hijack your body while striking off your head or mentally/emotionally lobotomizing you; while installing their own mind in your head and you then become a body with their mind inside it. This is the control they seek.
This exploitative agenda as you have described above seems similar to that of the AsPD, or NPD with one important difference - supply type:
-HPD's want attention (always positive like NPD's?, or does negative ever suffice?), whereas
whereas NPD's always want admiration, especially derived from accomplishments, politics, etc., and Malignant Narcissists and AsPD's want some form of power, variously derived through taking material possessions from others, humiliation, homicide and obliteration, etc.
Then there is the issue of male HPD's - a few years ago many would have been DX'd NPD's. I wonder how male HPD's would describe themselves, as different from NPD's?
Here you wrote
Additionally, the HPDI is distorted and mercurial in their nature.
Reminded me of Millon's Tempestuous HPD (HPD X BPD - emotional lability, aversive tension, maybe even explosive "blame storms")
If you resist them and don't surrender yourself to their manipulations and emotional tyranny, they will punish you by devaluing you as being "Too Much Trouble" and move on.
To me sounded like NPD abandonment...very aloof.
If you do abdicate your Self and willingly become the slave/sycophant they wish to to be so they can use/abuse they will eventually lose respect for you and view you with contempt and then devalue you and discard you anyway.
But what if they do this for a while, but then come back periodically, to re-establish the relationship? To me this return (sometimes apologetic, guilty) suggests the dependent dimension within many HPD's: indicating a lack of resolve to move on as a conquerer, due to an erosion of their own confidence as a conquerer - a shaky mental state, explained by the dependent child within. As you yourself stated:
However, the HPDI is also a dependent personality. They seek to stay in the protective safety and security of childhood.
Although I don't doubt your own experience (like you perhaps, I have also encountered NPD or Disingenuous HPD women), I have come to agree with X dude
So I do think (at least some) people with HPD are capable of both wanting love, and being empathetic even. The problem is more with reliability of empathy, a key expectation that the person with HPD both wants, but is often unable to give back themselves.
One fundamental and important reason for this: I believe that the genetics underneath Personality Disorders are many and complex, like those underlying height - whether one is a tall, medium, or short person, or an intermediate height between tall, medium, and short. That is, there are probably many genes predicting a PD, incl. HPD, and if this is true, this predicts continuous variation, just like height... a big bell curve made up of many step-like gene classes, made apparently smooth by the effects of development and childhood.
Which tends to support Masquerade's statement
To both nons and HPDs here, nothing is black and white, and there are no textbook cases.
Finally, I think it is rightfully left to any HPD members to respectfully answer your request:
I would be very interested to hear a Histrionic describe what they perceive as "True Love" since most HPDI's are not very cognitive to begin with.