Help With HPD Supervisor

Here are some examples of my supervisor's behaviour, so you can make an accurate diagnosis:

* Has mostly friends 10+ years younger than her
* Has a boyfriend of 6 years who is 9 years younger than her
* Studied drama at university
* Constantly interrupts when other people are talking
* Is fixated on 'moral behaviour' (mostly of people other than her)
* Misinterprets things other people says as meaning something immoral or focusses on side issues which she misinterprets as immoral (really seems to me just a reason to be insulting.)
* Is involved in environmental and feminist activism
* Frequently participates in public rallies where she starts shouting her own slogans and not other people's, then asks someone to tape every news channel for footage of the rally.
* Gets bored when she has to wait for cars when crossing the road
* Has difficulty trusting other people (says she can only trust her dogs)
* Believes in spirituality along the lines of "we can't prove nothing else is out there, so we should believe there is" and to do with static electricity being linked to psychic phenomena.
* Disagrees with opinions as a matter of course, even if contradicting something she said earlier
* Self proclaimed as being 'pedantic' in regards to layout, font, colours etc. of promotional material
* Constantly asking for favours
* Gets emotional and insulting during debates about even minor matters
* Excessive drug use (marajuana, ecstacy - approx twice a week)
* Constantly complaining of time constraints and constantly being late
* During conversation will go off on wild tangents and tangents from tangents
* Stating she is not about to do something and then does it.. ie. "I'm not trying to be sexist but all men are blah blah"
* Instead of asking me to do something outside of my job description explains some way why I'm obligated to do it.

Does this mean she has Histrionic Personality Disorder?

This is not someone I am involved in or would consider becoming involved in, but I nevertheless am forced to be in a working 'relationship' with her so posted here. I mainly want to know how to deal with the:

- Manipulation, mainly by giving guilt
- verbally abusive behaviour

In the case of someone with HPD.

I have previously dealt with it by ignoring or minimising, ie.

"that's nice", "you're wasting time" [ when she was already an hour late for some appointment ] and also some evasive type humour. I am now being called "mean".

So does anyone know of any good information or can give me some good advice on dealing with this sort of thing?

Any commentary on the behaviour listed would also be helpful in order to help me understand her issues.

Also she claims that she was raped as a child. Is something like this something that would CAUSE HPD or is it more likely to be a fabrication CAUSED BY HPD, if that is indeed what she has? She is frequently drawing attention to things like male violence to try to make men feel guilty etc.

Thanks

Mike

basically i wouldn't jump into calling anyone histrionic unless your a professional psychatrist and she has the diagnosis.

It would seem almost logical that if she were raped as a child, a deep seated hatred towards men would be the cause of her feminist activism.

Remember, if you were criticised for all the bad things you do you wouldn't be to happy. I suggest leaving her to her own devices, each to their own i suppose. If she really does need help she will find it with or without you.

Hi Guest,

I really appreciate your posting, but I can't really follow this advice:

I suggest leaving her to her own devices, each to their own i suppose.

This is what I would do (I have been considering quitting my job as this situation has been making me unhappy due to my inability to deal with it), but a couple of points I perhaps need to clarify make this impossible:

1) She is my supervisor, so she is forced onto me. I cannot leave her to her own devices.

2) She is verbally abusive. I don't necessarily care about her other problems, but this affects me directly and anyone who has tried to bring this behaviour to her attention is met with a wall of denial (poss due to HPD).

Remember, if you were criticised for all the bad things you do you wouldn't be to happy.

I know. That is why I am posting this because it is happening to me! I don't want to do this to her, but I am at a loss as to how to prevent it happening to me without simply engaging in a relationship based on mutual recrimination which is something I do not want to do.

If she really does need help she will find it with or without you.

I'm not saying I want to force her to get help, but this is not realistic. Just look at the amount of people that committed suicide for example .. how did they find their help?

MikeA wrote:2) She is verbally abusive. I don't necessarily care about her other problems, but this affects me directly and anyone who has tried to bring this behaviour to her attention is met with a wall of denial (poss due to HPD).

As for me, I have no such problem with my histrionic colleague. If I don't want to listen her, I just don't listen her. But she is not my supervisor, however . Maybe verbosity is an independent symptom?

MikeA wrote:2) She is verbally abusive. I don't necessarily care about her other problems, but this affects me directly and anyone who has tried to bring this behaviour to her attention is met with a wall of denial (poss due to HPD).

As for me, I have no such problem with my histrionic colleague. If I don't want to listen her, I just don't listen her. But she is not my supervisor, however . Maybe verbosity is an independent symptom?

Well I found out recently that several other people have been having a problem with her behaviour and that they wish they could handle it as well as me... meanwhile I'm posting on here for advice...

It's sad. Looks like the situation is being brought to the attention of senior management (not by me) so she might end up being reprimanded or fired. It would be nice if there were a way to resolve the problem but none of the affected parties want to attempt to face it directly, probably because they believe it would be fruitless.