Questions for HPDs from Nons (Could be Triggering)

trophywife wrote:

sakran wrote:Hello, this is a question for absolutely anyone.

When coming to this forum there is a trigger warning for nons "who have suffered abuse from HPDs" - My question is what is it about HPD that might give some abusive behaviors? Going by the DSM criteria, I don't see how abusiveness is relevant.

I ask respectfully and am trying to understand the nature of HPD. I am not stereotyping or generalizing.

Thanks in advance.

While the most common "abuse" (small a) reported by HPD is "cheating", there is indeed a ton of potential psychological and emotional abuse that can be done by a pathological histrionic.

Primarily, many nons reported being financially ruined by path Hs, suffering severe depression, anxiety and even becoming suicidal.

So, yeah...HPD can really !@#@ a guy up..

But... these same guys will keep chasing "the hot chicks..." instead of dating in their league...

You poke a lioness, she will bite you...

Not making an excuse... It's wrong to intentionally hurt someone, and I sincerely (no really, I'm sincere) empathize.

Meh....I only feel sorry for them if it happens then they learn to quit seeking women they imagine are prizes. If they do it repeatedly I actually suspect covert narcissism, like they dgaf about the lady anyway, they just want a prize on their arm or in their bed. Plus even when they are actually nons, they're only nons because our patriarchal culture objectifies women, and they think they deserve a "babe" instead of being a reasonable humble human being and seeking a compatible partner.

I'm big on personal responsibility. Like I understand that we are all human, and if I take personal responsibility for my part in choosing my dysfunctional relationships and I have a PD, I have even higher expectations for nons, in reality, like seriously don't you know better, wut.

On some level I have empathy for most people, but perpetual self inflicted wah wah victims drive me crazy, and I have a hard time also reasoning about the choices of the sort of women who write love letters to serial killers. I am just like. ..well, you asked for it. Some people are masochistic.

Marmotini wrote:

ridingthewtfbus wrote:

I find her behavior maddening.

My advice? No contact. Ever. Turn away and run, and never look back. She's a plaything, nothing more. Treat her as such.

I know you are very hurt over your ex wife, but giving people advice to treat any human being as a "plaything" is dysfunctional, there's nothing healthy or mature emotionally about that. In fact it's more abusive to a Histrionic because they've been told that it the best thing to be for their entire lives.

So just leave it at "No Contact." Thanks.

Agreed. My apologies.

I wonder if I might ask how HPDs choose partners, whether it differs from the selection process of a Non?

I have read that potentially certain personality types feed into one another but presumably the standard attractive traits such as good-looks, status, physique are important also?

Thanks

I hope you might take a moment to help me.

I would like to ask a question about my ex-boyfriend and would value your answers please. I have so few. I sought help from a therapist about my heart break and after a few months, in the context of my ex, she dropped into the conversation, 'personality disorder'. She was providing me a clue and I went looking and found HPD. And it was like reading about him. I would value your opinion please.

My ex-boyfriend and I were together for 18 months. It was an enormously painful rollercoaster ride of highs and lows for me. Of feeling greatly loved and then feeling like I was nothing to him. His behaviours were like no other man I've ever come across. I have never felt such happiness, and also such heart-breaking despair. His behaviours in a nutshell:

- Cheating: Told me how much he loved me and I thought we had a wonderful, loving relationship only to find out he'd been cheating for months. On an impulse, he made an international flight to see another woman as he felt their attraction might be the real thing. Turned out it wasn't and we got back together, only for him to have an affair again and again.

- Extreme attention-seeking of single women: He would ask women he'd just met (strangers) to join our group of friends at our weekly catch-up together. It was always humiliating as he gave them his undivided attention as if they were some amazing new woman in his life while I sat at his side not knowing what was happening.

He talks fast and too much to anyone: He tells anyone very personal things, even people he has just met, and he talks a lot. It can be hard to even get a word in and much of what he says is for attention factor.

- Hugely emotional responses and dramatics to physical injuries/illness: He fell off his road bike and injured his wrist. He has told people at every opportunity for more than a year about having a major accident on his bike that had left him unable to ride. He had a lump in his palate and immediately told his mother he most likely had a life-threatening form of cancer and would die. He exaggerates pain. He tells people he was 'crying in his sleep from the pain.' Of another injury to his knee, he said he was 'screaming in his sleep at night from pain'.

- Highly impulsive decision making that turns his life into chaos, and turned mine upside down continually: He would change jobs, then need to change cities, be in love with me and want to move in with me, and then tell me he wasn't sure it was love and was not only not moving in, but was moving cities.

- Huge love of looking good or using clothing/costumes to gain attention: Would buy new clothes and photograph himself even in the changing rooms and post onto Facebook for comments and likes. Loves sexualised looks for fancy dress parties.

- Uses Facebook for continual attention: Uses it more to share photos of himself or stories of himself for attention, to gain comments and likes, rather than share experiences with others

- He Facebook friends every possible single female even while being in a committed relationship.

- He has a voracious sexual appetite: At least three times in a day or night. He tells himself and me and whoever else I guess, that he can just keep going. He loves it when he says that about himself. He feels so desirable.

- He swings into overdrive when he finds a woman he thinks is a prize: He adapts his personality like a chameleon to woo her. He is immensely warm, loving and charming when you are the focus of his attention. And very, very hurtfully cold and unempathetic if you are suddenly not. You can feel devalued and dispensable on a whim.

- Life revolves around him: I found my own life and friends took a back seat while we pursued his interests, his worries, his dreams, his needs.

- Financially chaotic: He indulges and spoils himself while complaining about not earning enough etc. He earns plenty, but wastes much of it indulging himself with clothing and gadgets, wining and dining himself or the women he is chasing.

- He doesn't let you go: He wants you to remain in his life, in the background while he pursues someone else. But he still wants to be assured of your love and attention.

- Always turns the subject back onto himself: Even when my son was diagnosed with a tumour, he listened for all of 30 seconds and then I could tell, could not bear for the subject not to be him so he changed it to his latest little life drama with an appalling lack of empathy. He shocked me.

- He is attractive, and completely and utterly adorable: Despite all of the above. Everyone thinks he is such a nice and lovely man. Not many know of the above. I've never said.

Thank you. That is the list.

I have always been a calm, independent, extrovert and very stable person. Over the course of 18 months, I became a wreck of anxiety and nerves, with a loss of sleep and happiness. All I know is, something is not right and my therapist tried to help me with the personality disorder clue.

To the HPD's out there, does my ex-BF fit the profile to you?

Thank you so much in advance for your replies.

MissAllbright wrote:To the HPD's out there, does my ex-BF fit the profile to you?

Thank you so much in advance for your replies.

I'm a NON, but for what it's worth your exBF sounds like the male version of my ex-wife. A PhD report documents her elevation on the histrionic scale. Once she decided my attention was no longer valuable, she hastily filed for divorce and then demolished my reputation and alienated me with everyone she knows. I was labeled an abuser and primarily because of 147 lies (or delusions in her mind, who knows) I was reduced to an every-other weekend dad.

Learn what you can from this and protect your heart. Best wishes.

Hi MissAllbright,

While we can't diagnose here, what you wrote greatly matches my own personal experience with how I perceived someone who I think has HPD (though she is not diagnosed as such, just my belief).

Anyway...

I just wanted to note that because I know you asked for the opinion from people with HPD, but I would guess that someone who is struggling with HPD has a different perspective. The thing is that much of the criteria for HPD is written from the point of view of how someone with HPD is perceived by others, but not much on how the person with HPD feels. Further complicating this is how someone with HPD is perceived by others is not so simple. Example:

You wrote about him talking fast, and too much to anyone. I can relate, but it's a good example of a behavior that is fine up to a point, even encouraged in some situations. Maybe you've been at a party, or nightclub, or bar or something where there is that one person who is 'the life of the party', a setting in which that person is encouraged, because it's entertaining others, or 'breaks the ice' socially. In small doses, in the right setting, people perceive that kind of behavior as fine, even desirable. In his mind he might be thinking he is fine too, because others encourage him in certain settings.

You on the other hand were in a closer relationship, one in which you were living with the behavior on a far more frequent basis, and in other contexts, but... question? Maybe he hasn't changed much, and you were also someone who found his personality traits attractive when you first met, and weren't yet emotionally deeply involved? That happens too.

ridingthewtfbus wrote:
I'm a NON, but for what it's worth your exBF sounds like the male version of my ex-wife. A PhD report documents her elevation on the histrionic scale. Once she decided my attention was no longer valuable, she hastily filed for divorce and then demolished my reputation and alienated me with everyone she knows. I was labeled an abuser and primarily because of 147 lies (or delusions in her mind, who knows) I was reduced to an every-other weekend dad.

Learn what you can from this and protect your heart. Best wishes.

Hi there Riding the WTFbus.

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I've been 8 days of no contact with my ex now. For the first time in a year, I am feeling the anxiety lift. I never knew what would happen to our relationship from day to day. I reached the point where the drama became my normal and I lived in a constant state of worry and sleeplessness. After only 8 days, I am feeling stronger. I really miss the intense love that my ex used to pour on me when he felt like it.

After reading your story, I am pretty sure that is what my ex is also. He also used to say similar things about his ex-wife as your wife has done to you. He needs to look like the loving, innocent victim and does it well. I am lucky to be free and to never have married him. I thought I'd met the man of my dreams and the man I would marry. I guess it was a lucky escape but a very painful lesson.

xdude wrote:You on the other hand were in a closer relationship, one in which you were living with the behavior on a far more frequent basis, and in other contexts, but... question? Maybe he hasn't changed much, and you were also someone who found his personality traits attractive when you first met, and weren't yet emotionally deeply involved? That happens too.

Thank you for your reply.

Oddly enough, I found his personality traits irritating to begin with but found him very attractive. But I loved and fell for the way he showered attention on me. I was a desert and he was my rain. I worried about his non-stop talking and the strange way he would talk about himself to anyone. But ultimately, I finally decided it was because he was just adorable and naive. And so I got sucked into what turned into an emotional nightmare and it nearly killed me. Where he would tell all my friends and family how much he adored me, loved me and wanted to spend the rest of my life with me. Yet when he was with me, he would suddenly announce he wasn't sure about our relationship and created obstacles and hurdles - drama after drama. He would say that we just needed to do certain things. I would go and do them. And then the goalposts would move and further of his personal dramas would unfold. And then I would discover that there were always other women. Women he was having full on sexual relationships with, and women he was flirting with.

It will take me some time to recover. Perversely, while my life is better I also miss him intensely. His love, or my desire for it, was like a drug to me in the end. I am so relieved to read the posts of other people and discover I am not alone. That this is the path of partners with HPD traits.

Hey MissAllbright,

Yes, understood. I can entirely relate (just reverse the sexes) to the comments about finding some of the personality traits irritating even before becoming involved, but ignored that because I wanted the attention too.

Some related thoughts -

The differences between me/her existed, and it sounds like for you too, differences between you/him existed, even though at first you were on the same page.

Personally I'm more of a 'needs some attention/validation sometimes' type of person, but then I'm good for an extended period of time (hours, days even), where she was more of the type who needs attention very often (every few moments at times) on a frequent basis type. Also different was that I'm more of the 1 on 1, attention is something special because it's shared between two people kind of person, where she was more of the any attention from anyone (and the more the better) type.

Of course ultimately we all need some attention/validation. The basic need is normal, however I will acknowledge that when I met her my need was at an unusual high point in my life so we fit together well, but over time I settled back into my norm, where her norm was different than mine. From that point of view maybe someone else would be a better personality match for her, or ... maybe nobody can be long term?

What I mean is either one person is going to burn out if the give/take ratio is too imbalanced, or ... if two people have a far above average need for attention, especially if that includes from many others, maybe they are bound to break up because both of their needs ultimately also end up poking each others core self-esteem issues? Attention from others versus one's partner basically strikes at a fairly fundamental chord of 'you are not enough' or 'you are not good enough', so my guess is that two people with HPD (or HPD + NPD) will ultimately end up pushing each other away over the same need that brought them together.

xdude wrote:Personally I'm more of a 'needs some attention/validation sometimes' type of person, but then I'm good for an extended period of time (hours, days even), where she was more of the type who needs attention very often (every few moments at times) on a frequent basis type. Also different was that I'm more of the 1 on 1, attention is something special because it's shared between two people kind of person, where she was more of the any attention from anyone (and the more the better) type.
.......
What I mean is either one person is going to burn out if the give/take ratio is too imbalanced, or ...

Hi Xdude . Thanks for your reply. You make some very relevant points and they resonate a fair bit. To clarify:

- I am an independent, emotionally healthy (usually!) person. I don't need or thrive on lots of attention, nor do I seek it. I appreciate love and attention from my partner. As you say, that one on one attention that is important in a healthy and loving relationship.

- I received vast amounts of love and attention, was bombarded with it - almost too much in the early stage of our relationship, but ulitmately fell quickly in love as a result.

- Then it started to change. And his need for attention became insatiable, I couldn't satisfy it enough. And I'm not talking sexual need or anything like that, although that also came into his need to feel incredibly desirable and attractive. I mean his need for attention to his personal life dramas, the way he looked, the way women admired him. He needed that from lots of people, not just me.

I saw a psychologist in the end about my relationship. She said my healthy sense of self, my independence, emotional stability and lack of need for attention would have drawn him like a magnet. That he would have found those qualities immensely attractive as deep down they are the qualities he craves, but also, they are a foil for him. They allow his own HPD traits to flourish and take the limelight. She said to me, I know it's hard but I would like to think you will stay away from him. And she is right. It is hard to stay away.

You are also right about one person burning out. I burned out. It started to destroy me, my self-esteem, my self-worth and self-belief. I felt dreadfully humiliated. And despite all of that, I can tell you that he really is adorable too. So much about him is. It is very hard to stay away but I am trying.

I have been doing no contact for 8 days so far, after a relationship of 18 months. It is the longest time we have ever not communicated and it isn't easy. Normally we would text or message a dozen times a day. I am wondering if he thinks of me, misses me, is wanting to contact me. Like I do. But I have no idea how someone with his personality type really thinks.