Are HPD's sadistic?

Can we all get the thread back on track. It was an interesting topic, and it would be a shame to lock it.

I think X dude hit it square sadism is not specific to any disorder (interestingly Sadistic personality disorder was once proposed but dropped)...sadism is a psychological device common to all people in varying degrees. Military training is often mildly sadistic in order to break down and rebuild recruits, for example; the military doesn't hire disordered instructors the sadism that is already latent on the instructors and recruits is tapped in order to prepare the recruits for the unfairness and cruelty of warfare...disordered people, while they have a unique set of characteristics, dont lack the rest of the psychological compliment that the rest of the human race has.


Once again the only unique thing about being disordered is an unusual exaggeration of traits common to all, whi h next sadism might be one of

The Histrionic I met wasn't very much sadistic, more so opportunistic. If he could lie and cause harm, he would, but only if it was apparent, he never seemed to have the capacity to think ahead. Think of it as just not showing anything to be preyed off of, and sadistic or not they won't chew on any drama you may possibly have around.

According to this review of “Hysterical Personality Style and Histrionic Personality Disorder,” (Mardi J. Horowitz, Editor…~$60.00 new,~$30.00 used, on Amazon)
by “A Customer,” sadism is considered to be an intertwined feature within some who have developed HPD…

[begin quote]

This scholarly book tackles a theme that mass market books can only dance around - how children grow up in families where one or more of the parents have an identifiable mental illness such as neurosis which results in bizarre (although often subtle) actions, and unpredictable and inappropriate behavior around the kids.
The basic theme of this book is the way that families and child development can produce life-long problems with relationships (neurosis) and aggression (personality disorder). Although it acknowledges the extreme difficulty of proving this, it lays out a scholarly, thorough, and compelling case. It touches on a series of intertwined developmental issues, which mass market books would have dealt with separately. This prevents mass market readers from the seeing how these problems are related. This includes issues of promiscuity, what other books would call "low self esteem," substance abuse, gender confusion, repeated destructive relationships, sadism, compulsive sexual behavior, asexual behavior, feminine role-playing in women, fake hyper-masculine behavior in men, and the way that all these defenses are mobilized to sabotage relationships and counseling. Although sex plays a role in many of these problems, there is nothing salacious about this book. The tone is not dry, but sometimes amusingly old-fashioned.
There is also a thorough examination of role of adults that act out their repressed hostilities through their children. And the explanation of how adults encourage to children to act out the adults' repressed sexual desires is downright eerie, but seems right on target in an era where so many adults seem obsessed with pushing inappropriate clothes, movies, books on very small children. It also describes cases where small children show extremely disturbing flirtatious and sexual behavior, urged on by their parents (who have no idea).
[end of quote]

Of course sadism is more likely to occur in NPD/malignant narcissism or AsPD. So why does it occaisionally 'spill over' into HPD? Why not? - Cluster B PD's are not neat little boxes with clear well defined boundaries; instead the whole Cluster B PD group is more like a cloud - conditions like BPD or HPD or NPD or AsPD are just denser areas of 'water vapor' within the cloud.

Indeed the HPD forum itself shows the interconnectedness within the Cluster B cloud...several women who initially thought they were HPD now think of themselves more as NPD, and several of the alleged HPD males posting seem to be way more in the BPD concentration. If Cluster B PD's were so seperate and well-defined and didn't share certain common traits like manipulation, the NPD's or BPD's wouldn't ever show up here (unless they are here to troll or otherwise manipulate). Speaking of which...

Everyone agrees that HPD's manipulate others to garner attention, but manipulation of others also occurs in NPD and AsPD; NPD's manipulate others to garner admiration, AsPD's manipulate others to garner power over them.

So if manipulation is common to HPD, NPD, and AsPD, by symmetry sadism (which, BTW, if in a long term relationship also must involve manipulation)...why couldn't sadism could also occur in some HPD's...i.e., Disingenuous?

Of course there are several reasons why some object:
(1) Trolls who sabotage efforts to help them, also disrupting the flow of information among others.
(2) Some are or were sadists, but can't admit it now for a variety of reasons.
(3) They honestly weren't sadists, at least not more than the average person -fair 'nuff.

More like, if they direct their discontent towards others vs themselves.

lodi dodi wrote:More like, if they direct their discontent towards others vs themselves.

Bull's eye. From Wikipedia- "Projective Identification"

"An example of projective identification is that of the paranoid schizophrenic who develops the delusion that he is being persecuted by the police; fearing the police, he begins to act furtively and anxiously around police officers, thereby raising the suspicions of police officers, who then begin to look for some grounds on which to arrest him. In such instances, 'they unknowingly project bits of their parents in their negative, punishing, powerful aspect on to the police...the family policeman in their heads'...

What is projected most often is an intolerable, painful, or dangerous idea or belief about the self that the projecting person cannot accept (i.e. "I have behaved wrongly" or "I have a sexual feeling towards ..." ). Or it may be a valued or esteemed idea that again is difficult for the projecting person to acknowledge. Projective identification is believed to be a very early or primitive psychological process and is understood to be one of the more primitive defense mechanisms."

are you sure you don't mean: "frame of reference"?

... no HPD's are not sadistic, we may expect that though. I know I do lately out of people alot especially after dealing my parents. My parents are sadistic.

and ontop of it they are sadistic in annoying and childish like way too.

- Labor.

...

My experience: would not define it as sadistic, but rather as cruel. lacking empathy, remorse or any compassion. Not entirely their fault though, but a consequence of the complex mental condition. Lost of literature on the subject exits. Common to many Cluster B disorders.

There is some truly excellent stuff on psychforums, and this thread is a very good example. Some of the posts on here are very insightful and intelligent. I'm glad that I'm not more intelligent than I am; as a narcissist, the urge to want the wider public to appreciate my wisdom would be unbearable! (And very unwise - I definately would not want to be recognised on here by people who know me! It's the only place that I can be completely honest.)

Actually, that's one very good outcome of me finding this place - a healthy wallop to my narcissistic ego! I'm not half as clever as I thought I was. (Still gorgeous and engagingly humble, though, obviously!)