The Histrionic Types
Just as Antisocial vampires like excitement, Histrionics love attention and approval, and they’re willing to work hard to get it. Given half a chance, they’ll sing and dance their way into your heart. They invented musical comedy. They do more subtle performances, too. Histrionics are virtuosos of polite conversation, so interested that they make you feel interesting. One of their finest inventions is small talk, the miracle glue that holds conversations together. They also invented gossip.
Histrionics have what it takes to get hired into your business or your life. You want good looks? They’ve got them (or they’ll spend hours trying to get them). They bubble with enthusiasm, sparkle with wit, and sometimes tingle with sexual excitement. Be careful. Histrionic means dramatic; what you see is all a show, and it’s definitely not what you get.
Histrionics are always acting. Mostly, they try to do cheerful sitcoms, but the performance can change before your eyes into a sordid, overacted soap opera with you as a part of the cast. Or into a medical drama. Or a seamy talk show. Or even professional wrestling.
These vampire performers have tendencies toward Histrionic personality disorder. The condition is old, but the name is new, an attempt to replace the less politically correct hysterical. Ancient Greek physicians like Galen and Hippocrates thought that the dramatic emotional shifts and vague physical complaints they saw in Histrionics were caused by the migration of a childless womb (hystericum) to other parts of the body.
For centuries, a Histrionic personality has been considered primarily a disorder of women. This misperception arises from the fact that the Histrionic types most often seen in clinics are stereotypically feminine.
There are plenty of Histrionic men as well. They tend to seek approval and acceptability more than attention. Their roles are masculine stereotypes—fifties dad, avid sports fan, joke-telling raconteur, or highly motivated businessman. Histrionic men also play at being tough guys; professional wrestlers are a good example. They can sometimes be misdiagnosed as Antisocial, but if you look more closely, you can see that the violence is faked, and that the real goal is trying to put on a good show. In Chapter 14, we’ll look more closely at male-pattern Histrionics.
Histrionics were Freud’s favorite patients. They gave him the idea that much of human experience occurs outside awareness. If you spend any time with Histrionics, you too will believe in the unconscious.
The internal landscape of Histrionics is foggier than a Transylvanian night. They can get lost in whatever role they happen to be playing. They can forget who they really are and what they really feel. Or think. Or anything. Their true feelings come out in body language, the sound of their voices, and their unintentionally revealing choice of words. Histrionics also invented the Freudian slip.
Histrionics’ desire for attention and approval is so strong that, in their minds, they divide themselves into the parts people like and the parts that aren’t there. When Histrionics are forced to confront those unacceptable missing parts, everything falls to pieces.
Imagine walking into a party in a brand-new outfit that you couldn’t have worn only 10 pounds ago. You’re feeling turned on, toned up, trimmed down, and decked out. You can sense people’s eyes following you. For a few minutes, life is exactly the way it’s supposed to be. You feel marvelous! Then you pass a full-length mirror and see in excruciating detail what it means to be still 5 pounds from your goal. The evening is ruined. This is the ecstasy and the agony of the Histrionic.
In normal people, there’s an internal contingency, a little voice that says: “It’s who you are, not what you look like.” Histrionics do not hear that voice. Seeing themselves as unacceptable in any way unleashes a storm of emotions that requires hours of reassurance to abate. Reassurance may not be enough. Sometimes they feel compelled to intensify the performance to fever pitch, or to engage in bizarre and destructive actions to regain their sense of equilibrium. Histrionics invented crimes of passion. Ditto anorexia and bulimia.
It’s also possible that the emotional storm won’t be expressed outwardly, that it will be forced into a dark cupboard in the mind where it will roil and seethe, mixing with other unacceptable impulses until some tiny slight blows the door off the cupboard and unleashes a hurricane.
When it comes to the three elements of psychological health—a sense of control, connection to something larger than oneself, and pursuit of challenge—Histrionics are all over the map. Their beliefs and abilities change with their moods. The world of Histrionics is a mass of contradictions—cheery sunshine one minute, fog and lightning the next. You never know what’s going to happen, and neither do they.
One thing is sure: if you’re close to a Histrionic, you’ll be the one who has to clean up after the storm.
The favorite prey of Histrionics is someone who will rescue them from themselves and from the complexities of everyday life. They hate boring details worse than a stake through the heart. What they offer in return is a really good show and promises they just can’t seem to keep.
If Antisocials are Ferraris in a world of Toyotas, Histrionics are more like those beautiful little model cars that have all the moving parts, but do nothing except sit there and look good. Actually, they’re less like cars and more like rare and beautiful flowers that require an enormous amount of maintenance, but still fade in a day. The dilemma they present is simple, though fiendishly difficult to resolve: either you supply the maintenance or someone else will.
The specific behaviors covered on the checklist relate to several underlying personality characteristics that define a Histrionic emotional vampire.
First and foremost, Histrionic vampires are social creatures. They enjoy other people’s company, and most of the time they are enjoyable to be with. They can be cheerful, cordial, witty, sexy, exciting, or anything else you want, except substantial. Without Histrionics, the world would be a less friendly place: all business, and devoid of drama and style.
Attention is the lifeblood of Histrionics. If they don’t get enough of it, they feel themselves start to shrivel up and die. Histrionics always seek out the most appreciative audience. This tendency can destroy relationships. If anybody flirts with them, Histrionic vampires will usually flirt back, regardless of their intentions.
True or False Score one point for each true answer.
If you don’t give them enough attention, they will always find a way to get more. The more desperate they are, like if someone else has the spotlight, the more destructive their methods.
Histrionic vampires prefer that all the attention they get be positive. They strive for social acceptability, and they work hard to live up to everyone’s expectations—unless those expectations involve taking care of boring day-to-day details.
Histrionic vampires hope everybody thinks they’re wonderful. They regard criticism either as meaningless grumpiness that needs to be charmed away or as an affront to natural law. Either way, they will not hear anything but unqualified praise.
If you dare to criticize them, you will be stupefied at how quickly you go from being the most wonderful person in the world to evil incarnate.
Histrionics live in a world of emotions. Their reality is defined by what they feel, rather than by what they think or know. This emotionality can be disconcerting to anyone who tries to reason with them. A butterfly flapping its wings in China is sufficient to change a Histrionic’s mood. Even less is required to change his or her mind.
Histrionics are famous for their selective memories. They can tell you how exciting a meeting was, who came, what each person wore, and who was mad at whom, but not what topics were discussed.
No matter what role they’re playing, beneath the makeup, Histrionics feel incompetent. They are easily overwhelmed by all those little details that they have such a hard time remembering. The whole purpose of their incessant showmanship is to cajole some big, strong, competent person to like them enough to take care of them, and maybe change all those annoying little rules. Usually, the strategy works.
Looks are the stock in trade of Histrionics. They devote a good deal of energy to keeping them up—about as much as you put into your career. On the whole, it’s not a bad investment. Physical attractiveness beats everything else hands down when it comes to predicting who will succeed. Needless to say, Histrionics invented aerobics, face-lifts, and liposuction.
Beware: no creature of the night is more desperate than a Histrionic vampire whose looks are beginning to fade.
Histrionic vampires are such good shape shifters that it almost seems as if they have no permanent form of their own. They automatically start becoming what you want them to be as soon as they sense that you want it. They are superb hypnotists. They don’t have to create an alternative reality; they are one. They can easily talk to plants, meditate on their past lives, and see angels. Histrionics invented New Age everything.
Histrionics know how to get looked at, but they don’t have a clue about how to look at themselves. They often know less about their own history and motivation than about those of their favorite television characters.
Histrionics’ selective memories make their lives into a series of vivid but unconnected events, no more related to one another than the programs broadcast on a given night.
Histrionics invented the undiagnosable illness. Their lives are confusions of reality and fantasy, obsession and repression, impulse and inhibition. When they feel bad, they express it with their bodies. Illness is an art form. Histrionic diseases have to be interpreted like poems as well as treated with medicine and surgery. Histrionics get backaches when they can’t stand up to somebody. Or constipation when they can’t take any more crap.
Just giving them pills is missing the point. We will explore the uses of illness as metaphor in Chapter 13 when we examine Passive-Aggressive vampires.
In a sentence, know them better than they know themselves. Enjoy the show, but try not to get written into the script.