CHAPTER 9

HIGH-DRAMA LIVING

Shakespeare described the world as a stage and the people merely players. Day after day, we experience dramas, playing our parts. Some days we may be centre stage; other days, in the wings. Let’s be honest about this, centre stage roles receive most of the adulation and applause, and this can be very desirable.

This is also true of real life. Drama can serve a purpose and become an addictive way of living as it often serves up intensity, passion and an escape from the monotony of everyday life. It shines a limelight of sorts that may not otherwise be there. Seeking out or creating drama is often an unconscious move – something you may not even be aware that you’re doing. The problem is that it comes with a price as it impacts negatively on your happiness.

High-drama living is stressful living and often not conducive to a happy, peaceful lifestyle.

So far, I’ve discussed letting go of the following barriers to happiness:

• The past

• Unhelpful thinking

• Regrets

• Worry

• The negative influence of other people

• Unhelpful habits

• Blaming

• Comparing

In the course of our work on letting go of drama, we’ll be touching upon all the areas we’ve covered so far. If the issue of drama isn’t addressed, it’s easy to fall back into old patterns within any one of the other areas that act as barriers to happiness. Essentially, addiction to drama is like the fuel that keeps many other problems going, so it can’t be ignored.

In the world of acting, thespians tell us that drama is conflict. I know a few television producers and they tell me that high drama makes the best television. We love to see conflict, tension, affairs, deception and all sorts of cliff-hangers. None of the characters in soap operas lead quiet ‘normal’ lives. It’s all action-packed drama, which proves popular with viewers. However, it’s worth noting that happiness is often in short supply, whereas dysfunction is plentiful.

I mentioned earlier I am writing this last section of the book as Christmas approaches. If the year was split up into fictional events it most represents, I would view Christmas, and the run up to it, as the drama Oscars. Every year I return to Ireland pre-Christmas to visit family and friends. The pantomime starts early. It’s high drama at its best.

It’s a very intense period as I observe various family and friends shop until midnight with frenzy in their eyes. I mean, this is serious business. If the supermarket runs out of goose fat to cook the turkey, Christmas is ruined. Worse still, I’ve witnessed complete meltdowns when Elsa, the doll from Frozen, isn’t in stock! Not to mention fitting in work, Christmas carols, baking the cake and making sure every neighbour within a three-mile radius gets a card (even the ones that haven’t been seen in ten years or may even have died)!

I haven’t got to family dynamics yet. Who is hosting Christmas? Who hasn’t replied to the Christmas drinks invite? Who has fallen out this year? Who can’t be invited to the same event to avoid arguments?

All this drama for one day! It will, of course, end in exhaustion, stress, conflict, tears and the age-old pledge: ‘Never again!’. That is, until next year.

In the meantime there is Valentine’s Day, Easter, a wedding, a funeral and a summer holiday to plan. Events provide easy access to drama alongside all the everyday scenarios that also play a vital part.

I find addiction to drama really interesting because I’ve never met anyone who initially recognizes it as a problem for them. It’s always life, people, events or circumstances, so this is an area I sometimes have to address. Woe betide anyone who tries to suggest differently. I raise the points no one wants to hear!

I met someone recently at a drinks event who shared with me how stressed and overwhelmed he was (and I believed him). Interestingly he told me about his twelve-hour workday, a 5 a.m. start for the gym, the pressure of paying for four holidays each year and private school fees for his children. Early into the conversation I recognized that despite the stress these parts of his life were causing, the guy had a boastful tone about his busyness and the demands of his lifestyle. His way of life was creating a dramatic intensity in his life, and he was over-identifying with this. He described stressful feelings and the negative impact on his life but the tone of his voice didn’t fit with his description. I was curious about him.

In a well-intentioned manner, I decided to offer a suggestion. I acknowledged how stressful his life was and asked whether he’d considered shorter workdays, reducing the number of holidays he had and reviewing the private school options. I thought these were sensible suggestions. He didn’t share my view. He immediately responded defensively, reminding me how busy he was, how mentally strong he was (despite his stress) and that he didn’t need suggestions. He also told me few people understood ‘high fliers’ and that he was very happy with his life regardless. This time I didn’t believe him.

He wasn’t interested in solutions and my instinct was correct. He was addicted to the drama of his busy life but was unable to see the impact. My words certainly hit a raw nerve but he wasn’t ready to hear them.

It’s important to mention here, I may also hit a nerve with you. It’s really uncomfortable to acknowledge when you may be hooked on drama. I know this both personally and professionally. Some professionals often neglect this area because it is uncomfortable and can be deemed confrontational.

I’m not here to judge or scoff. I’m here to help you get unstuck from anything that interferes with your happiness. High-intensity drama does. If you aren’t aware of this, then you can’t do anything about it.

If you are currently wondering whether you are addicted to drama in your life, this is a healthy place to be. Curiosity can be a positive first step.

There isn’t an exhaustive list of drama traits. Of course many link to other legitimate issues but my interest is in how drama can be a maintenance factor. In the span of my career I do see regular presentations that are habitual and can be changed. Some might resonate with you and some won’t. The important point is to stop and consider whether engaging in any of the following impinges on your happiness and wellbeing:

• Repeatedly choosing the ‘wrong’ relationships despite advice and support from others.

• Excessive busyness that always leaves you overwhelmed and gets shared with everyone.

• Conflict with others – often due to misinterpretation or arguing for the sake of arguing.

• Fixation on how ‘unlucky’ you are and a tendency to share this with others.

• More interest in high-intensity events, e.g. emergency visits to see relatives in hospital but not when they are home. Similarly, attending funerals for people you barely know or haven’t seen in a long time.

• Holding on to difficult or sad life events and repeatedly sharing with others.

• Exaggerating the impact of events on you (some you may have little involvement with).

• Over-sharing of ‘big stories’ on social media forums to attract interest, likes or comments.

• Use of extreme language that often includes words like awful, terrible, worst, bad, disaster, catastrophe.

• Getting involved in situations you know historically will lead to conflict or difficulties.

• Refusing support or dismissing helpful suggestions.

• Relishing your own misfortune or that of others.

• Excessive gossip about others that can lead to conflict or division.

I know some of these are tough to digest and might activate some very uncomfortable reactions. If they do, stop and listen to the emotional response they’re generating. There may be something hugely important here that’ll help you break down the blocks to your happiness. Don’t rush through this section. Instead note down the statements that have made you most uneasy. This will be helpful to come back to. Some will overlap with work in previous chapters but my interest now is whether holding on to drama is keeping you stuck or being used in an unhealthy way. Make a note in your journal.

Like everything we have worked on so far, there are underlying psychological reasons why you might engage in some of these statements and understanding this is an important part of letting go. I’m going to break them down into common themes.

WHY YOU HOLD ON TO DRAMA

This is not an exhaustive list but my experience is that there are five dominant psychological processes at play that can help explain behaviours that are consistent with excessive drama. As always there will be short-term gains and long-term consequences. The five processes are:

1. Avoidance

2. Compensatory mechanisms

3. Attention-seeking

4. Constructed identity

5. Hereditary patterns

The processes will play out in different ways for different people – with accompanying varying behaviours – but as you read through them, notice your reactions. With anything that resonates strongly with you, try to be curious.

I want to be clear here: I am discussing over-involvement, habitually, in high-intensity drama that you have the choice to avoid. This is not the same as being party to tragic events or misfortune that may have occurred in your life and were beyond your control. You will know the difference.

AVOIDANCE

When life is filled with high-intensity drama a lot of the time, it creates a reason to disengage from other parts of life. It also provides the perfect excuse to disengage from people, situations or circumstances that you may want to avoid. This can sound something like:

• I can’t, I’m so terribly busy.

• I had such a horrendous experience last time, I won’t do that again.

• Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong for me.

• It’s just all too much for me to cope with.

The absorption in drama, whatever the drama is, gives you permission to use avoidant strategies to opt out of an unappealing aspect of your life.

COMPENSATORY MECHANISMS

Most excessive behaviours are over-compensating for a sense that something is lacking in your life. For example, you might repeatedly get involved in situations that you know are wrong for you. This could be linked to an underlying lack of confidence or self-belief that you find hard to admit. The dramatic situations help make up for that. The onus is never on you and the problem gets immersed in some sort of high drama.

ATTENTION-SEEKING

Earlier I talked about centre-stage roles and how attractive they can be as they lead to attention and applause. Sometimes you will use excessive drama to take the centre-stage role in life. It could be that whatever drama pattern you strongly identify with gets you more of something: attention, sympathy, applause or adulation. The list is endless. You are in the limelight short term but suffer longer term as these behaviours stop you moving forward in a helpful way. They are not sustainable and don’t address the underlying issues.

CONSTRUCTED IDENTITY

This can happen when your personal identity gets closely associated with high-intensity dramatic events. It could sound like:

• This could only happen to me.

• Things always go wrong when I’m around.

• I attract the drama.

• I’m doomed; I’m a disaster.

Part of personal identity gets caught up in dramatic narratives you create. You then start to believe this is the role you should play in life or that this is what people expect of you.

HEREDITARY PATTERNS

Sometimes you become what you have observed. If you have witnessed over-involvement in drama or drama-seeking behaviours in your family during your formative years, then this can become normalized. Breaking unhealthy patterns that don’t serve you well is important here. Often you may have to let go of familial patterns that don’t work for you in your adult life. Many families have patterns of drama interweaved into the dynamic. The skill is being able to step out of this (which I will come to now).

HOW TO BREAK THE CYCLE OF DRAMA ADDICTION

Sean is a thirty-five-year-old banker, who really struggled with finding a meaningful relationship. He described a catalogue of failed relationships in which he was cheated on, lied to, manipulated, robbed and blackmailed. His story sounded like a dramatic movie, in which he was the victim of many women. He cried in a session after reminiscing that he regularly felt ‘f*cked over by women’. He told me he had chosen a male therapist to avoid being messed around by another woman!

When I started to explore each of the relationship break-ups, I discovered that none of the narratives were actually true. He was suspicious that one partner was having an affair, so he ended the relationship. He wasn’t sure that he was robbed but he accused the next girlfriend of stealing a watch. He was never blackmailed but felt threatened when the next girlfriend shared that she had told her father about some of his insecurities. He had written dramatic scripts that were highly exaggerated versions of reality that allowed him to escape intimacy or commitment.

Sean didn’t meet the criteria for any specific psychiatric disorder and had clear insight into his ‘paranoid notions’. In therapy he realized these were exaggerated stories that got him out of relationships. He admitted he knew the stories weren’t fully true but he was able to convince himself using partial evidence that served the purpose of allowing him to opt out of relationships. He would then get lots of support from friends, which he enjoyed. He also acknowledged enjoying the extremity of emotions that each new scenario would bring. As he put it, ‘It’s like living in a movie.’

He was hooked on creating dramas that stopped him having relationships. Further exploration uncovered his real issue with women was linked to a very complex relationship with his mother. Sean’s way of managing this was getting caught up in a cycle of dramatic constructed narratives that allowed him to run away every time he felt close to a female.

I know this example might read as extreme in nature but you may have variations of your own in different circumstances.

I suggest a four-step method for breaking the pattern of drama addiction:

1. Admitting that you are engaged in a highly exaggerated habitual response to life events (drama behaviours).

2. Naming the drama patterns you engage with and starting to manage them, one at a time.

3. Replacing drama patterns with healthier strategies.

4. Offering a non-judgemental approach to yourself when engaging with this work.

ADMITTING

This is not an easy step because you now consciously know this is something you have to take responsibility for. When I work with clients who are very hooked on drama they initially respond in different ways to the suggestion, ranging from being defensive or apologetic to feeling embarrassed. This is understandable – put simply it is part of being human and just another way of dealing with life. Remember this is not the full story and doesn’t define you but it could be a significant contributory factor to your unhappiness.

It’s a big deal to admit that you are contributing to or creating some of the problems in your own life by over-engaging with drama. This takes a lot of guts and courage. This first step will immediately set up new foundations for you so that when you fall into the ‘drama trap’ you can regain control and opt for alternatives (which is one of the next steps). However you decide to admit this drama pattern, addiction or choice (call it what you want) is entirely your call. You could decide to write it down, share with a close friend or even talk it over with a therapist if that would be helpful for you.

I heard it declared very eloquently and humorously by a client who said, ‘My sh*t is that I’m a drama queen and I never knew it.’

NAMING

This relates to some of the drama traits I mentioned earlier in the chapter. I would encourage you to read over these patterns again (now you have more insight) and name what you identify with. There is a useful expression in therapy that when you name something, you own it. I think this is true.

Try to be as specific as you can about the key areas in which you notice drama move into your life. This will help you identify patterns quickly when they come up.

REPLACING

My guidance here is broad as your patterns are going to be very personal. But try to replace drama involvement, drama-seeking and drama addiction with behaviours that are adaptive. A useful way of judging whether your behaviours are adaptive in any given circumstance is to ask yourself whether your actions or responses feel:

• Balanced. Does your response or action feel measured, balanced and not exaggerated?

• Regulated emotionally. Are you seeking thrills, highs or intensity for the sake of it?

• Helpful. Does your action or response create difficulties or unnecessary challenges for you?

• Self-aware. Based on our work, ask yourself if you are compensating, seeking attention or avoiding something via the drama route.

NON-JUDGEMENT

It’s worth remembering that if you start judging or beating yourself up while doing this part of the work, it has the potential to become a substitute internal drama. You are simply learning about your behaviour. When letting go of drama patterns you are deciding to remove a potential barrier to your happiness. You haven’t done anything wrong. You are simply moving on from a way of behaving that doesn’t stand you well any more.

HOW THIS WILL CONTRIBUTE TO YOUR HAPPINESS

Anyone I’ve worked with who reports dramatic, highly exaggerated responses or actions in their life also reports feeling exhausted a lot of the time. Likewise, performers of any description report feeling tired after a show (after the initial performance high). This is to be expected as excessive levels of chemicals such as adrenaline and cortisol will have been released during the ‘act’. The exhaustion experienced afterwards is the mind and body’s compensatory mechanism to try to restore balance after a surge of activity.

Letting go of drama is opting in for a more balanced approach to life. It’s a new pattern not based on excessive highs, intensity, conflicts, chemical rushes or maladaptive strategies for managing life. The benefits for your life are therefore significant and include:

• Regulated emotional state

• Balanced chemical state (as described previously)

• Clearer thinking as you allow the rational part of your brain (pre-frontal cortex) to operate more efficiently

• Improvement in relationships as you will be less prone to conflict

• Healthier perspective on life as processing will be more fact-based and rational

• Improved overall wellbeing (excessive drama induces stress responses so a reduction in this has a positive physical and psychological impact).

COMMITMENT

Like most of the other work in the book, commitment when managing drama patterns is a daily requirement. It involves unlearning a particular way of acting or responding to life so it will take practice. Staying curious about this will enable you to observe your daily behaviour dispassionately, acknowledge it as drama-seeking, then alter your response. Each time you do this, you help change a pattern. In time, a more balanced response becomes the new norm.

A useful tool for this commitment is keeping a graph of your daily drama patterns, rating them one to ten (one being no drama, ten being high drama). Make a note each day of what contributed to these drama moments and it will help you identify any traps you might fall into. It then makes it easier to avoid these traps in the future.

CASE STUDY

Life stories of some of the world’s iconic stars have featured on our movie screens lately: Elton John, Freddie Mercury, Judy Garland and Tina Turner, to name but a few.

Each story is filled with heartache, pain and some very tragic events happening to people of immense talent.

Each story is also filled with intense drama, part of the reason why they have been box office hits!

Throughout each of the life stories we witness extreme highs, lows, applause, adulation, conflicts, fast-paced lives and histrionic outbursts. Drama is abundant in all of their lives, internal and external, and at some stage they all recognize that it’s contributing to their unhappiness. In the end, they all seek change.

The drama isn’t always related to unfortunate external events; it’s also linked to choices made by the individuals as they navigate life. The drama patterns we observe serve a purpose: they distract them, compensate for what they perceive they lack and help them to cope. What we learn is that it doesn’t bring happiness, and ultimately they all discover that at some point in their stories.

I say this without judgement, rather with admiration. Each life story shares a legacy and leaves the viewer with several messages, an important one being that you often need to let go of possessions, harmful attitudes such as holding on to drama, a destructive way of life, even people – all those things you use to mask your pain – to find happiness.

Maybe now is the time to re-write the script for the movie of your life. Drama doesn’t always bring happiness. More often it creates distraction and distress. You have the power to edit this. Some questions to ponder:

• How would you like to be remembered?

• What legacy do you want to leave behind?

• How dramatic is your story and is it bringing you the happiness you desire?

SUMMARY

• Drama patterns can impact negatively on your life.

• Patterns can always be explained by underlying psychological processes.

• Drama patterns can be broken by admitting, naming, replacing and managing them without judgement.

• Dealing with this will have a positive impact on your life, your wellbeing and your happiness.