The Histrionic Personality Disorder is a type of personality disorder that is similar to the psychopath and the sociopath in that they are both task oriented, introverted, and bored. However, unlike the psychopaths and sociopaths, they have no idea what they are doing and no idea where they are going to go from here.
00:00:00.000The histrionic personality disorder. Now the background of the the etymology of
00:00:09.720this term goes back to the word hysterical and most notably female
00:00:18.120histrionics. Requiring, of course, hysterical paroxysm. That's your
00:00:25.980homework for tonight. Go look up what that is. Thankfully we have medical
00:00:29.040devices freely available to help women take care of that problem now. But when
00:00:33.240you think of female hysteria, which was really just something that manifests
00:00:36.840during the 18th century, it basically boils down to a whole bunch of rich,
00:00:41.460spoiled women sitting at home with nothing to do all day. With maids to
00:00:46.720clean the house and nannies to watch their children, they're supposed to sit
00:00:50.160around knitting for 12 hours a day. And you got the hysterical woman. The
00:00:57.160hysterical personality disorder is very, very similar to that. But as before,
00:01:03.760let's start with the personality type it's based upon. The melancholic. Now just like
00:01:11.260the choleric, the melancholic person is very task-oriented. They're a thinker, a
00:01:19.040reader, a planner. But unlike the choleric, they don't like to go out and start these
00:01:26.780plans. They don't like to go and organize people. They like to organize ideas. The
00:01:33.360librarian, the bookkeeper, the scientist. They like to study things in private. They
00:01:39.360like to build machines. They like to program computer code. They're not unfriendly, but
00:01:46.200they're able to get by without the interaction of other people for very long
00:01:51.520periods of time. They will interact and they will be friendly and they can be an
00:01:55.820invaluable friend, an invaluable, you know, member of the party. But they don't
00:02:01.860need the party as much as other people do. They're an isolate. They do very well on
00:02:09.600their own and their ultimate drive in life to master something. So where's the
00:02:22.220superego come in with all of this? Well the superego, interesting enough, what
00:02:28.560defines the melancholic is the opposite of their innate nature. They're withdrawn and
00:02:37.780focused on tasks, on things. And yet what really defines the melancholic person is
00:02:45.880their id. It's that little spark of animal creativity that gives them a
00:02:53.800purpose in life. It's that love of something that gives them something to
00:03:02.380study. Whether it be machines, whether it be video games, what have you. There's
00:03:07.720something they love, some puzzle that they love to solve, and they focus on that
00:03:14.320puzzle. And this all comes from the id. Histrionic, however, has no id. Or rather,
00:03:25.380their id, like that of the sociopath, is completely subsumed within their ego.
00:03:34.480And so the histrionic person is ultimately bored. Boredom is what defines the histrionic.
00:03:45.840They don't have the personality to go out and talk to people. In fact, they don't even
00:03:52.380like people very much. But there's no project, no computer code, no machine they
00:04:00.620can build that they can fall in love with, because they don't have the ability to fall
00:04:04.640in love. They're task-oriented and introverted and bored because they have
00:04:10.320absolutely nothing to do. So they find themselves a project. And that project
00:04:17.700becomes other people. Except, once again, they have nothing they particularly want
00:04:24.700to achieve. And one of the most challenging things you can do with other people is gaslight
00:04:29.940them, is make them go insane, is screw with them. And so that's what the histrionic does.
00:04:38.820They're an interpersonal troll. They troll the people around them to cause havoc and misery
00:04:47.060in between them. Like the psychopath, they have no love of truth. They don't know what
00:04:55.980truth is. And they are prolific liars. Unlike the psychopath, they don't really see having,
00:05:02.820they don't see themselves as owning other people. The psychopath, as an extrovert, recognizes
00:05:09.820people as distinct objects. The histrionic is an introvert. They don't even really recognize
00:05:17.820that people exist. But they seek to surround themselves with a large network, a large family
00:05:23.820unit, because they need that activity around them. Nothing is going on on the inside. They
00:05:28.820need all of this vibrancy around them. The same time they don't want attention, what they
00:05:35.820want to do is start shit between these other people. And so what they'll do is they'll lie,
00:05:45.820they'll misinterpret, they'll start arguments between people, they'll take offense. For instance,
00:05:54.820if your friend is dating a histrionic, and you and her are in the room while he's somewhere
00:06:01.820else, and you say something, she'll go to your friend the next day and completely skew what
00:06:09.020you said to make it into the most offensive and rude and terrible thing so that your friend
00:06:15.320needs to have a talk with you about what you said to his girlfriend. They love the misinterpretation
00:06:22.320for that. Because the honest, what you actually meant, that's not exciting. That's boring.
00:06:29.320She doesn't care about, or you said something about politics. She doesn't care about politics.
00:06:35.320She doesn't have any interests. You are just talking sanely and politely and like a normal
00:06:42.320human being. That's not interesting for her. She wants drama. She wants violence. She wants
00:06:47.320people fighting. She wants misery. She is unable to actually feel anything inside of herself.
00:06:56.320The closest she gets to having an emotion is to vicariously enjoy others' suffering.
00:07:03.320There really isn't too much to say about the histrionic. Except that she's bored and she starts fights with other people. Or between other people. She becomes the eye of the storm. One of the telltale signs of a histrionic is that everybody around her is fucked up and she's perfectly fine.
00:07:30.320They'll tell you stories about everybody that they know. They'll tell you how their parents are bad people for doing XYZ. Or they'll complain about their boyfriend when he's not around. They'll have all these problems in their life, but none of it will directly affect them.
00:07:49.320See, they'll be left out of it. They act like they're the person that's just barely holding all these crazy people together. Like, look at how crazy my family is and I'm the only one that can make Thanksgiving dinner on time.
00:08:03.320Oh, you lunatics. Do you know what your dad said about you recently? He said you're an absolute failure, son. What's wrong with him?
00:08:11.320And then she'll go to the dad and say something equally vile and poisonous and just start a huge cyclone of misery around herself because that's the only enjoyment she gets out of life.
00:08:25.320Fairly easy to pick up and not too dangerous unless if she decides to start phoning the police with accusations about things.
00:08:39.320Typically she won't. Typically she might threaten the police, but really she just wants to start. She wants to see the fight.
00:08:47.320She's not going to run away from the fight. She wants to be there to witness you two being miserable and the police would probably resolve things.
00:08:54.320And so typically not too dangerous of a person to be around. They just make everybody miserable.
00:09:01.320So avoid them. Look out for people that complain about others all the time and that don't seem to have something that they're living for.
00:09:14.320They have no internal compass of stuff that matters to them. They're a chameleon. They have no true identity.
00:09:22.320Their use of violence. Once again, it's instrumental, but they initiate it outside of themselves.
00:09:35.320That's a histrionic. They're really not that interesting. Just an awful person to be around.