Need for Drama
Psychologists have come up with a definition of a "Need for Drama" personality - which may, lol, strike a chord with some of us here! Here are some excerpts from the article:
"People with drama-prone personalities generally live chaotic lives and inflict contrived crises on family, friends, and co-workers," a team from the University of Texas explain in a new study.
'High drama' individuals tend to have long histories of failed relationships, search out conflict in the workplace and on social media, and not only engage in gossip about others - they complain about being the subject of gossip themselves.
"They seem to see the world as happening to them," the researchers report in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, "which likely makes them reactive to perceived slights."
This new scale is based on three main factors:
Interpersonal manipulation: "Characterised by a person’s willingness to influence other people to behave in a manner serving of the manipulator’s goals."
Impulsive outspokenness: "Characterised by a person’s compulsion to speak out and share opinions, even when inappropriate and without regard to social consequences."
Persistent perceived victimhood: "The propensity to constantly perceive oneself as a victim of everyday life circumstances that many people would dismiss as benign."
https://www.sciencealert.com/psychologists-have-come-up-with-an-official...
Gads, that describes more
Gads, that describes more than one person I know.
Thanks for sharing, Kes!
Amazing how we try to find explanations.
To figure out what makes skids, BMs, etc. "tick." Probably because for most of us, we've done nothing to warrant the kind of mistreatment we've received. So we figure there has to be a psychological reason for it - something beyond the person's control. Because why would human beings (especially when the skids become adults) be so cruel?
I'll tell you why: because some of them are just @ssholes and they will always be @ssholes.
When they are younger you give them slack because you think it's something they will grow out of or they will gain a more balanced perspective. For most of us, their enlightenment never happens. If anything, as adults they will ramp up their need for drama and foist it upon a new generation when they have their own kids.
I still enjoy reading the psychological pieces as they are interesting and sometimes helpful. I really wish that someone would do some large-scale studies about the negative psychological impacts (and traumas both mental, physical and financial) on stepparents. Especially stepmothers).
But that won't ever happen because society at large automatically assumes all sins are our faults and people don't care. You know, the old "You knew what you were getting into." and "Kids come first!" mantras.
Some people are just selfish
Some people are just selfish or bad. I mean look at all the criminals in the world.
So many stepparents are the ones who are in therapy to try to deal with families and people who were broken before they even met them but still blame the stepparent. Bios (parents and kids!) Should oftentimes be the ones in therapy.
Of course a stepfamily is the perfect situation for someone who sees themselves as a victim and loves drama to have constant conflict. Maybe some of these high drama people are attracted to being stepparents too.
Ding, ding ding
Right on.
Definitely my DH's EX. She
Definitely my DH's EX. She had conflict with each and every person.. coach.. teacher she ever met. She even got into a physical altercation with some old guy when she was trying to sell him an Iphone! never her fault of course..
This is so my Spawn and Meth
This is so my Spawn and Meth Mouth, they have constant drama around them, usually what they have created for themselves and they love crying victim the whole time they are in the thick of it. I don’t miss them, they were so exhausting.
Oh, my goodness
Spot on...
Interesting. Unfortunately it is IMHO little more than addition
al excuse based crap to justify assholes being assholes and to try to gain sympathy for what are IMHO purely chosen behaviors. Rather than excuses for this crap, there needs to be pure unadulterated consequences that are so unpleasant that the assholes will never perpetrate their crap again to avoid the risk of the pain their crap returns to them.
meh.