It is like an injection directly into my brain. It swims around in my head like a fish too big for its tank, and bolts down the highways and byways of my body to every square inch of my skin. An explosion of glitter and confetti ignites in my chest cavity, but no destruction ensues. Instead, my veins reverberate with ecstasy, and the drug takes hold over my conscience. It is a drug, at least to me. It can be taken many different ways: a question, a compliment, a comparison, but the effect is always the same.
Attention, admiration, compliments. They all sustain my soul, like bathing in the blood of virgins or drinking from the fountain of youth. I am Tinkerbell in Calvin Klein, and I am on the verge of death. Clap for me, and I spring back to life. With them, I am unstoppable, but without them, I am unable to move, act, or even think clearly. When presented with them, I act with all the apathy usually reserved for reading stereo instructions, but in truth, they are my only reason for continuing to live.
Naturally, that may sound melodramatic. When it comes to Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD), there is a sense of playing up the smallest obstacles and accomplishments in order to receive attention. Attention whores of the world unite under this banner, but again, as we have discussed in the past, what makes a pattern of behavior a true disorder is the havoc it can wreak on a person's life, and HPD is no different. My life is constructed around meticulously assured attention from the clothes I wear, to the car I drive, to the food I eat, to the way my body is sculpted. I sacrifice external comfort for the mental comfort I receive each and every time I hear my name called. A small orgasmic sound plays on repeat in my mind like a siren each time I am made the center of attention.
Even still, this sensation is much like an adolescent boy with breasts, I would be left speechless and clueless when I am presented with the attention I so badly crave, and then, my hollowness shows. What do I do? The visage I have presented to the world is all a lie, so how do I carry forward with the charade when there is no substance to back it up with? At that point, all I wish is for the swift release of death, but when it comes, I can only hope it comes in explosive fashion while I stand under the spotlight. Let my blood sparkle in that warm glow and pour out of me, providing myself with a red carpet of my own making so spectacular that the Oscars will have to change colors out of respect.
This, however, demonstrates a vital difference between my two main sources of fuel as well as their corresponding disorders, fore if attention is my gasoline, then admiration is my oil. Attention can be good or bad, envious or sympathetic. When I had an accident on a construction site and nearly bled out but stopped before going to the hospital so I could take a selfie, I was given attention. When I made my way to the top of the sales charts at each of my jobs, that brought me admiration. While HPD is more synonymous with attention, Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is all about the admiration.
Admiration, unlike attention, is a one-way street and can be a roller coaster in and of itself. While attention relies on the mere act of being noticed, admiration comes from the audience's sense of pride or envy in yourself. It is approving and reinforcing of your actions while offering respect, whether they truly merit it or not. People can admire your social status, your ownership of certain luxuries, your ideas and input to a project; your very words and actions hold sway with those around you. As discussed before, a person with narcissistic personality disorder has a need for admiration to feed their own grandiosity and avoid heading into a pit of self-loathing.
It is an addiction, each time requiring more and more to achieve that same desired effect, but whereas coke or heroin may not feel like they are working when a person becomes more resistant to its effects, admiration feels less and less true over time, producing the need for more frequent and intimate compliments. In my own childhood, self-esteem was far more of a concept than something which could be put into practice. Growing up in a household where little time is spent encouraging you to follow your dreams while other members of your family praise you for every little thing may just send you mixed messages. It certainly did with me.
At home, I received the prior, which left me emotionally void and eager to seek out places to garner approval, but really any form of attention would do. I would seek out pity from people by faking illnesses and injuries, perfecting this forgery of pain into an art form. As time passed, I grew to hate constant pity, concealing pain both acted and actual, believing them to be signs of weakness. My tactics morphed into an intense hunger for admiration, but still attention sated me. I changed my style to more outlandish looks which were neither in vogue nor comfortable with the life I was leading. I altered every aspect of my life down to my tone of voice in order to maximize the amount of regard I would surely collect from those around me.
Still, this only brought me attention, intense passing glaces which did not offer me that approval which I so desperately sought. In order to make this final change, I began adopting a perfectionist streak in order to be the best at everything which I endeavored. If there was no chance for me to immediately become the best at, I dropped it like a block of lead, fearing criticism and judgement of others. I needed thing to be the best at, to have the most knowledge on, in order to gain the pleasurable notice of those around me. That mental high of being appreciated and admired for skills and knowledge which others did not possess was, and still is to a large extent, one of the few pleasures I find in life.
It consumes me. Still, in this years of my adulthood, I find myself being eaten alive by a ravenous black hole at the core of my chest, and it needs to be fed. I fill it with all of life's poisons, trying to kill it before it absolutely destroys me. Less poisonous than alcohol or frivolous spending is this attention I so badly crave. It soothes the beast within me, tranquilizing it long enough for me to breath, but I cannot handle the words of others with a pleasing acceptance, fore I know the beast is suspicious of these words, believing them to be nothing but means to an end.
Are they true? Are these words just a ruse? What would be the point in telling me such kind things only for them to be a jest? Perhaps they are just things said out of pity for my miserable existence. Maybe there is something which the person using these enticing words hopes to gain from me once my defenses are down. These thoughts race through my mind each time I intercept a compliment, pondering on what is the true message behind it, ever suspicious of the messenger's intent. This is the true paradox, that while I constantly crave the stares and love of others, I cannot handle them.
My body has become inoculated against their positive effects by a barrier of disbelief built up by years of mixed messages which have altered my vision of my own self worth. How do I know who is being sincere and who is just trying to get on my good side long enough to use me? The thought that I am just a monster being pacified with pretty music crosses my mind each time I hear a flattering remark passed in my general direction. I attempt to deflect it, avoiding any chance for disappointment. I wonder if people ever see myself as I see me; an abomination locked away from humanity in his ivory tower, hurting anyone who gets close enough to see past the gilded gates.
I reject the commendations of others, because I know my own secret. I have spent the better part of my life constructing an image of who I am that does not match reality. Sure, I may genuinely be good at my passions and may know everything there is to know on a variety of subjects, but often I did not arrive at those points out of pure love for those subjects, but rather, in the hopes that I would be appreciated for that mastery. It is oftentimes even hard to determine who I am, because hardly any of my life has been genuine. It has been a front to protect me against the dangers of the world, both real and perceived.
In all that danger, one of the few solaces I have found has been in companionship, though I lack an understanding of what it truly means to be friends with someone else, constantly relying on them to boost my ego while rarely offering much in return. That flamboyance about myself draws in others like the green stone you spot on the beach, but once they get in close, they realize it was just a piece of broken glass. There is little substance to my glowing visage to keep people entranced, and they grow bored quickly. I am a blank slate which can adapt to any situation or relationship, even if I find that person deplorable deep down.
With a histrionic personality, there can be a shallowness about yourself both emotionally and physically. Exclaiming and proclaiming over the most minute occurrences in your life while showing little concern over serious situations as they come into your line of sight. A reliance on fantastical dramatics can turn off those in your life after a short while of enduring it, as can sucking up all the attention in the room for yourself, silencing anyone who dares to try and step within the space where that spotlight touches.
You can be inappropriate in a variety of situations, usually using your looks and provocative behavior to draw the gaze of others to yourself, and this trickery can even fool your own mind. You begin to think of relationships as meaning more than they actually do, further pushing people away as you try to cling on. Much like a star, the more you shine, the harder it is for people to maintain eye contact, making long-lasting relationships all the more difficult to achieve when you rely so hard on achieving the strongest gaze and not the longest. The behavior then becomes reinforced as you double your efforts next time to attempt and throw everything you have at a person, hoping it sticks, when all it does is scare them away.
While to an outside observer, it may appear that the person drawing in a crowd has more connections than any other, it is often a false belief. Still, all is not lost. Drawing back your ornate style of speaking while still keeping the flashy clothes allows a compromise with your hungry mind. One must make a conscious effort to notice how they are speaking, what words they choose to use, such as using "a problem," over "a crime against humanity," when you encounter the slightest obstacle in your path. Relying less on gossip and more on substantive conversation of pressing social issues can drawn in more people, and this knowledge can gain you far more recognition in the eyes of your peers than putting down others ever could.
Beating this addiction for the eyes and ears of others is never an easy one, and my own journey is still very much in progress. It all begins with recognizing when you are exaggerating. Even still, in my own life, I find myself battling my therapist over words, questioning what parts of my story are real and which I have built up over time. My own mental biography has missing pages and words which conflict facts with fiction. I fight for truth in my own mind, and I fight for peace in my life. I know a life of peace will be one where I am not always fighting for the microphone to shout down others while making my own presence known, and that is what frightens me most of all.
