Types of Dramatic People

We all need love and affection, the need to be loved and accepted in all of us is so strong that we end up manipulating other people to get their love and attention.

A very insightful book called The Celestine Prophecy describes such behaviour as control dramas that we acquire from our childhood/early years. Such control dramas are a direct result of how we are treated as children and what kind of role models our parents have been for us.

Reasons for displaying one kind of control drama or another can be varied but what is important is to understand that such behaviour is being exhibited not just by others but even by ourselves.What we need to do is to work on understanding and improving ourselves and to avoid getting sucked into somebody else’s drama.

So I am going to describe to you, five types of dramatic people and how to deal with them below (largely based on my experience).

The Criticiser

Typical Symptoms

Such a person has the habit of finding faults with everything that you do thereby making you believe that there is something extremely wrong with you. Such a person can be your parent, boss or friend. They have the ability to make you feel like shit for every choice that you make in life.

Reason for such a behaviour

Such people exhibit this kind of critical behaviour because they have had extremely strict or critical parents who did not let mistakes slide away easily. It can also be that the person himself or herself is a perfectionist and treats himself or herself very badly for making the smallest mistakes, which is why he or she displays the same kind of critical attitude towards others.

How to deal with them?

First, do not take any excessive comments that they make on your behaviour, habits, lifestyle etc. to heart, understand that they are being overly critical towards you because of a pattern of behaviour that they have learned during their lifetime and not because you are devil’s son/daughter.

Second, ask them not to berate you, firmly but nicely, every time they start to do it. You are supposed to make them aware of their behaviour every time it begins to happen instead of just tolerating it all and then blowing up one fine day.

For example: If your friend has the habit of constantly asking you to wear better clothes. Whenever you meet her and you realise she is going to begin her word attack, start talking about how you love dressing up the way you like and you do not like if somebody tells you how to dress. Just say it like it is. It works.

Third, whenever such a person makes a mistake instead of doing a mental cart wheel and bursting crackers in your head, because now it’s your turn to criticise, do the opposite. Make them realise that if they do one thing wrong, it does not make them a bad person. Once they feel loved and accepted by you, even when they have behaved in a less than perfect manner, they will stop expecting you to be perfect.

If none of this works then stay the fuck away from such a person, but please don’t get sucked into their drama and start a) feeling bad about yourself b) start feeling resentful towards them c) learn from them and then in turn bring them or other people down.

The Guilt Tripper

Typical Symptoms

Such a person feels like the only way to get love and affection from people is by making them feel guilty. This person spends a lot of time pitying himself or herself and if you do anything that makes them feel emotionally threatened or insecure this person will make sure they guilt trip you into feeling bad about your behaviour even when it’s not your fault.

For example, say if you are busy and cannot help a colleague with their work project and that person is a guilt tripper, that person will make sure that they look really sad and forlorn whenever they see you, they may make annoying tongue clicking noises and clutch their head while looking at the computer. They will also walk across your cubicle looking like Reek from Game of Thrones. They may not talk to you at lunch break. Thereby making your day at work seem even longer than it already is.

Reasons for such a behaviour

Such a person may been neglected as a child and feel like the only way to get attention from their parents and other people is to cry or look like they are in a problem. Such people may also have been treated unfairly by friends or family members in their childhood or early life and they feel like now it’s their right to get love (in the form of sympathy) from other people.

How to deal with them?

First, do not kill yourself with the guilt because that’s like falling right into their dramatic trap, so let’s go back to our example, if you have to finish your work before you can go and help your colleague, finish your work. Do not overburden yourself with their work just because of all the guilt tripping. That’s because if you take on their work, you will hate them for making you feel guilty and overburdening you with work, this will leave two resentful people in the room instead of one.

Second, show empathy and not sympathy, tell the other person about how you have been in similar situations and talk openly about how you when you were in such a situation (let’s face it we all have given pity parties at least once in our lifetime). Tell this person that in such situations it feels like there is no solution and nobody will help you but people are always there. Describe how you got out of the situation. And assure this person that he or she is also capable of solving the current situation on their own. Empower them, instead of rushing to save them.

Third, whenever you can, try and help this person. Whenever it’s possible make them feel like they are loved and cared for, so that they do not feel like they need to resort to making somebody else feel guilty in order to gain their love and affection.

The Blamer

Typical Symptoms

This person is a mixture of the criticiser and the guilt tripper, this person makes you feel like you are the reason for all their misery and does not take responsibility for their own behaviour.

For example: If you are telling your partner about how you don’t like it if they constantly have intimate conversations with other boys/girls and that person reminds you of all the time you come home late from work, thereby shifting the entire blame of having the intimate conversations on you when there is no connection between the two topics.

Reasons for such a behaviour

It’s easier for such people to deal with their problems by blaming somebody else, they hate taking responsibility for their actions. It maybe because when they were young they were punished severely for their slightest mistakes. Or the punishment/scolding meted out to them as children was unjust and far greater than what the mistake warranted.

How to deal with them?

First, take everything such people tell you with a pinch of salt, do not take blame for something that you haven’t really done.

Second, don’t play the blame game in return, where you start pointing fingers at such people for always blaming you, this just aggravates their behaviour.

Third, when they make mistakes instead of blaming them for it, try to point out the mistake kindly and then forgiving them. This way they realise that not every mistake should be severely punished.

Fourth, instead of trying to prove to them that you are not wrong and that they are getting unnecessarily pissed leave them alone for a while with their anger. When you do not get involved in their blame game, they usually realise not to play it.

The Blaster

Typical Symptoms

This variety has some serious anger issues and loses his or her temper over the smallest possible reasons. Their aggressive behaviour can even aggravate to the level of physical violence and verbal abuse.

Reasons for such a behaviour

Such a person may have been subjected to mental or physical abuse as a child. Such a person may have witnessed a lot of aggressive behaviour growing up. Such a person may have control issues. Sometimes kids who are subjected to a lot of violence in games and television when they are young turn out to be aggressive adults. In some cultures as a member of a certain gender the child is taught to be aggressive and violent as sign of strength and power.

How to deal with them

I have only one solution to this, under no circumstances do you accept such behaviour, if a person is constantly being aggressive towards you, may it be physical or verbal, leave their company.

If it’s a dangerous situation please complain to appropriate authority, take help from trusted friends and if you do not know anybody you can contact, you can email me and I will definitely try to arrange for some help.

No matter what kind of relationship you have with an aggressive person it is always going to harm you in the long run. Leave it at once.

If that person really wants to improve then ask them if they would like to go for therapy or get help of some sort and then wait until they get help. Only when such a person is completely healed should you consider reestablishing any sort of relationship with them.

Please think of your own mental and physical well being. By being a victim to somebody else’s aggression you are not helping them at all, on the contrary you end up becoming a guilt tripper or blamer in the process. Get out before it’s too late.

The Avoider

Typical Symptoms

This is the most sneaky way of being dramatic. Such a person is like the blamer, he or she does not take any responsibility for their actions by creating a facade of non-involvement and remaining distant. This makes it very difficult for any person to build a healthy relationship with them.

For example: An avoider friend does not care if they cancel every plan that you make with them because they think it doesn’t matter if you meet them or not, eventually when you get tired of contacting them and stop making plans, they tell you that you are being too dramatic and you just go to chill.

Reasons for such behaviour

The avoider has usually faced parents who are strong criticisers or blamers, so the avoider feels the best way to live life without being subjected to strong scrutiny is to avoid it. Or such a person may have parents who neglected him or her and thus as a child he or she felt really rejected by their parents, which is why the avoider does not feel worthy of having relationships with other people and harbours a strong fear of rejection in himself or herself. The avoider considers himself or herself safe by not putting himself or herself in a position where somebody can hurt, avoid or reject him or her. Such a person wants to leave somebody else before they can leave him or her.

How to deal with them?

First, do not feel hurt or rejected if such a person does not care for you because they do not feel cared for in the first place.

Second, do not get frustrated if you feel like such a person is taking you for granted, it’s not like they are bad people, they just don’t know how to cherish another person in a relationship because they haven’t been appreciated much in their lives.

Third, instead of blaming the avoider for their mistakes and then avoiding them to punish them, thereby playing right into their drama, you should tell the avoider about how their aloof behaviour is making you feel bad, talk about your hurt feelings instead of blaming them for hurting your feelings. There is a thin line between the two.

Fourth, if you do decide to fall in love with an avoider or build any close relationship with them please make sure that you give them time to unlearn their control drama. It will not happen in a day or two, it takes sometime for a person to forget a lifetime of conditioning.

Fifth, try to give unconditional love to an avoider, that’s what has been missing from their life anyway. Open your heart and they may open theirs to you.

Sixth, if they are unable to come out of their control drama please tell the person clearly about how their lack of involvement is bothering you and leave. There is no point in staying in a half hearted relationship with a person because it does not provide any emotional fulfilment.

These were some of the dramatic people I have met in my life, if you have know of other kinds of dramatic people, please email me and I will do a write up on it.

Also, if you have any one of these control dramas please do not fret, there is nothing that cannot be solved by self investigation and compassion (for yourself and others).

Let’s build a more beautiful world for one another.