The Need for Attention

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Human beings are social creatures and need social interaction, feedback, and validation of their worth. The emotionally mature person doesn't need to go hunting for these; they gain it naturally from their daily life, especially from their work and from stable relationships. Daniel Goleman calls emotional maturity emotional intelligence, or EQ; he believes, and I agree, that EQ is a much better indicator of a person's character and value than intelligence quotient, or IQ.
The emotionally immature person, however, has low levels of self-esteem and self-confidence and consequently feels insecure; to counter these feelings of insecurity they will spend a large proportion of their lives creating situations in which they become the centre of attention. It may be that the need for attention is inversely proportional to emotional maturity, therefore anyone indulging in attention-seeking behaviours is telling you how emotionally immature they are.
Attention-seeking behaviour is surprisingly common. Being the centre of attention alleviates feelings of insecurity and inadequacy but the relief is temporary as the underlying problem remains unaddressed: low self-confidence and low self-esteem, and consequent low levels of self-worth and self-love.
Insecure and emotionally immature people often exhibit bullying behaviours, especially manipulation and deception. These are necessary in order to obtain attention which would not otherwise be forthcoming. Bullies and harassers have the emotional age of a young child and will exhibit temper tantrums, deceit, lying and manipulation to avoid exposure of their true nature and to evade accountability and sanction. This page lists some of the most common tactics bullies and manipulators employ to gain attention for themselves. An attention-seeker may exhibit several of the methods listed below.
Attention seeking methods
Attention-seeking is particularly noticeable with females so I've used the pronoun "she". Males also exhibit attention-seeking behaviour.
Attention seekers commonly exploit the suffering of others to gain attention for themselves. Or they may exploit their own suffering, or alleged suffering. In extreme forms, such as in Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy, the attention-seeker will deliberately cause suffering to others as a means of gaining attention.
The sufferer: this might include feigning or exaggerating illness, playing on an injury, or perhaps causing or inviting injury, in extreme cases going as far as losing a limb. Severe cases may meet the diagnostic criteria forMunchausen Syndrome (also know as Factitious Disorder). The illness or injury becomes a vehicle for gaining sympathy and thus attention. The attention-seeker excels in manipulating people through their emotions, especially that of guilt. It's very difficult not to feel sorry for someone who relates a plausible tale of suffering in a sob story or "poor me" drama.
The saviour: in attention-seeking personality disorders like Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy (MSBP, also known as Factitious Disorder By Proxy) the person, usually female, creates opportunities to be centre of attention by intentionally causing harm to others and then being their saviour, by saving their life, and by being such a caring, compassionate person. Few people realise the injury was deliberate. The MSBP mother or nurse may kill several babies before suspicions are aroused. When not in saviour mode, the saviour may be resentful, perhaps even contemptuous, of the person or persons she is saving.
The rescuer: particularly common in family situations, she's the one who will dash in and "rescue" people whenever the moment is opportune - to herself, that is. She then gains gratification from basking in the glory of her humanitarian actions. She will prey on any person suffering misfortune, infirmity, illness, injury, or anyone who has a vulnerability. The act of rescue and thus the opportunities for gaining attention can be enhanced if others are excluded from the act of rescue; this helps create a dependency relationship between the rescuer and rescued which can be exploited for further acts of rescue (and attention) later. When not in rescue mode, the rescuer may be resentful, perhaps even contemptuous, of the person she is rescuing.
The organiser: she may present herself as the one in charge, the one organising everything, the one who is reliable and dependable, the one people can always turn to. However, the objective is not to help people (this is only a means to an end) but to always be the centre of attention.
The manipulator: she may exploit family relationships, manipulating others with guilt and distorting perceptions; although she may not harm people physically, she causes everyone to suffer emotional injury. Vulnerable family members are favourite targets. A common attention-seeking ploy is to claim she is being persecuted, victimised, excluded, isolated or ignored by another family member or group, perhaps insisting she is the target of a campaign of exclusion or harassment.
The mind-poisoner: adept at poisoning peoples' minds by manipulating their perceptions of others, especially against the current target.
The drama queen: every incident or opportunity, no matter how insignificant, is exploited, exaggerated and if necessary distorted to become an event of dramatic proportions. Everything is elevated to crisis proportions. Histrionics may be present where the person feels she is not the centre of attention but should be. Inappropriate flirtatious behaviour may also be present.
The busy bee: this individual is the busiest person in the world if her constant retelling of her life is to be believed. Everyday events which are regarded as normal by normal people take on epic proportions as everyone is invited to simultaneously admire and commiserate with this oh-so-busy person who never has a moment to herself, never has time to sit down, etc. She's never too busy, though, to tell you how busy she is.
The feigner: when called to account and outwitted, the person instinctively uses the denial - counterattack - feigning victimhood strategy to manipulate everyone present, especially bystanders and those in authority. The most effective method of feigning victimhood is to burst into tears, for most people's instinct is to feel sorry for them, to put their arm round them or offer them a tissue. There's little more plausible than real tears, although as actresses know, it's possible to turn these on at will. Feigners are adept at using crocodile tears. From years of practice, attention-seekers often give an Oscar-winning performance in this respect. Feigning victimhood is a favourite tactic of bullies and harassers to evade accountability and sanction. When accused of bullying and harassment, the person immediately turns on the water works and claims they are the one being bullied or harassed - even though there's been no prior mention of being bullied or harassed. It's the fact that this claim appears only after and in response to having been called to account that is revealing. Mature adults do not burst into tears when held accountable for their actions.
The false confessor: this person confesses to crimes they haven't committed in order to gain attention from the police and the media. In some cases people have confessed to being serial killers, even though they cannot provide any substantive evidence of their crimes. Often they will confess to crimes which have just been reported in the media. Some individuals are know to the police as serial confessors. The false confessor is different from a person who make a false confession and admits to a crime of which they are accused because of emotional pressure and inappropriate interrogation tactics.
The abused: a person claims they are the victim of abuse, sexual abuse, rape etc as a way of gaining attention for themselves. Crimes like abuse and rape are difficult to prove at the best of times and their incidence is so common that it is easy to make a plausible claim as a way of gaining attention.
The online victim: this person uses Internet chat rooms and forums to allege that they've been the victim of rape, violence, harassment, abuse etc. The alleged crime is never reported to the authorities, for obvious reasons. The facelessness and anonymity of the Internet suits this type of attention seeker. [More]
The victim: she may intentionally create acts of harassment against herself, eg send herself hate mail or damage her own possessions in an attempt to incriminate a fellow employee, a family member, neighbour, etc. Scheming, cunning, devious, deceptive and manipulative, she will identify her "harasser" and produce circumstantial evidence in support of her claim. She will revel in the attention she gains and use her glib charm to plausibly dismiss any suggestion that she herself may be responsible. However, a background check may reveal that this is not the first time she has had this happen to her.
In many cases the attention-seeker is a serial bully whose behaviour contains many of the characteristics listed under the profile of a serial bully, especially the Attention-Seeker. The page on Narcissistic Personality Disordermay also be enlightening, as may be the page on bullies in the family.
Feigning victimhood is common to serial bullies and this aspect comes to the fore in most cases once the bully has been held accountable and he or she cannot escape or rely on their support network. The tactic of denial followed by immediate counterattack followed by feigning victimhood is described on the serial bully page.
Attention seeking and narcissism
Like most personality disorders, narcissism occurs to different degrees in different people and reveals itself in many ways. Many business leaders exhibit narcissism, although when present in excess, the short-term benefits are outweighed by long-term unsustainability which can, and often does, lead to disaster.

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Blame-Storms and Rage Attacks Common to Borderlines, Narcissists

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Both borderlines and narcissists get into rages in which they blame and criticize others. They both seem like small children throwing tantrums, frightening those around them. However, the rages are slightly different and are motivated by different things. Keeping these differences in mind will help you anticipate the rage and respond when it happens.

As you know, people with BPD are emotionally unstable. Nearly all emotions go up and down, but anger is the one that others find most hard to take. Their intense and annihilating anger comes from believing that others don't care about them, are not listening to them, or are not meeting their core needs. Their pain is your punishment. You're still, though, the equal in the relationship.

Conventional BPs (self-harming, suicidal, evident low self-worth) may feelshame, embarrassment, and desperation when they calm down and realized they've pushed people away. They may apologize and promise not to do it again. But unless they're in treatment, the underlying issues don't go away. Some conventional BPs do not get angry at all, but hold it in or express it inward through self-harm.

The anger of narcissists, on the other hand, can be more demeaning. Their criticism evolves from their conviction that others don't meet their lofty standards--or worse, aren't letting them get their own way. "Narcissistic injuries," or wounds to the ego, often pave the way for narcissistic rages, which can be passive-aggressive or planned out, as well as sudden. They are above you and you have displeased them and probably deserve punishment they will dole out.

The Borderline Cycle of Rage

Sarah can't predict just when her borderline husband Ron will go into a rage. But she knows the cycle by heart. And she knows that whatever is really behind it, he'll say it's her fault.

A few days before the triggering incident, she feels the tension start to build. Then Ron gets huffy. He'll sigh, stomp around, and shut the closet doors too forcefully. If she asks what's wrong, he'll say, "Nothing, I'm fine," with a little bit of a bite to it.  She leaves him alone, stays quiet, and tries to stay out of his way.

Then he withdraws more, spending all of his free time on the computer. If she asks him to help with dinner or watch one of the kids, he huffs and rolls his eyes, showing her what an inconvenience this is for him. Or, he'll launch into a minor rage about how he never has any time for himself.   

Then he'll use quiet--but nasty-language to tell her all her faults. He'll say she has double standards--but he can't give her any examples. Next he'll scream at her about how she doesn't allow him to feel any emotions. She denies this, but he keeps arguing the point (using validation techniques would be extremely helpful here).

Soon after, Ron becomes completely irrational and possibly dangerous. He's screaming, pacing, pulling his hair, slamming his head in the wall, and throwing things. He tells her that sometimes he gets so angry that he wants to destroy her possessions. Instead of breaking her things, he breaks those of the kids. Or he puts holes in the wall. Or drives wildly and dents the car (all borderline impulsive reckless behavior). 

After the energy is spent, much like a tantrum, he collapses on the floor, sobbing about how she just doesn't get it and how she'll never get it (he still feels invalidated). He'll also say he's such a horrible person, a horrible husband, and that he knows if he doesn't change that he knows she'll leave him and he'll be a lonely, divorced, middle-age man (all clearly borderline features).

Then he apologizes, says he doesn't want to act that way and that she deserves better. He'll say that he's sorry-but--as in, "I'm sorry, butsometimes I just try so hard to be the person you want me to be, deserve for me to be, that I just can't take it anymore." Then he's on good behavior for about a week.

And then it all starts over again. 

The Borderline Burst of Rage

Not all people with BPD rage in cycles. It often seems to come from nowhere and can last from minutes to days. A man says of his borderline wife:

On Monday, her anger escalated into a full rage and she accused me of lying and hiding things from her. I can never do anything right. On Tuesday she continued the rage by saying that she is miserable, unhappy, that everything is my fault and that I just don't care. Meanwhile the dogs are cowering in the corners of the house, shaking while she is screaming at the top of her lungs. She calls me up at work, texts me constantly, and wakes me up late at night to continue arguing.  

Now let's take a look at NPD.

The Narcissistic Injury

In a previous post, I discussed the narcissist's frantic need for "narcissistic supply," constant ego-stroking that sustains the NP's underdeveloped sense of self and confirms his grandiosity, entitlement, and superiority. Friends and family are prime sources of narcissistic supply, which is an almost drug-like substance required for well-being.

If you interrupt the NP's supply by doing such things as a) Neglecting the narcissist 2) Paying too much attention to others 3) Criticizing or blaming him or 4) Stop giving him special treatment, you will threaten his sense of superiority and call his entitlement into question, inadvertently triggering a narcissistic injury.  

A narcissistic injury is just as painful to the narcissist as abandonment is to the borderline. Thus, just as the borderline is hypersensitive to abandonment, the narcissistic is hypersensitive to anything that smacks of a narcissistic injury.

Sam Vaknin, self-acknowledged narcissist and author of Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited, says:

I am constantly on the lookout for slights. I perceive every disagreement as criticism and every critical remark as complete and humiliating rejection--nothing short of a threat. Gradually, my mind turns into a chaotic battlefield ofparanoia.
I react defensively. I become conspicuously indignant, aggressive, and cold. I detach emotionally for fear of yet another (narcissistic) injury. I devalue the person who made the disparaging remark, the critical comment, the unflattering observation, the innocuous joke at my expense.

According to Rokelle Lerner, author of The Object of My Affection is In My Reflection, the three usual reasons for a narcissistic injury are (p.44):

1. The threat of losing the primary source of narcissistic supply, be that a job or a relationship
2. A failure of old strategies to work, for example, someone challenging their power or trying to take control away from them
3. An unexpected situation in which their "robust sense of self dissolves and they become desperate"

Lerner says that after an injury, narcissists may self-medicate with drugs or alcohol or make a mad dash to find alternative sources of attention and admiration. But mostly, they become enraged that others don't go along with their entitled demands. They strike out like a despot whose subjects threaten a revolution. They may be up-front with their rage or be more passive aggressive about it. Indivorce, narcissists may fight to get things they may not even want just so their ex-partner can't have it. This includes custody of the children. 

Hannah: When our dishwasher malfunctioned right after dinner, we called the repair man. I left the house to visit a friend down the street, who had been expecting me. My husband was left home alone to wait for the repair man and watch TV. During my visit, he called me up, enraged that I was not at home for the repair man, and cursed and yelled at me.  All he had to do was show the repair man to the dishwasher. Another time, I worked an hour late, and he was enraged that his dinner was not on the table at the usual hour (feelings of entitlement).
Sofia: My spouse's anger comes very suddenly and his rage is icy cold. He very rarely says anything, but his body language is quite clear. He will become extremely sarcastic when offended. He then starts making noise by banging things around. Or, he leaves the room and as soon as he's outside starts shouting and yelling. Sometimes he just sighs and lifts his eyebrows to make the people around him feel as if they were less than nothing (superiority).
Don: We were discussing one of our trees once. It was a large and beautiful tree. I suggested we cut it down a bit, which she found ridiculous (had to have the superior opinion). The next day she had placed the branches near a lawn chair where I often sit. The bottom was completely bare; she had cut off all the leaves. She was rather proud of herself for doing that and satisfied to see how shocked and hurt I was (planned out rather than impulsive, done to demean the other person).
Linda: When he gets angry, he puts my delicates in the dryer when he knows better. Once he threw our baby's poop-coated clothing in the laundry basket because he was angry that I finished dinner before dealing with the laundry. He has left urine drops on the toilet seat (again, shows his superiority in a demeaning way).

He has spoken out in anger a few times. Those are the times when I finally get to know what he's been thinking and what's behind his acting out. It's usually when he's tired and annoyed and I make the mistake of trying to talk to him. It's usually just a couple of biting sentences then it's over.

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Why Do Borderlines and Narcissists Lie So Much

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Why Do Narcissists and Borderlines Lie So Much?

Many things can destroy trust and intimacy between partners when one is a high conflict person, often someone with borderline or narcissistic personality disorder. But one of the top ones is lying--especially when it is about extramarital contact. A disclaimer: not all people with BPD or knowingly NPD lie. It's just that those who do lie so thoroughly and often that they spoil it for those who do not.

Just What Is a Lie?

First, let's define what a lie is, because what constitutes a lie and the truth is a gray area. The book Lying, Cheating, and Carrying On (edited by Salman Akhtar and Henri Parens) contains several essays about lying. In the essay "Lies, Liars, and Lying: An Introductory Overview," Salman Akhtar, M.D. lists several types of lies that are conscious lies, i.e., those that Pinocchio knows are false.

Here are examples that a 17-year-old girl might tell to parents who went on an overnight trip and left her at home "alone."

1. Lies of omission: telling the truth but not the whole truth in a way designed to mislead ("While you were gone I watched a DVD"--not mentioning the five people who were also over and who drank beer).

2. Not speaking up when asked a direct question: (Silence when asked, "What did you do when we were gone?")

3. Making up facts that are not true: ("I did my homework while you were gone").

4. Embellishing the truth is a way that misleads: ("I took care of the cat"--meaning she petted it a few times but forgot to feed him on time or change the litter box).

5. Insisting that a truth known to someone is a falsehood: ("I did not have friends over!").

6. Gaslighting: an attempt to erode another's reality by denying their experience ("No, the house looks exactly like it did when you left. Is there something wrong with your vision?"). One woman in therapy once said that nearly all the quarrels in her family was about whose reality would be dubbed the "right" one.

7. Acknowledging the truth but assigning motives that were never there to make yourself look better: ("Yes, I had people here but only because I was so lonely without you that I was getting very depressed and started crying").

8. Keeping secrets for the wrong reasons: (One of the friends stole the mother's expensive earrings).

Unconscious Lies

Now let's look at unconscious lies, or untruths that the teller believes on a conscious level. Being truthful takes the ability to be honest with one's own self, because if you're not honest with yourself, you won't be honest with others. For example:

1) When a narcissist says that everyone loves and respects her when it's obvious to others it's not true, that's an unconscious lie. Les Carter explains this well in his book,Why Is It Always About You?: The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism. He writes (p 17):

In a sense, narcissists are out of touch with reality. They are not mentally ill, like a psychotic; they are just unwilling to acknowledge truth that doesn't match their preferences. While normal people can weigh events rationally and draw fair conclusions about themselves, narcissists do not. They lack the objectivity to live with reasonable insight because their need for self exaltation does not allow them to accept that their perceptions might not be the ultimate truth. Their idealized view of themselves blinds them as they try to make sense of life, particularly the elements in themselves that might be imperfect or that might require adjustments (and they never want to make adjustments).

2) When a borderline's intense emotions lead him to use projection or emotional reasoning ("feelings equal facts"), that's an unconscious lie. When we are gripped by a strong emotion that doesn't fit the circumstances, we interpret what is happening in a way that fits with the emotions we are feeling instead of the facts presented to us. In other words, we seek to confirm what we already feel and ignore new evidence that does not fit, maintain or justify the emotion. We all do it, but people people with BPD (who see things in black and white and have unstable, intense emotions) do it to a greater degree.

And as if that weren't enough, lingering negative feelings about other issues make one more likely to see negative intent. People with BPD tend to remember every hurt "done to them" as though it happened yesterday. Their false conclusions lead to problematic decisions and behaviors since they're always assuming the worst. They also project their own feelings onto others, so their "You hate me," means "I hate myself." These are untruths, but not really overt lies (as damaging as they may be).

It's hard to tell the difference between a conscious lie and a conscious one. A man says, "It is like we both walk into the same movie theater. I thought that we entered into see the same movie. We sit together. We enter and leave at the same time. But afterwards, I learned that what she saw was entirely different from me, even though we sat and watched the same movie. Her version is no where even close to mine."

What Clinicians Say About Lying and BPD

In the essay "Lies and Their Deception" in the same book, Lying, Cheating, and Carrying On, Clarence Watson, JD, MD pulls no punches when he says, (p. 98):

Given that a BPD hallmark is interpersonal relationships that alternate between idealization and devaluation, the person with BPD may distort facts aimed at the person with whom they desire a personal relationship.

Whether through attempts to draw persons into [intense and rocky interpersonal] relationships or viscously attack another during episodes of the extreme rage associated with perceived abandonment-the borderline personality may use lies and deceitfulness to accomplish these objectives.

Impulsivity and poor impulse control, he writes, means they may not consider the impact of their words before they speak. "In the moment, their desired objective, whatever that may be, takes such precedence over speaking the truth or behaving honestly that the potential consequences of their conduct are reduced to shadowy details."

Other reasons for lack of truth-telling

Some statements may start out as deliberate lies; over time, they become real (the old saying, "Tell a lie often enough and it becomes the truth"). Some statements may be exaggerations, such as a woman accusing her husband of "strangling her" when he touched her neck. People with BPD--especially the conventional type--may judge themselves harshly and expect others to do the same. Lying serves to deflect shame when something might make them look bad, thereby maintaining whatever self-esteem they have on a temporary basis.

This backfires on those people with BPD who then feel worse for having lied (or at least being found out).We all have things about ourselves we would prefer others not know. But we see the good and the bad and hope others do, too. With their black and white world and rejection sensitivity, people with BPD believe that anything "bad" would make others reject them.

Lies may create drama and gain attention. One woman lied that she had been raped to get her boyfriend's attention when he had not been paying enough attention to her.Lies may mask real feelings and put up an impressive façade; this is especially common with invisible BPs.Lies may help make sense of why things happen to them in their mixed-up identity.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Some lies maintain the facade of the False Self: the perfect, superior self the narcissist thinks she is or pretends to be. On a more conscious level, lies are central to:

* Staying in power and keeping things under control

* Keeping the flow of narcissistic supply (adulation by others, which are like ambrosia to the NP)

* Satisfying the grandiose, entitled self

* Avoiding any shame if their status is not as high in reality as they think it should be

* Minimizing the onerous possibility of having to concern himself with your needs.

A Few Examples from Partners

* "He lied consistently about his earnings even in the face of documentary evidence."

"* She told me she had cancer when she didn't."

* "He lied consistently for at least a decade regarding fidelity. He used gaslighting techniques to convince me that I was imagining 'missing' condoms from packs in our bedroom."

* "She denied verbal abuse, telling me that, 'I never called you names when anyone else was listening.'"

* "He refused to say where he was going, where he had been, or when he intended to return home--even when doing so was simply to facilitate normal family life-mealtimes, etc. His most oft-used sentence was 'That'll never be known.'"

* "He lied about his history of dyslexia, even when it would have helped our sons with the same problem."

* "She said she had a night class when she went to a hotel weekly with another man."

So how can someone consciously lie like this? NPs have no empathy. They require narcissistic supply--what's a little lie when your very survival, is at stake? And besides, they think, rules apply to other people. Under these circumstances, telling falsehoods is probably uncomplicated and effortless. Watson says, "Overall, their frank manipulation of others may be part of a 'by hook or by crook; mentality to accomplish their goals."

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