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 Need So Much Attention

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People with BPD are needy and demanding and tend to be overly dramatic in expressing their needs. They have no problem expressing their needs, and do it regularly and often, and they do not realize that most of the time their reactions to perceived slights are inappropriate. And they tend to feel slighted in almost all relationships. Because for borderlines, its all about them all the time. They demand love and attention, and feel intense emotion when they don't get what they want in relationships with other people. Being in relationship either as a friend, family member or romantic partner with someone who is borderline is exhausting and stress-filled. The borderline can go from expressing extreme despair to extreme fury in seconds, and blame everyone else for their problems. These people are the perpetual "victim" all the time. Borderlines can be charming and sweet, but it soon turns ugly when you do or say something that they interpret as not giving them what they think they "deserve". This is why others feel they are manipulative. Unless a person who has borderline personality disorder successfully participates in psychological counseling, all their relationships will be unsatisfying to them and ultimately they will get what they fear the most --- abandonment by those they want to be close to. They drive people away. Borderlines are exhausting people who suck the joy and life out of almost every situation because of their desperate insecurities and focus on the self.

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