The word HISTRIONIC is typically used as an adjective to describe a person who is overly theatrical or melodramatic in their public habits, mannerisms, character, or style.
People who are Histrionic by nature tend to have a flair for the dramatic, and many of them actively embrace a very large public persona.
Friends, family members, and people who encounter them are typically left with the impression that someone prone to flamboyant or eccentric behaviors lives life out loud.
They are often remembered fondly at funerals as having been larger than life, somehow adding the spice of life to special events and gatherings.
Histrionics are the most obvious person to walk in a room, the one who garners the most public fawning attention from people prone to sucking up, and the kind most likely to make other people feel both inwardly self-conscious as well as outwardly paling in comparison, somehow diminished by their presence, and small.
If a person has a “big personality”, understand that if they simply do not fit diagnostic criteria for a malevolent, manipulative, self-aggrandizing personality type that despite their colorful and seemingly “over the top” joie de vivre, it is a horrible slander in the 21st century to choose the word “histrionic” to describe their nature, psychologically.
People with HPD or “Histrionic Personality Disorder” are part of the Cluster B personality classification devised by mental health experts worldwide in the DSMV (pronounced D-S-M-V-5 or DSM Five — version implied).
The DSM is a multi-edition, constantly evolving compendium of psychiatric diagnostic pieces, constructed and laid out in a diagnostic form.
In it, troublesome personality types such as NPD, BPD, ASPD, and HPD are grouped together, noting that when and if personality perks become caustic or toxic, that a human mind prone to displaying specific thinking patterns as well as personality traits are considered disordered.
In the case of truly Histrionic people, their outlandish behaviors tend to cause enormous, time consuming, psychologically debilitating, and emotionally taxing strains on their loved one, family members, casual passersby, co-workers, and casual acquaintances.
Prone to pitching hyper-dramatic, completely irrational fits or demanding that people pay attention to their needs at the expense of the targeted Narcissistic Abuse victim’s own, the more grandiose and self-entitled to abuse other people the HPD person believes he or she is, the more likely they are to manufacture needless drama as well as pitch attention-seeking hissy fits compulsively.
If you want to know how to spot a truly Histrionic personality type, consider the following examples: king of the bar, queen of the trailer park, the overly dramatic passive-aggressive silent film star who opens her beloved mouth and lets out the ugliest stream of consciousness remarks, or the bitchy drag queen who routinely cheats on and debases their lovers while constantly striving to gain fame and attention from striving to shock while doing everything in their power to make people gawk.
« Back to Glossary Index