Teen Drama Queen - Is It Because She Thinks She's Boring?
DSD has a friend who often drives her a bit nuts because she's a bit of a drama queen. Someone's looked at her the wrong way/said the wrong thing at school and the world's about to end. Last night she called DSD at 11pm and said she'd been thrown out of home.
I got DSD to phone the girl's mum (she knows her quite well) and find out the facts. No, she hadn't been thrown out of home, there'd been a bit of a row about nothing and she left of her own accord. Anyhow, was v proud of DSD - she did a ringaround of her mates, arranged somewhere for her to stay and then rang her mum back to let her know she was OK.
I've met the friend and she's not the most interesting girl. I've met adults like her too whose lives seem to revolve around *****ing about people, constantly trying to find the next thing to be "offended" about, endless debriefings about who said what and what was meant.
I guess my question is, d'you think that people create dramas because they actually know they're a bit boring and they think that makes them more interesting?
I don't have an intelligent answer for you sorry but i just wanted to say that i am soooo not looking forward to teen years with my two girls! Already there is drama galore
I had a friend who did this. Her parents were loving, but REALLY pushy. It was her way of just escaping the home pressures. Maybe there's something going on in this girl's life that her friends aren't picking up on because it's normal for her to live like that and it's always been like that when they visit the house. Might not be pushiness but could be something.
Funny you say that Zaidie - the mother of this same friend called me concerned that the girls were fighting. She wanted them to be friends again - I told her I had no idea what she expected me to do (they were FOURTEEN!!) and that it was pretty much between the two.
What I felt like saying was - your daughter is a drama queen to the point she carried on at DD's birthday, carries on at school and threatens to break the friendship of anyone that speaks to my daughter, and all her friends are sick of it - yet are kind enough not to tell her to eff off.
MY daughter is so sick of it that she doesn't want to continue the friendship and isn't making a drama out of it so not to make everyone uncomfortable so why can't you both just leave it alone?
My theory is that people always behave in ways that meet their needs, even in they're not aware of doing so. Adolescence is a time when massive changes are happening so it's too early to say that this girl is going to definintely have a dramatic personality style but she could be headed that way. I'm not sure she would think she's boring as such, she might even believe she's quite interesting because of all the dramatic things that keep happening to her - to you (and probably me) looking in from the outside, people like this often appear to have very little of substance going on in their lives or relationships but I think some people just need to have lots of interpersonal drama in their lives. It meets some kind of need - either for attention, a sense of importance, a way of attracting others to them, a way of feeling a bit excited about life, a way of avoiding other issues, of expressing themselves, resolving conflict and alleviating boredom would be another. It could even be related to the way their brains are wired in terms of neurotransmitters etc. Taken to the extreme (in an adult), creating and chasing drama is usually considered a personality disorder (when it causes significant problems in the individual's life and relationships). Does she appear to 'get over' the dramas as quickly as they arose? Or does she hold on to each drama and milk it for all it's worth? This would say different things about her emerging personality style and the reasons she chases dramas.
I reckon she sounds a bit self centred (what teen isn't though?) and possibly has fragile self esteem and so is prone to catastrophising the worst possible interpretation of events. She may have also been raised in a way where getting caught up in dramas was modelled as an effective way to solve problems (then again she may not have but creating drama got her attention in a non-dramatic family itms?).
Sounds like your DSD has good boundaries though. It would be interesting to see what this girl does if her friends stopped getting caught up in and responding to her 'dramas'.
Last edited by ~Kaz~; December 18th, 2009 at 08:55 AM.
: clarifying comments about personality in teens
Teen Drama Queen - Is It Because She Thinks She's Boring?
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- to you (and probably me) looking in from the outside, people like this often appear to have very little of substance going on in their lives or relationships but I think some people just need to have lots of interpersonal drama in their lives. It meets some kind of need - either for attention, a sense of importance, a way of attracting others to them, a way of feeling a bit excited about life, a way of avoiding other issues, of expressing themselves, resolving conflict and alleviating boredom would be another. It could even be related to the way their brains are wired in terms of neurotransmitters etc. Taken to the extreme (in an adult), creating and chasing drama is usually considered a personality disorder (when it causes significant problems in the individual's life and relationships). Does she appear to 'get over' the dramas as quickly as they arose? Or does she hold on to each drama and milk it for all it's worth? This would say different things about her emerging personality style and the reasons she chases dramas.
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