Narcissistic Personality Disorder with Histrionic Traits
The histrionic narcissist is known in psychology and psychiatry as Narcissistic Personality Disorder with Histrionic Traits.
They are BIG CHARMERS.
They have exceptional ‘superficial‘ social skills when they want to use them (e.g., extroversion, planning fun activities). It’s no surprise that many view them as the ‘life of the party.’ They tend to have numerous surface level relationships they call friends (including people they have known across several years).
Master Manipulators
They manipulate in the most stealth manner imaginable. They use
Charm and
Victimhood.
People, who are not their victims, often think of them as “so nice!”
They are experts at igniting your empathy and compassion. Their charm can be mesmerizing. They can convince others to do anything.
Their victims, mates, or marks will often have no idea they’re being manipulated until it is too late.
Histrionic narcissists are often ruthless, dramatic, and shallow. They fully believe they are owed everything and anything they want.
Their arrogance is extreme and unlike anything you will witness even among the pathological range of narcissists and psychopaths.
If you are in the way of that ‘want’, they will destroy your life to get it. They will even destroy your life to protect their ‘image’.
Remember …
They are the most skilled of manipulators because they completely disarm their marks/ targets.
They con through niceness, helpfulness, a mask of innocence, and charm.
Their Image
They wear a mask of the:
sweet, innocent, fun-loving, energetic, nice, ‘helpful to whoever needs it’ good gal or guy.
It pays off well for them. For when their victims complain of being violated or try to alert someone this narcissist is a con artist, it is rare anyone will believe them.
Why?
Because they are the most skilled of manipulators, they con through niceness, helpfulness, a mask of innocence, and charm. To the outside world looking at this narcissist, it would make no sense to think of this nice, helpful, innocent behaving individual, filled with cooperation as the immoral, evil, or calculating person they really are.
Unfortunately, they are nearly always believed to be the victim and get away with their cons.
Some histrionic narcissists will play meek to try to throw you off the trail of their dangerous, hateful, harmful intentions.
The histrionic narcissist will butter you up, all while in the midst of a plan to use you (e.g., steal, con, get ahead socially, gain a privilege they have not earned). You become a tool … as useful as a hammer when you need to pound nails.
They can ruin your life all while displaying a charming smile, arrogantly telling you, you deserved it. You hurt them.
Playing Victim & the Histrionic Narcissists
Histrionic narcissists tend to excel in comparison to the malignant narcissist or psychopath when it comes to playing the victim role.
- They are the masters of dramatics and feigning they’ve been violated.
- They are the “clutch my pearls” “I can’t believe you’ve done this to me” con artists.
- They can convincingly deliver lies to nearly anyone (e.g., police, judges, bosses) manipulating those individuals to believe the narcissists deserves sympathy or special privileges.
- This group of narcissists can leave behind tremendous destruction in the lives of others.
- They can convincingly pull off appearing warm. They know how to ignite your compassion. Their ‘go to’ tactic and weapon of choice is using love or endearing language (e.g., honey, sweetie, baby, love) to pull puppet strings.
Just like all narcissists …
- They do not care about anyone but themselves.
- They are arrogant.
- They do not have deep emotional states (i.e., morality / compassion).
- They are disrespectful.
- They are liars, cheaters, and manipulators.
- They have a vicious temper (narcissistic rage).
- They lack a sense of self.
- They never feel accountable to any of their harmful behaviors.
Please be careful of the histrionic narcissist, if you have something they want OR if you expose them as a fraud (challenging the ‘nice’ person image they created), they can make you life miserable (at best) or place you in danger (at worst).
All the best,
Rhonda Freeman, PhD
Neuropsychologist