Addicted to attention: What to do and how to deal with it
"That's a real drama queen." If you've heard this before, you may be dealing with someone addicted to attention. It doesn't matter if it's good or bad attention. In some cases, people may even suffer from theatrical personality disorder.
To find out if you suffer from this and what you can do about it, in this blog I discuss being addicted to attention.
Not everyone who is addicted to attention immediately has a personality disorder. Still, you can recognize a true drama addict by the symptoms of people with theatrical personality disorder.
Symptoms of theatrical personality disorder
People with theatrical personality disorder may initially appear quite normal. They are charming and enthusiastic. This allows them to function at a high level. However, there may be a problem or addiction if they use the following tactics to get this attention:
- Sexual Seduction
- Provocative behavior
- Eye-catching clothing style
In these cases, it doesn’t matter if those around them find it inappropriate. However, if someone does respond to it, one may become insecure again. Someone with an addiction to attention doesn’t necessarily have to feel insecure about this, though, because the goal has been achieved.
To be diagnosed with theatrical personality disorder, you must meet at least three of the criteria:
- Exaggerated expression of emotions.
- Easily influenced by bystanders or circumstances.
- Quick change of emotions.
- Always looking for excitement and attention.
- Provocative or seductive behavior or in appearance.
- Very concerned about physical attractiveness.
Cause of attention addiction
An attention addiction can develop at an early age. Often, emotions are not well regulated because of a past trauma or because the person was neglected as a child. Because of that neglect, they learned as children that they had to do anything to get attention.
This leads to the belief that anything goes when it comes to getting attention. People with an addiction to attention can therefore come across as very childish. In some cases, there is also an overlap with borderline personality disorder symptoms.
In addition, stress can be the cause of attention addiction. Stress actually causes the part of your brain that tells you what you can do in social interactions and what you can't do to be disrupted. This can cause you to cross the line of what is appropriate more quickly.
Through the drama, the person addicted to attention receives endorphins and dopamine in the brain. This in turn reduces feelings of stress.
As a result, a drama addiction can develop just like a drug addiction. This is because it reduces the fear of not getting attention.
Unfortunately, this addiction really works just like drug addictions and habituation occurs. This means you need more and more drama for the same effect.
In the process, seeking drama can turn into automatism. Just as you automatically close the door behind you, you automatically seek drama when you are addicted to attention.
Consequences of attention addiction
People generally don't like people who make a drama out of everything and end up having nothing behind that charming and seductive behavior or appearance. The depth of why someone thinks the way they do can be lacking if you suffer from an addiction to attention.
As a result, you can lose social contacts. When friends need extra attention for once because of their emotional problems, it turns out that the addict cannot provide it. A relationship should be a two-way street and at such times it turns out that this is not the case. This can cause you to lose friends.
Because people are social beings, this condition can even lead to depression in the long term. The fear of not receiving attention becomes a reality if this is not stopped in time. The self-image of the person with this addiction suffers tremendously as a result.
Treatment of drama addiction
Because drama addiction affects the way your brain does, this is a tricky addiction to treat, but it is certainly controllable. There are a number of techniques that are important for treating an addiction to attention.
Self-Acceptance
Initially, it is important to accept yourself for who you are. Therefore, it is good to accept that you are someone who needs more attention than the average person. Because of this, however, you must also accept that because of this, you may not always feel that you are getting enough attention.
To promote self-acceptance, you can use hypnotic suggestions. Together with a hypnotherapist, you can explore what makes you you now and why this is actually all okay. Even things you don't like about yourself, for example, may actually be nice to others.
For example, a suggestion might be:
"I'm impatient because I'm ambitious," he says.
Anything that makes you great you can also write down and hang it in a place in your home where you see it often.
Appreciate what you have
The downside of an addiction to attention is that you’re often focused on what you don’t have, rather than what you’d like to have. The pitfall is that this makes you very unhappy, even though you have many things that are worth living for and that can make you happy .
Therefore, it is wise to flip that mindset from a focus on things you don't have to a focus of things you want to have. An exercise you can then perform, for example, is to write down daily at least 3 things that make you glad you have or have experienced.
For example:
Today I was happy because...
- I have a dear partner.
- I have a great clothing style and can match everything well.
- I had a moment of peace over coffee.
By doing this daily, you train your brain to shift the focus from what you want to have to what you already have.
This also helps you become more mindful, which leads to less stress and greater feelings of happiness.
Reflection by trusted person
Do you have a friendship with someone who dares to tell you the truth? Do you really want to change? Then you can reflect on events with that person to rediscover what is appropriate and inappropriate behavior to get attention.
In addition, you can submit your emotional interpretation of a particular situation to see if this is an overreaction or not?
Reducing Stress
Because stress affects the part of the brain that deals with what is and is not socially appropriate behavior, it is important to reduce stress to overcome addiction to attention.
This can be done with hypnosis, meditation and yoga.
Hypnosis
During hypnosis, beliefs that cause you stress are retrieved. With an addiction to attention, this can include beliefs that indicate whether you are successful and whether you have enough friends. Even beliefs about loneliness can then be addressed.
A hypnotherapist can then help you change those beliefs, such as with hypnotic suggestions.
In the process, guided visualizations can make you more likely to apply socially accepted behaviors for attention during periods of stress.
Meditation
Meditating every day reduces the amount of stress hormones in your body. Generally speaking, the moment you wake up is a fairly stressful time because all your plans—all the things you “have to” do—run through your mind.
By meditating just then, you clear your head and reduce stress at the beginning of the day. As a result, it takes longer for you to build up more stress again.
Yoga
Yoga is a form of moving meditation. The advantage of yoga over regular meditation is that you are consciously engaging with your body. Stress can cause tension in the body. This happens so subtly that you don’t always even notice it.
Are you ever aware of pressing your tongue against your palate?
The exercises of yoga make you more aware that muscles are tense and help you relax them. In addition, it is a form of exercise that also produces happiness hormones. As a result, you need less drama.
Changing beliefs about love
Whether it’s your first or last step, it’s very important to take a close look at your beliefs about love . Especially if your addiction to attention developed during your childhood or early adulthood due to neglect by parents or other people from whom you should have received attention, this may have led to distorted beliefs about what love is and how to recognize it.
Together with a hypnotherapist, you can then use regression therapy to identify where things went wrong and discover a different way of looking at love.
Perhaps you received little attention as a child because you were the child of a single parent who worked hard just to give you all the toys you wanted. Who worked hard so you could study without financial hardship.
In this case, the recognition of love must be changed to something that does not always take place in your immediate environment.
Would you like to learn more about hypnosis and other mental techniques for dealing with addictions and other mental health issues? Then check out the workshops and training programs offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands.
Sources:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/conditions/histrionic-personality-disorder
Also pin this handy infographic as a reminder: