Drama Addicts

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Photo by Sophie Walster/Getty Images

Drama Queen

Carla was what some folks call a “drama queen.” Jacob was cut from similar cloth, but due to sexism, he wasn’t subjected to a derogatory label for males who exhibit this same tendency. I just call all these folks “drama addicts.” That may be too harsh a term but, nevertheless, there are clearly people who mentally feed off the emotional hyperbole in their midst. In fact, with some, their need for melodrama can be so pressing that they will manufacture it out of any available situation.

Emotionality, as we call it, represents an urgent longing to experience joy, sadness, anger, infatuation, angst or any other high intensity feeling that lights up one’s central nervous system. Strong emotions catalyze chemical changes in the brain and hormonal surges throughout the body in a similar manner to some psychoactive drugs. Consequently, in some of us, powerful feelings can become habit-forming.

Both Jacob and Carla were hooked on the rush stemming from intense emotions. Without these chemical surges, they languished in what they considered the doldrums of ordinary life. In them, this induced a listless state of mind that left them bored, detached and eager for emotional fireworks.

“Emotions can be like a drug,” I explained to Jacob, a 30-something professional who came to counseling reluctantly, urged on by his boss.

Competition and Anger

Some drama addicts find themselves drawn to certain emotions and not others. Jacob was attracted to adversarial interactions where feelings of competition and anger ran high. As one might expect, this grated on many of his colleagues. 

“I love a debate, and the more worked up people get, the better,” he explained. So much so that he sometimes deliberately created a verbal confrontation.

In contrast, Carla was enthralled with poignant feelings, such as sadness, deep longings, loss and nostalgia. When people in her social circle were mired in a dour funk, she moved in to engage them. This tendency operated in her mental blind spot, so she didn’t realize what was happening until she overheard someone describe her as an “emotional vampire.”

“I always thought I was just being supportive,” she claimed, “but, when I thought it over, I realized I get a lot out of it too.”

Problem Attraction

In turn, during our sessions, Jacob gradually recognized that his attraction to hotheaded interactions was problematic. Like Carla, it took criticism about him from his colleagues to persuade him to look in the mirror.

“I now recognize that if something heated is going on around me, I’ll jump right in. And if nothing heated is going on, I’ll stir things up. It’s gotten me in a lot of trouble,” he concluded.

While Carla acknowledged her near-compulsive attraction to melodrama, she was disinclined to view her emotionality as problematic. To her, emotions were the élan vital of the human experience, and, in their absence, life became unbearably tedious. She has a valid point. Sometimes individuals are errantly defined as drama addicts because folks around them are uncomfortable with strong feelings. A repressive social milieu may pathologize perfectly healthy emotional expression as inappropriate or, worse yet, evidence of a mental disorder.

What distinguishes a drama addict from people who are simply comfortable with both experiencing and expressing their feelings to a heightened level? Probably the degree of control or influence one experiences toward the emotions and their expression. If one’s feelings seem to be mostly or entirely in charge of one’s behavior, and the cognitive brain has gone and laid down by its dish, that can be problematic. This occurs when someone truly has an addictive relationship toward emotionality. Put another way, there’s nothing inherently damaging about being emotional, that is unless it starts messing with one’s relationships, career or overall well-being. 

Expressing one’s feelings constitutes an essential part of being human. However, achieving well-being usually requires a relative balance between engaging fully with one’s emotions while simultaneously employing the thinking mind to modulate the mode and intensity of their expression.

Are there times to just let it rip? You bet. As long as the rip isn’t tearing your life apart.      

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