What is this behaviour called?

[Fladdermus]

I have a friend who takes other peoples trauma and turns it into a massive OTT dramal about herself. Most of the time I've let it wash over me but this time I am connected to the actual victim and I need to tell her to stop, but I don't have the word for what she does.

So an example, a year ago a man was shot and killed in a nearby town to us. The perp was arrested at the scene. Turns out it was a drunken late night biker gang fight that got out of hand. A week later her ex went there shopping with their DS and she went absolutely nuts. Days and days of her raging about how irresponsible he was to endanger her son like that taking him there after what had happened. I pointed out that you don't get many drunken biker fights in Lidl on a Saturday afternoon but it fell on deaf ears.

Another example, she works in a school and they had a meeting with social services who went through the very specific needs of a child who was joining the school who had quite serious difficulties around personal hygeine because of the abuse they had suffered. Cue endless stressing about how she (friend) would cope, what if she got sick as a result, how stressed she was over it, on and on about how it may impact her with seemingly no thought at all for this very vulnerable child.

Is there a name for this? How would you describe it?

That makes sense.

Some people post on here feeling they can only be upset by a behaviour if it has a name, that's all.

@teaandtoastwithmarmite I see your examples as her trying to form a connection and relate to you, opening up about her own difficulties so you can support each other and strengthen the friendship.

Op's examples are different though, she personalises other people's tragedies in an overly anxious way. I think she might have General Anxiety Disorder and possibly lacks empathy and sensitivity.

To a certain extent, people do this on the regular but most have enough self awareness to bite their tongue so even if they think it they have a filter not to say it because they know it will come across as they are making it all about them when it isn't. It's normal and human to think: such and such happened, how does that affect me? does it impact me? am I in danger of it happening to me? Do I need to behave differently or change something to stay safe? When you have anxiety you go further than this in that you are irrational about the assessment of how much danger you might be in even when to a non anxious person, the risk to you of whatever has happened is minimal or non existent even.

Like, are you telling me it would be narcissistic to be cautious of going somewhere that there was a terrorist attack a week ago for example? Now that's not like a gang killing incident but that's what I mean, if you have anxiety you might always feel nervous going to places that are known to be a terrorist target. You're not making it all about you, you're not taking away the pain or 'spotlight' of the real victims and their families, you are concerned, maybe irrationally, about your own safety: how does it relate to me? am I safe? Will I be ok? People usually silently do this assessment in their head as I said earlier... so maybe she might be autistic, too...! To not understand you need to filter some things.

Another thing to consider is that she might well have empathy for the child, but isn't verbalising it. Instead she is discussing her fears to a friend, maybe she knows you are the voice of reason and trusts that talking to you honestly will calm her anxiety.

Thank you everyone. This has been really helpful. There's something to take from each of you. I've been reading about Main Character Syndrome and this describes her to a tee. I'm not going to wade in, announcing my 'diagnosis' to her, but it helps me to be able to understand what is happening and having it in my head helps me to stay focused when speaking to her.

I do think there's a lot of anxiety going on with her, which also tallies with what I've been reading on Main Character Syndrome. And I absolutely agree that she ofloads to me to calm her anxiety. The problem is that it's too much for me and it's not reciprical. I try to be a good friend but I'm not her therapist and in the current situation where someone I know is fighting for their life, I just don't have the capacity for her to dump her emotions on me as well.

I will continue to try and deal with her kindly, because I do think she's emotionally quite vulnerable. But so am I and I need to look after myself first.

It's called solipsism.

@TiAmoTiAmo really? I feel bad now. I kind of get that but sometimes it puts me off her. It's a bit intense. I wish she wouldn't do that as I like her how she is

It doesn’t sound like narcissism. Narcissism isn’t that simplistic and obvious.

Narcissists make everything about them. She might not be diagnosable with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but she's definitely exhibiting narcissistic behaviours.

This is my stepdaughter, she’s likely heading for a diagnosis of Histrionic Personality Disorder

Narcissism. I have someone like that in my life, very close family member and they too make everything about themselves, no one else can be in the center of the attention, not for a second. They also enjoy drama and will milk a situation until we cannot listen to it any more. Unfortunately, we are very close and I am very different type of person, so never found a way to shut them up without causing a scene.😥

in the current situation where someone I know is fighting for their life, I just don't have the capacity for her to dump her emotions on me as well.

It's okay for you to tell her this. It sounds like she needs to be made aware of the "Support in, dump out" model. There's a long article about it here:
www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-xpm-2013-apr-07-la-oe-0407-silk-ring-theory-20130407-story.html

It's called "catastrophising".

A self absorbed twat

I call it grief tourism. It’s the people who in the wake of a tragedy post on social media OMG I was just 30 miles from there 4 years ago, it could have been meeeeeee.

You're absolutely right. Pisses me off that people are so quick to diagnose narcissism with next to no basis.

I was thinking it sounds like someone I know and I think it's driven by uncontrollable anxiety. They hear about things happening to it herself and then become terrified of it and have to voice it endlessly to calm themselves.

How to deal with it is trickier, it's not your problem to fix and actually words of reassurance don't make a person with anxiety stop having it. You could try some boundaries. Maybe try this 'Yes, it's terrible what happened to x isn't it. I can see it's got you worried. It's worrying for me to and I hope you don't mind but I'd prefer not to talk about it for now as it's really stressing me out'