Attention seekers!

I noticed that attention seeking behavior is pretty common with females, by that I mean, I include myself. After some thoughts, I realized, these behaviors may cause suffering to others on large doses. 


The sufferer: exaggerating, playing on an injury or maybe causing or inviting injury. On severe cases, diagnosed of Munchausen Syndrome, also known as Factitious Disorder--- this is when a person uses her injuries/illness as her vehicle for gaining sympathy and thus attention. This way, they can manipulate other people's emotions especially of that guilt. "Poor me" drama!


The Saviour: she creates opportunities to be the center of attention by intentionally causing harm to others and then being their saviour saving their life and by being caring, compassionate person.


The rescuer: common in family settings.she's the one who will dash in and "rescue" people whenever the moment is opportune- to herself, that is. Gratification is gained from basking the glory of her humanitarian actions. This may create a dependency relationship between the rescuer and rescued which can be exploited for further acts of rescue and attention later. When in rescue mode, the rescuer may be resentful, perhaps even contemptuous, of the person she is rescuing.


The organizer: present herself as the one in-charge, the one organizing everything, reliable, dependable, the one people can always turn to. However, the objective is not to help people (the only mean to an end) but to always be the center of attention.


The manipulator: she may exploit family relationships, manipulating others with guilt and distorting perceptions; may not harm people physically, she causes everyone to suffer emotional injury. A common attention seeking ploy is to claim she is being persecuted, victimized, excluded, isolated, ignored by another family member or group, perhaps insisting she is the target of a campaign of exclusion or harassment.


The mind-poisoner: adept at poisoning people's mind by manipulating their perceptions of others, especially against the current target. Period.


The drama queen: every incident, opportunity, no matter how insignificant, is exploited, exaggerated and if necessary distorted to become an event of dramatic proportions.... The soap opera style! Everything is elevated to crisis proportions. Hysterical comments and inappropriate flirtatious behaviors may also be present. (I know a lot of these!)


The feigner: denial-counterattack-feigning victimhood strategy to manipulate everyone present, especially bystanders. Feigning victimhood methods include bursting into tears, for most people's instinct is to feel sorry for them, to put their arm around them and offer them a tissue. Feigning victimhood can win oscars from their performance of having crocodile tears.This is the favorite tactics of bullies and harassers to evade accountability and sanction. 


The false confessor: this person confesses to crimes they haven't committed in order to gain attention from police and media. This is different from a person who make a false confession and admits a crime due to pressure, and inappropriate interrogation.


The abused: claims to be a victim of abuse, sexual abuse, rape etc. as a way of getting attention for themselves. These crimes such as rapes are difficult to prove at the best times and their incidence is so common that it is easy to make plausible claim as a way of gaining attention. 


The victim: she intentionally creates acts of harassment against herself, hate e-mails or damage her own property in an attempt to incriminate a fellow employee, a family member, neighbors, friends etc. Scheming, cunning, devious, deceptive and manipulative, she will identify her "harasser" and produces circumstantial evidence in support of her claim. She will revel in the attention she gains and use her glib charm to plausibly dismiss any suggestion that she herself is responsible. However, a background check may reveal that this is not the first time she has had this happen to her.... Sounds familiar to you?


In many cases, attention-seeker is a serial bully whose behavior may contain many of the characteristics mentioned above. We may be guilty of being one of these, or two, or even all, but ultimately, it only says one thing. Many of us, especially females are attention-seekers. I just hope we don't get to a point that we start causing suffering or pain to others, inconvenience and cause them to have a bad impression of you on a permanent basis. Getting attention is not something bad, but if we get it just because it makes us powerful and get what we want while we take away something from others causing a negative effect, is just mean.