Get to Know the 5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life

Dealing with High-Conflict People: Get to Know the 5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life, with Bill Eddy, Lawyer, Therapist and Author, 5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life

The five types of people really go with five out of ten personality disorders that professional therapists study. Not everybody with a personality disorder is a high conflict person. Remember the four characteristics. That target of blame, someone they’re preoccupied with blaming is what differentiates the people I’m writing about from people who may have a personality disorder but not be a high conflict person. So of these five types the most common according to some research is narcissistic personality disorder. So narcissistic personality disorder is noted by an extreme sense of I’m superior. That’s a lot of their conflicts because they think they’re superior. So they’re always putting other people down, insulting people, absorbed with what they want. People I’ve worked with who are going through divorces with people like this or in the workplace whether to terminate an employee like this or even a manager, the characteristics they had – demeaning towards other people, always putting people down, self-absorbed. But when they’re a high conflict person is when they really seem to be targeting one particular person.

So maybe a workplace bully or someone that’s targeting their spouse. It could be a man or a woman because all these personalities we see with men or women but some are more male. Narcissist is maybe two-third make, one-third female in terms of personality disorders. But when they’re a high conflict person they’re comfortable targeting their targets of blame. Even in public they may enjoy humiliating people in public just to show how superior they are. Second would be the borderline personality disorder and I’ve worked with people who had this personality disorder who weren’t high conflict people and I’ve dealt with people who were high conflict people. So the characteristics first of all of this personality disorder is often a lot of mood swings. Extreme very friendly, loving and then suddenly enraged and angry and hateful behavior. So that mood swing, sudden intense anger. If that’s focused on a specific person like say it’s a couple going through a divorce. But let’s say the man is someone who has impulsive anger may hit his wife and so she’s scared of him. And in going through a divorce we have to be really careful so that she doesn’t get injured during the divorce because that’s one of the most dangerous times.

So we domestic violence often has this personality pattern with it. It’s a wonderful, friendly maybe seductive person who then switches into a rage and hateful and dangerous and sometimes they really injure their partner or spouse and then they’re really sorry. It’s an impulse control problem for them. The third type is the antisocial personality disorder which is commonly known as a sociopath. So someone who’s against social rules. They ignore the law, they ignore the norms of society. They lie a lot, even when you can catch them lying. Even when it doesn’t help them. So the theme for them is dominance. They want to dominate other people and so they will control them and in relationships their goal is to really take things from people, get what they want by dominating people. You have something I want. I’ll hurt you to get it and I don’t care. They lack remorse. They lack a conscience and so in many ways they can be the most dangerous. But compared to the borderline personality they may be more calculating. And so they may be much more planned, more predatory. Someone who’s tiptoeing around and then they pounce. And so that personality when they’re a high conflict personality which many of them are, then if you’re their target and you somehow offend them they don’t care if they destroy you – maybe your reputation, your career, steal you blind. They’re okay with that.

Then there’s the paranoid personality disorder and this is more fearful, fears conspiracies, thinks people are out to get them. Let’s say at the workplace they may say, you know, my career is being blocked by those people over there. I know it. Or they’re whispering about me. Things like that. So their theme is really mistrust and betrayal, suspicion. So they’re always suspicious. And so when they’re a high conflict person there may be a particular person they think is out to get them. As I mention in my book there was someone who so believed that his neighbor was out to steal from him that he really armed himself and made his home almost into a fortress because he thought his neighbor was going to come in the middle of the night and steal from him. Well this is a total fantasy in his head. But if his neighbor had dropped by for a cup of sugar or a cup of milk, something like that, he might have blown them away. The last is histrionic personality disorder and this is one many people with this disorder aren’t high conflict people. They’re just highly emotional, superficial, tell a lot of stories, want to be the center of attention. That’s really their theme is I want you to pay attention to me. I want to be the center of attention. And they’ll do whatever it takes – maybe dress real extremely dramatically to get people’s attention.

If they’re a high conflict person then they get attention by saying terrible things about somebody else. They may say my husband or wife took advantage of me when they didn’t. They may publicly make statements. They may – in the workplace tell some people – whisper to some people you know what so and so is doing over here. So the idea is they’re very much storytellers, very dramatic, very emotional. And if you’re the person who gets caught up in that and you’re their target of blame the whole public is going to know. And sometimes people at the beginning of relationships may share secrets with them or something and then they’re going to tell everybody those secrets. So all five of these personalities if they also have a high conflict personality will target somebody and play out the theme of their personality disorder on that person. And that can be very devastating and sometimes dangerous.