10 Chaotic Traits Of People Who Always Seem To Have Drama In Their Lives
"We chase the drama to avoid the trauma."
Perfect Wave | Shutterstock We all know someone who seems to be constantly caught up in a whirlwind of drama. Whether it's from an argument or just a string of unfortunate events, they star in a never-ending soap opera. Could it all be bad luck? Dr. Scott Lyons, who has spent much of his career on this subject, says "no".
While conversing with Andrea Miller on the Getting Open podcast, Dr. Lyons, a psychologist, educator, and author of the new book Addicted to Drama, explained that sometimes, "We chase the drama to avoid the trauma."
By focusing on the drama, Lyons admitted that it can be easy to ignore the underlying pain that person might be experiencing, and in its own way, the fact that the drama is being used as a coping mechanism. And that will be eventually come crashing down.
Here are 10 chaotic traits of people who always seem to have drama and chaos around them
1.They're great in a crisis
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Dr. Lyons recalled at one point in his life he was in grad school, directing operas, doing his internship, working full-time, and running a company all at the same time. At the time, Lyons was adamant that he was able to handle the stress and busy schedule. Eventually, his health gave way and he realized that wasn't the case at all.
"You get to a certain point where you critically shut down," Lyons explained. "But up until that moment I had such a high tolerance."
He's right. According to the Mayo Clinic, stress symptoms can affect your health, even though you might not know it. You may blame sickness for those migraines, your poor sleeping habits, feeling unwell, or your lack of focus. But in the end, stress may really be the cause.
2.They seek the lowest lows so they can feel the highest emotional highs
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Dr. Lyons told Miller that this is called "intermittent love" which can show up in relationships — romantic or not. Unfortunately, many of us can relate to experiencing this because when the moments are good, they're so good, but when they're bad, they can truly be terrible.
"The 'highs' don't feel as powerful as they are unless we experience the extreme lows," Lyons said. "Somehow, we start to seek, create, and generate those experiences that are low lows. That's relationships that are awful, the ways we turn a situation to make mountains out of molehills."
We create our own schedules and experience the ups and downs of these experiences, not realizing that it does more harm than good.
3.They were surrounded by chaos as children
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Lyons recalled growing up in a chaotic house, where chaos permeated for many years. He admitted that chaos was the "baseline," and if that's the ecosystem that a person grows up in, that's the ecosystem that becomes your way of being. That is likely why he subconsciously sought chaos as an adult.
"It filters in like a sponge," Lyons said. "Trauma can be a lot of different things for different people. My family, there was this way of love could be there sometimes, but it wasn't consistent."
Psychologist Caroline Middelsdorf explained how a childhood full of conflict and tension could end up bleeding into how a person can handle adult relationships. "It can actually make them feel like they’re responsible for their parents’ feelings. As adults, they might carry this feeling of responsibility into their romantic relationships."
"They could end up feeling like they need to make their partner happy all the time, fix their problems, or feel responsible for their emotional well-being," she said.
4.They overschedule themselves
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Dr. Lyons explained that it can be easy for people to fill up their schedules just to experience those low lows of life and how, because of this, we're constantly gossiping and venting about how busy our schedules are. The problem ended up being that we created these schedules for ourselves, and by that definition, there's no one to blame but our own minds.
Workplace psychologist Jennifer Newman told CBC that while it's normal to want to jam as many activities into our daily lives as possible, we should also value time spent alone and "unproductive."
"We associate time off with freedom. If we heavily program our days off, we create a situation where our leisure time is parceled," Newman explained. "So, the scheduling squeezes the enjoyment out of the activity..."
5.They confuse familiar for 'safe'
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Because of the inconsistency and lack of stability in homes that thrive off of chaos, some people are wired to constantly stay hypervigilant — always on the lookout for the next unsafe or emotionally turbulent situation. This is due to a lack of security when they were growing up, where their hypervigilance paid off by keeping them safer (or appearing to). It's no wonder that these people tend to gravitate toward drama. It feels so familiar and reminds them of "home".
6.They choose to live in places that make them unhappy
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People who seem to attract drama can sometimes do something as simple as choosing to live in an area that doesn't bring them happiness. On Getting Open, Dr. Lyons shared that this is often why people live in cities that are exhausting. For him, this city was New York, which, over time contributed to his exhaustion.
It might seem self-explanatory that people who are experiencing high levels of unhappiness should change their environment, as it may play a role in their stress. Unfortunately, many people don't think to look at their environment for solutions. Dr. Lyons told Miller that changing the city where he lived helped him settle his nervous system and was well worth it.
7.They take jobs that are unsatisfying or unrelenting
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In its State of the Global Workplace report, Gallup found that, along with dissatisfaction, workers are experiencing staggering rates of both disengagement and unhappiness. Sixty percent of people reported being emotionally detached at work and 19% as being miserable. Only 33% reported feeling engaged.
Dr. Lyons observed that this is just another way for people to wallow in the drama of their lives instead of confronting the root of their unhappiness and deciding to change their circumstances. Choosing to continue working in constant chaos can only be detrimental to your overall well-being and the relationships you have with other people, as well, as it's hard (if not impossible) to contain workplace stress only to the workplace.
8.They never pause
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"What happens if there was space for a pause?" Dr. Lyons asked Miller on Getting Open. "What happens for each of us in that space for pause? How do we fill it?"
Things like taking a bubble bath or going for a walk through a garden are often taken for granted, and Dr. Lyons recalled that during his time living in NYC, he failed to notice that he was rushing everywhere. After all, that's just the rhythm of the city. It wasn't until he moved somewhere else that he would catch himself rushing despite not having anything to do and the fact that others weren't living life at such a frenetic pace.
"I'm moving faster than I have to, and when I slow down, I start to pay attention to [other things] like, 'Oh, there's all these birds,'" Lyons said. "This is actually part of that same mechanism that keeps us distracted from the underlying pain."
When we are distracted, we not only ignore the pain — we also ignore life's little moments of sweetness.
9.They're easily bored
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Dr. Lyons explained that withdrawal often shows up for people who are drama magnets when there's nothing exciting capturing their attention. It appears they just get bored easily, but inside, something deeper may be happening. They may need the constant movement to avoid the discomfort of quiet.
He admitted that when he finally gave up his "spice of life," which was stress, drama, and busyness, everything just seemed bland.
Fortunately, Lyons pointed out, if you can adapt yourself to this initial feeling of "blandness", you can get into an entirely new phase of life where you can savor peace, quiet and comfort.
Dr. Lyons did note that there are two different kinds of boredom:
First, The kind of boredom we can get from lack of stimulus because we're used to the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
Second, there's the boredom we can get from just wanting more out of life, from being driven to achieve more. For instance, if you're bored in your job and want to help people, seeking a new career or degree in the healing sciences might be a very healthy form of boredom pushing you to your highest potential.
This, Lyons notes, is different than being attracted to chaos where you are pushing just to avoid being still.
10.They are the last to realize why chaos and drama surrounds them
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Dr. Lyons emphasized to Miller that, with any maladaptive habit, a person is always the last to identify that they have a problem or issue that needs to be addressed. The same can be said for the attraction to drama and chaos.
"I don't mean to make light of [the misuse of] any other substance or behavior, but when you're constantly bringing challenge into your life inadvertently, it doesn't seem adaptive," Lyons said. "We chase the drama to avoid our trauma."
He also told Miller that if we didn't have the mechanisms to handle and overcome stress, many of us simply wouldn't survive. Some people would rather be numb than realize they may have a problem with attracting stress and chaos into their lives.
Unfortunately, pushing that reality away can't last forever and something will likely come crashing down. The good news? It's through that recognition that peace will finally come.
Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.