Starting Over Talk - Peer Coaching Support Site

Drama Queens are very skillful at manipulating ANY situation and making it about themselves. Niambi provides us with several excellent examples:

1. Shortly after Niambi enters the SO house she takes on a snotty attitude about all the attention Christie is getting about her 5K assignment. She looks for an accomplice in the pity-party and finds one in Antonia--who, by the way, is 10yrs Niambi's junior and has not been at the house very long.

Drama Queen skill--find a younger, weaker person to draw into the drama and validate the queen. ( a peer would be too threatening and can't be relied upon to validate the queen).
Drama Queen skill--help younger person paint a room, not because queen likes her or wants to be helpful. There is a string attached to the alliance that the younger person doesn't see--Queen is manipulating the weaker person and expects allegiance in future battles.

2. The announcement has been made that Jody will be graduating, hence, Jody is also the focus of attention.

Drama Queen skill--kill 2 birds with one stone--Bird 1--make a scene at Jody's graduation dinner at the restaurant. (queen draws attention away from rival). Bird2--blame it on Christie. (queen's imagined enemy).
Drama Queen skill--use alliance formed during the paint job to do battle. (Battle is--if queen has one person to validate her "reality", then she has been strengthened to convince the other 9 people in the room that their reality is wrong). ie: Christie's evil and mean and Antonia agreed with me while we were painting, therefore, I am entitled to ruin Jody's big night by being rude and abnoxious because I am a victim afterall!

3. Christie makes a kind statement of inclusion to Niambi about Christie's hope that Niambi will participate in the 5K. Niambi states in a defensive tone that she's not an athlete anymore and she doesn't understand why people put such expectations on her. Rhonda is taken aback at Niambi's defensiveness and clear demonstration that Niambi did not hear what Chrisite actually said.

Drama Queen skill--hears what she wants to hear.
Drama Queen skill--try to manipulate authority person (in this case Rhonda) into validating queen's reality and queen's victim status.

4. Niambi's attempt to manipulate Rhonda failed, so during Antonia's mountain climbing task, Niambi takes on the persona of a petulant child (pouts, uncooperative, unexpressed rage).

Drama Queen skill--punish younger, weaker person because the alliance didn't produce the desired outcome. (Niambi only reluctantly participates in Antonia's exercise. She does not support Antonia, nor can she take any pleasure in Antonia's victory).

Drama Queen skill--feign illness or injury. (this skill is designed to draw attention away from Antonia's victory, and to try to manipulate Iyanla. The queen diverts attention away from rival and desires to keep attention on herself with sympathy from the authority person.

Drama Queen skill--gaining sympathy validates the exaggerated illness or injury as being genuine AND prevents authority from holding queen accountable for bad behavior towards housemates. It also has the potential to buy her some "special status" as victim which will open the door for her to form a new alliance who can then be of use in future battles.

In the presence of a Drama Queen, you will hear NO truth, have NO relationship, will recieve NO love, and have NO value.

Only a VERY skilled professional is immune to a Drama Queens lies and manipulations. Only a VERY skilled professional has ANY hope of opening the eyes, ears, mind and heart of a Drama Queen to the TRUTH behind her thoughts and behaviors. A Drama Queens pain goes very deep and begins at a very young age, and the filters through which she views herself, others, and the world around her are opaque, impenetrable, and distorted.

May God continue to provide mercy and grace to all of us who are recovering Drama Queens.

Wow! I just read this and I gotta say - well said! And a bit humorous! I see through Niambi pretty well, but you brought up some new things I had not thought of. It's a good thing I was not in Christies shoes in the house, or it would be full on out battle with Niambi. Miss thing would not know what hit her!!!

Oh My Gosh. That was the most enlightening post I've read in a long time. You MUST be a professional (perhaps a Life Coach yourself, or you have definitely stepped out of your self proclaimed "drama queen" status) I would really like to hear more from you. Your insights to this entire show were absolutely captivating. Today is the first day I've posted, and I'm sure I have no idea how to get anything posted correctly. Computers and I do NOT mix!! It's pretty sad when your 5 year old grandchild is able to troubleshoot a computer problem for their Grandmother!!! That really happened to me!!! I sure hope you received this!! Thanks, Cathy

Well-written, Dallas! I really enjoyed it very much! Excellent analysis, and it highlights several areas that Niambi could benefit from understanding better. While I agree with the Drama Queen analysis, I honestly don't think that Niambi realizes exactly what was behind these behaviors; rather I believe that she saw the responsibility for the behaviors as being someone other than herself.

I guess when I look at those interactions, I see each of them struggling with reacting based on experiences outside of themselves at that particular time. As you said, I think that Niambi was playing out a scenario that likely developed long ago in a much earlier part of her life when she was reacting to what was happening in the house. The whole quiet but apparent passive-aggressive approach to attention-seeking is one that was developed elsewhere in her life, not at the SO house.

Also, Christie's gut reaction to this behavior, that I clearly saw her struggling against with great pain, was a reaction that derived from a much earlier time in her own past, as well, and that frightened her very much, because she was terrified to go back to those behaviors and was clearly struggling to find a new more successful way to cope with it. I have read where people called Christie "whiny" for her reaction, and perhaps it did come off that way, but she was faced with trying to implement new behaviors in a very short period of time and she's an addict in recovery, and it is very frightening to feel that you are on the verge of finally experiencing great success in your life after so long living in misery, and now you are faced with patterned behavior that makes her want to crawl into a bottle and hide. I would definitely find myself crying on the shoulder of my coach and support group, which were the HG, to get support through it. How would I appear on camera if this were happening?

I happen to like both Niambi and Christie, and I remember a time in my life when I was really miserable and depressed, and I really didn't trust anyone, and how I behaved as a result really set off a lot of people around me. People tended to feel strongly about me, one way or the other. Most particularly was that people had difficulty trusting me. And in a way, that is where I see Niambi, acting out on the things that she is afraid of. Recall also the episode in group when I think it was Jodi who was going to graduate, and Niambi made a card that said she was graduating, too. That was quite a surprise to me. What she wanted most was to be seen as a success, and what she feared was to be seen as a failure, so she sets herself up to be perceived that way, without even realizing that she was doing that. Depression can certainly cause you to magnify self-destructive behaviors.

I don't think that Niambi is malicious in her intentions at all; I just think that she doesn't understand what is happening and her role and choice in the matter, and the basis for her own behaviors just yet. That is key here. I am hoping that Niambi will get to the point of owning her own feelings and stop looking for someone else to make responsible for them. If she can get to the point of wrapping her brain around owning her own feelings, then what Christie or anyone else does or doesn't do won't affect her like this. Then she will be at a place to let stuff roll off of her back and push forward and focus on her own personal work.

During the show, Niambi kept sitting back and waiting for someone to read her mind and know what she needed/wanted and deliver it to her, instead of asking for what she needed/wanted, then being unhappy if no one picked up on that, then she complained that someone else (Christie) was asking for the support that they need and that she got the support that she asked for. Like I told my husband many times before he got it, "Honey, I'm a crappy mind-reader, so you need to tell me what you want/need from me, if you want to be sure that I know and can act on it."

If you have always seen yourself as 2nd best (or worse), it can be difficult to change the paradigm, and know to, and know how to, assert yourself. It was tough for me, as I learned that I was garbage, and not worthy to ask for anything from my mother. Once Niambi gets that shift in her head, I think you will see very different behaviors from her. Because for Niambi's part, it really doesn't matter whether Christie is being whiny and attention-seeking or not; Niambi just needs to focus on Niambi's work and goals, get her head right, and none of that will bother her anymore. Because I have been there, I know that this is not an overnight process and will take a lot of hard work on her part, but I also understand that Drama Queens don't necessarily want to be Drama Queens; very often that is where they are stuck behavior-wise, because they still have this difficult but important work to do. The important thing is that I truly believe that she is motivated to work on that, and has embarked on the journey of growth and self-discovery.

With kindest regards, Donna E.

Thanks teklawgirl for the compliment.
You had some excellent insights yourself.
While I agree with you that Niambi is not malicious, I do disagree about your viewpoint that she is motivated.

I think her lack of motivation was her primary obstacle.
Change is VERY hard. That is something she admitted on the show.
After she had been at the house for awhile and realized how hard the changes would be and how much would be required of her, I think fear overwhelmed her.

Fear of giving up Situation Man, Fear of admitting her mother was the abuser, Fear of the Life Coaches expectations when she admitted that people's past expectations of her was what she was trying to overcome. And most Fear-filling of all was not knowing what living without the Fear would look like. Not knowing what she would have in its place.

The girl needed a VISION of what her healed life would look like.
That vision would have given her the motivation she so desperately needed.

If there is a 4th season, she needs to come back and it will probably take the entire season to get her on the path to wholeness.