Dealing with drama queens

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paperclip21

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I was wondering, how do we (as Christians) deal with drama queens?

I have two in my life currently, both friends and heavily involved in our little youth ministry effort (so I’m effectively stuck with them). Everyone else seems to think their both wonderful people, but I’m the one who sees them up close and has to burden all of their ‘problems’, which honestly I think they’re either lying about or exaggerating because the behaviour doesn’t match up. I have my own problems with my home life, university etc, but I feel like I can’t really open up about it because they’ll go on about their life.

I’m not sure if I have the patience for it, I feel like I’m going to snap one day. I keep thinking about how I’m going to avoid people like them in the future, but I feel like this isn’t very Christian, shouldn’t I be embracing everyone?

I don’t want to start up even more drama by talking to our priest about it, so I feel like I don’t have anywhere to turn. Does anyone have any practical advice?

Thanks and God bless in advance!
 
paperclip21 said:
…I don’t want to start up even more drama by talking to our priest about it, so I feel like I don’t have anywhere to turn. …
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Um, your priest, if he is any sort of mature man at all, will not start up more drama.
 
Its not exactly clear to me from their post about what they are doing. It just sounds like they’re complaining to you about their own lives and looking for your sympathy. I think sometimes if you don’t sympathize, you can just node, listen and let it go.

However, that’s not typically the impression I get with the phrase “drama queen.”

What I can say is that it is ok as a Christian to set boundaries with people, and it is totally ok to not be the bestest of friends with people who want to use you rather than truly be your friends. I know I’ve gone through spells where I’ve felt guilty for not bending over backwards to people who were just using me. A friendship is really a two-way street.

And believe me, there are people who do seem to just naturally look and try to take advantage of people with misguided notions of Christian charity.
 
Paperclip.

Not sure these ideas will help or not.
  1. Perhaps the first place to start is inside your head. How much of your time is spent re-living what the drama queens say or do, before, during, and after meeting with them? We need to be careful with “resentment” like behavior. It helps to realize that we often “assent” to these memories; we often replay the tapes interiorly. Treat these moments as actual “decisions” that you make to replay the events. They may not be made with great deliberation, but they are voluntary. It’s not easy but try to experiment a bit and see if you have any luck with minimizing the replaying of these unfortunate events. And I hasten to point out, I don’t doubt that the drama queens are really out of bounds here.
We are to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, strength…this includes our memory and imagination. How are we using our imagination and our memory? What do we fill them up with?

This was a struggle for me…and I am still working on it.
  1. Maybe when you witness a drama moment, you quietly acknowledge the presence of God with you there and then, and convert that moment into a prayer. Sanctify the moment. Say to your Father “Give me a hint, how to handle this”. The “raw material” of the drama moment that God gave you, can actually be converted, with God’s grace, into something supernaturally good.
  2. At that moment don’t change your facial expression, don’t acknowledge the drama…don’t positively or negatively react. And at the earliest possible time, though, add something positive to the conversation. Find the silver lining in the moment and in a quiet humble way turn the conversation constructive. Smile and set the quiet, CALM, SERENE, example.
  3. Your goal is to spread peace, calm, and joy in a very gradual fashion, without showing up the person(s). Small wins and influences.
Good luck, these ideas may or may not work for you.
 
paperclip21 said:
Does anyone have any practical advice?
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Yes. Drop out of the youth ministry. You don’t need that stuff in your life. It’s not meeting your needs anyway.

And in case you are tempted to feel guilty about leaving the ministry behind, well … *that *is a sign you *should *leave it behind. (There is a reason why it is so small - think about it!) If you want to join up with another effort, find one that has its act together.
 
JHow said:
Um, your priest, if he is any sort of mature man at all, will not start up more drama.
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What’s the point in talking to him if he can’t do anything? If he does anything it WILL add fuel to the fire, so I can’t talk to him. I have faith my priest is a mature man 😉
twoangels said:
Its not exactly clear to me from their post about what they are doing. .
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Where do I start?? Turning on the waterworks when it’s not appropriate or will make the situation really awkward, or making the situation awkward by bringing up sexual jokes, or jokes about how ‘old’ they are (this girl’s 36) when everyone knows how bad they feel about it. Telling us how ‘afraid’ they are of men but happily walking down the street in mini skirts. If that isn’t drama I don’t know what is! 😛
Edward_H said:
Paperclip.

Not sure these ideas will help or not.
  1. Perhaps the first place to start is inside your head. How much of your time is spent re-living what the drama queens say or do, before, during, and after meeting with them? We need to be careful with “resentment” like behavior. It helps to realize that we often “assent” to these memories; we often replay the tapes interiorly. Treat these moments as actual “decisions” that you make to replay the events. They may not be made with great deliberation, but they are voluntary. It’s not easy but try to experiment a bit and see if you have any luck with minimizing the replaying of these unfortunate events. And I hasten to point out, I don’t doubt that the drama queens are really out of bounds here.
We are to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, strength…this includes our memory and imagination. How are we using our imagination and our memory? What do we fill them up with?

This was a struggle for me…and I am still working on it.
  1. Maybe when you witness a drama moment, you quietly acknowledge the presence of God with you there and then, and convert that moment into a prayer. Sanctify the moment. Say to your Father “Give me a hint, how to handle this”. The “raw material” of the drama moment that God gave you, can actually be converted, with God’s grace, into something supernaturally good.
  2. At that moment don’t change your facial expression, don’t acknowledge the drama…don’t positively or negatively react. And at the earliest possible time, though, add something positive to the conversation. Find the silver lining in the moment and in a quiet humble way turn the conversation constructive. Smile and set the quiet, CALM, SERENE, example.
  3. Your goal is to spread peace, calm, and joy in a very gradual fashion, without showing up the person(s). Small wins and influences.
Good luck, these ideas may or may not work for you.
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Edward H, that’s actually really helpful, I think part of the problem is going over it again and again in my mind, and God allows these things in our lives only to bring us closer to Him right? Prayer during would be a great way to center myself I think.
Apollos said:
Yes. Drop out of the youth ministry. You don’t need that stuff in your life. It’s not meeting your needs anyway.
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Yeah, sorry, not an option. I’ve put two years of my life into it and I’m not leaving because people are annoying me, I love it too much.
 
paperclip21 said:
I was wondering, how do we (as Christians) deal with drama queens?

I have two in my life currently, both friends and heavily involved in our little youth ministry effort (so I’m effectively stuck with them). Everyone else seems to think their both wonderful people, but I’m the one who sees them up close and has to burden all of their ‘problems’, which honestly I think they’re either lying about or exaggerating because the behaviour doesn’t match up. I have my own problems with my home life, university etc, but I feel like I can’t really open up about it because they’ll go on about their life.

I’m not sure if I have the patience for it, I feel like I’m going to snap one day. I keep thinking about how I’m going to avoid people like them in the future, but I feel like this isn’t very Christian, shouldn’t I be embracing everyone?

I don’t want to start up even more drama by talking to our priest about it, so I feel like I don’t have anywhere to turn. Does anyone have any practical advice?

Thanks and God bless in advance!
Click to expand...
No where do you indicate that the behavior of your friends affects youth ministery nor do you give a hint of a reason why the priest should become involved in personal conversations between you and these people. What am I missing? Priests are men and I don’t know a man alive who relishes getting involved in women’s squabbles, including and especially those among his staff, volunteers or parishioners, that involve purely personal issues.
 
Apollos said:
Yes. Drop out of the youth ministry. You don’t need that stuff in your life. It’s not meeting your needs anyway.

Where did you EVER get that out her post?

And in case you are tempted to feel guilty about leaving the ministry behind, well … *that *is a sign you *should *leave it behind. (There is a reason why it is so small - think about it!) If you want to join up with another effort, find one that has its act together.
Again, do you know how big it is? You comments make no sense.
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Apollos said:
SERIOUSLY?
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I detect anger issues with you and youth ministry, Apollos.
 
Maybe I need to go back to the beginning and pick up the thread again very slowly because I do not understand Apollos’s point here:

Originally Posted by Apollos
Yes. Drop out of the youth ministry. You don’t need that stuff in your life. It’s not meeting your needs anyway.

This “not meeting your needs” thinking is a very secular reflex. That small, sorry, self-centered, grabby expectation alone probably accounts for more than 50% of divorces and other forms of human disorder and trouble. It’s a sure start for many problems in our world. Expunge the very thought.

Only in a very supernatural sense are we here to “meet our needs”. We are here to serve God and we do that by loving others, by giving ourselves generously and selflessly to others, all the time.

Our real need is to die of chronic (or acute, or both) generosity, just like Jesus.

Maybe I missed a key point or nuance in that posting.
 
paperclip21 said:
I was wondering, how do we (as Christians) deal with drama queens?

I have two in my life currently, both friends and heavily involved in our little youth ministry effort (so I’m effectively stuck with them). Everyone else seems to think their both wonderful people, but I’m the one who sees them up close and has to burden all of their ‘problems’, which honestly I think they’re either lying about or exaggerating because the behaviour doesn’t match up. I have my own problems with my home life, university etc, but I feel like I can’t really open up about it because they’ll go on about their life.

I’m not sure if I have the patience for it, I feel like I’m going to snap one day. I keep thinking about how I’m going to avoid people like them in the future, but I feel like this isn’t very Christian, shouldn’t I be embracing everyone?

I don’t want to start up even more drama by talking to our priest about it, so I feel like I don’t have anywhere to turn. Does anyone have any practical advice?

Thanks and God bless in advance!
Click to expand...
While keeping the work relationship, cool off the friendship.
 
Caveat-I’m a bold guy, so this may only work for my type of personality. I also have a strong distaste for people like act like drama queens.

I call them out in front of everyone. They want drama, they got it. I say, “Look, you do these things for the attention and everyone is laughing at you behind your back. Grow up and stop acting like that.” I have done if before, and it’s shut them up quite well.

Being a Christian doesn’t mean you have to be a milquetoast or pushover.
 
Edward_H said:
This “not meeting your needs” thinking is a very secular reflex. … Our real need is to die of chronic (or acute, or both) generosity, just like Jesus.
Click to expand...
I understand your point, but that’s not where this came from. Participation in this ministry has become a burden for her and she is so hemmed in by drama issues that she can’t even involve the priest. But I’m sure you’ve seen enough daytime television to know where to draw the line between integrity and romantic self-victimization. My advice: get out now.
 
Apollos said:
So how do you respond to people who say that’s not nice?
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I say, “It’s not nice to walk around thinking the world revolves around you, is it?” “It’s not nice your embarrassing your family and making your friends not like you, is it?” It’s not nice that your being a selfish drama queen, is it?"

I’m pretty cool like that.
 
Apollos said:
I understand your point, but that’s not where this came from. Participation in this ministry has become a burden for her and she is so hemmed in by drama issues that she can’t even involve the priest. But I’m sure you’ve seen enough daytime television to know where to draw the line between integrity and romantic self-victimization. My advice: get out now.
Click to expand...
Good point, and you’re right about “where to draw the line”. Tough calls.

The criterion or acid question, though, in my opinion, can never be “burden”, it has to be charity. She has to conclude that more good, eternal good, will come out of removing herself than by staying and slogging it out with a smile.

Maybe God put her there to inject some much needed hardihood in her peers. Maybe not. Lots of things in life present burdens on us, some expected some unexpected (marriages, parenthood, occupations, and our vocations). Nothing good is a cake walk. The cross that Jesus carried appears to have placed a burden on Him, yet he carried it on, even though he had help along the way.
 
Edward_H said:
She has to conclude that more good, eternal good, will come out of removing herself than by staying and slogging it out with a smile.
Click to expand...
At the risk of sounding cynical, the good may be the implosion of the ministry on its own.
 
Apollos said:
SERIOUSLY?
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Apollos, with all due respect, if you don’t have anything constructive to add then don’t bother adding anything.

And yes, it’s a burden, I’m just here to see if there’s anyway to stop it affecting how I approach the ministry and interact with people in it.
 
I agree in part with the notion that you cannot be a victim of a social situation unless you allow yourself to be victimized.

So, as a practical matter, one has to set limits as to how much drama one is willing to put up with.

I don’t have any examples to work with, but most times being direct but polite in getting whomever you’re dealing with at the time. Lemme see…

…lets say X comes up to you and is overly dramatic that Y used up all the books for Y’s class and now X has to reorder morre books. One could say:

“That’s too bad. I think you should talk to Y.”

X continues to complain

“Seriously, this is something you need to talk to Y about”

X continues to complain

“I think you need to talk to Y”

X continues to complain

“What you need to do, I think, is talk to Y”

One of the secrets is that you have to interrupt X’s complaining with a solution to X’s problem…don’t continue to listen to it. Complainers (drama queens) need an audience, and it’s difficult to perform if they are constantly interrupted.

Second secret…be persistant, be a broken record. Go WAY past the number of times you think you need to repeat something, WAY past the point where you’re starting to annoy yourself…because you’re not annoying X if X continues their drama performance.

Do this a couple of times, and it will work. If X comes and wants to talk without the drama, reward that behavior with a longer, pleasant conversation.

You need to treat drama queens like children to train them out of it, or at least quit using you for their drama performance.
 
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