Matches Made In Hell - Obsessive x Hysteric (Toxic relationship patterns)

 

I: INTRODUCTION

 

In Lacanian psychoanalysis, the neurotic personality structure has three commonly known “variants” or “subtypes” so to speak: phobic, obsessional and hysteric. In this article, I will try to describe the possible negative things that could happen when an obsessional neurotic and a hysterical neurotic get into a relationship, or interact somehow.

We often say that two people who are compatible, reinforcing each other’s strengths, are a “match made in heaven”. I will argue that the obsessive x hysteric relationship is “a match made in hell”. They are still a “match”, that is, they still “fit together well” like two Lego pieces who stick to each other, or two magnets of opposing poles. However, it is a relationship with reinforces each other’s weaknesses and toxic behaviors. It is the kind of relationship where each of the two people become comfortable with being their worst self. It is NOT the kind of relationship that challenges the other to grow and fix their negative traits. It is, instead, a relationship in which you are encouraged to continue your repetitive obsessive/hysterical behavior patterns, including all their destructive aspects.

In behaviorist terms, obsessive behavior reinforces (rewards/encourages) hysterical behavior in everyone else who has to deal with the obsessive person, and vice-versa: hysterical behavior reinforces obsessive behavior in everyone else who interacts with the hysteric. However, we must understand that this reinforcement is a short-term gratification (what we call in psychoanalysis "the pleasure principle"), not whatever is good for the long-term ("the reality principle"). Thus, when an obsessional and a hysterical neurotic interact on the long-term, they often get stuck in positive feedback loops – their inter-reinforcing behaviors become a vicious cycle.

 

II: THE HYSTERICAL NEUROTIC PERSONALITY STRUCTURE

 

If I had to summarize the main aspects of hysterical neurosis, I would describe them like this:

1.     Unconsciously/unintentionally provoking the other person to act in a certain way, and then getting upset with them that they acted in that specific way (a more specific commonly found case this could happen: unconsciously/unintentionally provoking the other person to abuse/mistreat them).

2.     Placing themselves as the “object-cause of desire” in a social situation: causing desire in the other person and then leaving them unsatisfied (in other words, hysterics “tease” the other).

3.     Questioning the labels placed upon them by society (the hysteric asks “why am I who you say I am?”).

4.     Gradually and subtly testing and pushing the limits of any unwritten rule in a social situation.

5.     Testing the legitimacy of authority (“They claim to be a good authority, are they really? Let’s test them and find out!” or “Is he a REAL man? Let’s test him and find out”).

6.     Placing themselves as “the exception that crashes the system” in a social situation, the hysteric will try to make the other develop a whole new system of social interaction, a whole new set of rules on how to interact with others in general in order for the other to use them on the hysteric as the first specific case (In Lacanian language, the hysteric shows the gaps and pitfalls in the current name of the father, exemplifying the lack in the Other, challenging authority to create a new name of the father). This is what Socrates meant by “A bad wife makes you a philosopher” – this only applies to hysterical wives, however: when you interact with your hysterical wife/husband, you have to rethink the very structure of social interactions in general.

7.     Complaining about problems without offering a solution

It is important to note that all of the 7 patterns of behavior that I described above are at least partially, if not fully unconscious in hysterical neurotics. For example, for number 5, many hysterical children may unintentionally get themselves in dangerous or risky situations all the time, without having any idea why, but the real unconscious cause of their behavior is to test the legitimacy of their authority (“Are my parents really good parents? Do they really love me as they say? Are they as competent as they say? Let’s get myself in a harmful situation and see if they save me.”). Of course, for many hysterics this behavior can persist well into adulthood, the hysteric’s fundamental fantasy is being a victim and finally finding a “savior”.

The hysteric’s fundamental defense mechanism is projection. The hysteric “pulls the strings” behind many social situations and then blames others as the cause of that situation. Any unpleasant personal traits are “thrown out” into the outside world.

The hysteric’s body language when anxious also follows their psychological projection. The hysteric’s body language often looks as if they want to get their anxiety “out of their body” as fast as possible: for example, by being fidgety, constantly moving around the room, being agitated, etc.

Hysterical anxiety manifests by “freaking out” about every little tiny thing, blowing it out of proportion in their heads (a small thing is viewed as a “big deal”) – “my partner’s two second gaze towards another person means they are about to cheat”, “my friend not responding to my messages means they will abandon me”, etc.

Bruce Fink used to say how hysterics are characterized by “unsatisfied desire”. As I’ve said, the hysteric will tease the other, causing desire in them and then leaving them unsatisfied. This is because the ideal, phantasmatic position for the hysteric to be in is: “everyone wants me but no one can obtain me!” (The object-cause of desire). This is what they have in common with the paranoid personality structure. In other words, when Lacan said that love is often the “desire to be desired”, this applies the most to hysterics. Many hysterics will seduce other people until the other person shows a romantic or sexual interest into the hysteric, and then stop showing interest in the other. This puts the hysteric into a position of power: they have just gathered a new simp.

The hysterical personality structure is more common in women than men, since women are more likely to have success with these patterns of behavior in society than men (hysterical women are reinforced by society more than hysterical men).

There is no personality disorder in the DSM-V that shows the most extreme and accentuated versions of hysterical neurosis. Some people argue that what we today call “borderline personality disorder” matches what Lacan calls hysteria, but I disagree. The only diagnostic in modern psychology that ever got close to what Lacan calls hysteria is the self-defeating personality disorder, especially these three traits:

1.     following positive personal events (e.g., new achievement), responds with depression, guilt, or a behavior that produces pain (e.g., an accident)

2.     incites angry or rejecting responses from others and then feels hurt, defeated, or humiliated (e.g., makes fun of spouse in public, provoking an angry retort, then feels devastated)

3.     chooses people and situations that lead to disappointment, failure, or mistreatment even when better options are clearly available

 

III: THE OBSESSIONAL NEUROTIC PERSONALITY STRUCTURE

 

If I had to summarize the main aspects of obsessional neurosis, I would describe them like this:

1.     Shows a repeated pattern of behavior consisting of an obsession to do something perfectly followed by a compulsion to control the uncontrollable (Ex: “The party has to go perfectly!” (obsession) -> “I have to take care of everything at the party because I don’t trust anyone else to do it perfectly: the lights, the music, the decoration, the food…” (compulsion))

2.     Constantly puts blame on themselves for other people’s doings (introjection)

3.     Quasi-permanent feelings of guilt

4.     Puts high standards and expectations on themselves and then inevitably fails

5.     Makes promises and commitments to others that are impossible to fulfill and then inevitably disappoints everyone when they fail

6.     Desires situations, objects or people that are prohibited or impossible to obtain

7.     Fears losing control/power, feeling like they already have very little, thus placing high restrictions on themselves in order to be sure that they don’t lose control, and being very harsh on themselves if they fail

8.     Provides solutions to a problem that does not exist, or without being able to explain the problem that they are trying to solve (“Just do as I say!”)

 

Obsessive anxiety differs from hysterical anxiety. Obsessives do not “spread out” their anxiety evenly and do not freak out about every small thing, but instead “concentrate” it in a few very specific things that they fixate on (obsessions). This is evident by their body language too (“anal-retentive”, as Freud called them): obsessives who are anxious do not fidget around, but look almost as if they struggle to “keep their anxiety inside their bodies”: tense, rigid, overly self-controlled, strained, “anal”.

In romantic affairs, the obsessional personality is inevitably attracted to people who are “impossible” to obtain, such as:

1.     People of an unmatching sexual orientation (straight men falling for lesbians, gay men falling for straight men, etc.)

2.     People who are already in a monogamous relationship, thus unavailable

3.     People who they are prohibited from seeing for other reasons (ex: an obsessive boy falling in love with a girl whose parents do not let them see each other)

What the obsessive unconsciously loves, but does not admit to themselves that they love, is the impossibility itself. In the second example, for instance, if an obsessive man crushes on a woman who is taken, it is her partner who is the real cause of his desire, not his crush. Where his attention really is focused on is his “rival” or “competitor”, and while the obsessive may consciously lie to themselves that what they want is to obtain the girl, the real source of their enjoyment is the satisfaction from beating down their competitor. If their crush finally becomes single, the obsessive will often “by coincidence” fall out of love with them soon after.

It is here that we must elaborate on the seventh trait of obsessional neurosis that I described: the fear of losing the very last bit of control you have. In people with OCD (the “ego-dystonic” version of obsessional neurosis), this manifests in the simple to understand way – by having intrusive thoughts that they may lose control and harm another person, thus placing excessive restrictions on themselves (“I must control myself!”), their body language becoming ‘tense’ and rigid. However, there is another disorder described by modern psychology, OCPD (obsessive-compulsive personality disorder), and this is the “ego-syntonic” version of obsessional neurosis (which means that the obsessive no longer views their obsessions and compulsions as “wrong” or does not admit to having a 'problem').

It is the latter, the personality disorder, that I’m more focused on in this article, although the personality disorder is only the extreme/accentuated version of the more general personality structure. In the ego-syntonic version, the way that seventh trait of obsessional neurosis manifests is a bit trickier to “catch”: the obsessive often feels like a child that has been abandoned by their parents and now has to take care of the house and their smaller siblings. Thus, they feel like they hold the weight of the world on their shoulders. They do not like having control, responsibility and power in of itself, but will inevitably choose to have control and responsibility because they think that if they don’t, the situation will get even worse (“I must”). The classic example is that classmate who doesn’t want to do all of the work on the project for the sake of it, but will choose to do the entire project by themselves anyway because they do not trust anyone else on their team to do it right. In other words, the obsessive feels forced to force others, they feel forced to control (“I don’t want to force other people to do things, I don’t want to control everything, I don’t want to have all the responsibility… but I have to”). This sense of moral obligation is felt like a compensation for the permanent guilt they feel. Thus, in the exact same way that people with OCD have intrusive thoughts of losing control and physically harming others, the people with an obsessive personality structure (or even OCPD) fear that they may lose the very last bit of power and control they have over their household, over their team project, etc. and must hold onto it with their teeth because at any moment it will slip away from them and chaos will ensue.

The obsessional personality structure is more common in men than women, since men are more likely to have success with these patterns of behavior in society than women (obsessive men are reinforced by society more than obsessive women).

 

IV: THE MASTER-SLAVE DIALECTIC

 

The master-slave (or “lord-bondsman”) dialectic was introduced in Hegel’s work in order to explain power relations between individuals, but was extensively adopted by Lacan in his work.

The master-slave dialectic is the state of a relationship between two entities, these entities usually being either two people or two groups of people (although, at a more abstract level, we could even establish master-slave relationships between concepts, archetypes, etc.). The summary of the power-relation is this: the slave works for the master, and thus the master is dependent on the slave. In other words, the slave “gives” and the master “takes”. The master is positioned in the selfish or egoistical position where they do little to none of the work and receive most, if not all of the benefits. On the other hand, the slave is “being taken advantage of” – they do most to all of the work and receive little to none of the benefits of the work.

However, this relationship has a “twist”, because while it may seem at first glance that the master has all of the power, that it is “better” to be a master in life, that you’d rather live as a master than a slave, you have to remember that the master is dependent on their slave(s).

Let us go through two simple examples. The first example: a rich person (the master) having literal servants/slaves for all of their life. They were born rich, and were always rich, and thus never needed to learn how to cook, how to clean, how to take care of themselves. For all of their life, other people did work for them: this rich person always had a multitude of servants who cleaned their house, who cooked for them, and the rich person never worked a day in their life. We are fooled to believe at first glance that the rich master has all of the power and the slaves are being taken advantage of. But there is a specific ‘perverted’ power the servants have: the master relies on the servants for their bare existence. If the servants all decided to leave one day, organize a strike or something, or if the rich person suddenly lost all their money, or if the relationship between the two would break for some reason, the servants would go on with their lives, the master wouldn’t. The master would be left all alone with no one to cook for them, clean for them, etc. They also wouldn’t find a job, since they never thought that they will work a day in their life, so they will soon die of hunger all alone. In other words, because the master relied on other people to do all the work, they depended on others, and when the other is gone, the master is dead. This was Hegel’s initial point when he introduced this dialectic, in fact, that it is a dialectic struggle of two self-consciousnesses coming into contact with each other and wanting to kill each other to preserve their autonomy. After a while, one of the two begs for mercy and becomes the slave, the one not begging for mercy becoming the master. Hegel’s point was that the struggle was one of life and death, and that the master ‘affords’ being a master because they do not fear death. In other words, the position of the master is “I have nothing to lose, so I can afford to risk everything, and potentially win”. Many of us are faced in life with such situations in which we hit rock bottom (in our career, in a relationship, etc.), when things get so bad that they simply can only get better from now on, and in the most paradoxical way, the very fact that we have nothing gives us something: the very fact that we have nothing to lose anymore give us a certain form of ‘perverted’ power: the very loss of all power is a power in of itself.

Let’s take another example of, probably, the most common master-slave dialectic: the newborn and the parent. A newborn is always the master of their parents, and the parents are the slaves/servants of the newborn. A newborn cannot take care of themselves, and thus inherently depends on their slave (parent) for their bare survival. The parent is the slave: they do all of the work and reap little to none of the benefits in this relationship. However, if the relationship between the two would suddenly break for some reason, the parent can survive on their own, the child will die. The newborn is the master: they do none of the work, others work for them. The newborn is the “boss” in the relationship as well because they order the slave around through their cries (“feed me”, “take care of me”, etc.).

Now, how do we get back to our topic today (toxic relationship patterns)? In order to apply the master-slave dialectic to human relationships (“intersubjectivity”), we must introduce, probably, the most commonly discussed theme in psychoanalysis: DESIRE. It definitely would not be an article about psychoanalysis if we never mentioned desire! In a human (platonic, romantic, sexual, business, etc.) relationship, there is almost always a desire imbalance. More specifically, between, say, person 1 and person 2, one of them will desire the other more than they are desired or vice-versa. Let’s say that person 1 desires person 2 more than person 2 desires person 1. In this case, person 2 is the master and person 1 is the slave. More generally: the more you desire, the closer you are to the position of the slave, and the more you are desired, the closer you are to the position of the master.

How does this interplay take place in capitalism? The more negotiating power you have (the more you are “desired”), the more you are a master. It is most often the case that the employer is the master and the potential (interviewed) employee is the slave at job interviews, simply due to the fact that the potential employee wants to work at the company (or to get a job in general) more than the employer wants to hire them – the employee desires more than they are desired, the employer is desired more than they desire. However, if the interviewed potential employee comes and says “I have an offer at another company that pays me twice as much as your offer so I can always leave and go work for the other company”, the master-slave dialectic may temporarily change.

Romantic and sexual relationships almost always include a position of master and slave that constantly changes. The master may become the slave and the slave may become a master at any time. If I love them more than they love me, I am a slave (“simping”). If they love me more than I love them, I am a master (“pimping”). The person who is trying to “win over” the other is the slave, the person who acts (and/or is) disinterested is the master. In other words, it is the same as the employer-employee situation: who has more negotiating power?

In the next section, I will try to argue that a relationship between an obsessional and a hysterical neurotic is extremely hard to keep in a “balanced” position, where neither is master or slave. Instead, the obsessive x hysteric relationship is a “bipolar” relationship, so to speak, alternating between two one-sided extremes: obsessive master with hysterical slave and hysterical master with obsessive slave.

 

V: THE OBSESSIVE MEETS THE HYSTERIC ^{(oh no)}

 

            The hysteric functions by the principle “Everyone wants me but no one can obtain me!”. The obsessive functions by the principle “I want the most what I can’t obtain”. In other words, the hysteric unconsciously loves teasing others, the obsessive unconsciously loves being teased. You can imagine how when the two meet, they will stick to each other like magnets and reinforce each other’s negative patterns of behavior for incredible periods of time. A match made in hell.

            What we have to understand is that the two “extremes” that this relationship can end up in do not look identical. This is because of the two fundamentally opposite structural positions that the two personalities take in their relationship to others. The hysteric can admit that they are lacking, the obsessive will always claim that they are “whole”. The hysteric always feels that they lack something in their lives, and only if there wasn’t a prohibition blocking them from obtaining it! (ex: “I wish I could go to dance classes, but my authoritarian husband doesn’t let me”, “I wish I could have him in my life, but he doesn’t even look at me”, etc.) For an obsessional neurotic, the problem is never a deficit, the problem is always a surplus of “jouissance” (ex: “I have too many tasks to do so I am always busy”, “I have too many intrusive thoughts so I can’t concentrate”, “I have too much responsibility on my hands and I don’t want it but I have to take it”, “I have to do all the work in a project because everyone else is incompetent”, etc.).

            Because of this, the obsessive always feels like they have “too much” so they always have something to give to the other. The hysteric never feels ‘whole’ or ‘complete’, they always feel lacking, so they always have something to take from the other. This is why obsessional love is more often close to being more “authentic” than hysterical love, since obsessionals love you directly, whereas the hysteric has to take a “reflective detour”, loving being loved by you, placing themselves as the unattainable object of desire. However, while obsessional love, from this perspective, may seem "healthier", you have to remember that what they "give" is exactly the surplus that they want to get rid of the most, so while obsessive love is more 'authentic' and less 'selfish', the quality of the love itself is also lower (hence the famous Lacanian formula: "the obsessional turns their gifts into shit and their shit into gifts"). So where hysterical love fails because hysterics way too often end up being selfish, ungrateful and entitled, wanting to receive without giving much back in return, obsessional love fails because the quality of the love itself is bad (many obsessionals complain that they are too cold and that they never "learned how to love" in the first place). So while obsessional love is more "selfless" and "authentic", it is colder and without passion. And hysterical love is selfish and spoiled, but more passionate and romantic.

            How do these manifest in their amorous relationship? The summary is this:

        

a.      When the hysteric is a slave, and the obsessive is a master, the hysteric desires the obsessive’s desire, trying very hard to get their attention, while the obsessive acts uninterested because they feel bothered, annoyed or even ‘invaded’ by so much attention (the classic “why won’t this annoying woman leave me alone for once, she’s always complaining!”).

b.     When the obsessive is a slave, and the hysteric is a master, the obsessive desires the hysteric, while the hysteric acts uninterested and plays ‘hard to get’, getting the obsessive close enough to obtaining them and then leaving them unsatisfied.

 

V.1: Obsessional master x hysterical slave (first deadlock)

 

            When the obsessive is the master and the hysteric is a slave, this means that the hysteric desires the obsessive’s attention more than the obsessive is willing to give it. The hysteric feels undesired, unwanted, unloved in some way, and the obsessional neurotic has other more important priorities (most often, but not only, related to work, since it is extremely common for obsessives to have a very busy schedule – regardless of whether it’s the OCPD workaholic, or the OCD sufferer who spends 3 hours a day on their compulsions, obsessional neurosis is always closely tied to problems of time management). This leads into an “infinite loop”, or a downward spiral: the obsessive desires the most what is hard to obtain, and the hysteric desires being desired. Since the hysteric is in the slave-position, screaming for the obsessive’s attention (and often pointing it out to the obsessive through ‘snarky’, indirect jealous remarks: “you spend so much more time working on your laptop than with me…”, “you spend so much more time with that friend of yours…”), the obsessive does not feel the need to give the hysteric any attention, since the hysteric put themselves in a position in which they are easy to obtain. Hence, it is an infinite loop, a vicious cycle: the hysteric feels ‘easy’ to obtain, since they do not receive any attention by the obsessive, and they do not receive any attention from the obsessive because they are easy to obtain, and so on until infinity. Such an infinite loop is also commonly called a deadlock.

            The most cliché, stereotypical scenario of this deadlock is a typical marriage between an obsessive man and a “nagging, annoying hysterical woman”. The hysteric always complains that the obsessive is not giving her enough attention, while the obsessive is not giving her enough attention specifically because she requests it all the time, thus making the time spent with her so unenjoyable. Since the obsessive likes a “target” that is hard to obtain, an object of desire that is impossible to obtain, they want to work for their reward, thus the bare fact that the hysteric is so desperate makes them undesirable to the obsessive. The obsessional is thus stuck between two bad options: if I don’t spend time with my hysterical wife, she will complain that I’m not doing it. If I do spend time with her, she will complain that I haven’t done it until now and that it took me so long to finally spend time with her, which makes the time spent with her unenjoyable, thus pushing me away from her. Hence, the hysteric’s very attempt at solving the problem is the cause of the problem (“the medicine is the new illness”) – if the hysteric wouldn’t always complain that they’re not receiving enough attention, maybe they would start receiving it from the obsessional. In other words, the hysteric's very cries for attention are what gets them lonely here. The hysteric's ideal/fantasy scenario is having multiple simps that give them attention without receiving any in return, the hysteric "teasing" the simps and getting them very close to satisfaction, leaving them unsatisfied at the very end.

 

V.2: Hysterical master x obsessional slave (second deadlock)

 

            When the hysteric is the master and the obsessive is the slave, this means that the obsessive desires the hysteric because they are hard to obtain, which, in turn, only reinforces the hysteric’s own “hard to get” behavior. This is another deadlock, vicious cycle or “infinite feedback loop”: the more the obsessive tries to obtain the hysteric, the more the hysteric feels desired. The more the hysteric feels desired, the less they scream for the obsessive’s attention, acting uninterested or indifferent. And the less the hysteric screams for the obsessive’s attention (the more they play hard to get), the more the obsessive desires the hysteric. And so on until infinity.

            The “classic” or cliché scenario of this specific deadlock is when the obsessive is a man that is ‘obsessed’ (pun intended!) with the hot girl in class who is way out of his league, who acts uninterested and constantly rejects him. The problem is that the obsessional neurotic desires specifically that which is hard-to-impossible to obtain, thus being turned on by the rejection itself. The obsessive may try again and again to win over the hysterical woman by being insisting, with flowers, gifts, etc. (the obsessional becomes “fixated” on a specific object-of-desire that is hard to obtain, and thus develops a literal “obsession” over someone) with the hysterical girl either giving in at the end, or not. This scene is depicted very often in Disney movies (insisting obsessional man who develops an obsession over a hysterical woman which plays hard to get). The situation for the hysteric is just as toxic and unhealthy, since the hysteric is turned on by being loved itself, and they will keep rejecting the obsessional’s advances, but not definitively, they will keep “sort-of rejecting them” in such a way as to give the obsessive hope that, if they just tried a little harder, they will finally win over the hysteric. Both of them are engaging in toxic and unhealthy repetitive patterns of behavior, even if Disney movies make it look like only the obsessive man is the creepy one here. In fact, in a real-life situation, if the woman is actually hysterical in her personality structure, she will not want to be obtained by the obsessive because what she loves is not being “obtained” by anyone, what she loves is being chased constantly (“Everyone wants me but no one can obtain me!”). If the hysteric were to simply accept the obsessive’s romantic/sexual advances, the fun would stop instantly for the hysteric.

 

VI: CONCLUSIONS – A BIPOLAR RELATIONSHIP

 

            We see how, just like manic-depressive people cycle between manic “highs” (extreme happiness/euphoria, high energy, impulsivity) and depressive “lows” (sadness, low energy, low motivation) every few weeks to every few months, so do obsessive/hysteric relationships cycle between two extreme one-sided phases every few weeks to every few months. For many people with bipolar disorder, it is often very hard for them to remain in a “balanced” or “normal” mood for long periods without medication. It is exactly that case for this toxic relationship pattern: the obsessive x hysteric will get “stuck” in either of two extreme poles, spending very little time in an actual healthy state where both people put in a somewhat equal amount of work and dedication into the relationship. The higher (“manic”) the obsessive’s desire is, the more the hysteric’s desire will be lower (“depressive”), and vice-versa. The more the obsessive acts “obsessed” with the hysteric, the more the hysteric will act uninterested, bored or tired of the obsessive. And the more the hysteric nags the obsessive for attention, the less the obsessive will give them such attention, since the very fact that they are nagged for attention is a turn-off in of itself. Such a relationship is structurally defined from the start to be doomed to alternate between two extreme poles, being extremely hard to pin it down into a “balanced” state: the more one’s desire increases, the more the other’s decreases.