When there's a drama addict in the work environment, it can impact the whole team.
Has your focus on a project ever derailed thanks to an onslaught of notifications from that colleague who’s always firing off about something? Or is there a co-worker who has a knack for sweeping you into a tornado of chaos that ends up hijacking the time you were going to spend on deep work? Or maybe there’s someone who always “just” wants to bounce an idea off of you and then spends the next 30 minutes complaining about their latest annoyance?
This can happen whether you work in an office or at home. With text, emails, Slack notifications and social media, there’s no shortage of ways for drama to find its way into our workday. So how can you protect your mental health and productivity? Here’s what mental health experts have to say.
Recognizing drama addiction
Rather than the very occasional dramatic situation arising at work, drama addiction is likely what’s at work when a person regularly experiences intense, disruptive spikes that throw others off. Dr. Scott Lyons, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist and the author of Addicted to Drama. A few signs that someone in your life may be addicted to drama, he says, are “extreme roller coaster emotions,” and a tendency “to make the littlest things into the biggest things and so everything begins to derail.” Dr Lyons explains that while it can sometimes feel like you’re being pulled into someone’s tornado from the get-go, even drama that starts out as entertaining (juicy office gossip, for example) can quickly devolve into disruption.
Ellen Vora, MD is a holistic psychiatrist and author of The Anatomy of Anxiety. “Think of drama as a form of energy,” she says, “and we are energetically porous. If you're around this kind of energy, chances are, you'll be absorbing some of it. Also, drama is by its very nature intriguing and something that's unconsciously designed to grab our attention. This is why reality tv is so compelling. So if the drama is near you, it can be difficult not to rubberneck or tune in to that drama.”
Protecting your energy
When complete avoidance of a drama addict isn’t an option, protecting your energy is vital. Dr. Vora recommends setting boundaries, starting with gentle communication of them, but being willing to escalate if needed when someone doesn’t respect those boundaries. “Remember that boundaries are ultimately up to us to maintain. We can't necessarily rely on others to respect our boundaries.”
“Much of the time, it can be helpful to say, in a gentle and compassionate way, that it doesn't feel good to you to talk behind peoples' backs, or that hearing about someone else's problems is contributing to your stress, and that you have your own problems and you don't have enough mental bandwidth to hold space for theirs.”
Self-care plays a role as well, especially if you’re sensitive to the energy of those around you. Dr. Vore recommends clearing and grounding practices. A few of her favorites are “taking an unplugged walk, exercising, processing with my partner or taking a moment to have a ritual such as taking 30 seconds to do a breathing exercise or spraying a sage spray around my desk in between patients.” She also is a fan of movement like dancing and adds, “My personal favorite is actually putting on shamanic drum music and shaking for 90 seconds. Works every time.”
Breathwork and meditation are just a few of the many accessible tools mental health experts ... [+]
If you’re the drama addict
Dr. Lyons points out that, as humans, we all have the propensity for drama addiction, given an inherent negative bias. “We're drawn towards the negative as a survival response. When that gets amped up and we go from one negative thing to the next and, and that pattern becomes part of our identity and the constant of our lives,” it can become a problem. An important step in getting a handle on your own drama addiction is to recognize where it’s coming from and how it manifests in your life.
While you may not be conscious of it, Dr. Lyons points out that an addiction to drama is often a survival mechanism. A common example he shares is someone suffering from a sense of loneliness or isolation from others, and seeking connection by bringing others into your crisis. If you suspect you are addicted to drama, he encourages working with a licensed mental healthcare provider to explore and process the underlying feelings or issues that may be behind it so you can develop better coping skills.
