How to Handle Drama Queens Without Getting Caught Up in Their Drama

It was past midnight and I was almost asleep. The bedroom door flew open, my roommate barreled through, and any possibility of a restful night vanished.

“I broke up with him!” She flopped on my bed and burst into tears. “I actually did it!”

For the next two hours I listened, sympathized, hugged her, and expressed varying degrees of surprise, anguish, and indignation. He didn’t treat her right. He didn’t appreciate her. She could do a lot better. Finally, exhausted and out of words, we both collapsed.

The next morning, I dragged myself out of bed to get ready for class. But she was already up. Not only up. She seemed energized by the entire episode. Pulling on her favorite pair of tight, pink jeans and her most flattering tank top, she completed the look with a bright slash of lipstick.

“I’ll show him what he’s missing,” she said before flouncing from the room.

By afternoon, I was barely able to stay awake in class and she had gotten back together with her boyfriend.

The stormy breakups happened two more times before it dawned on me that my roommate thrived on drama. The whole world was her stage, and I had been her most willing and attentive audience.

Her dramas didn’t just involve boyfriends. Sometimes situations revolved around conflict with parents, professors, or friends. Other times, all it took was a phone call to fan the flames of her emotions.

I made the mistake of letting her talk me into moving from our dorm room into an apartment with two other girls. It didn’t take long for the whole living situation to blow up. She moved out to live with her boyfriend, the other two girls stormed off over some disagreement about eating each other’s food, and I was stuck with the lease on the apartment we had previously shared.

It took me a while, but I finally figured out my friend was a Drama Queen. Since then, I’ve run into a lot of them. And FYI: They can be men, too!

You see them on Facebook, in the workplace, in your social groups and just about every other place you go. They are the people who stir things up, turn insignificant events into colossal episodes and find sinister meanings behind ordinary remarks.

Everything revolves around them, and they will happily suck you into the vortex of their emotions.

The Facebook Drama Queen

You can identify Facebook Drama Queens from their posts. They write angry status updates or thinly veiled innuendoes. They post things like, “At least I have a few friends left. You know who you are and I appreciate you.”

They air personal grievances and controversies, fight with people and make up again, then delete controversial posts. They make you wonder if they are talking about you when they say,“I can’t let my so-called friends drain me dry anymore. I have to get rid of toxic people.”

The Work Drama Queen

Facebook Drama Queens are easy to avoid. You can block them or get off social media. But the work Drama Queen is a different story. At work you’re stuck with your co-workers, for better or worse, unless you have the authority to fire them.

Years ago, I had a boss who talked as if the whole company was going under. She hated her manager, she didn’t know where we would all end up, everybody was against her, and she never got a fair shake.

Only none of it was true. The company kept growing, she kept getting promoted, and when she retired the company threw her a huge retirement party and honored her with a plaque on the wall.

One man I worked with was the king of Drama Queens. He was so moody and explosive that everybody tiptoed around him until we could figure out what kind of mood he was in. He overlooked easy solutions to work-related problems and opted for fiery confrontations that left nothing resolved.

We could tell as soon as he walked into a room if a meeting would proceed peacefully or erupt in dissension and hurt feelings.

With Drama Queens, every situation is exaggerated. Nobody knows what to expect, and Drama Queens frequently position themselves as victims. They tend to form alliances that are ever-changing, and you are usually completely in or completely out of their good graces.

I hired a woman I thought would be a good employee, but one of our other employees couldn’t stand her. “She likes to stir the pot,” the other employee complained. I wasn’t sure what she meant until I saw it for myself. The employee who enjoyed “stirring the pot” kept coming to me with comments that riled me up and diverted me from my job.

One day she said, “You haven’t noticed this because you’re unaware of a lot that goes on, but Ann was talking about you behind your back.”

She was always making little observations about how Jane was consistently late for work, or Bob always disappeared in the middle of the afternoon.

The Drama Queen’s Purpose

The overriding goal of a Drama Queen is to keep things melodramatic. To a Drama Queen, life is boring without controversy or conflict. Life can be peaceful for a while, but it never stays that way. When one problem or relationship issue is resolved, it’s only a matter of time before another one crops up.

Back in the nineties, Drama Queen for a Day was the name of a radio and television game show. Each contestant was asked to talk about recent hard times they had been through, and the audience selected the winner using an applause meter. The more dramatic the contestants, the better chance they had of winning a big cash prize.

The winner was draped in a sable-trimmed red velvet robe and a glittering crown, then handed a bouquet of long-stemmed roses and directed to sit on a velvet throne. One veteran TV writer called it “One of the most ghastly shows ever produced.”

The Drama Queens we encounter might not get a red velvet robe and a crown, but they’re perfectly satisfied if they can manage to capture our undivided attention and provoke us into a frenzy.

What We Can Do

We can avoid people on Facebook or people we don’t like, but what if a Drama Queen is a friend, a co-worker, or even our partner? How can we avoid being caught up in their soap opera?

Since they thrive off attention, the best way to dilute their effectiveness is not to give it. Listen with a sympathetic ear to real problems but try not to overreact.

I was friends with a Drama Queen who needed to have a more exciting story than anybody else. If somebody’s plane was late, hers almost crashed. If somebody got sick, she suffered from something worse.

At first, I took her seriously. Over the course of a year, she convinced me she had cancer, tuberculosis, lupus, heart issues and diabetes. I urged her to see a specialist.

It turned out nothing was wrong, which was a relief, but I stopped overreacting because I knew in a few days she would move on to something else. I changed my response from alarm to sympathetic listening.

When you’re dealing with a Drama Queen, don’t accuse them of being one. This will just infuriate them and elicit more drama. Listen, sympathize, but don’t overreact. And don’t be quick to act. You could end up in the middle of a controversy while the Drama Queen has already moved on to something else. The calmer you stay, the faster their latest drama will blow over.

Being around a Drama Queen isn’t all bad. They can liven up a party and make a dull meeting more interesting. They add a certain element of excitement to life.

But try to keep things from spiraling out of control. When dealing with a Drama Queen, breathe deeply, listen lovingly, and stay calm.

As Deepak Chopra says: “I teach people that no matter what the situation is, no matter how chaotic, no matter how much drama is around you, you can heal by your presence if you just stay within your center.”