Why do so many of us love the passed-out raccoon in the liquor store bathroom? That fuzzy little body stretched out on the bathroom floor after a full-force face plant in between a trash can and the toilet pulls at our heartstrings. He looked vulnerable. We all know he was going to have an absolute whopper of a hangover. My head started pounding, and my stomach started churning in solidarity.
When I was elementary school age, my parents left me home alone while they went to pick up my sister from a school event. I thought it would be funny to prank 911. I called and said, 'There's an escaped murderer in my house!' and hung up, laughing at my funny joke. I got an immediate callback. I panicked, answered the phone, and hung up. They called back again, so I unplugged the landline. Just as the police were pulling up, my parents pulled up, too. The police pulled a gun on my dad and made him prove he lived there. I was so scared of getting in trouble that I made up a story about a man knocking on the door and trying to force his way in. I told them he was a white man with a dark beard and that he ran in the cornfield. I don't think my parents ever knew I made it all up. The next day, the Oklahoma City bombing happened, and I thought it was God punishing people because he was mad at what I did.
Some people ignore the rules and don't pay attention to the limits that others set on their behavior (we think of them as high-conflict people or HCPs or bullies) unless a meaningful consequence will follow if they violate the limit. HCPs often (but not always) have Cluster B personality disorders- narcissistic, borderline, antisocial and histrionic personalities-which studies show have a strong association with being domineering, vindictive, and intrusive. 1