I was watching Devil recently for about the 6th time, and I started wondering about people who are ‘twists’ as described by the Mechanic.
That is, he’s describing former platoon mates where there would always be at least one guy that was a ‘twist’ - this person would go out of their way to stir shit up amongst the other members.
The Mechanic suggests that the Young Woman on the elevator is a twist and is trying to create more drama by pretending she’s been attacked by the Salesman. It’s not clear to me if this is an accurate protrayal of what is going on with her, but it doesn’t really matter.
My question is, what is going on with people who are ‘twists’? I’m sure everyone has met someone like this in person - who always seems to be stiring shit up, creating tension and drama where none needed to exist, or taking a stressful situation and making it worse.
Is this type of behaviour a trait of any particular PD? BPD maybe? Something else?
The person I immediately thought of when I read that description grew up in a household where her father pretty much constantly did the same thing, flying off the handle at her and her sister at little provocation. It may be that some people learn to expect to have conflict in their lives.
Humm - I probably botched my description - I think the idea is that the person stirs the pot, but does so on the down low so other people aren’t really aware of what’s going on.
As opposed to a person screaming and yelling and creating drama that way, a ‘twist’ sneaks around ‘twisting’ things up on the sly and watching the fallout.
Honestly, it strikes me as a junior high girl sort of behaviour, but after watching the movie it made me think perhaps it’s more wide spread than just young girls.
Some psychopaths/sociopaths are like this. They have no emotional feeling towards others (and little feeling towards themselves even). They view other people as toys to play with. And the kinds of games they enjoy are not nice.
Many psychopaths can go a long time hiding their pathology. It’s not always obvious. They can also get good at hiding it from mental health professionals.
I’ve had the misfortune of working with someone like that. She was never directly involved in any of the conflicts she created, she would just wind people up and watch them go. It took me a long time to see the pattern. Typically, it would be something like “So-and-so said this about you, and I thought you should know, because that’s really awful, you’re not like that at all etc etc.” - things taken out of context or even completely fabricated - until she got her victim angry enough to have a confrontation or throw a big tantrum.
She often made a big drama out of minor problems and highlighted her co-workers’ errors by making a fuss, when the rest of us would just quietly fix the problem and move on. She also deliberately made unreasonable requests that she knew were likely to be denied, so she could complain about negative attitude and lack of co-operation.
I eventually learned to recognise the behaviour and deal with it. I found that a completely unemotional approach worked well. “You think I should confront X about Y? I think it’s better if you do it yourself.” or “I hear you think my attitude is bad. That’s obviously a serious issue. We should have a proper meeting and discuss it. I have asked the boss to arrange one.” This would usually lead to some impressive back-pedalling. She didn’t want people to deal rationally with issues she brought up, that wouldn’t be fun and exciting.
It is very similar to school playground behaviour, but I think the motivation is different. School girl bitchyness mostly seems motivated by the need to be accepted or liked by a group or an individual. My shit-stirring colleague simply thrived on drama and excitement, without wanting to be the centre of attention.
Yes, this is exactly the behaviour I’m talking about. I had an experience with a classmate who pulled crap like this, and resolving it was fairly straight forward once you saw the pattern.
However, what the hell is this type of behaviour about? Sociopathy doesn’t seem quite right to me - this involves entirely too much meddling to be the usual social detachment displayed by sociopaths (IMHO). From what I know about BPD it doesn’t quite seem to fit either - BPD usually involves the person with the disorder having big heated exchanges - this seems more like the person is screwing with people just enough to stir the pot to enjoy the resulting fireworks.
Well OK. I just have the feeling that there is an actual psychological problem afoot as well.
I mean, every person I’ve know who’s behaved like this has had pretty substantial social problems stemming from their behaviour - that’s one of the diagnosing criteria for a PD.
If you look up something like, say, Borderline Personality Disorder, it basically boils down to being a flakey cunt. I’m sure you could find some sort of personality disorder to slap onto a real life troll but I’m just not sure what meaning it would actually have.
Interesting you should see the distinction. My ex wife is BPD. I will charitably portray her as willful, selfish, predatory, selfish, unpredictable, selfish, impulsive (as opposed to spontaneous) and a bit selfish. Drama followed her around because she would get impassioned about some situation and convince everyone it was a Big Deal. it didn’t help she was very intelligent and could whip up a good argument when questioned. Usually a strawman, but a good one that wouldn’t be obvious immediately. Such drum beating was how she would get her way. It was all about her and what she wanted.
She had a job. It was a paper route, and sometimes I would go in instead so she could get some rest–kind of a job-share thing. She started seeing a guy at the job. Also there was The Twist–a loud-mouthed bus-driving gal with absolutely no sense of decorum (even for a newspaper warehouse). Twist encouraged the relationship. When it was running just fine, she “accidentally” clued me. Clues were like: she made a reference to ex & the guy taking our kids swimming Wednesday afternoon and wasn’t that sweet how my kids and his kids get along so well? Later she thought ex was looking tired so offered to watch our kids so she could get some rest and maybe do some shopping and, my how your kids get along so well with The Guy’s kids, etc. She watched me figure it out over the next few weeks and seemed positively aglow with the fireworks while two marriages completely came apart.
Short answer: It’s like pyromania. The Twist gets a sense of power and control.
I know a couple of people like this who actually ADMIT they like doing it. They both call it “stirring the pudding,” and love to create drama in subtle ways and then sit back and laugh while they watch.
Both are men. Neither have any of the characteristics of BPD, or any other disorder. They just like causing shitstorms.