MLM and Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD)

Today's post is going to be a little different again. I haven't had any personal experience with this disorder in MLM, but I have read many stories that resemble this disorder. There are many similar characteristics between this disorder and narcissistic personality disorder, but this disorder is more related to attention grabbing through promiscuity.

Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD): Histrionic personality disorder is characterized by a long-standing pattern of attention seeking behavior and extreme emotionality. Someone with histrionic personality disorder wants to be the center of attention in any group of people, and feel uncomfortable when they are not. While often lively, interesting and sometimes dramatic, they have difficulty when people aren’t focused exclusively on them. People with this disorder may be perceived as being shallow, and may engage in sexually seductive or provocative behavior to draw attention to themselves. (http://psychcentral.com/disorders/histrionic-personality-disorder-symptoms/)

When I was rereading about this disorder it made me think about people I have seen in the sales industry as well as people we focus on in current popular culture. When we see advertisements, sales attire, and commercials, we are constantly bombarded with some sort of sexual influence. This is used to generate attention, because as we know, sex sells. We have also seen trends constantly pushing the envelope between what is considered socially acceptable versus inappropriate. When combining these two subjects we get something similar to the transition of cover images on the Sports Illustrated Swim Suit Edition. We love to idolize our favorite good looking stars, and we love to see something sexual, so putting that together is essentially a home run.

HPD is essentially these advertisements being displayed by people. They are highly flirtatious, scantily clad, and emotionally fragile. They do not have regard for social norms, and will break boundaries to be recognized as the center of attention.

Do MLMers have HPD??? Honestly, I'm sure there are instances of this, but again I have not personally experienced it. This post was designed to see if current/former MLMers have had experiences where someone has been extremely promiscuous to get their way. This could come in many different forms whether it was an upline drawing them in because of their attention grabbing efforts, a partner in a relationship showing symptoms of HPD to generate a downline, or maybe someone from a conference/meeting that is more interested in being seen than they are in selling the products. Other bloggers have mentioned downlines sleeping with uplines and doing what they can to "move ahead" in their organizations. So, tell me your story, preferably related to MLM, and let's try to recognize behaviors with ulterior motives.

Below is a list of the common symptoms found in people with HPD:

• Is uncomfortable in situations in which he or she is not the center of attention
• Interaction with others is often characterized by inappropriate sexually seductive or provocative behavior
• Displays rapidly shifting and shallow expression of emotions
• Consistently uses physical appearance to draw attentionto themself
• Has a style of speech that is excessively impressionistic and lacking in detail
• Shows self-dramatization, theatricality, and exaggerated expression of emotion
• Is highly suggestible, i.e., easily influenced by others or circumstances
• Considers relationships to be more intimate than they actually are

Source: http://psychcentral.com/disorders/histrionic-personality-disorder-symptoms/

If you have a story involving abuses from your upline and would like me to share it on this blog as a guest post, then please e-mail me and I will be more than happy to post it! Your stories are not as unique as you may think, and your stories are some of the most impactful resources we have to fight MLMs. I will keep your anonymity upon request.

MLM and Denial pt. 2

I am going to preempt today's blog post by saying this is more about anecdotal content than it is about terminology and comparisons. These are my experiences, and should be treated as such!

Today, I'm going to go back and add onto one of my original posts about denial. This is the main defense mechanism we use, because it allows us to be irrational while still holding onto our belief. For many it feels better to be right, than it does to be logical, and I have a couple of points I would like to address on this topic.

First, the definition of denial in the form of a defense mechanism: Denial is the refusal to accept reality or fact, acting as if a painful event, thought or feeling did not exist. It is considered one of the most primitive of the defense mechanisms because it is characteristic of early childhood development. Many people use denial in their everyday lives to avoid dealing with painful feelings or areas of their life they don’t wish to admit. For instance, a person who is a functioning alcoholic will often simply deny they have a drinking problem, pointing to how well they function in their job and relationships. (http://psychcentral.com/lib/15-common-defense-mechanisms/)

There were a couple of reasons for wanting to come back to this particular subject. I recently had a discussion with my ex-sponsor's sponsor. It was a strange experience since it had been exactly a year since I was propositioned by the two of them to join their MLM. They had a lot of great goals, and I truly believe they wanted to do better for their families. However, their strategy has not been great, and the denial is sensational.

My sponsor's upline, we'll call him Tom, is a young gentleman that is married. He is the nephew to an extremely prestigious member of the MLM, and has been around it for nearly a decade. He hasn't always been interested in doing the "business", and is mostly concerned with being a good person while starting a family and providing a comfortable life. Here lies the issues, he is not successful in the business, he is not creating more time for himself or his wife to be together, and he is not getting the opportunity to start his family. He was supposed to be retired six months ago, his wife was supposed to be retired, and he was supposed to have a child. Meanwhile, he is running around to events and "business" meetings throughout the week, while working full time, while his wife does the same and tutors on the side. He has now amended his previous belief, and is only trying to "retire" his wife, and pretty soon his expectations will get even smaller. When I asked, "Why doesn't she just tutor from home?" He replied, "Because she should be a full time mom, and she has plenty of "business" related projects to keep her busy." I'm not sure if he realized that he admitted he will never retire with this "business", or if he was so brainwashed that he believed that was retirement. Needless to say, this was a great example of denial.

My sponsor was an awesome guy and for this anecdote, I'll call him Fred. I believed he was going to do great things. He is ambitious, hardworking, and has a certain genuine quality to him (or at least so I thought). Since the event last year, he has been so involved in his "business" that he basically, no longer talks to me, he missed out on major events, he continues to believe his motivational organization is actually what he is working for and not the "business", and has proven to be incredibly fake. He is the guy who has all of the canned responses programmed, and has none of the facts straight. He is truly an excellent example of denial.

If you have a story involving abuses from your upline and would like me to share it on this blog as a guest post, then please e-mail me and I will be more than happy to post it! Your stories are not as unique as you may think, and your stories are some of the most impactful resources we have to fight MLMs. I will keep your anonymity upon request.

MLM and Dependent Personality Disorder

Dependent personality disorder or (DPD): Dependent personality disorder is characterized by a long-standing need for the person to be taken care of and a fear of being abandoned or separated from important individuals in his or her life. (http://psychcentral.com/disorders/dependent-personality-disorder-symptoms/)

Human beings by nature are socially oriented and dependent on groups for survival. It is completely natural to yearn to be with others emotionally, and businesses are completely dependent on people in all tiers of the organization for success. That makes this disorder more difficult to notice and understand, because it is based more on an intensity level of the dependency rather than a black and white definition.

Here is a list of the symptoms from the same source as above: 

• Has difficulty making everyday decisions without an excessive amount of advice and reassurance from others
• Needs others to assume responsibility for most major areas of his or her life
• Has difficulty expressing disagreement with others because of fear of loss of support or approval
• Has difficulty initiating projects or doing things on his or her own (because of a lack of self-confidence in judgment or abilities rather than a lack of motivation or energy)
• Goes to excessive lengths to obtain nurturance and support from others, to the point of volunteering to do things that are unpleasant
• Feels uncomfortable or helpless when alone because of exaggerated fears of being unable to care for himself or herself
• Urgently seeks another relationship as a source of care and support when a close relationship ends
• Is unrealistically preoccupied with fears of being left to take care of himself or herself
  (http://psychcentral.com/disorders/dependent-personality-disorder-symptoms/)

MLMers prey on downline targets that usually have some if not all of these symptoms. They have a need to control and manipulate their downlines, and it becomes exponentially easier when the downlines want to be controlled because of their dependency.

Let's look at a few of these examples of symptoms:

"Has difficulty making everyday decisions". Other bloggers have written about MLMers and their need to influence every part of a downline's life. They want the downline to eat what they want them to eat, or come when they want them to come. This symptom plays perfectly into an MLMers need for manipulation.

"Has difficulty expressing disagreement with others". MLMers are constantly being told to stay away from negativity. MLMers will say, anything being brought up as a sign of negativity is not allowed, and any differing opinion should be shunned. This again works perfectly for MLMers looking to brainwash and control their targets, because the downline also wants to avoid conflict.

"Goes to excessive lengths to obtain nurturance and support from others". MLMers want their downline to rely on them for everything including positive feedback. They will attract the downline with constant love-bombing and admiration for their struggles. This helps to further the dependency a downline with this condition may have.

MLMers prey on downlines with conditions like this, because it feeds into their narcissism while helping to perpetuate their disorder. This is a weird chemical reaction that fuels a perpetual Stockholm Syndrome allowing MLMers to extract money from their downlines for extremely long periods of time (or perhaps forever).

It is important to remember that it isn't just the MLMers with the conditions and disorders. Much of the time the downlines have conditions as well, and can be just as powerful of afflictions. MLMers do not discriminate the people they target for the "business opportunity", and I have personally seen people that are not qualified to run a business be told they are perfect for this "opportunity".

If you have a story involving abuses from your upline and would like me to share it on this blog as a guest post, then please e-mail me and I will be more than happy to post it! Your stories are not as unique as you may think, and your stories are some of the most impactful resources we have to fight MLMs. I will keep your anonymity upon request.

MLM and Antisocial Personality Disorder

Today I will be talking about antisocial personality disorder which I will shorten to APD. APD is not the same as someone being antisocial in a group setting. Instead it has to do with a disregard for others and the law when someone is trying to achieve their goals. This is very similar to my article on narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), but the main difference is NPD strives for admiration and has a need for grandiosity whereas APD tends to be more malicious in nature. I will go into more details about their distinct differences with several quotes throughout this post.

Antisocial Personality Disorder: Antisocial personality disorder is a disorder that is characterized by a long-standing pattern of disregard for other people’s rights, often crossing the line and violating those rights. A person with antisocial personality disorder (APD) often feels little or no empathy toward other people, and doesn’t see the problem in bending or breaking the law for their own needs or wants. The disorder usually begins in childhood or as a teen and continues into a person’s adult life. (http://psychcentral.com/disorders/antisocial-personality-disorder-symptoms/)

As we discussed in the case of NPD it is nearly impossible to diagnose at an early age, because the brain has not developed enough yet. However, APD is a condition that starts from a young age, and tends to be more aggressive or impulsive. A great example of APD vs. NPD is, a person going for the cookies in the cookie jar. The person with NPD goes for the cookies, because they feel they deserve the cookies, and likes the idea that others will be jealous because they have cookies. Whereas the person with APD goes for the cookies, because they want them and will stop at nothing to get them. They will use trickery and deceit and do not care who gets hurt in the process, and they do not care how other people view them.

Another wonderful quote from psych central on APD is: 

  Individuals with Antisocial Personality Disorder frequently lack empathy and tend to be callous,         cynical, and contemptuous of the feelings, rights, and sufferings of others. They may have an             inflated  and arrogant self-appraisal (e.g., feel that ordinary work is beneath them or lack a realistic     concern  about their current problems or their future) and may be excessively opinionated, self-           assured, or  cocky. They may display a glib, superficial charm and can be quite voluble and verbally   facile (e.g., using technical terms or jargon that might impress someone who is unfamiliar with the     topic). http://psychcentral.com/disorders/antisocial-personality-disorder-symptoms/

Let's begin to unpack this quote in relationship to MLM and note the similarities.

MLMers lack empathy and are very cynical to the struggles of downlines. In fact, they place the entirety of the blame on the downline for their "failures" in the business, and berate them with guilt and nagging to further emphasize their disgust. MLMers do not take responsibility for the failures of their team or try to address the downline's issues in a healthy and constructive manner. They instead want to make sure their downline feels worthless.

Do MLMers believe J-O-B's are bad??? Rhetorical question, as that is part of their mantra for recruitment. MLMers have been defending the idea that jobs are bad for decades, and that anyone who has a job can't have freedom or live the life they want to live. They have a false sense of entitlement and believe they were destined for greatness, and that some outside force has been holding them back from achieving their rightful place in the world. Any work that isn't MLM is considered beneath them, and they believe the MLM dreams are a practical goal for success.

Are MLMers "opinionated, self-assured, or cocky"? The only thing wrong with that statement is the word "or". MLMers are all of these adjectives and more, because they have to be in order to keep their fervor for the business. They are constantly bombarded with reasons to stop doing MLM such as, losing money, losing friendships, and losing family. This means their convictions must be stronger than those forces trying to pull them away in order to continue pursuing the MLM.

Are MLMers "glib, superficial, voluble, and verbally facile"? Absolutely, because they are trained to be salespersons on steroids. They must be dressed perfectly, smile incessantly, talk quickly and authoritatively. They must master the perfect outward appearance to even have a glimmer of hope to attract someone to their cause, and also to please upline's expectations.

In summation, do MLMers have APD? As a whole, no -- but it stems from the originals teaching their personality disorders to those below them. The owners and leaders have a genetic predisposition to this condition, but most MLMers and their downline don't. You have to have APD to be successful in MLM, because there are too many overwhelming forces pulling an MLMer to quit. A quick cursory search on google will show the failure rates of MLM and I believe it has a correlation to people not having this disorder.

If you have a story involving abuses from your upline and would like me to share it on this blog as a guest post, then please e-mail me and I will be more than happy to post it! Your stories are not as unique as you may think, and your stories are some of the most impactful resources we have to fight MLMs. I will keep your anonymity upon request.

MLM and Echolalia (Parroting)

Today's post isn't actually representative of MLMers, because this condition is related to people with degenerative brain conditions. While some people may jokingly argue that MLMers brains do degenerate while they are involved, this is more of a fun post while introducing a new term. MLMers are known for being repetitious, programmed, and in some cases nonsensical, and that is the thought process behind this particular post. Once again, I am not stating that MLMers have echolalia, but rather they have behaviors that reflect this condition.

Echolalia: Meaningless repetition of another person’s vocalizations. Typically occurs in patients with autism, schizophrenia, Tourette syndrome, and other disorders. (http://psychcentral.com/encyclopedia/echolalia/)

I first was researching this condition because I have a family member suffering from Alzheimer's, and was wondering what the official terminology would be. I very quickly made a connection to my experience with MLM and refuting the redundant points MLMers make when they are defending their companies. In fact, the MLMers retorts are so consistently similar it has become very tiresome and repetitive to continue to reply. I have the utmost respect for my fellow bloggers that continue to repeat themselves as the MLMers continue to respond and deny the issues of their companies with the same canned nonsense. There are very few people that can continuously explain the same problems over and over again with little to no tension. 

I am going to go through a couple of the most famous nonsensical responses, and hopefully people can refer to this page for clarification if they are approached by an MLMer. If you hear something from an MLMer that I did not put on the list, or need further explanation, then I will update as the post gets more hits.

1. MLMs can't be pyramids because they have a product or service.
Not true, never has been true, never will be true, and is completely incorrect by virtue of the definition given by the FTC as stated here, 

"Not all multilevel marketing plans are legitimate. If the money you make is based on your sales to the public, it may be a legitimate multilevel marketing plan. If the money you make is based on the number of people you recruit and your sales to them, it’s probably not. It could be a pyramid scheme. Pyramid schemes are illegal, and the vast majority of participants lose money." (https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/multilevel-marketing)

As you can clearly see from the second sentence, MLMs legality has not been and continues to not be based on the myth of having a product or service.

2. If MLMs are pyramids, then so are corporations (such as home depot) because they are also shaped like pyramids and they should be illegal.
There are a lot of different errors with this logic.

A. MLMs are corporations...so you have already ruined your wonderful logic.
B. Whoppers (the chocolate candy) can come in a milk carton and milk comes in a milk carton, does that make them both the same? Rhetorical question, obviously not. Therefore the logic that corporations having the same shape as MLM makes them the same should also not apply.
C. Home Depot pays everyone a wage dependent on the position they are hired within the company. MLM pays MLMers money based on dollars spent within the company from the MLMers and their downline. If the only revenue they are paying back is less than the dollars spent by their "distributors", then that isn't a real business and certainly isn't anything like Home Depot.

3. My MLM has been around for a long time, therefore it can't be a scam or it would've been shut down.
Bernie Madoff operated a multi-billion dollar ponzi scheme for decades before getting shut down, therefore longevity does not equate to legitimacy.

4. You clearly failed or haven't tried my MLM and therefore you can't make an opinion about it. Let's break this one down into two parts.

a. "You haven't tried or have failed in my MLM." First of all, you have no idea what people have tried or haven't tried, and second of all that is irrelevant...I haven't jumped off a bridge, but I can tell you it is a bad idea if you want to have good health.

b. "You can't make an opinion about it." People have the ability to do research and investigate before getting involved with businesses. Mark Cuban (Billionaire Shark Tank celebrity) makes opinion about business opportunities for a living...you don't see people discrediting him. For the record, Mark Cuban hates MLMs and thinks they are a scam, and I consider him to be a knowledgeable businessman. (http://www.mlmmyth.org/mark-cuban-is-against-mlm/)

5. MLM isn't for everyone.

No kidding...look at any of the income disclosure pages online for these MLMs and you will see it isn't good for about 99% of the people involved (including the person defending the MLM).

6. Some MLMers are bad, but my team is good and we "care" about everyone involved.

I'm still anxiously waiting to meet someone that comes out and admits they are the "bad" MLMer. It would seem everyone knows they exist, but they can't identify who it is and why they continue to make their MLM look bad. It is also hard to say you "care" when you have a financial bias toward the person joining your "team". Finally, why hasn't MLM figured out a way to do something about the "bad" MLMers...some of these companies have been around for 60+ years!

If you have a story involving abuses from your upline and would like me to share it on this blog as a guest post, then please e-mail me and I will be more than happy to post it! Your stories are not as unique as you may think, and your stories are some of the most impactful resources we have to fight MLMs. I will keep your anonymity upon request.

MLM and Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)

For the sake of not having to type out narcissistic personality disorder throughout this post I will shorten it to NPD. NPD is a condition characterized by a lack of feelings for other people while feeling overly important. This is normally diagnosed in adults, because it stems from a long history or pattern of behaviors that most children and teens cannot establish during development. It is easy to suggest that children and teens are narcissistic, because their cognitive development is limited due to their frontal lobe being incomplete. 

Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a disorder that is characterized by a long-standing pattern of grandiosity (either in fantasy or actual behavior), an overwhelming need for admiration, and usually a complete lack of empathy toward others. People with this disorder often believe they are of primary importance in everybody’s life or to anyone they meet. While this pattern of behavior may be appropriate for a king in 16th Century England, it is generally considered inappropriate for most ordinary people today. (http://psychcentral.com/disorders/narcissistic-personality-disorder-symptoms/)

NPD comes in many different forms, but is predominantly found in people that cannot relate to the suffering of others and believe they are the best. This is not to be confused with a high level of self-esteem as this is important to function healthily. An example of a person with NPD can be someone who drives all negativity towards themselves. Let's say two people are talking, and the first person is explaining how they just lost a parent. The second person, who has NPD, may not acknowledge the suffering of the first person, or may simply talk about their own suffering and how much worse it is. Instead of consoling the first person that is suffering, they may make them feel worse or that their problems don't matter, because the second person's problems are worse or the only one that matters. This is why the condition is usually only established in adults, because children naturally think of themselves first, and do not inherently have the ability to sympathize with others.

Does NPD exist in MLM??? Yes, and they take it a step further by conditioning MLMers to develop their own versions of NPD. They teach MLMers to not be sympathetic to the plight of their fellow human beings, and take it a step further by simply suggesting they deserve the problems they have because they are not involved in MLM. Upline condition downline by showing them lives of grandiosity with their large houses, cars, and trips. These material achievements become the only goal as they edify themselves for downline and teach them this particular value system. MLMers teach downline that this is attainable, but are not sympathetic to downlines struggles along the way. They trick downline into believing they are helping others, but they are really helping themselves and have no regard for the losses downline encounters when they continue to put money into a "business opportunity" they can't afford. They tell downline they must continue to purchase training materials, autoships, and seminars with no regard to the other factors of the downlines lives. This in turn spirals as MLMers toward the bottom also have no sympathy for the downline underneath them that are also struggling.

NPD is a naturally occurring condition, but MLM has found a way to embrace it and change other people. They manipulate downline into thinking this is a "winning mindset", when in actuality it is a set of blinders they are putting on blocking out reality. The upline crowns and diamonds are all perfect candidates for NPD, because they have successfully made millions for themselves from the losses of others and are not remorseful.

If you have a story involving abuses from your upline and would like me to share it on this blog as a guest post, then please e-mail me and I will be more than happy to post it! Your stories are not as unique as you may think, and your stories are some of the most impactful resources we have to fight MLMs. I will keep your anonymity upon request.

MLM and PTSD (Post traumatic Stress Disorder)

Today's blog post is going to be very fun for me, and possibly full of tangents, because I spent a great deal of time investigating PTSD (Post traumatic Stress Disorder) in college. In fact, my final paper before graduating was on PTSD in children because it doesn't get nearly enough coverage in the main stream media, and it is a very significant problem. In fact, when most people hear about PTSD they think about military veterans, because we had many commercials for years surrounding the military and this condition. However, PTSD dates back to the beginning of human history, and continues to effect many people from many different backgrounds.

Today's blog post is going to be very fun for me, and possibly full of tangents, because I spent a great deal of time investigating PTSD (Post traumatic Stress Disorder) in college. In fact, my final paper before graduating was on PTSD in children because it doesn't get nearly enough coverage in the main stream media, and it is a very significant problem. In fact, when most people hear about PTSD they think about military veterans, because we had many commercials for years surrounding the military and this condition. However, PTSD dates back to the beginning of human history, and continues to affect many people from many different backgrounds.

Post traumatic Stress Disorder: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating mental disorder that sometimes follows when a person has directly experienced or witnessed an extremely traumatic, tragic, or terrifying event. People with PTSD usually have persistent frightening thoughts and memories of their ordeal and feel emotionally numb, especially with people they were once close to. (http://psychcentral.com/disorders/ptsd/)

PTSD is an extremely virulent reaction to a traumatic experience. The traumatic experiences range in severity depending upon how the person is affected. This makes PTSD extremely difficult to understand and treat, because two people can look at the same situation and have completely different reactions. In fact, identical twins can have different levels of PTSD after witnessing the same traumatic experience. This is why every case of PTSD must be treated in isolation, because none are exactly the same.

Have you ever had friends that seems to struggle with getting past a particular event in their past? That person could be a veteran who watched their friends die while in action, or perhaps a person that was sexually assaulted as a child. PTSD is something that can out of nowhere and completely turn someone's life upside down. Even with therapy and medications, PTSD is still rampant and many people cannot acclimate to life within society. PTSD has many different shapes and forms, but they are all important to identify and talk about.  

Do MLMers get PTSD after they leave??? Undeniably yes...and I am a part of this terrible statistic even though my version of PTSD is not as severe as others. I still get very angry when I see MLMs pop up on my Facebook, I have distanced myself from people I previously considered friends, and most importantly...I started this blog because I still have recurring issues with my MLM experience. I have written my account of the FED (Freedom Enterprise Days) I attended in October of 2015 on many different blogs, and I have written many comments debating against MLM. However, I still have not had closure, and may never have closure until the entire MLM operation is shut down, or if I expire...whichever comes first.

After reading the comments left from my story on other blogs, the stories from other MLM survivors, and the continued posts from MLM bloggers, I have come to the conclusion that PTSD in ex-MLMers is a very serious condition. We have people writing many years after their experience about the damage they did to their friends and family, the personal losses such as money, houses, cars, and the emotional burden on themselves after being taken advantage of as well as taking advantage of the people closest to them.

If you still feel like you are struggling with your MLM experience, have a story you would like me to share on the blog, or simply want to chat about something involving your MLM experience. Please feel free to e-mail me at Thedude2488@gmail.com, and yes that is a Big Lebowski reference.