Have you noticed that some people get overwhelmed and shut down when unexpected or stressful situations unfold, whereas others navigate them with comfort and ease? Why is it that some people thrive so thoroughly in chaotic situations that they actually seek them out any time life gets a bit too calm and boring for them?
Unsurprisingly, there are a number of psychological reasons why some of these individuals simply can’t cope unless some chaos is unfolding in their lives, and here’s why:
1. It’s their baseline of “normalcy.”
Everyone has different baseline standards of normalcy, depending on what their formative years were like. People who grew up in calm, supportive environments tend to be unnerved when dealing with chaos, whereas those who grew up in frenetic families are far more comfortable when things are tumultuous.
In some cases, they’ve become so inured to chaos that they don’t know how to function without it. Since their early lives were forged in pandemonium, they’re unfamiliar with calm situations and can even find them uncomfortable or dangerous to navigate. As a result, they seek out chaos because it’s familiar and comfortable. It’s kind of like how career soldiers have no trouble drifting off to sleep with gunfire echoing around them, but have insomnia in a quiet, peaceful home environment.
2. It’s an oblique form of “valid” procrastination or avoidance.
For a lot of people, a bit of chaos in their lives provides them with valid excuses for not dealing with things they’d rather avoid. Maybe they’re procrastinating about getting responsibilities done, or there are health concerns that they’d rather not think about. As such, having chaos in their lives means that they have something external to blame for why they aren’t prioritizing other things. Essentially, it’s a form of avoidance.
If there isn’t naturally occurring chaos in their own lives, they’ll seek it out. As an example, they may latch onto someone who’s going through hardship and insist that they need to help that person, or they’ll join a cause that creates ripples of upheaval and dedicate themselves to it (at the expense of their own issues).
3. They get bored if they don’t get regular dopamine and adrenaline spikes.
Some people are more prone to experience boredom than others, and a lot of this has to do with dopamine. For some, it’s a matter of brain chemistry. People with ADHD, for example, have dysregulated dopamine systems, meaning their brains require significantly higher levels of stimulation just to feel engaged or motivated.
For others, it’s rooted in depression, past trauma, or even age-related changes in dopamine sensitivity. Whatever the underlying cause, the result is much the same: a baseline state that feels frustratingly flat, and a constant search for something — anything — that makes life feel vivid again.
Many of these people have experienced — and enjoyed — the rush of dopamine and adrenaline that chaos can inspire in a person. As a result, they prefer to have a bit of chaos and drama in their lives because that’s the only time they feel truly alive. This is particularly true for people with ADHD, who don’t simply find boredom unpleasant in the way most people do, but who find the experience of boredom almost physically uncomfortable.
It’s rather like how some people dump salt or intense hot sauce on everything they eat, so the flavors they experience are more powerful. People whose dopamine systems are muted usually need to “turn up the volume” on their experiences in order to keep enjoying existence. Without chaos, their lives are emotionally greyed out and bland.
4. Being chaotic makes them the center of attention.
Most of us have known people who don’t fare well unless they’re receiving a lot of attention from other people. Quite simply, their sense of self-worth is dependent upon how many people are pouring time and energy their way, often as a result of conditional love or inconsistent caregiving in the formative years.
As such, some of them will either muckrake to create drama or otherwise cause a disturbance in order to get a reaction out of those around them — like bringing up a sensitive secret at a holiday dinner. Others will create a scenario in which they can play up victimhood or neediness so they’ll receive comfort and attention.
For example, a person who’s feeling jealous about not having been invited to someone’s party (or wedding) might fake a mental health crisis so mutual friends will be forced to choose between helping them or going to the aforementioned shindig.
5. They want something juicy to talk about to maintain others’ interest.
People who don’t feel confident about just being themselves with their peers often use gossip or other sensationalized topics as a means of keeping others interested in them (or at the very least, what they have to say). As such, they often collect others’ secrets, like playing cards, and offer them up as fodder to keep their social circles active. Social psychologists describe gossip used in this way as a type of social currency that actually serves an important purpose in some contexts.
The problem is that this usually causes even more chaos because they inevitably have to break some people’s trust in order to pander to others. The gossips generally prioritize the people they want most in their lives, and sacrifice their relationships with those of lesser interest or social standing.
Later, if priorities shift or the cool social group discards them, they may go running back to the very people they’ve betrayed — usually with a sob story or two — with heartfelt apologies and the hope of being embraced back into the fold. They inevitably repeat the process until they’re permanently ostracized.
6. Self-sabotage to break things before someone else can do it.
It’s a sad truth that many people are so terrified of losing something that’s important to them that they’ll sabotage the situation to spare themselves potential hurt down the road. Something like a calm, comfortable, devoted relationship that they can count on and trust is so appealing to them that they’re more afraid of having it and losing it than living without it forever.
As a result, they seek out or create a bit of chaos to potentially break the goodness that’s unfolding. Maybe they’ll cheat on their partner with a stripper at a friend’s bachelor party or start a fight with their partner’s family. The chaos that ensues gives them an easy out from the “too good to be true” situation they’re in.
Once that cup has been shattered, so to speak, they’re free to grieve in comfort and security rather than being constantly worried about their dream life being taken away from them. They destroyed it, so nobody else could.
7. They’re trying to fix a past issue by re-creating it.
A lot of people have experienced serious hardships or issues with people in their past, but never had closure about them. Maybe the person they had difficulty with died before they could resolve things, or they were ghosted and never had a chance to work through what happened with that individual.
As a result, they keep trying to re-create whatever they went through by using others as stand-ins for the person they needed resolution with. Psychologists call this the “repetition compulsion,” and it’s one of the key reasons people continually recreate unhealthy relationship patterns.
It’s as though they can’t see those people as individuals, but are instead more like action figures they’re using to role-play what they went through in order to resolve that issue once and for all. As such, the chaos they create revolves entirely around gaining the closure they desperately need.
8. They are managing low-level generalized anxiety.
Generalized anxiety is a terrible thing to deal with. The individual’s nervous system is telling them that there are potentially deadly threats looming around every corner, so they’re constantly on high alert.
Chaotic circumstances give chronically anxious people a tangible focal point to deal with rather than constantly battling with the shadow demons their minds are intent on conjuring up. Because if they don’t have major, concrete issues to navigate, they end up spiralling due to their own imagined fears and fixations. With chaos, their intangible worries can fade into the background because they have to triage the very real crises unfolding before them.
9. Histrionic personality disorder.
Like other cluster-B disorders, histrionic personality disorder (HPD) involves unstable emotions and a difficulty with emotional regulation. People with HPD have a disordered sense of self-image, and love to be the center of attention because they have an overwhelming need to be noticed by those around them.
As a result, they’re drawn to (and often stir up) drama and chaos because doing so puts them at the center stage. They’re often highly emotional (i.e., with reactions being disproportionate to their experiences), and they may behave inappropriately to seek attention from others, including being flirtatious with friends’ spouses or dressing in a hyper-sexualized manner to ensure that all eyes are on them.
While HPD tends to run in families, psychologists believe this is not purely due to genetics, but rather a complex combination of genetic vulnerability, environmental influences, and learned behaviors. It can also stem from childhood neglect or abuse, so individuals with this disorder aren’t behaving this way because they want to — it’s often a trauma response.
Final thoughts…
A tiny bit of chaos can be beneficial in our lives now and then because it encourages us to cultivate new coping strategies, resilience, and creative problem-solving approaches for anything life may throw at us. What’s more, people who feed off chaos are often excellent under pressure, and this can make them excellent in a crisis situation.
That said, when people seek out or create chaos as an avoidance strategy, or to liven up a seemingly stale existence, it becomes an unhealthy behavior with long-term health effects. And it’s a good sign that the individual in question might benefit from working through the underlying reasons — either on their own, or with professional help from a good counsellor or therapist. Chaos may be fun sometimes, but it’s ultimately detrimental in the long run.
