Histrionic personality issues often start in childhood. Many children are taught by parents how to get the attention and affirmation from them by way of appearance. They may discover that taking on the persona of an adult or even a princess gets them the positive reaction they are looking for. For some people appearance is a way of testing to see how grotesque they can look and still be accepted. For others, who may have been bullied or taunted as a child, an outrageous appearance is genuinely used to "be scary" and keep people away. Sometimes, due to a wounded spirit, we see ourselves as unloved and unlovable which cause us to try new hairdos, the latest fashions, sag our pants or get tattoos in order to get people to notice us. Painful experiences while growing up, just as our personalities and identities are forming, can cause us to form certain habits and patterns early in life that we continue using even though they can be dysfunctional for us as adults. Ironically the histrionic personality is prone to adopt an outrageous appearance designed to attract positive attention only to illicit unfavorable responses. We continue blindly doing things we learned as children even though they no longer work.