Archives for 2011

Male Survivors

Coming Soon

Rocking the Relationship Boat

With a month left to go before she graduated from the police academy in Florida, Kelly Rothwell, 35 was moving forward to a new chapter in her life.  Her plans included ending a volatile relationship with her dangerous boyfriend of over 3 years. The boyfriend controlled and monitored her cell phone and computer activity.  When she was out of his radar, the boyfriend stalked her.  Kelly’s training at the police academy would turn her fears and anxieties into strength.

On March 12, 2011, Kelly picked up her keys to her new residence then met with a friend for lunch before heading over to the boyfriends and announcing in person, the relationship was over.  Kelly Rothwell was never seen or heard from again.  Now she joins the thousands of other women who attempted to end the relationship without a solid plan of action.  Law enforcement has since named the boyfriend as a suspect in this case.  It is no surprise he was the last person to see Kelly.

Time and time again we read about women who were planning or have already ended their marriage or relationship, reported missing or discovered dead.  The abuser has a plan and so should you!  Prior to ending the relationship or rocking the boat in a court of law, follow the instructions provided in the book “Time’s Up A Guide on How to Leave and Survive Abusive and Stalking Relationships,” available here at the Institute or  at Amazon.com.   And if you do nothing else, before you announce the ending of your relationship be sure to prepare the Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit and video located in the book.

 

http://murphymilanojournal.blogspot.com/2011/03/intimate-partner-violence-ends-with-no_28.html

Your Medical Conditions–Is the Root Your Relationships?

Many women don’t know that ongoing stress (whether it is recognized or not) leads to very predictable medical conditions. Our mental state is our physical state so women with the worst health issues are often women with the worst emotional stressors.

Women who were raised in addicted, mentally ill, abusive, or pathological families often have the most severe and lingering of medical symptoms and diseases. One reason is that they have an accumulative effect of stress-related disorders because of the length of time they have been ‘stressed.’ Since many women who were in disordered families go on to pick disordered men, their stress simply rolls over into the next relationship. Or if she is able to avoid the disordered intimate relationship, her previous exposure to the disordered family or resulting stress may go untreated. In those cases, the stress is still stored in the body.

We now know that stress has to go somewhere. It goes into your body as deep as the cellular level as well into your muscles and tissues. This type of stress storage can result in diseases that effect the muscles and tissues like MS, Lupus, Fibromyialga.

Stress attacks the immune system and renders it ineffective. This can result in diseases like Chronic Fatigue, Epstein Bar, and other auto-immune disorders like Lupus and Fibro that end up moving from the immune system to the muscles and tissues. (Ever say ‘He’s wearing me out?’ He literally is!)

Stress negatively affects blood pressure–high blood pressure can lead to strokes, heart disease, and other long term diseases. (Ever say, ‘He’s killing me?’)

Stress floods the body with cortisol that produces too much adrenaline in the body causing irritability, sleep disruptions, and fight/flight symptoms. Cortisol effects metabolism which produces weight loss or weight gain especially in the stomach area and blood sugar instability which can lead to hypo glycemia or diabetes. (Ever say “I just feel like I want to jump out of my skin”?)

Stress negatively affects hormones causing chronic menstruation problems, endometriosis, early menopause, PMS, and other female related disorders.

Stress causes inflammation in the body which we now know is the beginning of most disease processes. This can lead to arthritis and other inflammation-based diseases.

Stress causes tension which can be held almost anywhere in the body. This affects the skeletal system resulting in back or neck pain requiring chiropractic adjustments. Sometimes it’s stored in the face that produces TMJ or migranes.(Ever say, ‘He’s such a pain!’?)

Stress causes the release of gastric juices which inflame the throat,stomach and colon resulting in digestive disorders like Irritable Bowel Syndrome. (Ever say he was a pain in your butt?)

Stress negatively affects certain vitamins in your body which get depleted during ongoing stress which can result in fatigue, hair loss, allergies, and skin problems. (Ever say ‘he really gets under my skin?’)

Stress screams to be managed which is why so many women end up with addictions trying to ‘manage’ the chronic stress condition–addictions with anxiety medication, pain meds, street drugs, alcohol, food, sex, religion, and overachieving. (Ever say ‘He is going to drive me to drink?’)

Over the past 20 years of treating women, I’ve seen everyone of these disease processes at work in women. PATHOLOGICAL RELATIONSHIPS ARE A LEADING NEGATIVE CAUSE IN WOMEN’S HEALTH ISSUES ON EVERY LEVEL! If we want to improve women’s health in this country, we need to address these pathological relationships that are killing her!

Stress hides because we are adaptive in some ways and become ‘use to’  the level of stress we are currently under OR have ALWAYS been under since childhood. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t highly damaging our bodies with it. Some women only become aware of their stress if it jumps markedly. By then, you are in the severe category of stress disorders which by that point, you probably have several of the conditions listed above.

By far, the condition of the 21st century for most people is stress. Women with histories of abuse or current pathological relationships have even higher stress levels than people without these contributing factors.  Stress demands to be treated and then managed…either do it now or it will demand it in medical issues.

Many women say they don’t even know where to begin in managing the stress that is contributing to their medical conditions because they have had it so long. On our shopping cart is an mp3 download for Relaxation Techniques for Stress Disorders–that’s a good start. Consider physical exercise, yoga, pilates, some way of metabolizing all those stress hormones. Learn deep breathing, relaxation techniques, or quiet meditation. Find a counselor or a group in order to verbally express the underlying issues of your stress. (We offer phone sessions, tele-support group, retreats and 1:1s with Sandra). Manage addictions of sex, relationship-hopping, drugs even prescriptions, and alcohol.

When assessing your overall health, do consider the underlying possible reasons for your health issues–your emotional stressors and HIM!

(**Information about pathological love relationships is in our award winning book Women Who Love Psychopaths and is also available in our retreats, 1:1s, or phone sessions)

Stress & Adrenal Fatigue

The last two weeks we have been discussing PTSD and it’s use in Legal Advocacy in court regarding
divorce, separation, rehabilitative alimony and child custody. You can read the last two weeks of
newsletters to see how using a PTSD Accommodations Report in Court can help you. And you can
also read up on the differences between PTSD and mental illness if you are concerned with getting
labeled ‘mentally ill’ (PTSD is a stress reaction not a mental illness.)

In many other newsletters I have written extensively about PTSD and recovery. Much of learning to
heal from or live with PTSD has to do with learning to ‘Live a Gentle Life’ that is less stressful. You
can read about PTSD and the Gentle Life coming up soon in the newsletter.

However, PTSD as a stress disorder is an indicator of extreme stress. If you have it, that means you
have suffered an emotional, physical, spiritual, sexual, and/or psychological trauma that was severe
enough or long enough in duration to significantly impact you.

Having a Stress Disorder means two things:
1. You were significantly stressed or traumatized
2. The stress and/or trauma has effected your functioning level.

PTSD can be short term and resolved with treatment within a few months or it can be chronic and life
long, often reactivated by MORE stress or MORE trauma. In my case, I have chronic PTSD that is
reactivated when I am worn down, too stressed, not living a gentle life, or other life events that are
difficult (my mothers death) and reactivate it.

With PTSD, whether it’s short or long term, you are likely to have a reduced level of productivity.
Your concentration can be impaired, sleep is disrupted, you are hyper vigiliant and have an exaggerated
startle reflex, you have anxiety and a mixture of depression, intrusive thoughts,
emotional numbing, flashbacks and panic.

None of this lends itself to being able to work well, consistently, or productively. Even if you are
unemployed, the quality of your daily life is disrupted and your life productivity in your day to day
living is reduced. This is why people often need treatment for PTSD. That could be short or long
term treatment, individual weekly counseling, group counseling, inpatient treatment, or any combination
of those.

PTSD as a stress disorder has it’s long term outcomes in medical conditions as do many other stress
disorders. Unresolved stress and trauma (whether it’s PTSD or every day stress) can, and most often does,
end up in medical disorders. Part of seeking rehabilitative alimony in court with a PTSD diagnosis is because
of the loss of productivity AND because of the long term effects on your health. 25 years after the murder
of my father I am continuing to see the medical outcome of chronic PTSD in my health.

Often in court, women do not know to have their attorneys argue for rehab alimony or medical coverage for
treatment FOR THE FUTURE. So many don’t realize how their health could be impacted now and years
from now.  Stress and PTSD have many long term medical possibilities, including:

* Auto Immune Disorders: Fibromyalga, Chronic Fatigue, Epsteen Bar, Lupus, M.S.
* Various forms of arthritis
* Gastric problems
* Migranes and TMJ
* Female problems
* Ongoing anxiety and depression
* Thyroid and Adrenal Fatigue
* Sleep disorders
* Diabetes
* And most commonly, a combination of these

Settling your divorce or court case with the pathological and NOT considering the future medical outcome
of the stress he produced in your BODY is unwise. Because we do know that many of these stress
disorders and/or PTSD will continue on long after he is gone and in the end, effect a person’s health in
some way. That’s because at the heart of the medical conditions that develop is adrenal fatigue.

Adrenal Fatigue is the culprit must likely associated with medical disorders that go on to develop. Treating
and managing adrenal fatigue could actually prevent many of the disorders that will later develop because of
untreated and unmanaged adrenal fatigue.

Here is a link about it: www.adrenalfatigue.org and the book we took the adrenal fatigue questionnaire from.

Chronic stress wears out the adrenal glands that support other healthy functioning in your body. When
stress, poor diet, lack of sleep and unresolved problems wear out the gland, your body is in a down ward
spiral and cannot heal from stress or PTSD.  To find out if you have adrenal fatigue, we are attaching
a link to the quiz. If you do have adrenal fatigue, this is a stepping stone to other medical conditions if
not treated immediately. More importantly, your body has started down that path. If you are in a court case,
please advise your attorney of the disorder as it may be able to be argued regarding stress disorders
and your need for continued medical coverage and care.

LINK TO ADRENAL QUIZ: http://www.adrenalfatigue.org/adrenal-fatigue-quiz.html

If we can help you resolve your trauma so your body can heal, please let us know.

PTSD As Trauma Disorder Not Psychiatric Illness

Last week we began talking about ‘how’ women can level the playing field in court with a pathological. This could be related to a divorce, seperation, restraining order, or child custody. If you have PTSD, the courts are mandated to offer you special accommodations while in court to protect you and to help your level of functioning due to the PTSD.

As we mentioned, in order to do that you must legitimately have PTSD, be diagnosed and have an Accommodations Report prepared by a professional that is presented to The ADA (American Disability Act). From there, special accommodations are granted. The range and what the accommodations are were listed in last weeks newsletter.

Some people hestitate in getting diagnosed with PTSD because they are afraid of it’s implication to them, their functioning level, or related to a mental illness diagnosis.

First of all, PTSD is a trauma disorder. If you are diagnosed with it, it already implies you have been traumatized. You are going to court regarding your traumatized relationship so it fits and it supports your argument in court as well as the symptoms that have arisen because of this relationship. If he was trauma producing, we need to say so. If we want the court to understand pathology, we need to teach them through our own experiences and relationships if we want the court to change.

Secondly, PTSD does not necessarily have the type of stigma you fear. Our vets that come home from war often, and more often than not, have PTSD. Fighting for our country is honorable–they were doing a good thing and yet were damaged from their experience. The same is true for you.

One of our previous presidential candidates has PTSD. Firefighters and law enforcement who bravely saved many in 911 have PTSD. Missionarys helping the poor in other countries have PTSD. Social Workers working in dangerous situations have PTSD.

I have PTSD. I have lived for 25 years with it. I openly discuss having the disorder–through no fault of my own. I got PTSD from seeing my father’s murder scene. I have worked with others that have PTSD now for 20 years. And because I am a survivor, I live with the effects of chronic PTSD daily. I know how it has changed me, my life, my abilities, my health, and my endurance. I have seen in hundreds of others, how it has effected their lives–sometimes long term.

If you have it, say it. Nothing starts healing until we acknowledge it. It is what it is. Some worry that they will be labeled with mental illness if the court acknowledges their PTSD.

Well, let’s think about that…do you think a pathological is going to go into court and NOT say you are crazy? You don’t think he will argue every point of your illness, behavior, or symptoms (whether they are true or not) in order to win? You don’t think he’s GOING to use some kind of emotional disorder argument? OF COURSE HE IS–that’s what pathologicals DO!! So, in order to prevent being labeled something far worse than PTSD, if you have PTSD, let IT be the label instead of something else that can greatly impair your ability to get rehabilitative alimony, custody of your children, etc.

Having a PTSD diagnosis before court can greatly help HOW FAR the pathological can go in trying to make you look mentally ill. PTSD is NOT mental illness. Having a PTSD diagnosis may help prevent them from labeling you mentally ill with other more debilitating types of mental illness.  So don’t shun the PTSD diagnosis if you have it. It may prevent you from being labeled something far worse.

(**If we can support you in your recovery process, please let us know. The Institute is the largest provider of recovery based services for survivors of pathological love relationships.Information about pathological love relationships is in our award winning book Women Who Love Psychopaths and is also available in our retreats, 1:1s, or phone sessions. See the website for more info.)

The Successful Pathological’s Evil Twin: The Parasite

The Successful Pathological’s Evil Twin: The Parasite

Last week we looked at The Successful Pathological and how he flies in under the radar while women are looking at his success and missing the red flags about his character or behavior. Women can get side tracked by his degree, a noble career like a doctor or blinded by his business bling.The Italian-made shoes aren’t the only thing that can be a loafer! (LOL!!)

Another form of pathology produces what we call ‘parasitic’ behavior which means, like a tick, they live off of others. In one of the pathological disorders,
sometimes they are underachievers and because they need gobs of financial assistance. But not always! Sometimes they AREN’t underemployed at all. In fact, in some of the pathological disorders they are successful AND parasitic.

Wealthy AND parasitic have all the radar busting combination’s to come gliding in under her relationship radar. Wealthy pathological’s may be as parasitic as the poor ones but are usually less identified. It’s not that the wealthy ones ‘need’ the housing assistance by living with you–it’s that they are ‘able’ to get you to let them. It’s a power game and when you say yes, he wins. It’s a ridiculous game that most women don’t even pay attention to in the beginning until it begins to happen over and over again. Most women don’t care about power struggles. But not him because it’s his source of entertainment.

Parasites can latch on for the ride, the entertainment, or to drain you dry. The ‘financially challenged’ ones either try to hide it that they are broke and underemployed until they are already living off of you OR they get in by playing the pity trump card. He just needs a ‘little time to get on his feet.’ Many of them appear to have “the worst luck” when it comes to getting or keeping a good job or manages (according to him) to find horrible bosses. In any case, it’s never his fault, and a new potential turn of events is ‘just around the corner’ if you will just wait it out with him.

The interesting thing about the parasitic life is that it is has more to do with conning than it does any legitimate need. The proof is that even the wealthy ones play the same game.

For the overt parasite, a red flag for women should be guys that always are living with someone else including family. Of course they have a ‘good’ reason usually associated with what appears to be ‘helping others’ (elderly parents, helping pay the rent of his single-mom sister, etc.).

Highly suspicious would be that you never see where they live or how they live. Why? That great condo with the roof deck is really a room in someone’s mobile home. Or there’s a wife and three kids at this house, which are his. Or his house is really a meth lab. Or pick a reason…. The bottom line is there is a reason why you don’t see it and it normally has to do with living different (or off others) that he hasn’t quite disclosed to you.

The big flag the size of the one on the White House would be they want to move in or marry quickly. Is it because they are so into you? Nope. Its because
he wants to betroath your check book before you can verify his income, his job status, his debt load or anything else. In a blink of an eye you are drinking
rum drinks with umbrellas in the Bahamas (oh, and did I mention, on your credit card?)

A flashing billboard would be when they ask you to invest in his potential (and your love bundle!) by going into business with him or helping him finance your ‘rest of your life together’ business. Here’s a clue: If he’s over 28 years old and not living any part of his potential…there’s a reason and it’s usually pathology or addiction or both. If you are over 30, don’t fall in love with anyone’s potential. Either they got the goods or they don’t. And if they don’t, there’s a reason bigger than that sad empathy-producing story they have.

The more covert parasite, if he’s a wealthy pathological story line might be he is ‘giving you an opportunity to invest in his business’ to make some of that return capital that you see him living off of. He’s successful–he must be doing something right? Do you remember Bernie Madoff?

Pete the Parasite also sometimes needs money for their ailing mother, to send out of the country to relatives, or to cover the costs of his children that the psycho-wife is not doing with his paid child support. (Uh, huh….)

If these tactics and lines didn’t work, they wouldn’t use them and I wouldn’t know them. Parasites need hosts.The body of where a parasite lands (like a tick on a dog) is called ‘the host.’ Here’s a time where being a BAD HOST is a good thing!

(**If we can support you in your recovery process, please let us know. The Institute is the largest provider of recovery based services for survivors of pathological love relationships.  Information about pathological love relationships is in our award winning book Women Who Love Psychopaths and is also available in our retreats, 1:1s, or phone sessions. See the website for more info.)

Body Armor In PTSD

Anyone who has sustained contact with a disordered person over time can relate to the concept of body armor-that involuntary tightening of the muscles that is part of the healthy flight/fight response to threat.

This response is especially prominent in those who have lived with a disordered person-dealing with mood swings, intensity, blaming, drama, invalidation, constant bids for attention, emotional and sometimes physical abuse.

Over time, the normal person who is the prime target of the disordered one’s malfeasance can not help but develop chronic tension in his or her muscles. Unless one exercises a great deal, this tension can create ongoing difficulties. Sadly, these difficulties can remain long after the “relationship” is over or contact is diminished or broken off.

What kind of problems result? I like to use the term body armor because it validates the person’s need to protect self on an ongoing basis. The level of tension that can accumulate from living with a disordered person creates aches, pains, muscles and tendons that are easily sprained or torn , and back problems of many kinds.

Frequently there are subsequent problems, such as headaches, PMS,  and muscle weakness. Some medical practitioners believe that fibromyalgia and other chronic muscle diseases are related to living with intense emotional stress. and research by the in the scientific mind-body field is needed to understand if this is so.

In my practice, I have seen and heard stories from women who have lived or are living with disordered men. They describe problems such as constant back issues, sore necks, ongoing injuries to arms and legs related to muscles asked to do work while they re already stretched in the flight/fight mode.

If you see yourself reflected in any of these descriptions, fortunately, there are many options. Unfortunately, women especially, who have lived with a disordered partner, are often reluctant to allocate tie and money on self-care-it seems indulgent. Or, their finances my have suffered as a result of the association with the disordered one.

Here are a few ideas to get you thinking about whether or not it is in your best interest to address body armor physical issues:

1.     Body armor problems are treatable, and relief is highly likely. Most modalities mentioned below have excellent track records.

2.     Treatment of these problems now will most likely mean the avoidance of more serious or chronic problems in the future.

3.     Your physical, emotional health will benefit, as will your ability to be productive at work and home.

4.     You may regain the energy and, stamina and overall health to exercise regularly.

5.     It feels REALLY good to have a therapeutic massage, acupuncture, etc. even if there are intermittent periods of discomfort.

6.     “Treating” yourself to any kind of bodywork under the circumstances is good for your soul-it is a way of saying to yourself, “well, I have suffered but now I am taking really good care of myself.”

7.     The muscle pain and discomfort may be reduced and or go away!

There are too many kinds of bodywork to mention here. Different practitioners are available in different communities. If you can not afford the services of a trained professional, there are still options. One is to find a school of massage or acupuncture where well-supervised students can provide low cost or even free services.

Another option is to work out a buddy system with a trusted friend, with whom you can trade massages. Almost anyone can afford a hot bath; adding oils such as Arnica Montana, a common homeopathic remedy, often used with oral tablets of the same name. Epsom salts baths are also a tried and true option.

There are a variety of options with regard to moist heat on affected areas- microwaved barley products such as Bed Buddy, or even hot, wet towels applied to affected areas. There are a numerous products that provide temporary localized heat that soothe and heal.

In addition to homeopathic resources, the emerging science of the down-regulation of inflammatory processes has given us pancreatic enzymes that reduce inflammation naturally:

http://www.bioticsresearch.com/node/1628

Some of my personal favorites include: Trigger Point Therapy, Cranio-sacral Therapy, and Acupuncture, moist heat, and Arnica used as described above.

Your Profession and Your Lovers

Last week I started this conversation: could your profession indicate ‘who’ you would pick as a partner? Our research in ‘Women Who Love Psychopaths’ showed that many of you worked in professional care giving jobs (or wanted to be). Most of the people who ended up in relationships with narcissists, socios, or psychos were women in these types of careers.

This has HUGE implications for intervention…don’t you think? If by nature we know that women with SKY HIGH temperament traits of too much empathy, too much tolerance, too much cooperation end up in jobs in which empathy/tolerance/cooperation is the #1 skill set, then we also know THESE are the women most likely to go on to empathize, tolerate and cooperate with severe pathology. I doubt any colleges are going to put in their Academic Handbooks “**Caution, This Profession May Be Hazardous to Your Relationship Health**” ! But it’s the beginning of how to think about ‘WHO’ needs this education BEFORE they end up in pathological love relationships.

Once we know ‘who’ this is, the next question is how best to reach these identified groups of women. Who BEST to reach out to their own field than the nurses, teachers, therapists, social workers, etc. who ARE the women who have been touched by these destructive relationships? Why? In our research, almost all the women indicated career and financial harm by the pathological. NO ONE gets out unscathed! This is a career risk for women. Many women are demoted or lose their jobs because of their inability to concentrate or because he sabotages her work situation. Others have lost their entire life savings, putting them in financial ruin. Some have lost their professional licenses—an incredible amount of college work down the tubes. This is why teaching YOUR industry about what these men can do to their productivity, their futures, and their careers is so important.

My hope is that someone from every field we have identified as a potential source will become an educational voice in their industry.

Are you an Alumnus? There’s your market…educate your own. Protect YOUR FIELD by peer education–by writing or speaking about these issues because you are NOT the only one in your field that this has happened to OR will happen to. Your field is an identified ‘at risk field’ that needs what you know.

To illustrate my point, here are some of the many emails I received from women this week:

“I’m not a psychologist or in a helping profession – BUT – I had always wanted to be a psychologist. I did *very* well in psychology courses in school and had plans to continue with that type of career. Psychology always fascinated me.”

“You hit the nail on the head. You left attorneys off the list, but many of us became attorneys because we wanted to ‘help.’ “

“Retired teacher running a private practice for a family doctor. The Pathological and Narcissistic doctor was  my partner, friend, lover and live-in for way too long.”

“I had been a certified nurse’s assistant when I was 17-20. Since then I am a medical assistant in a hospital and am going to school for nursing.”

” A Doctor. I’ve just dumped a pathological narcissist after a 4 month relationship.

“I have worked as a case manager for adults with developmental disabilities for the past 7 years and as a direct care staff during the prior 8 years.  This article seems to hit right at home with me.”

“I am a massage therapist! I am the classic “helper.”

“I have been a Registered Psychiatric Nurse for ten years and in 2006 got swept off my feet by what I eventually learned was a full blown sociopath.”

OK, so here we have it–a pretty well defined area of personality traits that migrate to certain career types so that these personality traits find ‘a home’ in servicing and helping others. They also find a home in the arms of pathological men.

So brainstorm with us! Email us and let us know how to reach the industry you are in. What is the best way to teach your profession about their proclivity to end up in dangerous relationships? What is the best way to teach them about their excessive personality traits that places them at risk? Email us at saferelationships@yahoo.com. THANKS!

I’m Screaming- Are You Listening?

 

“No matter how confused, self-doubting, or ambivalent we are about what’s happening in our interactions with other people, we can never entirely silence the inner voice that always tells us the truth.  We may not like the sound of the truth, and we often let it murmur just outside our consciousness, not stopping long enough to listen.  But when we pay attention to it, it leads us toward wisdom, health, and clarity.  That voice is the guardian of our integrity.” ~Susan Forward

We are taught as young girls to be loyal and trust others.  It is expected that we would trust those who show us love, compassion, understanding.  It is expected that we would be loyal to those who need us, those who provide us nurturing and those to declare us as the one they love.  We are “supposed” to value those actions as meaningful and all inclusive of what is deserving of our trust and loyalty.  It is only in recent years that our society is beginning to teach us to question those actions.  And now, even as we rightfully begin to question those actions many in our society look at that questioning as a radical notion that means we are “neurotic” or “obsessed”.  I mean, when someone tells you they love you, and shows you they love you…why even question them.  It’s there in black and white…the words, the cards, the flowers, the affection.  Isn’t that enough?  Some would even say that a woman as independent as you would be lucky to have someone take you on.  So what if he stays out…alone…way too late?  So what if he views a little pornography?  So what if he chides you in public about your accomplishments?  So what if he cheated on you once?  So what if he makes promise after promise and never keeps them?  He says he’s sorry.  That’s enough.  And through it all you stay.  As expected…you stay, you trust and you show loyalty.  Because if you question…it is you who will appear questionable…it is you who will appear unloyal…it is you who will be untrustworthy…in his eyes and in society’s.

Herein lies the risk: You stay because you have been taught and told that it is the right thing to do.  It is what you “should” do.  You should forgive, stick it out, make it work.  And a pathological needs that loyalty.  He needs you to stay no matter what.  He needs you to help make the pathological mask real.  If you stay (you-who is loving, caring, compassionate, understanding etc, etc…) then he will be associated with all of those things and his façade is made stronger.  You were taught to trust him from the very beginning…from the first tiny betrayal (his lateness to a date, his odd midnight requests, his sexual fantasies that pushed your boundaries) he wanted to see how far you would go and from there he would know that he could trust you.  He balanced all of these betrayals with his confessions of love, dreams for the future…a false sense of safety.

Herein lies the benefit: You can never really silence that inner voice. No matter what we are taught we still have an inner voice…that inner voice that tells us what is right and wrong, what is good and what is bad.  Some might call it a moral compass…leading to integrity.  It’s there all along, sometimes screaming the truth.  In one moment, the voice is clear and loud and unavoidable.  Your ability to hear your inner voice is usually preceded by a particularly disturbing event or maybe a period of no contact.  But when it comes and once it is there you have a hard time silencing it.  Your quest for the truth begins and your search to find and document facts is insatiable.  At the end of your relationship it is this voice that leads you out.  Now, your trust and loyalty turns inward.  You begin to trust yourself and be loyal to your needs.  And with the veracity that drove you to say…you now work that hard to leave.  You now know that the right thing is not always the most socially accepted path or the easy path…but it is the path that is RIGHT FOR YOU.  Leaving may go against everything you were taught and everything you are being told but it leads to safety, security, clarity and peace.

You can evaluate your trustworthiness and loyalty by evaluating the balance in your trust.  Does your need to be trustworthy take priority over your own needs?  Do you trust at the risk of your own self worth, your own value, your own belief in what is right and wrong?  Are you loyal in spite of the inability of the other person to be loyal?  These are boundary issues.  Often times your boundaries were established a long time ago.  They could have been established when you were a girl and you were taught lessons of who you could or should trust.  They could have been established when your trust was broken over and over again by a loved one…leaving you with unclear rules as to who is safe and who is not.  You can rebuild boundaries as an adult.  Breaking down the “little girl” beliefs of safety and reminding yourself that as an adult woman you have power.  Take some time to write down what you stand for, what you believe in, what you will not sacrifice.  You can consider these your new rules…your integrity laid out for you in black and white.  As adults we know that boundaries can be pushed, pulled, removed and reinforced.  So you can move ahead knowing that strength will come as you test these re-established boundaries and make decisions, consciously and mindfully, about what you stand for and of course, always listening to your inner voice.

Professionals in the Helping Industries and Their Personal Pathological Relationships

Are you a doctor, nurse, therapist, social worker, female clergy, medical personnel, paramedic, teacher, psychiatrist, certified nursing assistant, day care worker, guidance counselor, speech therapist, missionary, physical therapist, psychology grad student, art therapist, writer, artist, musician, or work with at-risk kids? Welcome aboard to the group of people MOST LIKELY to end up in a pathological relationship.

Can your career be a risk factor for finding/staying with a narcissist or psychopath? Unfortunately, YES!

Look at that list again…all the ‘hearts of gold’ kind of people–the salt of the earth women–the ‘Mother Teresa’s’ of the world–AT RISK for attracting and staying with dangerous, dark, and pathological men. Seems unfair doesn’t it? Normally, narcissists and  psychopaths don’t migrate to their own kind. In rare occasions they do and you end up with a sensationalized case of a new Bonnie and Clyde. But in most cases, they migrate to you!

During a recent media interview I said, “I think understanding this represents one of the largest breakthroughs in our understanding of dangerous intimate relationship dynamics. For so long we understood him but we didn’t really understand her. She was wrongly labeled codependent but codependency treatment didn’t help her. She was wrongly labeled a relationship or even sex addict and addiction treatment didn’t help her. She was wrongly labeled as mutually pathological and yet she was never diagnosed with her own personality disorder. Nothing fit and nothing explained her until we found the missing key…her ‘off-the-Richter-scale traits’ that put it all in perspective. Once we can understand her, we can help her.”

What we do understand is that by nature of your own tender and helpful personality traits, you migrated to a career in which you could use your abundant traits of empathy, helpfulness, compassion, resourcefulness, cooperation, and tolerance. Where best do these great humanitarian traits get used? In helping professions like social work, ministry, nursing, other medical professions, psychology, teaching, child workers… all people with big hearts trying to give out of their own abundance. By virtue that you even ENDED up in one of these professions means you are probably more at-risk for these types of relationships than others.

In almost ALL circumstances, the women from these relationships are either IN these types of professions or are trying to get in to them…(they are in school or trying to move out of their job into a more giving field). Many of the women who are in these types of professions ended up with the narcissist or psychopath during the course of their actual jobs. Nurses hooked up with patients, doctors married someone they met in the field, psychologists dated mentally ill men, missionaries dated someone from one of the street missions where she worked. Every once in a while we got stories from very left-brained women like CPA’s, but even then, she’s not a typical left-brainer. She’s still has many humanitarian traits.

This has a lot of implications for possible prevention work. Knowing that women in these professions are more likely to have the high risk personality traits means education can begin within these professions. Women need to know that sometimes even their career selection is indicative of what their relationship selection might be as well. So while women may be ‘out’ of the pathological relationship, it doesn’t reduce their overall risk because temperament traits are innate. While you are out, is a great time to learn more about your abundant traits and how to safe guard yourself next time around. Let us know if we can help you become more alert and sensitized to the parts of you that need guarding.

Genetic and Neuro-Physiological Basis for Hyper-Empathy

I heard a universal SIGH go out around the world when women read the title to this article. Don’t you feel better knowing there really IS some science to the whole issue of too-darn-much-empathy?

When we began writing about ‘women who love psychopaths, anti socials, sociopaths and narcissists’ we already ‘assumed’ that maybe you did have too much empathy (as well as other elevated temperament traits). We just didn’t know how much or why. When we began the actual testing for the research on the book ‘Women Who Love Psychopaths‘ we learned just ‘how much’ empathy you had.

Do I need to tell you? WAY TOO MUCH!

But by now you have probably already suspected that your super-high empathy is what got you in trouble in this pathological relationship. But did you know there is hard science behind what we suspected about what is going on in your relationships with your super-trait of high empathy? It really IS all in your head (and your genes).

In fact, these genes influence the production of various brain chemicals which can influence just ‘how much’ empathy you have. These brain chemicals include those that influence orgasm and its effect on how bonded you feel while also influencing some aspects of mental health (No, no! That’s NOT a good mix!).

Other brain chemicals influence how much innate and learned fear you have. However, females don’t seem to assess threats well; the chemicals then increase her social interactions, while at the same time she is not assessing fear and threats well (This is not a good thing!!).

One of the final chemical effects, delays your reflexes (like getting out of the relationship) and also impacts your short and long term memory (how you easily store good memories that are very strong and how you store bad memories which are easily forgotten).   And since it is genetic, it can run in entire families that produce ‘gullible’ and ‘trusting’ individuals who seem to just keep getting hurt.

Of course, the reverse is also true. Genes can influence the absence of various brain chemicals which influence ‘how little’ empathy a person has. We already know in great detail how this affects those with personality disorders. Personality disordered people (especially Cluster B disorders) struggle with not enough (or not any!) empathy.

Over the past few years, we have posted articles on The Institute’s Magazine on various aspects of personality disorders and the brain.  These articles included the issue of brain imaging and what we are finding out about how the brain structure and also how its chemicals can affect personality, empathy, behavior and consequently, the behavior in relationships. As advances are made in the field of neurobiology we are learning more and more what The Institute has always believed which is there is a lot of biology behind the issues of a lack of personality development such as in personality disorders. Genetics and neurobiology are proving that the behavior associated with narcissism, borderline, anti-social personality disorders and psychopathy has as much to do with brain wiring and brain chemistry as it does with behavioral intent.

The Institute has long told survivors that personality disorders are not merely willful behavior, but brain deficits that control how much empathy, compassion, conscience, guilt, insight and change a person is capable of. Autism and personality disorders share a common thread as ’empathy spectrum disorders,’ now being studied extensively within the field of Neuroscience.  But in some opposite ways, the women also share a common thread of an empathy disorder—Hyper-Empathy. We are coming to understand that hyper empathy has much to do with her:

  • innate temperament (you come into the world wired with the personality you have)
  • genetic predispositions to high/low empathy
  • brain chemistry configurations that contribute to high/low empathy

The old assumptions that the women with high empathy were merely ‘doormats’ is not scientifically correct.

Neuroscience with all it’s awesome information has the dynamic power to blow us all out of the murky waters of assuming that our behavior is merely a reflection of our will. As Neuroscience graces our minds with new understanding of how our brains work, it brings with it incredible freedom to understand our own traits and the pathological traits of others.

For a mind blowing book on the genetic and neurobiology of not only personality disorders, but ‘evil’ as well, read Barbara Oakley’s book ‘Evil Genes.’ You’ll find a whole new approach to understanding the biology of the pathological!

<a href=”http://www.amazon.com/Evil-Genes-Hitler-Mothers-Boyfriend/dp/1591026652/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300742709&sr=1-1″ style=”text-decoration: underline;”>http://www.amazon.com/Evil-Genes-Hitler-Mothers-Boyfriend/dp/1591026652/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300742709&sr=1-1</a>

Testing the Edge

Women who end up in dangerous and pathological relationships often end up there because they like (or find interesting) ‘living on the edge.’ They don’t like their lives boring and that extends to liking men who are ‘edgey’ as well. No boring normal ‘geek’ men–Nope! The more the edge/bad boy/outlaw/rebel (or the more you perceive they need some support to keep an honest life afloat) the more you like them.

This ‘edge-walking’ landed you right in the lap of a dangerous and pathological man. In the beginning edgey seems ‘neutral’ — it’s too early to know that his edgey-ness is going to cost you. All you know is he’s a long way from boring and that’s ok with you.

It’s before you knew that:

  • His ‘edge’ is emotionally addicting for you
  • That his edge is narcissism (or worse!)
  • That his edge is about rejecting authority
  • That his edge isn’t the cool ‘James Dean’ type of edge
  • That this edge is all about him
  • That his edge consumes your self esteem for lunch
  • That his edge doesn’t make YOU cool for being with him
  • That his edge doesn’t mean you an ‘in’ girl to love someone like him
  • That’s before your realized his edge isn’t about you or your own enjoyment of everything edgey
  • It’s before you realized his edge wasn’t something for you to ‘tame’ a bad boy or ‘heal’ a wounded one

That’s before you knew that his ‘edge’ can’t be fixed, counseled, medicated, or churched.

His edge can’t be loved into something less savage and more soothing.

That’s before you realized his edge isn’t artsy, educational, intellectual, musical, poetic or religious. His edge isn’t about riding his convertible fast, or having daring sex or risky financial investments. His edge isn’t about his party lifestyle or his command presence when others are around.

That’s before you realized that his edge isn’t about the sad stories he told about his life to use as emotional bonding with you, before you realized that his edge was really just a trail of wounded women behind him. That’s before you realized that his edge was unrelenting lying, broken promises, and changes he could never make no matter how long he promised or how hard he tried.

That’s before your realized his edge really wasn’t brilliance unrecognized, charm unspoiled, or love unrequited.

That’s before you realized that his edge was one thing…and one thing only.

His edge was pathology.

(**Information about pathological love relationships is in our award winning book Women Who Love Psychopaths and is also available in our retreats, 1:1s, or phone sessions. See the website for more info.)

The Dangers of Pit Bulls and Climate Control – Part I

So, I think you all are getting the point of this series so far: psychopaths are a big problem in our world! But it’s not that simple. Take an analogy. Timmy is sick. He caught a bug at school the other week and is down for the count. Thankfully for his parents, they’re somewhat eccentrically obsessed with health and cleanliness and had immediately placed Timmy in a microbiologically sterile bubble in their guest bedroom, before proceeding to decontaminate the entire house and its occupants. The pathogen that threatens the health of those he might come in contact with is successfully locked in. (Unfortunately for Timmy, so is he!) However, Timmy’s parents didn’t factor Sunshine, the family’s pet pit-bull, into their anti-infection equation.

So, one afternoon, while Timmy is reminiscing about his former life outside the bubble, along comes Sunshine who pokes a hole in the bubble’s protective layer with his favorite stick. The highly contagious, airborne infection is now free to surf the air waves of 21st century climate control, and through a series of highly improbable events, Timmy’s sister, parents, dog and goldfish all come down with the nasty bug. The infection then spreads throughout the neighborhood, city, and eventually, the world, as local businessmen who don’t mind an aggressive pat down from the TSA and exposing their genitals to puerile airport security personnel via Peeping-Tom-Technology travel to very serious and important business meetings. So, what’s the point of this? Simply put, psychopaths need a number of things to have their effect in lieu of the direct interaction of personal relationships. Among a psychopath’s best tools to spread his malevolence are fanatic bulldogs and the cold theories of human nature that determine the intellectual climate of a society. It’s through these intermediaries that our bodies and minds are systematically infected – ponerized.

In this article I’ll focus on the latter of these tools. For now, all that needs to be said of the fanatics is that the tenacity of true believers (whether paranoid or just lacking important functionality of the prefrontal lobes) is what keeps pathological social systems in action. Just think of Internet trolls with religion and guns, seeing a Communist or terrorist behind every even slightly ‘liberal’ blogger, and you’ll get the picture. As for the second type of psycho-puppet, they’re a bit trickier to spot. Often intelligent, and highly influential in society, the pervasiveness of their theories in modern Western culture offers them some degree of camouflage. But when those theories are put to the test, they don’t fare too well. Unfortunately for us, very few actually question them, and they’re the cause of many of the world’s biggest problems.

In his book, Born to be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life (New York: Norton, 2009), professor of psychology at the University of California, Dacher Keltner lists some depressing figures. In the last fifteen years, levels of trust among Americans have dropped 15%; feelings of social anomie, loneliness, and unhappy marriages are on the rise; people have fewer close friends, babies have less physical contact with their parents, and American children’s well-being ranks twentieth in a list of 21 nations. Keltner traces this overall decline in social well-being to what he calls the Homo economicus ideology of human nature. He writes:

This ideology has influential advocates from Sigmund Freud to evolutionary theorists. The strongest proponents of this view are found in the halls of economics departments. Their characterization of human nature [is] known widely as rational choice theory … First and foremost, Homo economicus is selfish. Every action of Homo economicus is designed to maximize self-interest, in the form of experienced pleasure, advances in material wealth, or, in evolutionist thought, the propagation of genes. … Competition is a natural and normative state of affairs. … Cooperation and kindness are, by implication, cultural conventions or deceptive acts masking deeper self-interest. … The conclusion: These generous acts are evolutionary “misfires” or “strategic errors” … (pp. 8 – 9)

Keltner mentions just a few such theorizers: the already-mentioned Freud, Ayn Rand, Machiavelli (“in general [mankind] are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain”), and George C. Williams (Natural selection “can honestly be described as a process for maximizing short-sighted selfishness”). To this list we may add Karl Marx (for whom material conditions shape consciousness) and Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679), who thought that so long as there were no strong authority to keep them in line, humans were naturally “in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man” (quoted in Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (New York: Penguin, 2002), p. 7). In other words, human nature is so wretched (i.e. self-serving, distrustful, malicious) that a strong authority (i.e. church or state) is needed to keep society from descending into social chaos. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. As Keltner describes it, such a view of human nature offers only part of the picture. Without the very real qualities of equality, compassion, cooperation, gratitude, love, laughter and nurture, our families and societies would fall apart. These emotions and values are what bring, and keep, people together, and coincidentally (or not), they are the very qualities lacking in psychopaths.

In fact, some big clues to this can be found in Adam Curtis’ 2007 documentary The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom . In it, Curtis shows the influence of “simplistic model[s] of human beings as self-seeking, almost robotic, creatures” on modern economics and politics (are we seeing a pattern here?). One such model is the “Game Theory” of mathematician and Nobel Prize winner in Economics John Nash, whose life was whitewashed in the Hollywood film A Beautiful Mind. Importantly, Nash was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, although in my opinion “schizoidal psychopathy” is a better fit. His arrogant, cold-hearted, and disturbed mind is dealt with at length in Sylvia Nasar’s biography of the same name. Nash’s view of human nature influenced the development of his “game” scenarios, which in turn greatly influenced official Cold War policies.

According to Nash, human beings are selfish and distrustful by nature, and the only way to create social stability is through the cultivation of suspicion and self-interest. In one of his games, players must choose to trust or betray their gaming partner in order to either lose or gain benefits. Trust only works if both sides choose to do so. If your opponent “screws you”, however, you lose more than you would if you screwed him as well. The choice with the greatest payoff is thus to betray your partner, who in turn betrays you. According to Nash, as well as other economic theorists like Friedrich von Hayek and James M. Buchanan, this is how humans actually operate: motivated entirely by self-interest and constantly calculating and anticipating the malicious intentions of all others. Homo economicus. Life is one big game of screwing others over, and coming out on top.

That’s great in theory, I suppose. However, in practice, the only individuals who consistently played the games in such a manner were psychopaths and economists (!). When the games were played by the experimenters’ secretaries, they always chose the mutually beneficial trust scenario, that is, the normal, human response. And while these theories of economic and political “freedom” were embraced by politicians such as Margaret Thatcher and continue to determine economic and government policies in Western societies, as Curtis concludes, when they are put into practice they actually lead to “corruption, rigidity, inequality.” See how far Timmy’s bug can spread?

As can be seen by the names mentioned above (Machiavelli, Hobbes, Marx, etc.), the view of humanity as nothing but selfish imps has long held sway. Religious traditions have taught their believers to view themselves as “special” and set apart from the rest of humanity, which is seen as wretched, brutish, amoral, and Godless. (In other words, Homo economicus-lite; only the others are evil.) It is so universal that it seems to be a rule among religious sects, whether in the Talmudic view of goyim, the Christian view of the “un-saved”, or the Muslim view of the kafir. So, too, in political theories. As the game theory tests showed in The Trap, normal people tend trust one another. It is “intra-species predators” such as psychopaths who are themselves distrustful by nature, and who then inspire distrust in others; who are selfish, and inspire selfishness in others; and who wish to be the ones controlling the rabble of humanity.

Adult Children of Narcissistic, Psychopathic, and Borderline Parents

Nothing is sadder or more destructive than not getting your needs met as a child because your parents were pathologically disordered. Narcissism, socio/psychopathic, antisocial or borderline are just four ways that your parents could have been pathologically disordered. There are a number of other ways and diagnosis as well.

But the fact remains that so many children raised by pathological parents (whom are often also addicts) grow up seeing the world through the eyes of the pathological. We call that ‘the pathological world view.’ No matter how you cut it, children are influenced, for the good or the bad, by the parents who raise them. That’s because we largely come to see the world, ourselves and others through their eyes. If they are healthy and normal people–that view of others and ourselves is a good thing. If they are dangerous and pathological, the view of others and ourselves could be a bad thing.

There are a number of aftermath effects of pathological parenting that you may have recognized in your own life–choices, patterns, feelings, behaviors that have negatively influenced your life.

  • You may be plagued with self-doubt
  • Low self-esteem
  • Chronic caregiving of others
  • A total disregard for your own needs or self care
  • You could battle depression or chronic anxiety
  • Or fight nagging pessimism about your future or the world around you
  • You might be dangerously naive never trusting your own instincts and being constantly taken advantage of
  • You could have eating disorders, sexual addictions/other sexual disorders
  • Or obsessive compulsive behaviors
  • You could medicate your feelings with drugs or alcohol
  • Or find abusive religious affiliations to take up where your pathological parents fell away
  • You may have emotional intimacy problems or jump from relationship to relationship fearing abandonment or being alone
  • Or you may engage in what they now call ‘sexual anorexia’ — the forbidding of yourself to ever be intimate or loving with someone else

While you may ‘understand why’ your parents behaved like they did or you are engulfed in compassion and pity for their illness, the rubber meets the road at the point where your needs went so chronically unmet that you now have your own emotional problems because of what you didn’t get at those crucial developmental points of your life. Compassion, pity, forgiveness and understanding about their disorder only goes so far as it doesn’t help you get what you never got from the most important people in your life.

Today, your choices in relationships can be largely influenced from pathological parenting. Picking dangerous and/or pathological men for relationships is often a devastating side effect of pathological parenting. Growing up learning how to normalize abnormal behavior is a set up for accepting pathology into all areas of your life—your boss, your friends, your partners. Becoming aware of your relationship choices is a good first start but may NOT be the only intervention you need in order to grieve your childhood losses and stop trying to fix pathologicals by having intimate or parenting-type relationships with them. You can’t fix your own pathological parenting deficits through a relationship with someone else. That can only be done one-on-one with yourself.

If you are sick of self sabotaging your own life, relationships, career, success and future because of what you might not have gotten in your childhood, there is help and hope. You don’t have to be a slave forever to your past.

Join us for the ‘Adult Children of Narcissistic, Psychopathic and Borderline Parents’ support group. If you are ready to make healthy choices you didn’t have the skills for before, then contact us for jump start on your recovery.

(**Information about pathological love relationships is in our award winning book Women Who Love Psychopaths and is also available in our retreats, 1:1s, or phone sessions. See the website for more info.)

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