Archives for 2015

Since Valentine’s Day is upon us, I thought it would be a great discussion about what happens in Pathological Love Relationships— that attraction is on over­drive while love (from a pathological) is lingo­bling.

But what about real love – healthy love? People ask all the time ‘When are you going to write How to Spot a Healthy Partner because with as many bad relationships as I’ve been in, I can hardly tell the difference between what should be obviously toxic and what should be obviously healthy.’

The opposite of healthy love is what we often call ‘toxic’ love. Sometimes understanding what toxic ‘looks like’ helps us to see what real ‘love’ should look like too.

Here is a short list of the characteristics of Love vs. Toxic Love (compiled with the help of the work of Melody Beattie & Terence Gorski).

Love is not supposed to be painful. There is pain involved in any relationship, but, if it is painful most of the time, then you are probably in a Pathological Love Relationship. The end result of these relationships is ‘Inevitable Harm.’ Let’s be clear – there is nothing wrong with wanting a relationship – it is natural and healthy.

If we can start seeing relationships not as the goal but as opportunities for growth then we can start having more functional relationships. A relationship that ends is not a failure or a punishment – it is a lesson. And these lessons are mostly about pathology, its permanence, and the lives it affects without discrimination.

(**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, on-on-ones, or phone sessions. See the website for more information).

© www.saferelationshipsmagazine.com

The month of ‘lluuuvvvv’—Valentine’s Day–the time where everyone thinks about their relationships. But at this time of year, we are thinking of it mostly in romantic terms. In our surveys, we have found that women spend far more time on learning how to ‘attract’ or ‘keep’ a relationship, then looking at the health of it, or leaving it.

If you look at most of the relationship books, it’s all about how to find him, attract him, keep him, and get back together with him. But what if what you always seem to attract is unhealthy men? Then your Guy Magnet is not a good thing. Women who have been in dangerous relationships are often more ‘attracted to’ the bad boys then healthy men. In fact, most women say that if given the choice between the ‘nice guy’ and the ‘edgy bad boy’ they would pick the guy with ‘the edge.’ Women say they often don’t even know what ‘healthy’ is in a relationship. Even knowing that they don’t know what ‘healthy’ is does not slow them or stop them from dating until they figure out what healthy looks like. They keep doing the same thing and getting the same thing–dangerous relationships.

TIME OUT: GAME OFF! If your last 3 or 4 relationships have been unhealthy or even downright dangerous, STOP. Put yourself on a ‘Do Not Date Program’ until you get some help to find out ‘how to spot’ unhealthy and dangerous relationships. YOU CAN’T CHANGE WHAT YOU DON’T SEE.

What are some ways to find ‘Safe’ love?

1. Stop dating until you can learn to recognize the difference between healthy and unhealthy. If you can’t name the 14 signs of a bad dating choice, you shouldn’t be dating! If you want to know what those are–get the book How to Spot a Dangerous Man.

2. How are your break up skills? Women worry more about their dating skills then their break up skills. But if you keep picking the dangerous guys, you better know how to quickly and safely end it! These guys do not break up like normal men do. Additionally, women who have been in more than one dangerous relationship tend to be women who wait to be ‘released from the relationship’. That means they wait for him to end it and stay far longer than they feel safe doing. However, since they don’t know ‘how’ to end it, they don’t. To find ‘safe’ love, learn how to break up.

3. You steer the ship. Women often let the man decide the pace of the relationship–how often they see each other and how fast they get serious. Guess what? Predators have agendas. They want to see you 24/7, they want you to ‘think’ you have this fast and deep relationship when you’ve only been dating a few weeks or months. You are their ‘soul mate’ and it’s ‘never been like this with anyone else.’ 24/7 does NOT mean he’s ‘that into you.’ It is often a red flag for predatory agendas. Women should be in charge of the pacing. If you have been doing the 24/7 Tango, pull the plug. Tell him you need a breather for a few days and would like to get to a normal dating schedule (a few times a week). Normal men will accept that. Pathological and dangerous men will guilt you, rage, blame you, accuse you of seeing other people, threaten to break up, call you/text you 40 times a day. That’s NOT normal. But it’s best you see that now rather than when he has moved in. Women should always PLAY with the pacing and see what kind of reaction he displays.

4. Learn his history. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. What is his past? If you feel like you can’t take his word for it, then for $29.95 you can find out ALOT about what he has been up to in the past. Things I always look for as a therapist are his criminal history, his relationship history, his mental health history.

And contrary to what he might be saying, all the other women weren’t ‘witches, psycho, or ignorant.’ His relationship history is his alone and points to how successful he is at handling the challenges and hurdles of relationship life.

5. Listen to others. STOP dissing your girlfriends when they tell you the TRUTH about him. The people around you are your best opportunity to hear about him, to tell you if they are concerned about something, to tell you if you have changed for the worse during this relationship, or to point out patterns they notice in the men you choose. Take your fingers out of your ears and hear it.

Women who want healthier and safer relationships have to begin by acknowledging what they have been in up until now and take the steps to learn and change.

(**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, on-on-ones, or phone sessions. See the website for more information).

 © www.saferelationshipsmagazine.com

We live in an instant society: instant messaging, twitter, drive through food, microwaves, text messaging, ipods/ipads and smart phones–just about anything we want NOW we can have in an instant. No wonder we have confused the speed of technology with relational speed. After all, isn’t this the decade of speed dating and fast relationships?

The problem is that there is no way to rush REAL intimacy. Speed dating does not = relationship security and knowledge about the other person. There is only one way to know someone and that is through adequate time. There are no short cuts.

Many people think that if you substitute the time you would spend with someone over a year in a relationship of knowing them and squeeze that time into a 24/7 relationship, then you will get the same results. Very often there is an inappropriate pacing in relationships in which people early on begin to spend 24/7 with a new person. They give up their outside hobbies, friends, families, other relationships, and lifestyles. They think that if someone WANTS to spend 24/7 with them, they must be ‘really into them.’

Over the years as a mental health counselor, I have found there are a number of reasons why people want to rush relationships. Sometimes it’s because they want to usher you into the center of their lives before you find out their history. They want you really tied-in to the relationship before you find out why no one else has wanted a relationship with them. Other times it is because the person has a hard time being alone. That is never a good sign.

The inability to be alone is often related to other mental health issues. Fast paced relationships can be a distraction away from their own feelings and issues.

I always suggest that the woman be in charge of the pacing of the relationship. If she has been 24/7 with someone, stop! Not only because it’s unhealthy but also to see what he will do with the change of pace in the relationship. Make other plans, see friends, don’t be so available. Healthy persons will accept the pacing change. They may not like it, but they will honor it. Unhealthy and even dangerous persons will blame, shame, and guilt you. This should be a red flag as to whether this person is someone safe to date.

Rushing a relationship–whether it’s dating 24/7, moving in early together, or marrying within the first year is a mistake that renders not enough time to truly know a person. This includes the persons ‘true’ (as opposed to ‘stated’) background, their character, and maybe their own dangerousness. It takes time to build a healthy relationship. It takes no time at all to imitate one.

(**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, on-on-ones, or phone sessions. See the website for more information).

 © www.saferelationshipsmagazine.com

Recovery and finding your path to emotional wellness from pathological love relationships isn’t a quick and easy ‘done deal’. When women get mild relief from the unrelenting symptoms of the aftermath with a pathological, it can be very palatable to them.  The relief from the intrusive thoughts, obsessions, PTSD, poor sleep, hyper-vigilance, or any other problematic symptom can feel “healing” to them.  But it doesn’t always mean they ARE healed.

Over and over again, I have learned how damaging, how unrelenting, the aftermath is from pathological relationships.  For some women, it reaches all the way back to childhood with pathological parents.  For others, it has only been in their intimate relationships during adulthood, yet it has left its distinguished mark.

Mild relief can often be mistaken for recovery.  Recovery is a lifelong journey of self-care.  Recovery can begin at the moment you recognize the damage done to you by pathological individuals, but it doesn’t end with a counselor or a group.  For many women, the symptoms have crept into their worldview—how they see others, their environment, and themselves.  I learn again and again, as I meet with women, that the damage is widespread.  This isn’t a quick fix or often, a quick treatment.  While your mild relief of symptoms instills relief or hope, it isn’t the end of your recovery journey.  It’s the beginning.

Like peeling an onion, each layer shows a level of damage that needs care.  All the way down to the core are layers of unperceived and unrecognized aftermath symptoms.  At the core are boundary issues—those necessary limits that show that someone understands what is your’s, someone else’s, or God’s.  From the center of boundaries are gates that must be developed to serve as limits saying what one will and will not tolerate.

Boundaries are the bedrock of all recovery.  Anything that is built will be built from the issue of healthy or unhealthy boundaries.  Many women don’t realize that pathological people target women with poor boundaries.  The pathological tests this out early in the relationship, and when small boundary violations are not managed, they proceed with bigger violations. Every violation is a green light to the pathological. Learning how to establish healathy boundaries is the first step in recovery.

In another layer of the onion lays hyper-vigilance issues. High harm avoidance from PTSD weaves a level of distrust in new environments, people, and situations.  It affects fear of the future and even fear of the present.

Yet another layer of the onion is communication—the ability to listen in the midst of upset. Since pathological individuals have skewed communication, this area is often seriously affected. Long-term exposure to pathological people produces the same type of skewed communication patterns and linguistics in women who have normalized the abnormal behavior of pathologicals.

A layer of emotional regulation is most assuredly part of the aftermath— many women experience anxiety, depression, irritability, the overflow of pent-up emotions, and the inability to control their emotions.

In layer after layer are aftermath symptoms that must be peeled away and treated in recovery.  Everyone knows there are many layers in an onion.  While it may be disconcerting to see all those layers, the layers are translucent and show the wounding in each level that recovery must touch.

Women who have begun recovery may be surprised at what feels like the unending layers of an onion, and wonder when they will reach the core.  Mild relief from anxiety or sleeplessness is welcomed, but should not be viewed as more than it is.  Reaching to the core is deep work and should be respected for the lengthy process it is likely to be.  What other choice is there?

Whether you begin at the core with boundaries, or start at the outer edge with symptom management and work into the core, allow the process because there is no healing without it.  We must never underestimate the damage done by pathological individuals at a deep emotional, and, even spiritual, level.

(**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 information).

© www.saferelationshipsmagazine.com

On New Year’s Eve, I had a silent burning bowl ceremony. I burned everything that hurt me–just burnt that crap into ashes. Every cyberstalker, every hateful word, every hurtful person, everything that kept me looking over my shoulder, every lack.

I thought, “What would Joyce say?” She’d say, ‘Screw fear.’

So I got a beautiful crystal bowl to say good bye to every horrible yet familiar thing from my life. And I sat on my porch laying to rest everything broken in me and in my life. I set the crap on fire. I said a prayer and wrote all the pain on a piece of paper and watched it burn into crinkled ribbons of memory that only God should have.

It wasn’t a resolution. It was as Emily Dickinson said, “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.” It was feathers for my future. And with feathers and hope I wrote a list, which was a prayer with tears, to God for 2014. Asking for things that are so simple, especially for a God so big….simply heal my body, simply heal my heart, simply heal my life, simply heal my mind, simply heal my needs–all the ones I don’t even know I need. Open your feathers and let me snuggle under your wing–hide me in the Shadow like the scripture says—the favorite one that I run to when I am scared, which is all the time.

On January 1st I took a tiny table to the corner of my room and turned a chair towards it. Facing a corner that, in school, would have been punishment, but for me, now, was really the edge of the Wing I asked for. I put a candle in a glass that was Joyce’s so that I was not alone when I prayed “Where two are more gathered….” and I set an alarm on my phone, the sound of a harp, to remind me every day that the angels call me to the feathers and the wing to pray.

I sit there every day under the Shadow and I simply breathe in gratitude and breathe out whatever that crap was that burned up in the bowl that night. I suck in, deep into my lungs, every provision for friendships, for community. I thank in advance for every restorative touch to what cyberstalkers took from me. For every love that will pour into my life that has been gone. For every book that will be sold, for every cell in my body to be blessed with holiness that can cure anything….

The Shadow, the feathers, the edge of the wing changed my life that January. Each day I laugh out loud as grace and mercy drops fall like rain into a parched dry life. Feathers everywhere…feathers in my email, feathers in my mail, feathers in my phone, feathers in my heart. When the harp calls, I run to the corner with Joyce and fall under the wing in gratitude and drink….That’s all I have to do — breathe and drink.

(**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 information).

© www.saferelationshipsmagazine.com