An American Tragedy: A Serious Diagnosis And No Health Insurance

http://www.forbes.com/sites/crime/2012/06/21/an-american-tragedy-a-serious-diagnosis-and-no-health-insurance/

What Will You Do?

In May 2012, Vicki Bolling lay dying in her front yard, shot three times by her husband.  The local news reports say that the death of Ms. Bolling was no surprise to her sons.  According to news accounts, her sons report that she suffered years of physical and emotional abuse that included threats, manipulation and intimidation.  She was married for 30 years.  Her son, John Stevenson, is quoted as saying “She is the only one in the world who could love a monster.” (Tampa Bay Times, May 10, 2012)
We know that she is not the only one…we know that loving a “monster” is possible.  For women that love psychopaths, love and monster often exist in the same thought.  The problem is, someone who has never been in the midst of this level of psychological trauma may not understand…they don’t understand why women stay…why women don’t see how bad he is.  This lack of understanding of the power of pathology is killing women.

Domestic homicide is preventable.  The mission of the Fatality Review Committee in Pinellas County, Florida is to convey that message.  It is the responsibility of the Pinellas County Fatality Review Committee to bring to the table members of the community who share a vested interest in uncovering patterns related to local domestic homicides.  In the last twelve years, the team has reviewed 103 cases.  Cases are reviewed only after they have been finalized in the criminal justice system.
Domestic homicide, both locally and nationally, does not occur in a vacuum…there are warning signs and in a community, there are trends.  Our report, published in May 2012, outlines the seven trends in our community for domestic homicides.

1-In 89% of cases there had been no contact with the local domestic violence center.  Domestic homicide is preventable when victims reach out to domestic violence centers for safety and resources.
2-In 89% of the cases there had been no referral to a batterer’s intervention program.  Domestic homicide is preventable when perpetrators connect with batterer’s intervention programs and their underlying behaviors and beliefs are addressed.

3-In 88% of cases there was a male perpetrator and female victim.  Domestic homicide is preventable when our society shifts to the belief that all people are of equal value and control over others is no longer the standard.

4-In 85% of cases there was no injunction for protection filed.  Domestic homicide is preventable when victims are encouraged to file injunctions for protection and have access to information and safety planning to assist in the process of leaving.

5-In 76% of cases substance abuse was a contributing factor.  Domestic homicide is preventable when those who have a substance abuse problem are assessed for issues related to violence, both perpetrators and victims.

6-In 68% of the cases the perpetrator had a prior criminal history.  Domestic homicide is preventable when criminal history is identified as a pattern of behavior and the information is made openly available to victims and during domestic violence court hearings.

7-In 69% of the cases friends, family, coworkers and/or neighbors were aware of previous violence. Domestic homicide is preventable when everyone in the community takes a stand against violence; stop asking why she doesn’t leave and start asking what you can do to help her leave.

These trends mean something.  A “trend” refers to the idea or awareness of repeated, connected events.  It’s not a black and white predictor but rather a clue to a potential.  Trends are used in many areas of our lives.  Many follow financial trends or housing market trends; some look at trends related to medical issues and even trends in our environment.  Those that use trends take advantage of facts and information found in the reality of our lives…trends don’t rely on the maybe’s of the past, but rather the truth that exists in the past.
What is powerful about trends is their ability to provide safeguards as well as hope.  Trends help us connect missing pieces to prevent poor choices, and they help us highlight information that will lead to improved choices.  If we are open to it, they translate into the framework for prevention.

Prevention in the area of domestic homicide is risky.  The risk comes because of the severity of getting it right or getting it wrong…human life is at stake.  But I believe we must move through the risk.  By “move through” I mean acknowledge it…learn from it, and then see what follows.  So, beyond acknowledging the risk exists a focus on prevention.
The trends that have come from our local review of domestic homicide highlight many areas that need more focus.  The realities of these trends are not unlike acknowledging the realities of pathology.  Identifying patterns of behavior in one person and accepting the reality of who they are can help prevent continued pain.  We have to begin to call it as it is…we have to pay attention to the facts and the patterns of behavior.

So, what will you do?  I invite you to be an observer – begin to pay attention to the people around you.  As you observe the behavior of others, do so without judgment…without including your “opinion” about who they are…leave out the morals that might have been handed to you or the input of society that doesn’t fit for you.  Observe the behavior as it is…look for patterns… and when you uncover a pattern that violates who you are…or violates the boundaries of someone you love….do something.

As part of the mission of The Institute we ask you to spread the word about the power and impact of pathology. Share this report with those in your community that are invested in saving lives.  Talk to them about the trends and patterns, and about pathology.  Domestic Homicide Fatality Review Teams are active in many states and communities…what can you contribute to the conversation?  If your community is not talking about dangerous relationships, then you can be the start…do something.

Finally, if you are experiencing physical and psychological abuse, please consider creating an Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit.  To learn more, visit www.documenttheabuse.com
To read the full report “Preventable: A Review of Domestic Fatalities in Pinellas County, Florida”, click here:   http://www.largo.com/egov/docs/1337974149_814671.pdf

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Gender Disclaimer: The issues The Institute writes about are mental health issues. They are not gender issues. Both females and males have the types of Cluster B disorders we often refer to in our articles. Our readership is approximately 90% female therefore we write for those most likely to seek out our materials. We highly support male victims and encourage others who want to provide support to male victims to encompass the issues we discuss only from a female perpetrator/male-victim standpoint. Cluster B Education is a mental health issue applicable to both genders.
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/crime/2012/06/21/an-american-tragedy-a-serious-diagnosis-and-no-health-insurance/

The Spiritual Damage in the Aftermath

There is no doubt that the wreckage from the pathological impacts you emotionally, physically, financially, sexually, and also spiritually. Everyone has a spirit—that God-shaped place in your soul that is touched and filled by beauty, awe, and stillness.  It’s the most authentic part of you so it’s also the most vulnerable and the most wounded from pathology.  Our souls were not created to be in the presence of pathology. They were created to be in the presence of love.

We were created for the touch of authentic love and for the connection to what is sacred. Pathology is not sacred. Whether you are ‘religious’ or not you were still created by the Sacred, for the Sacred, and to express the Sacred.  You were not created to express the aftermath of pathology. Aftermath symptoms should not feel ‘at home’ in your soul. They aren’t ‘at home.’

Midway through the aftermath carnage you are probably feeling anything BUT a spiritual connection to anything. It’s no accident that pathology wounds at the soul level—that evil targets those with the most beautiful souls once full of infinite giving and over flowing grace.  Pathology/The Dark Side/Evil knows to dismantle your spirit is to unplug you from what made you the amazing gift you are. And to deflate the once full soul that was sharing love with others—the ultimate power on the planet—is to spiritually deflate our world.

But survivors often lament that recovery feels like a stand-still where you wait for restoration ‘to arrive,’ ‘to ascend or descend,’ ‘to overtake you,’ ‘to fall gently’ upon you.  The death blow to your soul by “The Soul Slayer” is by far the worst damage. An inability to feel that God-shaped part is the worst numbness that a soul can experience. You look Heaven-ward praying for one flicker of a sense that your soul has survived the scourge of pathology.

Why isn’t God restoring me? Why do I still have the ‘monkey-mind’ of cognitive dissonance (He’s Good/He’s Bad)? Why is there no mental stillness—just a rush of adrenaline, the exhaustion of a mind running like an engine?

Sometimes our concept of recovery is replacement. That our feelings of loss will be replaced with joy, our lost pathological partner will be replaced with a healthier partner, our lost income that he stole will be replaced with a provision to get us through, our depression will be replaced with neurotransmitters. ‘Replacement’ recovery concepts are like a McDonald’s drive through. You read a book on pathology and try to simply replace mental concepts that got you in the relationship. You join a chat forum and try to replace loneliness with internet distraction.  It’s no wonder people are often confused about what recovery ‘is’ and when and how they will ‘get there.’

But true authentic recovery that would touch the deepest part of you at a soul level is not about replacement. It’s about restoration—the restoring of the soul that guides your emotions, your choices, your capacity for joy, love and beauty. You can’t ‘replace’ a soul which is ultimately what has been damaged by the soul-less attack of pathology. But you can restore the ‘seat’ or the ‘soul’ of you from the carnage of darkness. In 25 years, we have seen the restoration over and over again.

I want to leave with hope that recovery IS possible. It just may not be how you have been thinking it will be, or how you have approached it, or as quick as you would like. It might not be just about reshaping your belief systems, or working through grief. The work may be deeper after all it’s your soul we are talking about.  The Institute exists to meet you where you are in your own recovery to offer restoration emotionally and spiritually where you need it through our online, tele-support, and face-to-face events. (As a reminder these products and services are listed on the magazine website.)

A few times a year we offer those face-to-face events through retreats.  In 2012 we reduced them to two a year which were in February and March. We have gotten a number of requests for one more retreat this year which we have organized and in which there is ONE remaining slot. The Healing the Aftermath of Pathological Love Relationships Retreat is Sept 2-7, 2012 in beautiful Brevard, NC the Land of the Waterfalls, 20+ hours of soul-healing group sessions, plus the restorational value of hiking, beauty, the forests, and waterfalls.  Application downloads are on the magazine website.

If you feel the recovery approaches you have been utilizing are not effective, do consider the retreats which have been used by dozens and dozens of women to bring rapid results to their cognitive dissonance, anxiety, and stress disordered symptoms.  I hope you will join us for the soul restoration you are craving.

Is This The New Normal?

The ‘new’ normal (whatever that is) is code jargon for ‘something in your life that changed and for which you just have to suck it up and get use to’.  This clicky kind of phrase has crept in the world of pathology too, and even the recovery movement. So let’s answer some of those questions about ‘the NEW normal.’

‘Is How Crappy I Feel My New Normal?’

In other words, ‘will I ever feel like my old self again?’

Let’s say your girlfriend was driving home late one night, off in thought, and after a glass or two of wine. She was blasting her favorite Adelle song on her ear buds. This condition left her not in her most focused self–tired, distracted, a little buzzed, and drifting off to the groove of a good song when she didn’t even realize the slight bump her car made as she drove over the railroad tracks. Since she had no reason to believe something that could really hurt her was barreling down the tracks towards her, she didn’t even glance to see the oncoming train.  Once she realized, too late, she was going to be harmed–wide eyed and gasping–she wondered what she could do to save herself.  The answer by then, was ‘too late.’ In a nano-second she went from being her old self to being someone entirely new–she became a seriously injured person.

You too were run over by an oncoming train with a big ‘P’ on the front. You too might have been tired, distracted, or out having a good time when you encountered the train that was going to run over you, destroy the framework of your life, and nearly fatally wound your soul.

The oncoming psychopath does not brake for anything on the tracks of his life. Your mangled psyche, broken heart, and your sideswiped joy are the natural conditions of having been run over by a run away psychopath or narcissist.

As your girlfriend lay home recovering from having been in a ‘train wreck’ — her broken bones held together with casts, her head bandaged from a whiplash concussion, and being relegated to resting for the next unforseeable future, she does not yet realize she is lucky to escape with the gift to heal.  Her family and friends recognizing her extensive injuries are not likely to say to her “Very shortly, this will be like it never happened. You’ll be back to your old self in no time at all.’  It’s easy to see the girl was seriously injured and it was a gift from God she’s alive.

While psychological injuries are not as evident to the bystanding eye, they are noteably experienced by the victim.  You were hit by a train! You were injured–emotionally, psychologically, mentally, spiritually, financially and maybe even physically.  If someone has erroneously said to you “Very shortly, this will be like it never happened. You’ll be back to your old self in no time at all’ — they have never been hit by an oncoming pathology train. In fact, the worse thing that probably ever happened to them is they won a Spa Day at a less than luxorious hotel or their highlights in their hair weren’t quite right.  Are you going to measure your recovery from someone who’s only experience of tragedy is a spa-day-gone-wrong?

Other survivors who have been hit by the same-train-different-tracks will tell you that “No, it will not be like it never happened.  No, you will not be back to your old self in no time at all.” I don’t know if you want the truth or you want that girl’s story whose name is Pollyanna.  It is not that you will never heal. It’s that your injuries were serious. You are in the critical care unit of the recovery center.  You WILL heal. But it will not be in ‘no time at all.’  If your girlfriend didn’t rise up off the bed in a few days like Lazarus being raised from the dead, you too should not expect that type of ‘miraclous’ healing.  Train wrecks mangle bodies, minds, and spirits.  Give yourself the gift of recognition that what you have been through is traumatic and life changing. And that you need the time anyone would need that has been run over by a train in which to heal.

The impatient family member who thinks you should be ‘over it’ by now, was not run over by the train.  The girlfriends that want you to go on a cruise and meet someone new were not run over by the train.  The psychopath train that hit you that thinks you should be through the body-repair shop of what he did to you–was not run over by a train his size.

The problem that exists is your level of expectation is not equal to your level of harm.

You are expecting to walk away limping but not seriously injured from a psychopath.  That doesn’t happen often. So infrequently that I don’t even know if I can give one example of that happening with the women I have worked with for 20+ years.

Learning to live with the ‘new normal’ of aftermath symptoms is really a self nurturing act. It means you have taken the time to really access your damage and give yourself the things you need in order to heal.  Time, space, therapy–whatever it takes.  The ‘new normal’ following pathological love relationships is called ‘aftermath damage.’  There is a cure for it. But the first step in curing it is to say it outloud “I was run over by an oncoming train. I was critically wounded.”  Now, healing can begin.

How Pathological Is ‘Too’ Pathological?

Another words, ‘How sick is TOO sick?’

One of the charactersistics of women who have been in pathological relationships is that they are very ‘forgiving’ and ‘tolerant’ of less than stellar mental health qualities in their intimate relationships. That’s because the women have very elevated traits of compassion, empathy, tolerance, and acceptance according to our research and to name but a few. These are excellent and humanitarian traits to have….except in a relationship with a pathological person in which these traits create ‘super glue’ that keeps you in  a relationship you should NOT be toleranting, accepting, or being empathetic about. The problem is women often don’t realize that someone can simply have ‘narcissistic traits’ or ‘psychopathic traits’ and still be a danger to her in a relationship.

That’s because it doesn’t take much pathology to dramatically and negatively effect her and the relationship. It only takes a ‘drop’ of abnormal psychology to really screw up the relationship and the others around him. This is why even ‘just traits’ are important to identify. ‘Just traits’ means he has SOME of the criteria for, lets say narcissism or psychopathy, but not enough to fully qualify for the full diagnosis. But let’s not split hairs here…a few traits are enough to qualify for ‘too’ pathological. It DOES matter that he is a ‘tad bit’ pathological because any of the traits of pathology are negative and harmful.

Would it matter that he had a little or a lot of ‘low empathy?’ No–the end result is the same–low empathy and the pain he causes others. ‘Liitle-to-None’ is almost none–it doesn’t matter if he is a little unempathetic or a lot. Not being able to have empathy is the bottom line.

Would it matter if he had a little or a lot of poor impulse control? I doubt it if his poor impulse control effected his sexual acting out, his drug use, or his wild spending habits.
A little goes a long way in poor impulse control.

Would it matter if he had a little or a lot of rebellion against laws, rules, or authority? Probably not…even just a little bit of rebellion has the propensity of getting him arrested or fired, ignoring a restraining order or refusing to pay child support. How about ‘just pathological enough’ to really screw up your children with his distorted and warped world view, his chronic inconsistency, his wavering devotion to you or them, his role modeling of his addictions, or his display of ‘the rules aren’t for me’ attitude?

I watch women ‘look’ for loopholes to minimize the pathology he DOES have instead of looking for ways he does meet criteria for the pathology he does have and find reasons to get out. Instead, they find reasons ‘it’s not THAT bad.’ But just a little bit of a ‘bad boy’ is probably too pathological…too sick for a normal relationship. Since pathology is the ‘inability to sustain positive change, grow to any meaningful depth, or develop insight about how one’s behavior effects others’ even just ‘some’ pathology is too much. Because if he can’t sustain change (you know…all those things he promises to change about himself) or grow or have insight about how and why he hurts you…he’s TOO pathological–TOO sick–TOO disordered to have anything that resembles a normal relationship. Why would you ‘want’ a relationship that has NO capacity to grow, change, or meet your needs?

Bad boy enticement is very real…that edginess he has makes many women highly attracted to him. But beyond the edginess can be anything from ‘just traits’ to ‘full blown pathology.’ Nonetheless, women must learn to draw a line in the sand that even ‘just’ traits is enough to guarantee their unhappiness and harm in the hands of a guy who is ‘too pathological’ for her!

(**Information about pathology and your recovery is in the award winning Women Who Love Psychopaths.)

When Others Don’t Like The ‘P’ Word

I was recently asked to be on a national TV show to discuss the issue of psychopathy in relationships based on my book ‘Women Who Love Psychopaths.’
They had looked at the website, read information about the book, discussed what the rest of the show was going to be about, and booked me for the show.
They didn’t invite me based on my other book (although equally as informational) How to Spot a Dangerous Man, they booked me to discuss and showed
the book cover of, Women Who Love Psychopaths.

However, 20 minutes before going on air a producer told me ‘they’ (whoever that is in TV world) was uncomfortable using the ‘p’ word–psychopath. They
found the word to be ‘controversial’ and ‘sensationalistic’ and that my example of probably well known public psychopaths who are not recognized as
psychopathic was too debatable and unproveable to discuss.

This was of course sad for me to hear since so much of what The Institute attempts to provide is public pathology education. Truly the only way for people
to avoid psychopathy is to develop the ability to understand the traits and learn to spot it in others. All which is why our goal for this agency is public education.
This is of course, not our first time to hear that the ‘p’ word is offensive, debatable, controversial, or judgmental, and it will not be the last time, unfortunately.

Several victims of incredible psychopathic abuse were also on the show and I was asked to comment on their cases but also asked to not use the
‘p’ word.  I asked the producer what she thought those perpetrator’s behaviors should be called, or what disorders would motivate their behavior….or
what was she suggesting I ‘should’ call them? I told her I was at a loss to pick another label or motivation behind their lethal behaviors that would
come close to helping others understand ‘who does that?’.  I told her that psychopathy was a diagnosis, not merely a political argument, a theoretical
ideology, or even a criminal judgment of character. I was confused as to why I was there when what I do, what I write about, who I help, and who I help
convict are overtly obvious from my professional background and from our website.

I was reminded again when I heard ‘the p word’ is controversial, that public pathology education is still in it’s infancy. I know that victims face this all
the time when they struggle to figure out what is wrong with the pathological person, only to discover the shocking revelation of the person’s disorder. But
the victim trying to teach others what is wrong with the pathological is counteracted when others find the information to be disputable, distasteful, unproveable, unlikely,
and un-spiritual to even suggest.

The ‘p’ word is now viewed as the new psychlogical slur of the 21st century. It’s correlated with the devastating racial slurs of the 1950’s, the cultural slurs of the
60’s-70’s, and the gay/lesbian slurs of the 80’s-90’s.  Now, we face the ‘p’ word the way we faced the ‘n’ of the 50’s and the ‘f’ or the 60’70’s and the ‘q’
of the 80-90s. But with a huge difference! There is nothing wrong with the ‘p’ word the way it was intensely wrong with the ‘n,’ ‘f,’ and ‘q’ words of
decades gone by.

But it is treated as if we are being racially insensitive, culturally inappropriate, or gender ignorant. We are looked at as the skin-heads of the
Diagnostic Statistical Manual that we would ‘dare’ to ‘call someone’ a psychopath.  We are viewed as the rock throwers at the psychologically-disabled
people with pathology, the Bible thumpers of the poor spiritually disenfranchised psychopath, and the socially clueless that we would spew a
power-packing psychological label like ‘psychopathy’ around that might actually strike and land on a human being.

I know, I know….afterall, it’s daytime TV which we all recognize is about ratings and keeping pace with society’s Attention-Deficit-Disordered need
for topics to be covered in three minutes no matter how riveting the storyline is.  Daytime TV covers tsunamis of natural science as well as the
tsunamis of psychological trauma in the same fast fall swoop of selling hair dye and lipstick in the same 30 minute segment. What did I expect afterall?

…Well, I always hope that a victim’s trauma is recognized and embraced for the emotional and spiritual strength it took to not only survive, but to show up
on that TV stage to tell their story to help others. …Well, I always hope that the need to teach others ‘how to spot’ the devastating disorders that created the
victims trauma is the guiding motivation behind why TV shows exist and supercedes the mere ‘storyline-as-business’ of TV.

Yes, I recognize that daytime TV is not the spokes person for the planet–that there ARE those who really want to hear more of the victims story and learn more
about ‘how to spot’ them in their own lives….but I have to tell you, it IS a ‘cold-water-splash-in-the-face’, like a ‘wake-up-Sandra-we-aren’t-as-far-as-you-think’
call that we are whispering the ‘p’ word behind stage and off camera and are ‘editing it out’ for public viewing. The whole segment of discussion about
low empathy, no conscience and who does that was removed. Not one word that explained the behavior of those lethal people was ‘leaked’ to
the viewing audience for public pathology education. We still have miles and miles to go in educating the public that psychopathy is a disorder
not a verbal tyriad.

You know what….as  offensive, debatable, controversial, judgmental,  OR …. as disputable, distasteful, unproveable, unlikely and un-spiritual
as it felt to those merely producing a nano-second based TV show to say the ‘p’ word, the victims who have lived with the ‘p’ are the true
authorities here.  They would probably beg to disagree with the nay-sayers that the ‘p’ is a profound psychological slur. I am sure the victims
found the ‘p’s behavior to be more offensive than TV-land will ever understand. The victims surely wrestled with their own need to over come the
‘debatable-ness’ of the disorder, or the controversy that swirled around the lethal behaviors of the psychopath and I am sure the victim’s incured
their own judgmental views of outsiders. I doubt today the victim’s find their story to be un proveable or even disputable —after all,
some of these storys ended up in murder or attempted more. All adjectives that are associated with psychopathy.

As ‘controversial’ as TV-land felt  the ‘p’ word was, does not even compare to the victim’s overwhelming need to shout from the roof-tops
what the pathological IS….a psychopath.

Using the ‘p’ word of psychopathy is not a slur. It is a education, a prevention, a DIAGNOSIS, and the reality for millions of victims in
the world.

Emotional Phantom Limb Pain

In a session someone says, “I really miss what we had.  I could get over this if it hadn’t been the most wonderful relationship of my life.  I just feel like something has been cut out of me – like I’m missing a big part of myself now.”

Illusion is the mark of pathology.  It’s why our logo is a mask, because it best represents the mirage of normalcy that pathological individuals can often project…. at least for a while.

Dr. Hervey Checkley, a psychiatrist and writer of pathology from the 1940’s entitled his famous book The Mask of Sanity, and tells of pathology giving all the surface signals such as:  having a deep connection, having the most fun ever experienced with a person, of someone who is really into you – while behind the scenes you are being used as a distraction, a pay check, grotesquely, as a ‘vaginal doormat,’ or some other form of ‘feeding’ of the pathological piranha.  What you are experiencing, you are internally labeling as ‘normal,’ ‘wonderful,’ or ‘love,’ and yet it really isn’t any of those things.  It’s just a label of experience you have tagged with him.

If someone was watching your relationship as a movie, and watched scenes in which the pathological individual is exposed for his true self, your scene would be tagged and labeled very differently by the viewer, than what is labeled in your own experience.  That’s because the viewer would see the pathological individual’s behaviors and words as manipulative, and would have a distinctly different view of the storyline.  Your labeling of your experience isn’t always accurate.  As I often say, “Your thinking is what got you into this pathological relationship.   Don’t always believe what you think.”

Being invested in being correct is part of the human condition, and is in part, the way our brains work.  The more important the questions are such as, “Does he love me, is this the one?” – the greater the pleasure will seem from labeling the experience as positive.   The more positive the relationship is perceived, the more invested you will be to label the experiences, and his behavior as positive, and to get the reward of your label whether it is of ‘him, the marriage, or the relationship.’  Of course, none of this is problematic, except if you have misread the illusion, believed the presented mask, and labeled an experience with a narcissist, anti-social, or socio/psychopath as ‘positive.’

The illusion:

•    He was normal
•    He was in love with you
•    He was what he said he was
•    He did what he said he did

In pathology, that’s never the case, because:

•    Their attachments are surface (which isn’t love)
•    They are mentally disordered (which isn’t normal)
•    They never present themselves as disordered, sexually promiscuous, and incapable of love (so he isn’t what he said he is)
•    They harbor hidden lives filled with other sex partners, hook ups, criminality, or illegal and immoral behavior (so he doesn’t disclose what he’s really up to)

What you had (that you can’t possibly miss) is a pathological relationship.  What you want, and miss, is the ability to wrap yourself up like a blanket in the illusion – to go back to the time before you knew this was all illusion.

Women often say when they try to break off the relationship they have the feeling that something is being cut out of them.  They feel like they are missing a part of themselves.  This sensation is similar to what is called phantom limb pain, which is a medical mystery of sorts.  When a person has an arm that is amputated, the portion of the brain that used to receive sensory messages about the existing arm goes through a series of changes.  This causes it to misread the brain message, and creates the ‘ghostly’ illusion that the arm is still there and in pain.  Even though the patient can see that the arm is gone, and what they are experiencing is an illusion, they can’t stop the distressing phantom limb sensations of wanting to believe the arm is still there.  The arm is in pain, but the arm is gone.  The amputee must learn to cope differently, and begin to re-label the experience they are having, that the presence of the arm is a perceptual illusion.

So it is with those leaving the illusion of the pathological relationship.  The emotional pain you experience is based on the illusion the pathological presented, a perceptual illusion that was mislabeled, experience as positive, and invested in.  Keeping that positive illusion is initially important to you.  Learning to adjust the cognitive dissonance (which is the ping-pong between thinking ‘he was good/he was bad’) is the challenge in overcoming the ghostly emotional baggage of phantom relationship pain.

Genetic and Neuro-Physiological Basis for Hyper-Empathy

I heard a universal ‘sigh of relief’ go out around the world as women read the title of this article.  Don’t you feel better knowing there really IS some science backing the whole issue of having way too 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 of the book ‘Women Who Love Psychopaths’, we learned just ‘how much’ empathy you had.

Do I need to tell you?  WAY TOO MUCH!

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 relationship 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 that can influence just ‘how much’ empathy you have.  These brain chemicals include those that influence orgasm, and it’s effect on how bonded you feel, while also influencing some aspects of mental health (No, no!  That is 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, and 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 not 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 that 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 experiencing, or not having any empathy.

Over the past few years, the magazine has been writing about various aspects of personality disorder and the brain.  This has included the issue of brain imaging.  What we are finding out is how brain structure and 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 of what The Institute has always believed – that there is a lot of biology behind personality development issues such as personality disorders.  Genetics and neurobiology are proving that behavior associated with narcissism, borderline, anti-social personality disorders, along with psychopathy has as much to do with brain wiring and chemistry as it does with behavioral intent.

The Institute has long said to 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.  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 or low empathy, and brain chemistry configurations that contribute to levels of empathy. The old thinking which assumes women with high empathy are merely ‘door mats’ is not scientifically correct when looking at current studies.

Neuroscience, with all its 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, or her latest book on hyper-empathy entitled, Cold-Blooded Kindness.

(**Information on your super-traits is in the award-winning Women Who Love Psychopaths, which is also taught during retreats, in phone sessions, and to mental health professionals.  Please go to www.saferelationshipmagazine.com for more information)

All Memory is Not Created Equal – Positive Memory Seepage

Intrusive thoughts are associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as well as other emotional trauma disorders.  Many survivors say that the most painful memories are not the intrusive thoughts of all the bad ‘stuff,’ or even the violence – what is most painful is the intrusive thoughts of good memories.

Intrusive thoughts are not just bad thoughts or flashbacks.  They can be intrusive from positive memories as well.  Positive memories are embedded with deep emotional and psychological ‘meaning.’  The meaning of the relationship, various happy moments, the deep feelings of attachment, fantastic sex – can all be power packed into positive memories.  Positive memories are also embedded with all the sights, sounds, smells, sensations, feelings, and the associated meaning of the events and remembrances of a happier time.  The positive memories can also be tied up with a ribbon of fantasy and romanticized feelings.  That’s a lot of ‘power’ packed into a few positive memories, and has the TNT emotional factor that overrides your ‘stay-away-from-him’ resolve.

All memories are not stored the same way.  I’ve talked about this before in our books.  Positive memory is stored differently in the brain, and is more easily accessible than some of the bad memories.  Many traumatic memories are stored in another part of the brain that makes them harder to access.  Sometimes the more traumatic they are, the harder it is to remember.

Unfortunately, what you might want to remember most is the bad part of the relationship, so it motivates you to stay away from it.  But instead, you are murky, and are not always fresh in your mind about ‘why’ you should be avoiding the pathological relationship. What IS easy to remember is all the positive memories.  In fact, what has become intrusive is positive memory seepage.  This is when all the good times and the associated ‘senses’ (taste, touch, smell, etc.) are flooding your mind.  You easily remember the good times and easily forget the bad times – all based on how, and where these types of memories are stored in the brain.  You may NEED the bad memories for emotional reinforcement, however all you REMEMBER are the good ones.

That which is held internally is amplified.  Almost like putting it under a magnifying glass – the feelings, memories, senses – are all BIGGER and STRONGER when the memory simply rolls around in your head.  It’s a lot like a pinball machine – memories pinging and ponging off of the internal elements.  The more it pings and pongs, the stronger the memory moves around the mind.

Memories kept in the mind also take on surreal-like qualities.  Certain parts are like a movie – fantasy based and romanticized.  The positive memories are dipped in crystallized sugar and become tantalizing treats, instead of toxic treats!  While engaged in this positive memory seepage – it doesn’t feel like you are indulging your self in toxic memories.  It feels like you are trying to ‘process’ the relationship – ‘Why did we do this?’ ‘Did he say that?’ ‘Why was it like that then, but it’s like this now?’  It feels like what you are trying to do is to sort out the relationship.  But all the sorting of this dirty laundry still leaves the same amount of clothing piled in your head. You are just moving the same shirt from pile to pile – but it’s all the same dirty laundry.  Nothing is getting cleaned up.

Positive memory seepage, as intrusive thought, is a big contributor to the cognitive dissonance women feel in the aftermath of these relationships.  Cognitive Dissonance (or C.D. as we refer to it) is the difficulty of trying to hold two opposing thoughts or beliefs at the same time – it’s usually something like, ‘He’s good” AND “He’s bad’ –’How can he be good AND bad?   Just trying to resolve that particular thought can leave women’s minds tangled up for years.  C.D. can single handedly take women down – it can cause her to be unable to concentrate, work, sleep, eat, or function overall.  It’s like the image of the devil sitting on one shoulder, and the angel sitting on the other shoulder, and they are both whispering in your ear.  That’s exactly what C.D. is like – trying to decide which thing you are going to believe – that he’s bad for you, or that he’s good for you.

Positive memory seepage produces intrusive thoughts.  Intrusive thoughts, especially about positive memories, produce cognitive dissonance.  These emotional processes feed each other like a blood-induced shark fest.  It’s one of the single reasons women don’t disengage from the relationship, heal, or return to a higher level of functioning.  Now that we’ve identified ‘what’ is really at the heart of the aftermath of symptoms, we know that treating C.D. is really the most important recovery factor in pathological love relationships.  It’s why we have developed various tools to manage it – Maintaining Mindfulness in the Midst of Obsession, e-book and two CD’s, as well as our retreats, 1:1s, etc.  The quickest way to recover is by learning to manage the intrusive thoughts and cognitive dissonance.  A managed mind makes life feel much more manageable too!

Mutual Pathology: Gasoline and Fire

Pathology is a mental health issue, not a gender issue.  Women have just as much pathology in some areas of personality disorders, as men do in other areas of personality disorders.  Some of the 10 personality disorders present more in men, while some of the disorders present more in women.

As you have heard me say over the years, pathology is pathology – meaning that each personality disorder has it’s own problems and challenges in relationships, but mainly holds to the central three aspects that I talk about related to pathology:

1.    The inability to grow to any true emotional or spiritual depth.

2.    The inability to consistently sustain positive change.

3.    The inability to have insight about how one’s behavior negatively
affects others.

Given those three aspects of personality disorders, we can easily see how each of the different types of personality disorders can be linked together by these three ‘inabilities.’

While men may be more bent towards Anti-Social Personality Disorder or psychopathy, women may show more of a bent towards Histrionic, Dependent, or Borderline Personality Disorder.  When you have a man with a personality disorder coupled with a personality disordered women – it equals Jerry Springer Dynamics!

There is no guarantee that there is only one pathological in the relationship.  Women have just as much mental illness, addictions, and personality disorders as men.  It’s quite common for people with a personality disorder to hook up with another disordered individual.  When this happens you have two people who can’t grow to any true depth emotionally or spiritually, two people who can’t sustain positive change, and two people who don’t have insight about how their behavior affects others.  These relationships are dramatic fire-beds of emotionality, addiction, and violence.

Women’s pathology is just as damaging to men as men’s pathology is to women.  Women’s pathology may present differently than men’s overt aggression related to their pathology, but it is not any less problematic.  Women’s pathology can sometimes (and I use the word ‘sometimes’ lightly) be subtle when it is masked behind emotional dependency, sexual addiction, sexual manipulation, financial dependency, or high emotionality.  Those types of symptoms can be associated with more than just a personality disorder.  But women’s pathology is just as damaging to a partner, a boss, their family, friends, and God forbid, the effects it has on their children.

While women are more likely to be diagnosed as Borderline Personality Disorder, borderlines are often misdiagnosed, and under-diagnosed psychopaths and anti-socials.  There seems to be somewhat of a gender-bias when it comes to diagnosing women with psychopathy.  Unless they have participated in a Bonnie and Clyde-type episode, or made the America’s Most Wanted television program, they are likely to be downgraded in their pathology.  Dramatic, highly emotional, or self-injuring women may be downgraded to Histrionic, Narcissistic, or Borderline Personality Disorder.   Those with a little more flare for hiding their real lives may warrant the same diagnosis as male psychopaths.  Their ability to hide it better, or having less violence associated with their behavior, goes undiagnosed, or misdiagnosed.  But not all female psychopaths are non-violent.  Many are horribly violent – to their children and their partners – yet always present themselves as the victims.  These are the women most likely to press unwarranted domestic violence assaults, cry rape that didn’t happen, and abandon their children.  The point is, both genders can have personality disorders and each personality disorder may, or may not, present in a slightly different way in the other gender.

Beyond mutual pathology, a woman’s own mental health can influence the dynamics within a relationship with a pathological man. A woman that has bipolar disorder that is untreated, and who is in a relationship with a borderline male, can bring unusually dramatic dynamics to the relationship. Their fluctuations in mood can ignite a feeding frenzy of boiling anger in both which is likely to lead to violence.  Both partners having a substance abuse or alcohol problem can certainly fuel the relationship dynamics in further, severely negative ways.

Let’s not overlook the ‘model’ of pathological behavior that women often get from being raised in a home with a pathological parent.  She brings to the relationship the pathological-like behaviors that are learned within pathological families.  I have seen this in sessions with women (and hear it a lot in the emails I receive) where the pathological affects of her childhood, adult life, or past or current relationship is negatively affecting her worldview, current level of functioning, as well as the entitlement attitudes she brings to the table.  Couple any of HER mental health issues and situations along with HIS pathology, and you have some of the most volatile and difficult relationships and breakups in history.

There has been many times in working with women that I recognize he is not the only problem in the scenario.  Not all women in pathological relationships are mentally ill.  However, some women in pathological relationships ARE mentally ill.  Some of her own mental illness can be the gasoline on the fire of the pathological love relationship that fans the flames of danger for her. Red flags, for me, that show there is possible mental health issues with her includes the following:

•    Entitlement
•    Chronic victim mentality
•    Unregulated mood issues not amenable to treatment/medication
•    Chronically returning to the pathological relationship
•    Replacing relationships with more pathological relationships
•    History of unsuccessful counseling/treatment
•    Doesn’t take responsibility for her own behaviors/choices

These represent only a few of the many symptoms that could indicate a possible mental health issue in the woman as well.  Clearly, pathology is not gender specific. Pathology and other mental health issues in both parties can accelerate the dangerousness and problems seen in pathological love relationships.

Real Love not Just Real Attraction

So many people confuse the feeling of attraction with the emotion of love.  For some who are in chronically dangerous and pathological relationships, it’s obvious that you have these two elements ‘mixed up.’  Not being able to untangle these understandably, can keep people on the same path of unsafe relationship selection, because they keep choosing the same way and getting the same people!

Attraction is largely not only unconscious, but also physical.  There is actually something called ‘erotic imprint’ which is the unconscious part that guides our attraction (I talk about this in the Dangerous Man book).  Our erotic imprint is literally ‘imprinted’ in our psyches when we are young – at that age when you begin to notice and be attracted to the opposite sex.  As I mentioned, this is largely an unconscious drive.  For instance, I like stocky, fair-haired men.  Whenever I see that type of image, I immediately find that man ‘attractive.’  I can vary slightly on my attraction, but I’m not going to find Brad Pitt attractive.  I might forego the full ‘stocky’ appearance, but I’m not going to let go of some of the other traits that make men appealing to me.  We like what we like.  For instance, I am attracted to Johnny Depp or George Cloney.  I don’t like any of the blondes or overly tall and lanky body types.

If you think back to what your ‘attraction basis’ is you may find some patterns there as well.  Attraction, however, can also be behavioral, or based on emotional characteristics.  For instance, some women are attracted to guys with a great sense of humor.  The attraction is based on that particular characteristic.  Other women may be attracted to athletic guys, not because of what physical exercise does to their bodies, but because of the behavioral qualities of athletes.  Attraction can be subtle – like the unconscious erotic imprinting that makes us select men based on physical attributes – or attraction may lead us to choose relationships based on behaviors or emotional characteristics like displays of empathy, helpfulness, or friendliness.  (I have discussed your own high traits of empathy, helpfulness, and friendliness in Women Who Love Psychopaths.)

Although these traits might guide our relationship selection, this is not the foundation of love.  It’s the foundation of selection.   Often, our relationship selection comes more from attraction then it does anything else.  So knowing ‘who’ and ‘what types’ you are attracted to will help you understand your patterns of selection.  Some people choose characteristics – helpfulness, humor, gentleness, or another quality that they seem to be drawn to.  Other people are more physical in their attraction and find the physicality of someone either a ‘go’ or a ‘no.’ Maybe you like blonds or blue eyes.  This may also drive your pattern of selection.

Also, in the area of attraction – sometimes it’s Traumatic Attraction that seems to drive our patterns of selection. Those who have been abused, especially as children, can have unusual and destructive patterns of selection.  This will be discussed in further detail in the next newsletter.

This Valentine’s Day, be very clear about love and attraction.  This is a time when you might be likely to want to reconnect with him.  Let me remind you, NOTHING has changed.  His pathology is still the same. On February 15th you could hate yourself for reconnecting with him for one weak moment on February 14th, in which the world is focused on love, but he is focused on manipulation, control, or anything OTHER than love.  If you open that door, then you will have weeks or months of trying to get him out and disconnect again.

Instead, plan ahead for your potential relapse by setting up an accountability partner AND something to do!  Go to a movie with a friend, go out to dinner, or do SOMETHING that takes responsibility and action for your own loneliness at this time of year.  Whatever you do, don’t have a knee-jerk reaction and contact him.  One day on the calendar about love is just an ILLUSION!

Trait Examination or Character Assassination?

Part of the problem we face in trying to get to the nitty-gritty of pathological love relationships is that ‘how we do it’ or ‘what we call it’ is judged so severely, that it impairs sharing the valuable outcomes that are learned.  There are groups of professions, women’s organizations, and service agencies that tiptoe around what we ‘call’ patterns of selection in relationships.  There are unspoken rules and heavily weighted opinions about ‘what’ we can discuss and ‘how’ we discuss the outcomes.

What am I talking about?  Since the 1970’s and the women’s movement, discussing the specifics about women’s choices in relationships, patterns of selection, personality traits, mental health, and sexual addiction/deviancy has been largely discouraged as ‘labeling the victim’ or ‘victim blaming’.  It has put the victim off limits for any in-depth understanding other than a victimology theory that was developed in the 1970’s.

It is hard to get around the billboard image of ‘victim’ to talk about any kind of relationship dynamics or other psychological aspects (including biology or temperament engrained traits) that is happening in the pathological love relationship.  We may study him, but we already have a ‘theory’ for her that is not to be disturbed.  Compare this to any other field of mental health and it’s absurd that we would say, for example, ‘Being as we already understand depression, no more theories, no more studying!  Don’t call it depression or you are blaming the patient for their own depression.’

To study her is to blame her.  To measure her traits to see if there are vulnerabilities or pattern typing is to suggest she is flawed.

•    The victim assuredly has been through trauma.

•    Studying the victim in no way says they have not been through trauma.

•    The victim is not to blame for what happened to them.

•    Studying the victim in no way says they are responsible for what happened to them.

•    The victim did not ‘choose’ the victimization, but in relational dysfunction, she did choose the victimizer.

Can we learn something about that?

How will cancer be eradicated, or a cure for AIDS be found if we don’t study the problem from all angles?  If we conclude that studying the victim blames them, then we have cut off an entire segment of research that can help us in prevention, intervention, and treatment – whether it’s a medical disorder or a pathological relationship.

Studying victimology, including various aspects, is not victim character assassination.  It might be trait examination or pattern of selection analysis.  It might be a lot of things that have nothing to do with blame and shame, and everything to do with understanding or creating new paradigms in which to see these relationships.  It might piggyback off of theories developed in the 1970’s… surely we have learned SOMETHING new about relationship dynamics, pathology in relationships, personality disorders as intimate partners, violence and addiction and their part in these relationships…surely we can UPDATE a theory without our own assassination or that of the victim?

In some ways, I envy the scientific and research communities that look at the data, and pass all the political correctness and emotional politics of ‘labeling’ something certain groups find offensive.  They test and crunch the numbers and put it in a journal without all the rig-a-ma-roar.  But in our case, what we study and how we describe what we found, is subject to so much scrutiny that many clinicians and writers hesitate to publish what was found.

So it has been with what The Institute has studied, found, reported, and written.  In many organizations the first book, ‘How to Spot a Dangerous Man’ was rejected for looking at family role modeling, patterns of selection, and other aspects that women themselves said contributed to their pathological relationship.  On the other hand, it has been hailed by many domestic violence agencies and used widely in shelters, treatment centers and women’s prisons.

We stepped it up a big notch in ‘Women Who Love Psychopaths’ where we used testing instruments to test women’s traits to see if there were temperament patterns in women who ended up in the most dangerous and disordered of relationships.  This caught huge attention from some groups as the groundbreaking trait identification that was, and still is.  However, victim groups saw it as labeling.  How can we help women if we don’t understand their biological make up?

Ironically, what we found was significant – super-traits so perfectly and symmetrically seen in 80 cases.  Did we hurt a victim by studying that? Or have we helped thousands of women who have read the books, been counseled by our trained therapists, and come to our treatment programs?  How would we have got here today without daring to look deeper…to even risk looking at her?  Not to blame her, but to understand her!

Some of the biggest breakthroughs that have been happening are in understanding the biology of our brains and the consequences of biology on our behaviors, choices, and what ramifications these have on our future.  We know that MRI’s are being done on psychopathic brains, revealing areas of the brain that work differently.  Someday, I think that may cross over and other personality disorders and chronic mental illnesses will be able to be detected by MRI’s as well.  This will assist immensely in understanding how those disorders effect biology and brain function.

How can we understand the victim of the pathological?

•    If we used the word ‘damaged’ and looked at how different brain regions of victims function – over or under functioning, influences of stress, PTSD, adrenaline, cortisol, and early childhood abuse – could we come to understand how their brain might function in their patterns of selection in dangerous relationships?

•    Could we come to understand that even temperament traits might give proclivity to how the brain ‘chooses’ or how the brain categorizes, ignores red flags of danger, or is highly reactive to traumatized attraction?

•    Could we understand brains that have higher tolerance levels because of certain brain areas that operate differently than other people?

•    Could we understand traumatic memory storage and why good memories of him (as awful as he might be) are so much stronger than the memories of abuse?

•    If we know what part of the brain distorts memory storage, can we work with that?

•    Could we come to understand trait temperaments as risk factors or certain brain functions as possible victim vulnerabilities?

•    Would we know who is at risk and understand better how to more effectively TREAT the victim in counseling, and develop prevention and intervention programs?

•    Or, how intensity of attachment could be either a temperament trait or a brain function instead of merely calling it ‘victim labeling.’

I am not only interested in the psychobiology of the victim, but how the psychobiology affects patterns of selection and reactions in the most pathological of relationships.  When we really start dealing with an open dialogue about these survivors, looking past ridiculous theories that imply asking questions is victim blaming, then maybe we can really offer some new theories into victimology that by-passes band aid approaches to complex psycho/bio/social understandings.  This is what The Institute intends to do.

Are You Really as Far Along as You Think You Are?

For the New Year, in the month of January, we have been discussing recovery and finding your path to emotional wellness from pathological love relationships in 2012.

When women get mild relief from the unrelenting symptoms of the aftermath with a pathological, it can be 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, however, 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 life-long 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.  Weekly, 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 her mild relief or symptoms instills relief or hope, it isn’t the end of her 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 shows that someone understands what is hers, someone else’s, or God’s.  From the center of boundaries are developed gates that serve as limits saying what one will tolerate 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.  They test it out early in the relationship, and when small violations are not managed, they proceed on with bigger violations.  Every violation is a green light.  Boundaries are 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.

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 abnormal behavior.

A layer of emotional regulation is most assuredly part of the aftermath – anxiety, depression, irritability, the overflow of pent up emotions, and the inability to control the emotions can be experienced.

Layer after layer are aftermath symptoms that must be peeled away and treated in recovery.  Everyone knows how many layers are in an onion.  While it may be disconcerting to see all those layers, the layers are translucent and show the wounding on each level that recovery must touch.  Women who have begun recovery may be surprised at what feels like the unending layers of the onion, and wonder when they will reach the core.  A 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.

Why A Focused Recovery IS Necessary Part II – Beginning 2012 with a Completely Different Mind Set

Last week I began the New Year by talking about the issue of healing, recovery, and moving forward.  In fact, during the month of January we are going to look at why starting 2012 ‘differently’ can help you move forward in recovering from the aftermath of a pathological love relationship.

The past few years at The Institute have been a tremendous time of development.  (Don’t mind me as I wander down memory lane of all that has happened at The Institute…)

A mere four years ago the newsletter started.  We now have over 35,000 subscribers each week.  That created a snowball effect, and the personalized  coaching began.  More e-books were written.  Then the CDs, mp3s, DVDs, and tele-seminars were created.

Research commenced, and the Women Who Love Psychopaths book is now in its second edition.  The retreat program started, along with training for therapists and coaches, and law enforcement/judicial. Sandra began to do more key note speaking at other organization conferences, including law schools and victim organizations.

All this development, and more, has happened as a result of realizing how uniquely damaged you became at the hands of a pathological.  All this research occurred after realizing there was really something to the ‘temperament’ of women who end up in pathological relationships.  All the phone coaching, therapist training and retreat center creation because so few people ‘get it’ about you, him, and the mind-blowing relationship dynamics.  For the FIRST time there really is a concrete program designed about you, and in some ways, by you, and definitely for you.

The one thing that does stand out in the research and what I have been eyeballing closely about healing and recovery is that this level of damage by him is profound.  If there were lots of ‘his type’ relationships, then the damage is even more profound.  What this does over the long haul is that it takes some strong, fabulous women out of the game of life by destroying them.
Untreated, symptoms get worse.  Symptoms that get worse affect your life functioning and your children.  Worsened effects then contaminate your partner selection. If you do get a healthy partner, you don’t appreciate him, or you’re too messed up from the pathological relationship to be in a healthy relationship, so he leaves.

Untreated symptoms make intrusive thoughts worse, so obsessions increase.  Friends abandon you because they are tired of hearing about the obsessions.  This creates isolation.  Isolation makes you at risk of re-contacting him, and re-contacting him lowers your coping skills.  As your coping skills lower, your fantasizing increases—’Maybe he ISN”T pathological’, ‘Maybe he WILL stop cheating,’ etc., and your minimizing begins – ‘At least he…’
More contact with him increases your Post Traumatic Stress symptoms of
flashbacks, fears of the future, unbridled worry, depression, and insomnia.

Is any of this sounding familiar?  There is a typical de-compensation pattern that most of the women go through.  Recovery can stop that de-compensation and begin rebuilding your life.  By December 31, 2012, how many of you will be in the same situation, with the same man, having the same symptoms?  On the other hand, how many of you will be ‘pathology free’ – symptoms reduced, a new vigor for life, insight about how this happened and how to avoid it in the future?  How many of you will be less depressed and anxious, more active, have lost weight, have more friends, have a better job, have happier children, got more self-esteem, gone back to school, and have potential to have a healthy relationship?

I’m not a resolution-type person, so I don’t make them.  But, I AM an advocate for complete life changes.  Not tiny habits, but big overhauls.  Let’s face it if you have dated a narcissist or a psychopath, you NEED a big life overhaul.  Something malfunctioned in your life that created this huge blind spot under which really sick people flew into your life, camped there, and overtly destroyed you.  That’s not a little issue – take a look at the condition of your life and see if you think it was ‘little.’  Ask others if they think it was little.

This year, 2012, is going to be a great year at The Institute – I can just feel it.  We spent the last several years laying a solid groundwork for super programming this year.  For the first time ever, everything is in place to heal the women who have loved pathological individuals.  I believe we have covered all bases with phone support (coaching and weekly support groups), in-person coaching (retreats, 1:1s), portable products (e-books, books, DVDs, CDs), and community outreach through workshops that we will be putting online. You can join the workshop from your living room.  We have removed the barriers to assistance by creating our program in as many formats as possible.  I have found out that the Dangerous Man book and the Women Who Love Psychopaths book is now in almost every country of the world! The Dangerous Man book has been translated into a couple of languages and the psychopath book is mentioned in various documentaries.

I hope in 2012 instead of being a mere name on our email list, you’ll be a very active part of The Institute beginning by working on your own healing.  Then, we hope you will run support groups in your community, give power-point presentations for other women in your area, or start an advocacy group.  Instead of emailing me and telling me what ELSE I should be doing (I’m tired enough!), how about stepping out and being the powerhouse in your own community?  How about taking it to the streets and passing it forward?  How about turning your life around so you can be a role model for other women?  All of this begins when you start healing yourself…and moving forward.

The truth is–there is only us to educate others.  You don’t see a multi-million dollar ad campaign with billboards on the highways that announce how to spot pathological relationships, do you?  That’s because it doesn’t exist.  Sadly, no one has funded a national campaign to warn and educate others.
However, what exists is The Institute + You = Education For Others.

It’s you and me, babe!  As Gandhi said, ‘Be the change you want to see in the world.’

Join us in 2012 for Healing Your Heart!  We’re here.

Finding Effective Help in 2012!

By now, if you have been trying to heal from a pathological love relationship and can’t find effective and knowledgeable counseling, you have probably figured out what we have…that the pathological love relationship is NOT widely understood.

Frustrated women hear unhelpful advice from family, friends, and even therapists who label their attachment to pathological men as ‘codependent’ or ‘mutually addictive’ or merely ’emotional abuse.’ Women jump from counselor to counselor, and from one group counseling experience to another group counseling experience looking for someone, ANYONE, who understands this intense attachment to a dangerous and pathological man.

She looks for some understanding at ‘what’ is wrong with him.  Giving him the label of ‘abuser’ doesn’t quite cover the extensive array of the brilliant psychopathic tendencies he possesses.  Why did he target HER?  Why does she feel both intense attachment and loathing for him at the same time?  Why do her symptoms resemble ‘mind control’ more than mere abused woman syndrome?  Why is the bonding with this man more intense and unshakable than any other man?  Is it abuse if he never physically harms her but has the mental infiltration of a CIA operative?

What we are finding out from our research with those who have been in pathological love relationships is that all of the usual dynamics in regular relationships, both functional and the occasional dysfunctional DON’T apply to pathological relationships.  All of the usual dynamics of addictive relationships, codependent relationships and dysfunctional relationships DON’T apply to the pathological relationship, either.  No wonder women can’t find the help they need…it hasn’t been taught YET!  Our research is pointing towards women who DON’T fit into the stereotypes of women we normally see in shelters, counseling centers, and in other abusive situations.  These are not women who have the kinds of histories we normally associate with abuse, nor do they have the kinds of current lives that fit the demographics of most counseling programs and shelters.  Their personality traits and behaviors fit no other ‘typologies.’  And, their current symptoms don’t match the simply ‘dysfunctional-type’ love relationship.

Could it be that the dynamics in pathological love relationships really ARE different than other types of relationships?  Could this be why women in these types of relationships aren’t helped by more prevalent types of intervention offered to other types of abusive relationships?  Why does the Power & Control Wheel model seem ineffective with these types of women?  Why are these women LESS likely to seek traditional counseling?  And if they do, why are they less likely to be helped by it?  Why are these women’s personality traits so vastly different than shelter women, or abused women?

Too many women have been through the ringer of counselors ‘not-understanding-psychopathology,’ family ‘lumping-all-relationship-types-together,’ friends saying-‘just-get-over-it’ and counseling-programs ‘telling-her-she’s-just-codependent’.  Too many women have stopped seeking help because they are tired of too many people ‘not getting it.’  Psychology has to allow itself to grow beyond a one-size-fits-all approach when dealing with women emerging from pathological love relationships, because all relationships are not created equal – especially when one of them is pathological.  Not understanding the effects of pathology on relationships, self-concept, and recovery deters a woman’s ability to heal.  Understanding the DIFFERENCES in these types of relationships is critical.

The Institute has developed programs and materials exactly for this reason.  We developed our telephone coaching program for women in immediate need of validation of their experiences, our retreat programs are specifically geared to ‘Healing the Aftermath of the Pathological Love Relationship,’ our Therapist Affiliate Program training which provides other therapists nationwide the clinical training to help women heal from these types of relationships, and our 40 plus products all developed to teach pathology and its related issues to others.

Why?  Why all the effort in treatment related issues?  Because the absence of trained counselors is screamingly evident.  Our mailing list asks the question week after week, ‘Can you recommend someone in Florida, Michigan, the United Kingdom, Canada, California, Oregon…who can help…?  Why don’t counselors understand this?  Why can’t anyone explain to me what is going on? If one more counselor or family member suggests I am codependent or a relationship addict, I’m going to scream!’ Why is this so hard to understand?

Much like the beginning phases of the addiction field, the pathological love relationship field is feeling the same phase of misunderstanding that other theories of counseling have encountered.  When the field is new or the knowledge is groundbreaking, there is an overt lack of trained responders.  Unfortunately, those who suffer the new phases are the victims/survivors that wish there were more trained service providers.

The Institute operates as a public education project on psychopathological issues, which means we try to train anyone and everyone in the issues of pathology.  This includes the women in the relationships AND those who are likely to be emotional supports to women recovering from these relationships.  Please bear with what entails, as an entirely new and emerging field of psychology is trying to race to catch up to the knowledge of what is needed for this particular population of people.  After all, until we began our research and writings, no one had even bothered to study the female partners of psychopaths and partners of other pathological types.  No one created research projects to study the personality traits, histories, and chronic vulnerabilities of women who have been in these relationships.  So, to that degree, we are virginal in our exploration of these issues.

At The Institute, we try to be immediately responsive to the needs of individuals.  In the last year we have exploded in growth in our outreach:

Our weekly newsletter continues to reach more and more people

  • The blogs we write for websites such as Psychology Today and Times Up! help to reach an even larger audience with the educational value of our expertise
  •  Our books, CDs, DVDs are international
  •  Expanded retreat format, and private1:1’s with Sandra
  •  Telephone coaching has doubled in size
  •  Weekly teleconferencing support groups
  •  Therapist Training Programs

All are born out of our desire to reach YOU!  As needs are repeatedly identified by our mailing list, we try to quickly ascertain how to develop a program to meet the needs presented.  That’s because we recognize that the services available out there are slim.  We provide what we can, knowing that we are a drop in the bucket to the needs that exist—but an ever needed drop to a thirsty population.  So unless we duplicate ourselves through products and services, many women will go untreated.

I know for many women who are struggling to recover from the diabolical aftermath of a pathological relationship that it seems that too few services exist.  Please remain hopeful that along with The Institute there are other therapists and agencies that hear your cry and are reaching out for training so they can help you recover.  We too, are always looking at how we can expand our scope and reach.  If you have ideas about how we can help you further, please let us know your thoughts.

In the meantime, if our coaching programs can be of assistance please use them.  Or if you are a therapist, please come to our trainings.  If you are a survivor, we would love for you to bring healing to yourself through our phone coaching, support groups, or retreats (February & March 2012).  The fact is, the more we learn, the more we can teach.  But we can only do so much.  One agency like ours can’t heal the world.  But we can teach what we know and assist in healing those who come for help, which is why we are always encouraging therapists to get trained, (January 26-30, 2012 training in Hilton Head Island, SC!)  Don’t lose heart that there are few services that understand your unique situation with a pathological.  Remain hopeful that in a new field of psychology, we are growing as fast as we can!

Watch with us vigilantly, as we see this new field of psychology emerge and expand!  Please let 2012 be the year of healing for you.  We’ve worked hard so that you have many of our resources that can help you move forward.

Much healing to you in 2012!