“Let Go or Be Dragged” ~ Author unknown

I don’t know who wrote that slogan, but I loved it so much I bought it on a magnet. My first thought was, “Oh, I LOVE that saying for the women!”  But in a flash, I realized it’s a slogan for everyone. A friend of mine in recovery said she loved it for her AA recovery slogan.  Another person told me she loved it as a spiritual theme—to hold with an open hand or face the consequences. But, I do love it for all of you. Here’s why…

Pathological attachments are ‘gorilla glue.’ The pathological partners have a vibe—a come-hither, bonding vortex that sucks you in and holds you there in a hypnotic-like trance. It’s a powerful, seductive, subconscious attachment that mirrors the worst addictive feeling you could ever have. It vibrates throughout your body with a message and sensation that you will literally die if you are disconnected from the source. Letting go never feels like an option. It feels like sure death — death by disconnection, death by umbilical severing, death by life-force loss.

Its trance-like hold of your mind, body, and spirit leaves you stupefied with an inability to enact your own will or your ability to choose sanely the option of getting away from this catatonia. The same trance-like hold that held you in rapture, reverie, and ecstasy, now holds you in a cataleptic coma. Alive, with your eyes open, but your mind dead and unable to move. You look mildly functional to the world but the world doesn’t see the transfixion that is keeping you paralyzed beneath your eyes.

You hold on because you are glued. You hold on because there was rapture, reverie, and ecstasy. You hold on because to NOT hold on is to release your grip on the emotional life support system you think he has been. You hold on because you believe if you hold on long enough, the dazed and glazed existence you have been living will revert to rapture.  The nightmare will then become the dream. The stupor will become the high of the intensity. You hold on because you believe you can’t let go.

WAIT! HOLD UP! Let us ask, “Where are you? How did your clothes get torn? Where is the life you used to have? Where are the relationships with others that you once held dear? Why are your knees skinned? Why do you have those dark circles under your eyes? Why are you on antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication? Where is the career you built? Why are your nails digging into your hands? Why is your stomach in your throat? Why are you now somewhere you never wanted to go? How did you get here? Why are you bleeding from your soul?” It’s because your belief about letting go has kept you being dragged.

Drag: verb. Related to: haul, lug, move, pull, schlep, tug, yank, crawl, creep, shuffle.  Your soul is bleeding—it’s your courtesy warning system from your spirit that is telling you to let go.

Even being dragged can be a gift. It can be the first scraped knee that crosses you over to recovery. You’ve held on for lots of reasons including your own version of ‘pathological hope’ that he will change and it will be different. History has taught you otherwise. It’s time to accept the wisdom that ‘no change’ brings to us. Your skinned knee is a metaphor for the beginning of your recovery because the word dragged means “to haul something to a new place.”

                                           Let go or be dragged.

In our last two articles, I have been talking about trance states, dissociation, hypnotic suggestion, mind control… all ways the pathological controls your mind, thoughts, feelings and, ultimately, your behavior.

This is not hocus-pocus stuff. Trance states, dissociation and hypnosis are all normal ways our bodies and minds respond to certain conditions. The only argument is if these pathologicals KNOW they are doing it to others! My answer would be YES—they are MASTERS at noticing what works on other people. So, to that degree, they tweak what works.

Additionally, many of you may be aware of the seminars, books, websites and TV shows about seduction and the techniques that are taught men about coming in under the radar to seduce women through hypnotic methods. My guess is that the pathologicals are teaching their findings to others…passing on the horrid knowledge of their own disorders and how to covertly and subconsciously attract women into sexual relationships. Appalling? You bet! Just one more big WAKE-UP CALL to women—pay attention and guard your minds.

Trance, mind control and hypnotic suggestion also are based on one’s own level of suggestibility. This is related to how responsive you are to the suggestions and opinions of others. The more responsive you are, the more suggestible and more easily you are mind-controlled or hypnotizable.

A women’s suggestibility is often influenced by her own biology. Women who are highly cooperative and value how others perceive them are likely to be more suggestible. Also, women’s fatigability highly influences her suggestibility.

Almost all women report high levels of emotional, physical, sexual, financial, and spiritual fatigue within Pathological Love Relationships. They take a toll on them—wearing them down until their emotional reserves, that would normally not give in, are repressed. At that time when a woman’s fatigue level is high, her suggestibility is also high. Tired and spaced out, it’s easy to be controlled by him. Messages told to her during tired and spaced-out times are recorded deeply and often subconsciously. “Can’t get him out of my head” is very real.

The women who participated in our research survey on “women who love psychopaths” showed us just how susceptible women can be to suggestibility, fatigability, and the resulting mind control. Almost all of the women experienced some form of trance, hypnosis, or mind control of “spellbound” symptoms.

Women must understand that “staying in the relationship to figure it out” or “see what happens” or “wait until he works on himself and gets better” is absolutely risky for you. Your ability to be covertly controlled by him is significantly higher than with other females in his life.

(**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

In last week’s article, we started talking about the very REAL issue of trance in a relationship with pathologicals. Women have described this as feeling “under his spell,” “spellbound,” “mesmerized,” “hypnotized,” “spaced out,” “not in control of my own thoughts…” All of these are ways of saying that various levels of covert and subtle mind control have been happening with the pathological. And why wouldn’t it be happening? These are power-hungry people who live to exert their dominance over others. That includes your body, mind or spirit. Mind-control techniques, either physical or mental, are used on prisoners of war, in cults, and in hostage-taking. They obviously work or there wouldn’t be ‘techniques’ and bad people wouldn’t use them.

Mind control, brainwashing, coercion… are all words for the same principles that are used to produce the results of reducing your own effectiveness and being emotionally overtaken by someone intent on doing so. The result is the victim’s intense attachment to her perpetrator. This is often referred to as Betrayal Bonding or Trauma Bonding.  This is created by:

• Perceived threat to one’s physical or psychological survival and the belief that the captor/perpetrator would carry out the threat.
• Perceived small kindness from the captor/perpetrator to the captive.
• Perceived inability to escape.
• Isolation from perspectives other than those of the captor/perpetrator.

Mind control then produces dissociation which is a form of trance state. Dissociation is when your mind becomes overloaded and you need to ‘step outside of yourself’ to relieve the stress. Dissociation and trance are common reactions to trauma. For instance, dissociation happens during abuse in childhood as well as during adult traumas like rape. Prolonged mind control in adults will even produce trance states where adults begin to feel like they are being controlled—and they are!

If you have experienced mind control in your relationships, treatment and recovery for it includes:

• Breaking the isolation—Helping you identify sources of supportive intervention, self-help groups or group therapy, hotlines, crisis centers, shelters and friends.
• Identifying violence—As a victim in an abusive relationship, minimization of the abuse can occur, or denial about the different types of violent behavior that you encounter. Confusion about what is acceptable male (parental/authority) behavior is often common. Journal-keeping, autobiographical writing, reading of first-hand accounts or seeing films that deal with abuse may be helpful for you to understand the types of abuse you experienced.
• Renaming perceived kindness—Since abuse confuses the boundaries between kindness and manipulation, you may need to develop alternative sources of nurturance and caring other than the captor/perpetrator.
• Your ability to validate both love and terror—Because pathologicals often are dichotomous or have polar-opposite behaviors such as kind and sadistic, there is often a split by the victim in how they see the abuser. Treatment may be needed to help you integrate both dissociated sides of the abuser and will assist you in moving through the dreamlike state in how you view and remember him.

In next week’s article, we’ll continue our discussion on other forms of trance states and spellbound conditions.

(**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

Time and again women allude to the mystical aspects of the pathological with whom they are involved. They describe them as “being under his spell,” “entranced with him” or “hypnotized by him,” even “spellbound” or “mind-controlled”.

Women aren’t exactly able to define what they are experiencing or even to accurately describe what they think is occurring, but they do unanimously conclude that something is happening that feels like it’s hypnotic. Beyond the ‘hocus-pocus’ of hypnosis lies real truth about what IS probably happening in those relationships.

Trance happens to every person every day. It is a natural lull in the body when many of its systems are resting, or a state we enter when tired. Blood sugar levels, metabolism and other natural body functions can affect the sleepy states of trance that we enter all day long.

You’ve probably heard of ‘highway hypnosis’. This occurs when you have been driving and are so concentrated on the driving or, when you are getting sleepy while driving and watching those yellow lines, that you forget about the last few miles, and—all of a sudden—you’re aware that you’re almost at your destination. Highway hypnosis is a trance or light form of self-hypnosis. No one put you in that state of hypnosis—you went into it on your own. Check in with most people around 2 p.m. and you’ll see lots of people in sleepy trances.

But pathology can cause people to enter trance states frequently. Pathological Love Relationships are exhausting and take their toll on your body through stress, diet, loss of sleep, and worry. While you are worn down and fatigued, you are more suggestible to the kinds of things that are said to you while you are in that state of mind during which these words, feelings and concepts sink in at a deeper level than other ideas and statements said to you when you are NOT in a trance state.

If he is telling you that you are crazy, or gaslighting you by telling you that you really didn’t see him do what you think he did, or that the problems of the relationship are because of you… those statements said to you when you are suggestible stay filed in your subconscious and are replayed over and over again, creating intrusive thoughts and obsessive thinking.

If he tells you positives when you are in trance states, such as “I need you” and “please don’t ever leave me”, those phrases, too, are stored in a subconscious location, working you over without your knowledge. When it’s time to redirect your beliefs about him, disengage, or break up, women feel like ‘old tapes’ are running in their heads. It’s very hard for them to get these messages to stop activating their thinking, feeling, and behavior.

Women who have strong personality traits in suggestibility and fatigability are more at risk of trance-like states in which words, meanings, and symbols are more concretely stored in the subconscious. Women feel relieved to find out that they really aren’t crazy—it really DOES feel like you are under his spell, because, in many ways, you are.

More information on trance states in Pathological Love Relationships is covered in detail in my book, Women Who Love Psychopaths: Inside the Relationships of Inevitable Harm with Psychopaths, Sociopaths & Narcissists.

In our next newsletter, we’ll talk about other ways that trance states can be affected in the Pathological Love Relationship.

(**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

I’ve seen the look many times—hundreds of times over the past 25+ years, working with (mostly) women who are surviving a Pathological Love Relationship. There is a ‘look.’ Initially it’s a timid look—before she grasps that she really CAN survive and thrive. The look then begins to change, morphing into real belief and real power.

Ironically, I scaw the look this past week in an unlikely, but stunning face. I saw her gentleness—as did the pathological that was in her life. Your Super Traits of empathy, tolerance, caring and compassion are what make you the wonderful woman you are. These are also target traits for pathological individuals. You can just see the gentleness in the face.

Then I saw her powerlessness.

It’s that look—like you don’t know if you will ever get out, ever survive, ever find your power again. It feels as if you are being held against your will—when you remember once that you were so different—so self-assured, confident, and capable.

Many people have seen the face of unbelievable stress and worry—when you no longer trust your own judgment, ping-pong back and forth between loving and loathing him. When you can’t concentrate, focus, sleep, or even want to get up each day.

But, the greatest thing about doing this work is when women really ‘get it’ about pathology. When they understand that what’s wrong with him has nothing to do with her, and what she did or didn’t do. When she gets that ‘wild-eyed look’ that says her reality has shifted, and she realizes that what has happened to her is simply that she’s been knee-deep in pathology, and she is powerful enough to walk away.

I love that part—the paradigm shift—when a woman turns the corner in understanding, and her whole future opens up like a flower blooming!

Over the years, I have watched hundreds of women storm off into their futures having recaptured their lives, their dignity, their self-belief, and their ability to function well. It’s a beautiful and strong presence when you get to witness that happen.

Why all of the horse photos? This is Rachel Alexandra—I love her expressive face. She is a reminder to me of all the women I have worked with. She was the first filly in 85 years to win the Preakness. It awed me to see her many faces of gentleness, powerlessness, worry, thriving, and power. It reminded me that even though so much is often against you in your race to recovery from pathology, that you too—like Rachel Alexandra—can defy the odds even when they have been stacked against you that way for years! There really is something to be said for the power of belief, destiny, and desire. I believe in you!

(**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

In last week’s article, we began talking about the grief process as it pertains to ending the relationship with your dangerous (and often, pathological) person. Even though the relationship was damaging, and maybe you even initiated the breakup, you cannot sidestep the necessary grieving. Women are shocked to find themselves grieving at all, given how abusive, damaging, or horrible the relationship was. They tell themselves they should be grateful to be out and this negates their own feelings of loss. The end of a relationship always constitutes a loss, whether he died or whether the relationship merely ended—the heart recognizes it as the same—a loss.

I also mentioned in the last article that grief is natural. It’s an organic way the body and mind tries to rid themselves of the pain. That’s why it’s so necessary, because if you did not grieve, you would have no way to eventually be out of pain. Grief is the way a person moves through the loss and to the other side of health and healing.

Without grief there wouldn’t even be a POTENTIAL for healing because grief must occur in order for healing to follow. To stuff your grief or try to avoid it is to sabotage your own ability to heal. So for every person trying to work through the ending of a relationship, grief is the healthiest response.

Some of the losses associated with the end of the relationship were discussed in the previous article. The ‘personal side’ of grief—the other aspects that were lost because of the pathological relationship and must be grieved include the loss of:

• your own self-respect
• your own dignity
• your self-identity
• your self-confidence
• your self-esteem
• your ability to trust your own instincts
• respect of others
• trust of others
• hope
• joy
• the belief that you can ever be different or better

These significant personal losses may not always be recognized as ‘grief’ but more as all the deficits that have been left behind because of the pathological relationship. Although he is gone, this is his mark upon your life and your soul. These losses reflect the loss of your self and your own internal personal resources.

Stripped away is your ability to recognize your former self, the ability to tap into what was once the strength that helped you in life, and to respect your self and your life choices.

Of all the things that need grieving, women indicate these personal losses are the most devastating. Because in the end, you are all that you have left—when he is gone, you must fall back on your self for your healing. But what is left has been described by survivors as “an empty shell of a former life”… “a garden that is overgrown with weeds and in disrepair”… “a once-stately estate that has been vandalized and abandoned.”

To begin the arduous task of healing and repair requires that you turn inward and draw on your resources. But what was there feels like it is gone. You may want to begin the healing from the pathological relationship, but you are stopped short in your tracks by the necessary grieving of all things internal that are now gone or damaged.

Clearly, the first step is to grieve. Let us know if we can help you take that first step.

(**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

Over and over, women are shocked to find out how badly they feel about leaving a dangerous/pathological man. As horrendous as the relationships has been, as hurt as they have become at his hands, and with the emotional/physical/financial/sexual/spiritual cost it takes to heal… “Why in the world am I so sad and in so much grief?”

One of the things we have discovered from our research project (Women Who Love Psychopaths) is that ‘loving’ a pathological (not just a psychopath, but any person with a pathological disorder), seems to involve having a very intense attachment to the relationship. Most women report that ‘loving’ them is nothing like anything else they ever experienced. They indicate that it’s more intense than other relationships, there are more mind games that keep them very confused and unable to detach, and a kind of hypnotic mesmerizing that keeps them in the relationship LONG after they know they should have left.

Because of this intense bonding, mental confusion, pathological attachment and a hypnotic connection, the woman’s grief is likely to be HUGE. This is often confusing to her because she has suffered so much damage by the time she leaves that she thinks she should be ‘relieved’ to simply be out of the relationship. But when the paralyzing grief mounts, she is aggravated with herself for being in so much pain and grief over the ending of something so ‘sick’ to her.

Lots of women are confused as to ‘who’ or ‘what’ it is they are actually grieving over. Grief can seem so ‘elusive’—a haunting feeling that is like a grey ghost but can’t be nailed down to actually ‘what’ the loss is.

The end of any relationship (even a pathological one) is a loss. Within the ending of the relationship is a loss of many elements. There is a loss of the ‘dream’ of partnership or togetherness, the loss of a shared future together, as well as the loss that maybe he would someday ‘get it together’ or actually ‘love you.’ When the relationship ends, so does the dream of being loved (even if he is technically not capable of truly loving anyone). There is a loss of your plans for the future—maybe that was buying a home, having children, or taking a big trip. There is the loss of shared parenting (if that occurred), loss of income, loss of being touched or held, loss of sex.

Although a lot of women may actually see a lot of these hopes and dreams as ‘illusions,’ it still constitutes a loss and women are often surprised at the kinds of things they find themselves grieving over.

Some women lose their pets in the breakup, or their house or career. Some lose their children, their friends, her relatives or his. Some have to relocate to get away from him because of his dangerousness, so they lose their community, roots, and home.

No matter what it is you perceive you no longer have… it’s a loss—and when you have loss you have grief. People spend a lot of time trying to stay on the perimeter of grief—trying to avoid it and stay away from the pain. But grief is the natural way to resolve conflict and loss. It’s the body’s way of ridding the mind and soul of ongoing pain. It’s an attempt at rebalancing one’s mind and life. Grief is a natural process that is given to you as a pain management tool. Without grief there would never be a way of moving through pain. You would always just remain stuck in the feelings and you would always feel the same.

Don’t avoid grief. While no one likes grief it’s important to allow yourself to feel the feelings and the pain. To suppress it, deny it, or avoid it will mean you will never work through it. I don’t know anyone who wants to live in this kind of pain.  There is only one way through the pain of grief and that’s through the middle of it. There are no shortcuts, quick routes or other ways ‘around’ the pain and grief. There is only through it—like a wilderness. But on the other side of it is the promise of healing, hope and a future.

Don’t judge your grief. What hurts, hurts. Even if it doesn’t make sense to you (he was horrible, why am I grieving HIM?)—it’s your body’s way of moving through it, so let it. Get help if you need it—counseling, group, medication, a grief group—whatever it is you need.

Don’t set a predetermined ‘time’ that you think you should be ‘over it.’ It probably takes longer than you think it will or you want it to. But that’s how it is—grief takes its time.

Grief can look like depression, anxiety, PTSD or a lot of other types of symptoms and sometimes it’s hard to know where one starts and the other one ends. That’s because you oftentimes aren’t having one or the other, you are having some of both.

Journal your losses, talk about them, tell others, get help when you need it. (We’re here too!!) Most of all, know that grief is a God-sent natural way of working through the pain so you can move on.

(**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

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

In order to do that, you must legitimately have PTSD, be diagnosed and have an Accommodations Report prepared by a professional that is presented to your state’s ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) Coordinator’s Office. From there, special accommodations are granted. The range and what the accommodations are, are listed in the column, “Helping Women Find Effective Strategies for Court.”

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

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

One of our previous presidential candidates has PTSD. Firefighters and law enforcement that bravely saved many on 9/11 have PTSD. Missionaries helping the poor in other countries have PTSD. Social workers working in dangerous situations have PTSD.

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

If you have it, say it. Nothing starts healing until we acknowledge it. It is what it is.  Some worry that they will be labeled with mental illness if the court acknowledges their PTSD. Well, let’s think about that… do you think a pathological is going to go into court and NOT say you are crazy? You don’t think he will argue every point of your illness, behavior, or symptoms (whether they are true or not) in order to win? You don’t think he’s GOING to use some kind of emotional disorder argument? OF COURSE HE IS—that’s what pathologicals DO!! So, in order to prevent being labeled something far worse than PTSD, if you have PTSD, let IT be the label instead of something else that can greatly impair your ability to get rehabilitative alimony, custody of your children, etc.

Having a PTSD diagnosis before court can greatly help HOW FAR the pathological can go in trying to make you look mentally ill. PTSD is NOT a mental illness. Having a PTSD diagnosis may help prevent them from labeling you mentally ill with other more debilitating types of mental illness.

So don’t shun the PTSD diagnosis if you have it. It may prevent you from being labeled something far worse.

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

 © www.saferelationshipsmagazine.com

Women tell me their therapists have diagnosed them with a variety of diagnoses, which has made them not only confused, but often ANGRY! They have been diagnosed, for instance, with disorders like bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, paranoia, and other not-so-fun labels.

Most therapists are undertrained in recognizing and treating the aftermath symptoms in victims of Pathological Love Relationships. The reason you are being diagnosed with various disorders is because your symptoms are similar to those various disorders—they are mimicking true mental-health symptoms.

For instance, when your moods are swinging all over the place and you are depressed and anxious, you look bipolar. When you are cranky, highly reactive and want vengeance you look borderline. When you are scared about what he will do next, fear you’re being  followed, or afraid he is spying on you so he can accuse you of something, you look paranoid. When you think things are happening that you can’t prove to other people, you look delusional.

The issue is, these are ALL normal reactions to coercion and Stockholm Syndrome, similar to those found in prisoners of war—in other words, aftermath of a Pathological

Love Relationship. In THAT context, your symptoms make perfect sense! You were coerced, your mind was played with, you felt stuck and held in a pathological relationship against your own spiritual will. You feared that your emotional and physical existence were in jeopardy. And the pathological DOES do things he never gets caught for but that you can’t prove.

In Pathological Love Relationships, women emerge with signs of PTSD, Stockholm Syndrome, and coercion. Unfortunately, not all therapists understand the overlap between PTSD, Stockholm Syndrome and coercion—which is why you are often misdiagnosed. A lot of this is discussed in my book, Women Who Love Psychopaths, in which I talk about the pathological worldview and how women acquire the pathological’s view of the world and how that entraps them in the relationship.

The symptoms of coercion are:

• Isolation: The individual is deprived of social support, effectively rendering her unable to resist. This makes the individual become dependent upon her interrogator/captor. The victim then develops an intense concern with self.
• Monopolization of Perception: The captor fixes his attention upon immediate predicament; fosters introspection in the victim; eliminates outside competing stimuli with the captor, so the victim can only focus on him, and frustrates all actions not consistent with her compliance to him.

(In the mid-relationship dynamics in the book, all of this is discussed. Your Super Traits are very high in what we call relationship investment and cooperation which means you are highly cooperative because you get so much enjoyment out of your relationships that you will ‘bend over backwards’ to make things work. The book discusses when the mid-relationships ‘shift’ and what happens to the women’s perspective.)

• Induced Debility and Exhaustion: People subjected to this type of abuse become worn out by tension, fear and continual rushing about in an effort to meet their abuser’s standards. They must often avoid displays of fear, sorrow or rage, since these may result in ridicule or punishment. Rigid demands and requirements make the exhaustion and ability to resist even worse.
• Occasional Indulgences: Serve to provide motivation to her for compliance.
• Devaluing the Individual: Creates in her a fear of freedom and dependence upon him, creates feelings of helplessness, develops lack of faith in her individual capabilities.

The symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome are:

• Perceived threat to one’s physical or psychological survival, and the belief that the captor would carry out the threat.
• Perceived small kindnesses from the captor to the captive.
• Perceived inability to escape.
• Isolation from perspectives other than those of the captor.

When you look at it as a mixture of PTSD, Stockholm Syndrome and coercion, your symptoms make perfect sense… at least to me! While that doesn’t mean you can’t also have bipolar or other disorders—it’s too early to know. Very often many of the symptoms of other disorders fall by the wayside when effective and appropriate treatment is begun. Many of the women do, however, meet the criteria for PTSD. PTSD is most associated with war vets (and yes, you too lived through a war!) and trauma victims (yes, you were traumatized!). To that end, you probably do have a disorder, but it is related to PTSD or other acute stress disorders.

Be hopeful that the symptoms you live with may not always be as problematic as they are in your life today. There is hope and healing available!

(**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

Is it True, is it REALLY True?

In psychology, we refer to the belief about where control over events in our lives resides as internal and external locus of control. This means we see our behaviors either generated by personal efforts or by destiny. We believe that we make things happen, or we believe others do it for us whether we like it or not.

But also related to internal and external locus of control is its effect on impulse motivation. This means that a person who has internal locus of control can self regulate their impulses and desires themselves. They find their motivation for behavior, choices, and reactions inside of themselves by themselves. (By the way, pathologicals normally have poor internal locus of control except for brief periods of time when they are conning someone.)

Other people who have external locus of control (like the pathologicals) are not self regulated in their behavior, choices, and reactions inside of themselves. Instead, they look outside themselves for motivation and consequently since they don’t regulate themselves well, outside themselves for limits on their behaviors. People with poor internal locus of control often need the external world to regulate themselves for them—unfortunately this is often the legal system, jail, or some kind of negative consequence.

But today, I am talking about internal and external locus of belief systems. Where is your belief system (especially about the pathological) located? Inside you or externally in others? Do you come to understand, see, and accept his pathology within yourself? Do you read materials, go to counseling and then come to believe and hold that belief in you that he is pathological, can’t change, and is destructive to your own future? Are you able to pull up inside of yourself the facts of his dangerous or misleading behavior in your relationship? Are you able to point to the ways in which he has been destructive to others? Are you able to latch on to his diagnosis and use it as a life raft for yourself to drift away from him?

OR, are your beliefs externally hinged? “If you say so Sandy–if you say he’s pathological, then I guess he is.” “If he scored high on the P-scan (developed by Dr. Robert Hare) then I suppose that is correct….” Statements like these are related to people who have external locus of belief. They don’t really believe it themselves, they are hinging their belief system to someone else’s belief systems–usually mine or another expert in pathology. Somewhere along the line they haven’t really ‘come to believe’ that the pathology is his. It’s still some distant reality ‘labeled’ by a therapist but she doesn’t own it inside herself.

This makes accepting it, reallllyyyyyy accepting it, hard for her because she then needs to be reminded every 30 seconds that he is, in fact, permanently pathological. Once she is out of ear shot of a therapist or some other external validating system (books, dvds, cds, etc.) will she still accept his pathology?

‘Coming to believe’ pathology is a hard thing. It’s a shock to learn that someone you thought was the most wonderful person in the world is secretly very, very (did I say very?) sick. NOT only do you have to believe that the person is very, very (did I say very?) sick, but that sickness has no cure. Not only are they sick and have no cure, but staying around them is detrimental to your own (and your children’s) mental health. Not only that they are sick and there is no cure, staying around them is detrimental to your own mental health because they have all the capacities of breaking both your knee caps–either financially or even physically given no conscience. This is a big wad to swallow all at once with no chaser of hope.

Most people need a time of ‘coming to believe’ — it’s like building faith in anything else–we study and come to believe.

Pathology is the same way–you need some education, some time to digest this big wad of bad news, and some time to work a plan of ‘accepting the things I cannot change.’ Almost everyone who faces the fact of pathology in someone else has this same ‘coming to terms’ process. We expect it.

But, there is also the problem of when you don’t ever come to truly accept it and then hinge your belief system about his pathology on some external person, organization, or book. The Institute cannot be your belief system. (He’s pathological because Sandy says so.) If, after a few months, that belief system doesn’t become internal for you (I know this to be self evident, that he is pathological and for all of these reasons….) then you’re in trouble of relapse.

Just like in external locus of control explained above, external locus of belief stands in the same jeopardy–that someone else can’t be responsible for what you do with what you know (or what you don’t come to accept). That your pathology destiny is not in The Institute’s hands–it’s in yours. That whether you ignore the info and go back is entirely up to you—not a support group, not a book, not a program or a retreat–just your destiny in your hands.

If your locus of belief is still external and it doesn’t shift and become internal–just know this is a risk factor for you.

Holding the belief system steady is the challenge of overcoming cognitive dissonance. When it doesn’t get over come eventually, either you learn to do what the 12 Steppers call ‘Fake It Til You Make It’ (do it til you believe it) or face the rising statistics that you’re likely to believe the internal chatter and make a bee line back.

(**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.)

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