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.

Since the beginning of the year, we have been focused on discussing your recovery in great detail.  That’s because the power of pathology saws people off at the knees.  In order to heal, you have to have a plan for your own recovery.  We consider this so important, that a portion of all of my counseling including phone, in person, or during retreats, is focused on how to pace and plan your own recovery.

Women fantasize that ‘somehow’ getting over this pathological relationship will just ‘happen’ and don’t realize they should be planning their recovery, or even how to go about planning it.  In fact, most women have done zero to plan or facilitate their own healing process.  Those of you who have found the website are at least that much further ahead than the women who haven’t even begun reading about the topic of her relationships yet!  So finding the information is a great first step.  But, it’s only a first step, and too many women stop there only to relapse and get into yet another pathological relationship.

Last year’s newsletters spent a lot of time examining the depth of damage done at the hands of your pathological.  We have looked at PTSD, The Cracked Vessel, the need for Living the Gentle Life, about intrusive thoughts and obsessions, healing spiritually, healing sexually, and about fantasy and hatred.  We have spent almost 52 weeks looking very deeply at the issues of how this relationship has hurt you emotionally, physically, medically, spiritually, sexually, and financially.

There will always be those women who won’t do anything about their lives except continue to be a victim of it.  How do I know this?  I get the same emails from the same people week after week asking me the same ‘loophole-based’ questions about ‘do I think she should leave him because after all, he SAID he would change.’   Week after week the same people with the same questions who haven’t read the book, who haven’t spent time in the workbook, who haven’t listened to one mp3 or CD, who haven’t spent one hour in counseling…. keep asking the same questions, expecting things to get better, and getting the same results.

Any 12-Stepper knows that the only way they can stay away from something so life-gripping like drugs, alcohol, gambling, or sex is with a concerted daily focused recovery on themselves, and the behaviors, habits, and beliefs that led to the life-damaging events that have altered them.  Women who will recover from pathological relationships are those who take the same serious and focused approach to the life-gripping and life-damaging relationship that has altered their life.

We spend forty-plus hours a week at The Institute developing ways to strengthen YOUR recovery – after all, this isn’t about US!  We do this by writing books, e-books, making mp3s and CDs, and other products.  By giving workshops and conferences, training therapists so they can do phone counseling with you, opening a retreat center so you can get specific and unique treatment for your issues, and intense research so we understand WHAT you need to heal from this.

We hope that 2012 is the year you really knuckle-down and focus on your recovery – taking the steps you need to heal from the life damaging experience at the hands of the pathological.  Why?  First of all we don’t want pathology to win by destroying the lives of strong and wonderful women.  We exist to kick butt on this issue!  Secondly, WE NEED YOU!

~ If you don’t teach the woman you sit next to, how will she learn to spot
and avoid pathology?

~  If you don’t heal and recover, who will be a teacher to others?

~  Who will run support groups?

~  Who will give community lectures?

~  Who will operate an outreach?

It’s not us.  Our focus is to educate YOU.  Your job is to reach others! The year 2012 can be the year that you heal and reach others.  Let us help you reach your recovery goals, and then, the world!

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.

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.

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!

This leaves alot of our own happiness tied to someone else’s shirt tails and when he leaves, your happiness
goes right out the door with him. Last week I got to tell some fun stories about my mom and her concepts of
happiness.

What I talked about regarding my mom is her ‘joy’ which was far different than her happiness. She wasn’t
always happy. My father was murdered. That certainly did not bring happiness. Her 2nd husband stole her
life savings and was a sociopath. No happiness there. Her last ‘main squeeze’ in her life died of prostrate
cancer–a lot of sadness there. Yet, my mother was unusually ‘joyful.’

Because joy has to do with the quality of US, not them. It’s a me factor, not a him, or them, factor. Happiness
may be external but joy is internal and in many ways eternal. It imminates from within us and can exist even
when the external cirucmstances of our lives ‘suck.’

Joy can be infectious and can touch others when how we are has nothing to do with who we are with. It’s a
barometer reading of how we are doing with ourselves and in our own spiritual development. It reminds us
how we are doing with managing our own outlook, optimism, and future. We may not have control over what
he’s doing, who he’s doing, or how he’s doing but we do have control over how we choose to see our
circumstances. This is the essence of internal joy–managing the world view from the inside instead of
taking your emotional temperature based on how well he’s behaving. How I am or how my joy is can’t be
taken by a thermometer from his mouth. It has to be taken from our internal and eternal wellbeing.

When you are finally able to shift your focus of ‘where’ and ‘how’ joy is created, it is a mind blowing
change. Because you no longer hold tight to the reins of external control—I’ll be happy when someone else
does this_________. You are able to refocus on finding joy in your life, just the way it is, with yourself and
all your warts.  In fact, over the past couple years I wrote about this regarding Viktor Frankel a jewish psychiatrist who went
thru the Holocaust and developed what is now called ‘Existential Psychology’ which is finding meaning in
pain AND taking control of how you see what you have lived thru.

If all pain is bad then there is no gift in it. If there is no gift there is no learning. If there is no learning there
is no opportunity to transform it. If you can’t transform it, you are it’s victim.

Joy comes from right perspective when we tweak how we see ourselves, our lives, and the lessons of our
lives. When life is a spiritual walk not just a relationship destination, we are able to see the lessons as part
of the journey and the OPTION of having joy even in the midst of a unplanned disaster like a pathological
relationship. Joy is like a new eye glass prescription–it clears up and crisps up how we see who
we are on this journey and path of life even while in pain.

Your pain does not have to define you. That’s your choice. You are more than your pain. And so is your life!

If we can help you in 2012 move forward in your joy, please consider joining us for the ONLY TWO retreats we
are doing in 2012. February and March. Contact us for more information.

From whom shall we look to understand personal and corporate pathology? Where shall our public pathology education come from?
www.saferelationshipsmagazine.com

* For domestic violence to occur or reoccur

* For dysfunctional families to be even MORE dysfunctional

* For pathology to be overt and blatant

* For pathology to target your joy and ruin your holidays

* For former pathological relationships to magically reappear and try to hook you back in

* People drink more

* People binge eat because of the stress

* Some feel pressured to ‘be in a relationship’ during the holidays and accept dates or stay with dangerous persons to ‘just get thru the holidays’

* To overspend

* To not get enough rest

It’s an idealistic time when people have more depression and anxiety than any other time of the year. They think their lives ‘should be’ the picture postcards and old movies we watch this time of year. Depression creeps in, anxiety increases, and to cope they eat/drink/spend/date in ways they normally would not.

Those with the super trait of ‘sentimentality’ focus on years past when you had that ‘one’ perfect Christmas with the pathological. The last drunken, absent, or abusive 14 Christmases are forgotten, forgiven or overlooked. But what IS focused on is that one year when it was nice and your pit-bull stronghold on the hope it will be this way again.

But you and I both know that pathology is permanent. The last 14 years are a much better and more realistic presentation of what pathology does during the holidays than the one fluke of a year he held it together. Pathology is and of itself stressful to experience under any circumstances. Add to it the expectations for a pathological to be different (ie, act appropriately) this time of year, and the pathologicals and everyone else’s stress is then through the roof. Sometimes even our hope can be pathological when it is focused on something that can not and does not change.

The glittering of your fantasy that resembles your Christmas tree lights places not only you in the path of Christmas misery, but all those you plan to spend Christmas with. Your family, kids, pets, etc. It is much kinder to unplug your glittering fantasy and tell yourself the truth what the likely outcome of attempting to find a serene and joyful moment with a pathological than it is to drag others through your melting fantasy.

Peace, gratitude, and all the spiritual reflections that are suppose to happen during this time of the year cannot be found in pathology. They were not created there but they do end there. If your goal for the holidays is to find some peace, joy, hope, and love then don’t spend it where and with whom it cannot be found. On December 26 and January 2 you will be a lot happier for not having attempted for the millionth time, to find happiness where it does not reside.

TIPS FOR A HAPPIER/HEALTHIER HOLIDAY

~ Stop idealizing–you are who you are, it is what it is, pathology is pathology. If your family isn’t perfect, they certainly WON’T be during the season. Accept yourself and others for who they are. This includes accepting that pathology cannot and will not be different during the Holidays simply because you want the Christmas fantasy. Emotional suffering is created in the moment when we don’t accept what ‘is.’ (Eckart Tolle)

~ Don’t feel pressured to eat more/spend more/drink more than you want to. Remind yourself you have choices and that the word ‘No’ is a complete sentence. Don’t get held hostage to exhausting holiday schedules.

~ Take quiet time during the season or you’ll get run over by the sheer speed of the holidays. Pencil it in like you would any other appointment. Buy your own present now–some bubble bath and spend quality time with some bubbles by yourself. Light a candle, find 5 things to be grateful for. Repeat often.

~ Take same-sex friends to parties and don’t feel OBLIGATED to go with someone you don’t want to go with. People end up in the worse binds of going to parties with others and get stuck in relationships they don’t want to be in because of it. Find a few other friends who are willing to be ‘party partners’ during the holidays.

~ Give to others in need. The best way to get out of your own problems is to give to others whose problems exceed yours. Give to a charity, feed the homeless, buy toys for kids.

~ Find time for spiritual reflection. It’s the only way to really feel the season and reconnect. Go to a church service, pray, reflect.

~ Pick ONE growth oriented issue you’d like to focus on for 2012 for your own growth on January 1. It produces hope to know you have a plan to move forward and out of your current emotional condition. Contact us and let us help you work on that for the new year. Invest in your opportunity to grow past the aftermath of this pathological love relationship.

~ Plant joy–in your self, in your life and in others. What you invest in your own recovery is also reaped in the lives of those closest to you.

Happy Holidays from the The Institute
www.saferelationshipsmagazine.com

Last Christmas, I got a book written by one of my favorite spiritual writers, Thomas Keating.  It’s called ‘The Human Condition:  Contemplation and Transformation.’  Profoundly, he reminds us that we spend much of our lives looking for happiness through avenues that can never produce it. We create our misery by “looking for love in all the wrong places,” as the song goes.  Nothing can be truer when it comes to pathology.  Pathology is wired to produce misery, not happiness.  Everyone has the same response to pathology–they are harmed, miserable, and eventually try to flee.  It’s a true indicator of seeking happiness from a source unable to deliver it.

Your idea of happiness was probably initially developed around the relationship, or the fantasy that was painted for you about him, the relationship, or your future.  Instead of understanding that happiness had been sought from someone, whom by the nature of their disorder could never deliver happiness, you were held captive in the compulsion of repeating the same scenario with him.  You tried to find happiness in the very person who is hard-wired to NOT produce happiness!

Not all of this seeking happiness in the wrong place is the result of his pathology. Some of it is the result of our own unknowing about where happiness is found. It is not found in someone else.  Instead, happiness is found inside of our self, rooted in our own spirituality through God.  It isn’t about them. It is about us.

Keating says, “What we experience is our desperate search for happiness where it cannot possibly be found.”  The key to our happiness is not lost outside of our self. It was lost inside our self when we began looking for it in someone else.  We need to look for it were it can actually BE found.

The chief characteristic of the human condition is that everyone is looking for this key, and nobody knows where to find it.  The human condition is thus poignant in the extreme.  If you want help as you look for the key in the wrong place, you can get plenty of help because everybody is looking for it in the wrong place too!  They are looking for it where there is more pleasure, security, power, and acceptance by others.  We have a sense of solidarity in the search, yet without any possibility of finding what we are looking for.

The religions of the world have discovered the insight that (non-pathological) human beings are designed for unlimited happiness, the enjoyment of truth, and love without end.  This spiritual hunger is part of our nature as beings with a spiritual dimension.  Here we are, with an unbounded desire for happiness and not the slightest idea of where to look for it.

While we may certainly recognize that looking for happiness in alcohol or drugs is looking in the wrong place, do we recognize that looking for happiness even in relationships can be the wrong place?  Certainly looking for love in pathology would never produce the key you were seeking, because it cannot be found where you were seeking it.  But sometimes people even look for happiness in what appears to be the RIGHT places—marriage, children, higher education, careers, and service to others, only again to find that they are still seeking happiness in the wrong direction.

In religious language, the word ‘repent’ means to ‘turn away from.’  And I like that concept even from a psychological growth standpoint.  As you find your own path of recovery from the aftermath of the pathological love relationship, your recovery calls you to ‘turn away from’ the very thing that has produced so much pain for you—the relationship, the choices, the person.  In essence, in order for you to find happiness in yourself, God and in you own (often single) life, you much ‘change the direction from which you are seeking happiness.’  This is especially true of this season in which everything in you wants to ‘turn back’ to him, to the routine, the perceived comfort—just to get through the tough times of the holidays.  Changing the direction from which you seek happiness is embracing the truth that happiness cannot be found in pathology.  God did not create you for pathology.  He created you for Himself—for peace, love, and joy.  It’s not there and will never be there in pathology, even if it IS the holidays.

Over the years, I have become pretty good at picking up on those who will ‘get it’ and move on and never repeat the pathological love relationship dynamic again, and those who WILL, unfortunately, not change direction from which they are seeking happiness.  They might change the FACE from whom they seek happiness, but they are still facing the same direction seeking it.

The Institute has been involved in helping hundreds and hundreds of people ‘change the direction from which they are seeking happiness’, and how to find recovery, healing, growth, and better choices for themselves.  To that end, we are always consciously trying to expand the way to meet the needs of our growing population of wounded readers and bring a wider comprehensive approach to your own health, wellbeing, and healing from the aftermath of pathological love relationships.  We hope that we have touched your recovery in a positive way in 2011.  We hope that we have helped you ‘change direction’ on your path.  If we haven’t, we’re still here and 2012 is a great year for you to recover!

As we wind down the holidays, the New Year always births in me a new hope. Although there is much turmoil in the world right now, be reminded again, that we can always change the direction from which we have been seeking happiness and focus on a brighter future for our self and with our self.  We look forward to being a bright part of your future in 2012. Thank you for entrusting your care and recovery to us this past year.  We do not take that privilege lightly.

(**Information on pathology and your recovery is in the award-winning book, Women Who Love Psychopaths, also taught during retreats, in 1:1s and in phone sessions.  See the website for more information.)

The pathological relationship never lies dormant during the holidays. It’s an opportunity to re-contact you–of course “just to wish you a Merry Christmas.” If you haven’t already, do read The Institute’s materials regarding our ‘Starve the Vampire’ teaching on no contact! He has a million hooks he will use to get you back in…Here’s one- Christmas!

A text message of Happy Holidays is not good cheer. It’s a hook.  A Christmas card is not a mass card to everyone–it is a targeted approach for you. A gift left on your door step isn’t a thoughtful gift–it’s a manipulation because being the good mannered girl you are, you’ll call and thank him and then he’ll have you on the phone….and it all goes downhill from there.

Then there’s the mistletoe, and the date for New Years Eve, and the gift he left for your child or your parents….The holidays are one BIG OP-POR-TU-NITY for Mr. Opportunistic.

The No Contact rule still applies and he’ll be testing your boundaries to see if it applies during the holidays. If it DOESN’T apply and you responded to him or sent him a text/card/call, you have just taught him where your loop hole is. You also said something very LOUD to him. You just screamed in his ear “I’m Lonely! Come snuggle with me.” And you know what he’s thinking, “You don’t have to ask TWICE!”

Ladies, Christmas is ONE day of the year that is laced with a lot of triggering memories. Maybe from childhood where you believe “miracles happen on Christmas” or “everyone should be together then” or the sights, smells, and memories of past Christmases with him are rehashing in your mind. Don’t stay stuck in that ‘air brushed Christmas memory’ — how about you pull out your memory list from the other 363 days of the year and how he behaved then? Not one night with the twinkle of Christmas tree lights and a ribbon on a gift. That doesn’t make a pathological man stable!

Get out of the fantasy. Christmas has a way of hypnotizing women into the fantasy of his positive behavior and his lack of pathology. Nothing changed because we hit Christmas season. It’s just a BIGGER opportunity for him to hook you.

If you’re still with the pathological person, they can be very sabotaging at this time of year wanting to strip every little piece of joy you could get from the season away. They get drunk, pick fights, say mean things to your family, yell at the kids, and don’t participate. Don’t react. Have a great Christmas while he wallows around in that puddle of pathology.

You know one of the things we found out in our research? You ladies tested unbelievably high in ‘sentimentality’. What are the holidays all about? SENTIMENT! If your sentiment is on caffeine, what do you think it will do? Be restrained or have a knee jerk reaction because all that sentiment is coursing through your veins?

One slip up now could cost you a year of trying to get rid of him again. Call a support person and tell them you VOW to them not to have contact this season. Then make plans to fill up your time so it’s not even a possibility.

I have ‘lectured’ our readers about loneliness because this 4 inch stack on research sitting on my desk that you ladies filled out, tells me that you lapse and lapse and lapse again when you feel lonely.  Holidays induce loneliness, so plan ahead and safe guard. “I was lonely is not an excuse for starting something that will once again destroy your life!”

Instead, do something wonderful with your kids. Get outside, take a walk, go to a movie with friends, do some scrapbooking, get some of our books to read, go to a nursing home and visit someone! Sit in a chapel alone and count blessings, walk your dog more, go to the gym! Do anything except have a knee jerk reaction to your excessive sentimentality gene!!

I am so passionate about this subject and concerned for your well being this holiday that I have made an mp3 message for you. To listen to my 15 min broadcast about protecting yourself this holiday season from relapse and hook ups, click here:

http://www.saferelationshipsmagazine.com/audio/Christmas2010Message.mp3