Acknowledging Domestic Violence/Pathology Awareness Month with the POWER of Information!
Do you believe that someone else’s pathology is none of your business or it’s simply an ‘unfortunate turn of events’ for the person in a Pathological Love Relationship? Or that what happens to someone else doesn’t affect you? What happens because of pathology affects us all.
An astute student asked ‘How many people does pathology negatively affect?’ We did a little math….
There are 304 million persons in the U.S. 1 in 25 people will have the disorders associated with ‘no conscience’ which include anti-social personality disorder, sociopath, and psychopath. 304 million divided by 25 = 12.16 million have no conscience. Each anti social/psychopath will have approximately 5 partners who will be negatively affected by their pathology = 60.8 million people!
If that many were affected by an existing medical conditions (like Diabetes or Heart Disease) or if it were a more readily recognized mental health problem like Depression that was negatively impacting 80.8 million people, there would be a public educational campaign. Celebrities would be on board helping the world to recognize the disorder/disease. There would be billboards, and walk-a-thons, and a proclamation signed by the President for Pathology Awareness Week. But there is none of that. Not only does Pathology slink silently by without recognition or assistance to others to recognize it, it racks up enormous financial debt for anyone and any system in its path.
And that isn’t the end of tallying the human path of destruction! The 60.8 million negatively affected by pathology does not include the children harmed and since psychopaths (and other forms of pathology) are hypersexual they tend to have lots of children so we could certainly tack on about half that amount of 60.8 million for children affected based on 2.5 children per psychopath. And sadly, this does not include all the other forms of pathology related to Cluster B personality disorders that also negatively impact others such as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) or other disorders within Cluster B. Current stats says that narcissism affects approximately 1% of the population and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) at 2%. However, 60% of people who have 1 personality disorder have more than one personality disorder so it’s likely that NPDs also have BPD or some Anti-social Personality Disorder (APD) and APDs have NPD and so on. So those numbers represent an overlap. (This is starting to challenge my math skills here…) But if we begin even with just the statistics on 1 in 25 have no conscience and multiply that to estimate how many wounded people are out there—it’s a huge issue.
A psychiatrist once remarked, “I consider pathology to be the country’s number one public health issue.” And with good reason—there are 60 million people negatively impacted by someone else’s extreme pathology (that Otto Kernberg called ‘Severe and Dangerous Personality Disorder). This includes the emotional impact–the aftermath symptoms that leave 50% of the people with PTSD. That’s almost equal to the percentage of war vets who come home with PTSD.
The emotional aftermath in others (with or without PTSD) causes treatable mental health symptoms like cognitive dissonance, intrusive thoughts, sleep disruptions, increase use of alcohol, concentration problems, flashbacks, depression, anxiety, paranoia and suicidal ideation.
The emotional aftermath affects the work environment causing almost 50% of the persons negatively affected to also be negatively affected in their work performance. Some cut back from full-time to part-time, be demoted making less money, or go on short term disability for aftermath symptoms causing MILLIONS of dollars in lost wages.
I have seen doctors move to ‘impaired practitioner’ status, attorneys step down to paralegals, social workers because mental health techs instead, others default to paid time off, use their vacation time, or go on disability and begin using state services such as food stamps and subsidized housing.
The aftermath also affects children who are then:
* Put into counseling
* Need school-based services because of acting-out/behavioral problems
* Are distracted
* Get PTSD
* Suffer with declining grades
* Are affected by the pathological parent’s world view and begin acting like the pathological requiring therapy to overcome their patterns
This doesn’t include the abject neglect that kids go through when being ‘watched’ by the pathological–often malnourished, not on a schedule, not put to bed on time, exposed to high risk behavior (porn, drugs, lots of sexual partners, violence, other criminal types). Total this up and the child has a lot to overcome. Since many of the personality disorders are parasitic by nature, they are also dead beats by nature not paying child support (even if they can afford to) causing another lag on the government services while children need Medicaid and other benefits.
Many of the personality disordered types are also affected in moral reasoning and don’t take responsibility for their behavior. This includes not paying off debt which becomes written off as bankruptcies or the other partner assumes the debt placing them in financial chaos for 10 years or more while they dig out and live below their normal standard of living. Millions of dollars every year are written off and absorbed by financial institutions and credit card companies because of pathologicals causing an even bigger financial drain on our over-taxed economic system. These types also feel ‘entitled’ to have all the things they want so are likely to have bought luxury toys they can’t afford–more than one house, huge houses, expensive cars, vacations, boats, etc. and walk away from the financial responsibility.
It is estimated that over 60% of pathologicals have addictions including drugs, alcohol, gambling, and porn–all causing millions of dollars in not only money spent on the addiction, but money then not spent on their children, alimony, and their bills.
Pathologicals are also highly litigious and don’t follow court orders resulting in years spent in frivolous court activity putting a lag on the court systems either by using up court time, not following court orders resulting in more court appearances, and using state-appointed court resources, further clogging up the court system. It also causes the partner high amounts of legal bills in fighting narcissistic-based law suits to simply spout their opinion in court or to exert power over the partner.
A moderate percentage of pathologicals will be criminal using court resources, state-appointed legal services, and jail, prison, probation and parole services.
(Are you furious yet?)
This cluster of pathologicals with impaired moral reasoning, high impulsivity and hyper sexuality are those most likely to practice high risk sexual behaviors and thus have resulting STDs that they willingly share with others causing public health concerns.
This high impulsivity and low responsibility results in DUIs, speeding tickets, and jacked up insurance rates.
When we wonder if pathology and the lack of a national public awareness campaign is ‘really’ an issue we should consider that ‘AT LEAST’ 60 million people are being affected by someone else’s pathology —and pathology is increasing as more women have children with them and as more children are being raised by them, thus influenced by them.
Our future is highly dependent on what we provide as Public Pathology Education to influence patterns of selection, the clogging impact on our social service systems, and the over use of our legal structure by pathology. Each one, teach one. Pass on what you know about pathology to someone this week! If we all teach a little, we can reach a lot!
