In my last article, I talked about the issue of happiness, and how happiness is hinged on external conditions such as relationships, things, careers – stuff. … Our happiness is largely conditional based on “if things go the way we think they should go” or “if people act the way we think they should act.” This leaves a lot of our own happiness tied to someone else’s shirt tails and when he leaves, your happiness goes right out the door with him.

I also related some fun stories about my mom and her concepts of happiness. What I talked about regarding my mom was 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 second 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.”

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 emanates from within us and can exist even when the external circumstances 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 of 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 your worldview from the inside instead of taking your emotional temperature based on how well he’s behaving. How we are, or how our joy is, can’t be taken by a thermometer from his mouth. It has to be taken from our internal and eternal well-being.

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 _________.” You are able to refocus on finding joy in your life, just the way it is, with yourself and all your warts.  In fact, a few years ago, I wrote about this regarding Viktor Frankel, a Jewish psychiatrist who went through 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 through.

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 its victim.

Joy comes from the 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 an unplanned disaster like a pathological relationship. Joy is like a new eyeglass 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 support you in your recovery process, please let us know.  The Institute is the largest provider of recovery-based services for survivors of pathological love relationships. Information about pathological love relationships is in our award-winning book, Women Who Love Psychopaths, and is also available in our retreats, on-on-ones, or phone sessions. See the website for more information).

© www.saferelationshipsmagazine.com

You were out looking for a little happiness when you stumbled upon Dr. Jekyll, as he was appearing wonderful and considerate. Strangely, before you knew it, evil Mr. Hyde was instead dismantling anything that resembled happiness, and leaving destruction and despair in its wake.

Despair is a long way from the happiness you were initially seeking. How did you get from mere happiness-seeking to a totally despairing life? How can you embrace the happiness that you set out to find?

It might not even be “happiness”, per se, that you were initially seeking. You might have been looking for someone who was introspective, spiritual and existential.  But you tell me…

Happiness is external. It’s based on situations, events, people, places, things, and thoughts. Happiness is connected to your hope for a relationship or your hope for a future with someone. Happiness is linked to “some day when I meet the right guy” or “when he starts changing and acting right,” or “when he goes to counseling”.

Happiness is future-oriented and it puts all its eggs in someone else’s basket. It is dependent on outside situations, people, or events to align with your expectations so that the result is your happiness. These expectations can be seen especially during the holidays when, whether or not you have a Merry Christmas or a happy holiday, it depends on whether or not he is with you, shows up, isn’t drunk, isn’t cheating, or a list of other behaviors you expect for a happy holiday experience. Unfortunately, pathology rarely obliges in that way. So when the relationship falls through, or he isn’t wonderful at Christmas, or you kick him out, or he cheats again, or he runs off with your money, or he was a con artist … then your holidays were not happy and your happiness was crushed.

Unhappiness is the result. It’s a typical and inevitable result in pathological love relationships. After all, it’s the only way it CAN turn out. There are no happy endings to pathological relationships. After Christmas and New Years, he will still be pathological and you will still have the same problems you had in November. You notice that The Institute has not written a book called, “How to Have a Happy Relationship with a Pathological”.

Chronic unhappiness leads to despair and depression. Remember the emotional rollercoaster you rode with him? You were happy when he was good – and miserable when he was bad. You were hypnotically lulled into happy-land when you were with him and in intrusive-thought-hell when you weren’t. Your happiness was hitched to his rear end. When he was around (and behaving) you were happy. When he wasn’t, your happiness followed his rear end right out the door and you were left obsessing, wondering, and pacing.

Happiness is what you feel when he says the “right romantic stuff”, buys you a ring, or moves in. But happiness is not joy because joy is not external. Joy can’t be bought and it is not conditional on someone else’s behavior.  In fact, joy is not contingent on anything in order to exist. You don’t have to have him for the holidays to have joy. Likewise, you don’t have to get revenge, snoop out his shortcomings, tell the new girlfriend the truth or anything else in order to have joy. You can lose in court with him, already have lost your life savings to him, watch him out with a new woman, or live out of the back of your car and still have joy.

You’re probably thinking, “Sure, you can have joy in those circumstances if you are Mother Teresa!” Joy is almost a mystery, isn’t it? It’s a spiritual quality that is internal. My mother, Joyce, had a lot of joy, and I learned from watching her joy. Her pathological man ran off with her life savings, forcing her to work well past retirement. It forced her to live simply so she moved to a one-room beach shack and drove a motorcycle. For cheap entertainment, she walked the beach and painted nudes. She drank cheap grocery-store wine that came in a box, bought her clothes from thrift shops, and made beach totes from crocheting plastic grocery bags together. She recycled long before it was hip to do so. But what she recycled most and best was pain … into joy.

Instead of looking externally for yet another relationship to remove the sting of the last one, or to conquer the boredom she might feel at being alone, she cultivated internal and deep abiding joy. It was both an enigma and a privilege to watch this magnificent life emerge from the ashes of great betrayal.

I use her a lot as an example of someone who went ahead and got a great life. She turned this rotten deal into an exquisite piece of art called her life. Anyone who spoke of my mother spoke MOST of her radiant joy. She had the “IT” factor long before it was even called “IT.” Women flocked to her to ask, “How did you do it? How did you shed the despair and bitterness of what he did and grow into this? THIS bright, shining, joyful person? What is your secret?”

Somewhere along that rocky path of broken relationships with pathological men, she learned that happiness is fleeting if it’s tied to a man’s shirt-tails. She watched too many shirt-tails walk out the door with her happiness tied to his butt. In order to find the peacefulness that resides inside, she had to learn what was happiness and what was joy.

The transitory things of life are happiness-based. She had a big house and lost a big house when she divorced my father. She had a big career and lost a big career when, according to our culture, she got “too old” to have the kind of job she had. She had diamonds and lost diamonds.

So she entered into voluntary simplicity where the fire of purging away “stuff” left a clearer picture and path to the internal life. When stuff, people, and the problems they bring fall away, there is a stillness. Only in that stillness can we ever find the joy that resides inside us, dependent on nothing external in order to exist. During this holiday season, this is a great concept to contemplate.

Joyce’s joy came from deeply held spiritual beliefs but it also came from a place even beyond that. Joy comes when you make peace with who you are, what you are, where you are, why you are, and who you are not with. When you need nothing more than your truth and the love of a good God to bring peace, you have settled into the abiding joy that is not rocked by relationships. It’s not rocked by anything.

It wasn’t rocked for Joyce as she lay dying some years ago in the most peaceful arms of grace—a blissful state of quiet surrender and anticipation. Those who were witness to her death still tell me that her death brought new understanding to them about the issue of real joy. Joy in all things … the death of a dream, the death of a relationship, or the death of a body. Joy from within, stripped down, naked and beautiful.

Follow Joyce’s lead – untie your happiness from the ends of his shirt-tail …

Merry Christmas and peace to you in this season of peaceful opportunities!

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

© www.saferelationshipsmagazine.com

People relapse and go back into relationships more from Thanksgiving through Valentine’s Day than any other time of the year. Why? So many great holidays for faking it! Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, V-Day… then PHOOEY! You’re out! Why not be out now and stay out and save face? You’re not fooling anyone … not yourself, them, or your family and friends.

Here’s a secret: Even if you go back, you’re still alone. You’ve been alone the entire time because, by nature of their disorder, they can’t be there for you. So you’re alone—now, during the holidays, or with them. WITH them, you have more drama, damage and danger—your choice.

The holiday season is an extremely stressful time. It’s a time when it is more likely for:

• Domestic violence to occur or recur
• Dysfunctional families to be even MORE dysfunctional
• Pathologicals to be overt and blatant, and to target your joy and ruin your holidays
• Former pathological partners to magically reappear and try to hook you back in
• People to eat, drink, and spend too much

• People to not get enough rest

• People to feel pressured to “be in a relationship” and accept dates or stay with dangerous persons “just until the holidays are over”

It’s an idealistic time when people have more depression and anxiety than at any other time of the year because they think their lives should be like the picture postcards and old movies we see this time of year. Depression creeps in, anxiety increases, and to cope, they eat/drink/spend/date in ways they normally would not. But you can’t make a “picture postcard memory” with a psychopath or a narcissist!

Those with the super trait of “sentimentality” will focus on the past — when they had that one perfect Christmas with the pathological.  The other 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 the pitbull stronghold on the hope it will be this way again.

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

The glittering fantasy that resembles your Christmas tree lights places not only you in the path of misery, but all those you plan to spend Christmas with—your family, friends, kids and pets.  It is much kinder to unplug your glittering fantasy and tell yourself the truth of what will happen if you expect a serene and joyful time with a pathological than it is to drag others through your fantasy.

Here’s a mantra to say out loud to yourself: “I’m pretending that staying/going back with a psychopath/narcissist will make my holidays better.”  Pretty ridiculous thought, isn’t it? Something happens when you say the REAL thing out loud. It takes all the romanticizing and fantasy out of the thought and smacks a little reality in your face.

“I want to be with a psychopath/narcissist for the holiday.”  Say that three times to yourself out loud …  NO!! That’s not what you want. That’s what you got LAST YEAR. You want to be with a nice man/woman/person for the holidays. And, as you VERY well know, they’re not it.

“I want to share my special holidays with my special psychopath.”  ???  Nope. That’s not it either. But that’s what’s going to happen unless you buck up and start telling yourself the truth. It’s OKAY to be by yourself for the holidays. It sure beats pathology as a gift.

Peace, gratitude, and all the spiritual reflections that are supposed to happen during this time of 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, don’t spend it where and with whom it cannot be found. After the holidays, you will be a lot happier for not having attempted, for the millionth time, to find happiness where it does not exist.

Here’s a real gift for you—some tips!

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 that you have choices and the word “No” is a complete sentence. Don’t be 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 five 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 worst binds going to parties with others, and get stuck in relationships they don’t want to be in, because they feel obligated. 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 and those who are in need.

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

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

— Pick ONE growth-oriented issue you’d like to focus on next year for your own growth beginning on January 1. It creates hope when you know you have a plan to move forward and out of your current emotional condition. Invest in your opportunity to grow past the aftermath of this pathological love relationship.

Happy Holidays from The Institute!

(**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

Pathological people are energy and emotional vampires. They live off of your emotional content. Part of their personality deficit is the lack of a stable and consistent inner core of a self-concept, so they need constant attention, distraction, and identity management from which they draw their identity.

Most of their identity is acquired from their relationships since internally there is so little core self to draw from. This is part of the reason they are so exhausting. In order to get their emotional ‘blood supply’ from you, they hook you into conversations or arguments or any kind of response they can get from you. They live vicariously through your own emotional expressions of love, frustration, confusion, etc. It doesn’t always matter what emotion is fed to the vampire (although narcissists like adoration) but just that there is SOME content is enough for them—even your tears, or your screams, or your insults. It doesn’t matter… they just need something—anything—from you in the way of content. If they don’t get the blood supply/emotional content from you, they will seek it elsewhere. (Remember Dracula? He just moved from town to town taking it where he could get it.)

When you begin to break up (read my e-book, How to Break Up From a Pathological Relationship), he will fear the loss of emotional supply. He won’t fear losing you so much as losing getting his identity and his sense of self from you and/or the relationship. He fears the loss of self or, ‘who am I without her?’ This is a very fragmented ego state—one which only exists through relationships with others.

So when you try to break up, he will continue to contact you, which is why pathologicals are hard to break up with (read my book). They are predictable in their approaches to get you to respond to them (you are feeding the vampire his emotional blood supply every time you talk to him). These are some of his approaches, and if you can get a bag of popcorn and just watch it like it is a Lifetime movie, and detach from it, you will see a whole movie pan out like this:

First contact, he’s angry, blaming, shaming.

When you don’t respond to that, verbally or emotionally (imagine you are lobotomized with no facial expression—that’s what I want women to do with these men…)

…he’ll contact you again and he’ll be sweet, loving; he’ll buy you things.

When you don’t respond…

…he will promise to do what you’ve asked for years… go to counseling, go to church, go to anger management, take meds, be nice.

When you don’t respond…

…he will get angry again—say you aren’t working on the relationship, which is why it’s going to fail.

When you don’t respond…

…he will quit calling for a while to make it look like he’s moved on. (They are boomerangs, they ALWAYS come back a few times.)

When you don’t respond…

…he will indicate he’s found someone else or had sex with someone else.
When you don’t respond…
(Are you enjoying the popcorn and movie about now??)

…he becomes ‘sick’—he doesn’t know what this ‘mysterious illness’ is, or he has prostate cancer, MS, or some other lethal disease.

When you don’t respond…
…he will just go back to drinking/drugging/dealing/driving too fast, etc.

When you don’t respond…
…he will threaten to kill himself or to leave the area and never see you again.

When you don’t respond…

…he will take the kids, drag you through court, threaten to physically harm you.

When you don’t respond…

…he will tell you he’s dating someone you hate or his previous girlfriend/wife.

When you don’t respond…

…it will come full circle and will begin again, at the top of this list.

When I talk with survivors, it’s the same story, over and over. I know that women think their experiences are unique. But pathology is all the same—these people aren’t very creative and don’t deviate much from the strict internal structure that is associated with pathology. They ONLY react in certain ways, so for me, it’s pretty easy to predict. Once you are able to understand this, you can predict his sad/silly/stupid reactions to a breakup.

Since they live off of your emotion and NEED it, you need to starve him by having no contact. If you have to be in contact because of your kids, make sure no words are exchanged and no emotions show on your face, and then the vampire will flee to the next available source to be fed.

When you don’t disconnect once you understand the feeding and maintenance of pathologicals, you are doing it because YOU want to remain connected. The ball is then in your court to figure out where you are still hung up so you can disconnect. This is not a judgment about women not being able to leave. It is a POINTER to a place where the dis-engagement has hit a snag. Simply notice where the snag is so that something can be done.

As soon as you are ready to really make the break, buy the Break Up e-book and then STARVE THE VAMPIRE. Make a fridge magnet with that on it so you remember daily to not feed the vampire who is lurking nearby.

(**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

“You are describing my relationship EXACTLY!”

 “He has said those exact words to me.”

 “How do you know what my relationship is like—how can you know this?”

I accurately describe people’s relationships because, to a certain extent, parts of pathology and their behavior is predictable. Pathology is related to certain personality and psychological disorders. Each one of these personality disorders has its own set of behaviors, dysfunctions and, for some of the disorders, neurological abnormalities.

To know the personality disorder is to know the behavior—either now or in the future. This is why Public Pathology Education is information for everyone because anyone can learn to predict, to a certain extent, the kinds of behaviors that are likely to manifest in the pathological in their life.

Criminal profiling, to a large extent, is exactly that—knowing what the behavior is likely to be given their probable diagnosis of antisocial, sociopath or psychopath. Although your pathological might not be criminal, this approach still applies. His behavior is predictable.

Each personality disorder has its own set of behaviors. Pathology is related to:

• The inability to sustain consistent positive change
• The inability to grow to any authentic emotional or spiritual depth
• The inability to develop deep insight about how their negative behavior affects others

Once you understand the behaviors related to what Otto Kernberg calls the ‘dangerous and severe personality disorders,’ and you apply the Absolutes of Pathology—the inability to sustain change, grow, or develop insight—then you can pretty much take the behaviors now and apply them to the future in ANY relationship. His behaviors related to his specific personality disorder are permanent. The neuroscience that now supports abnormalities in Cluster B disorders and psychopathy also highlights the issues that, since these are brain-region problems (not just brain chemistry/medication problems), their permanence is much more a factor.

If someone cannot grow or change, their behaviors aren’t going to change. If the behaviors aren’t going to consistently change and stay changed, they will be the same today as they were 10 years ago — in a relationship, career or interaction — and they will be the same 20 years from now.

If they don’t have the ability to develop true insight about their behavior, then I can tell you what it’s like to communicate with someone who can’t see their own faults. If their brain regions that affect impulse control, bonding/attachment, and the inability to learn from past mistakes are faulty, we know what the future will be like for them.

Our goal in Public Pathology Education is for others to understand that you, too, can learn to loosely predict pathological behavior based on past or current behavior. Once you understand the symptoms of the personality disorder, you can expect these behaviors to continue. The more you understand the Absolutes of Pathology, the more clearly you can understand what their future is likely to hold for them and others in their life. It isn’t hard to predict something that doesn’t change!

The exception to that rule is when violence is, or has been, involved. Pathologicals with violence issues can be erratic and unstable. Predicting their ability to be currently non-violent based on past nonviolent episodes is too risky and may not follow the patterns they normally follow. Pathologicals who are addicts are hard to predict because of the instability of the person in an addiction. With violence, sexual offenses or addiction the rule of thumb is that the predictability factor is likely to be too risky to judge. When in doubt, doubt his predictability in violence, addiction or sexual offenses.

Otherwise, pathology is fairly easy to call. When someone doesn’t change, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. If you’re wondering what your pathological was like in the relationship before you or will be like in the one after you, just gauge from where they are today.

(**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

By Sandra L. Brown, MA

Leaving a pathological is never easy—they aren’t wired to allow for easy separation and disengagement.  What they value most is drama, trauma, and the perpetuation of misery at any cost.  High on their entertainment list is any legal activity—especially divorces, separations, and custody battles. Pathologicals get bored easily and have a high need for entertainment. They are high-excitement seekers and have low impulse control.  This all equals great legal combativeness coupled with great enjoyment of the process.

Pathologicals are highly litigious, meaning they LOVE to sue and go to court.  They are entertained by the drama of the court scene and love anything associated with being the victim in a legal process. Therefore, they are different than normal people in that they will keep this process going as long as necessary. They will even spend more money than they will ever recover JUST to be in court, JUST to be heard, and JUST so you won’t win.

There is no rationale when it comes to why they find court so enthralling. It’s almost like “legal malingering.” Malingering is a psychological disorder that means a person remains symptomatic because they get something out of it that we refer to as a “secondary gain.”  So it is true with the pathological in court—67 times to court for one case is not unheard of.

But the bottom line for you is that court is often traumatizing. Facing him can bring on flashbacks, panic attacks, nightmares and anxiety. The faces he makes, his posturing and his stares can often leave you highly ineffective on the witness stand. Or you are unable to think in the courtroom in order to give your attorney correct input.

Some women are followed by the pathological after court. He may stalk her in his car or call her cell phone, belittling her about the court proceedings. Taunting her before the court date can bring a woman’s functioning level to an all-time low. She may miss work and, as a result, lose pay. She may have to pay and repay court fees as he switches dates around just to make a show of power.

Women who already have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), other chronic stress conditions, or autoimmune disorders like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, or lupus, can end up bed-bound from the stress of the court drama and him. Since pathologicals love your debilitation, they are likely to stretch out the process by asking for more depositions, postponing court dates, adding more needed appearances, or even refusing a settled offer that is everything they asked for—anything to create more stress and havoc for you. Women will often do ANYTHING to avoid this kind of exposure to further abuse.

Since the pathological is rarely acknowledged for what he is, the court is not likely to identify his manipulative behaviors and so his requests are granted. You are tormented with more and more unproductive court appearances as he acts like the perpetual victim.

A woman can get PTSD-like symptoms just from how she’s treated in court or in depositions. The criminal court is known for favoring criminals, so anyone who is not criminal often finds the process abusive and traumatizing. A woman will often give away her rights, property, and money just to avoid him and court all together. She and her children are then exposed to poverty, marginal employment and a reduced quality of life ALL because she wants to avoid being traumatized by him and an unbalanced court system.

I have said for many years that the universe is strangely tilted to the benefit of the pathological. They get away with more dirty deeds, especially in court, than any normal person would ever get away with. For this reason, women come to know that their chances in court with a pathological, who is so dramatic, convincing, and unnerved by the process, is nil.

Women have had very ineffective means for balancing the scales of Her-vs-The Psychopath in family court. That’s because few women know about one VERY effective strategy that helps her regain her court composure—using a PTSD diagnosis to receive special accommodations during court proceedings.

As we have constantly mentioned, many of the women who come through our program have PTSD that was acquired during the pathological relationship or was made worse by the relationship. PTSD is a trauma disorder—meaning you were traumatized in some way, which is how you acquired it.

PTSD symptoms can last for short or long periods of time and are almost always increased by stress—such as stress by being in court or stress created by his behavior while in court. These types of recurring symptoms can negatively impact your effectiveness in court and can require special accommodations so you are able to function during court. Some of these special accommodations include:

• Having the woman speak over a speaker phone in another room so she doesn’t have to face him.
• Not having him in the courtroom.
• Having him detained so she can leave early from the courtroom.
• Calling in to the courtroom from home to avoid having to attend the hearing in person.
• If she has to attend—having a disability advocate present with her.
• Having him not be allowed to speak directly to her when walking past him from the courtroom.

All of these special accommodations can greatly ease the stress normally associated with court, but are not granted unless a special ADA (American with Disabilities Act http://www.ada.gov/pubs/ada.htm) accommodation is granted.

Accommodations can also be made for:

• Emotional triggering caused by discussing the situation
• Memory recall problems
• Concentration problems
• Flexibility with deadlines because of amnesic symptoms or recurring trauma when having to testify in front of him
• Emergency hearing to enforce court orders
• Rehabilitative alimony for treatment of PTSD for you or your children

PTSD is the disorder most associated with pathological love relationships. A diagnosis of this can help women acquire accommodations that are associated with the ADA accommodations offered. You simply have to have a diagnosis that requires special accommodations in order for you to function. (In our article, “PTSD as Trauma Disorder—NOT Psychiatric Illness,” we discussed the differences between mental illnesses and emotional, trauma-based disorders such as PTSD.)

Information about writing your PTSD Accommodations Request report for the court can be found at http://legalabusesyndrome.com/. This is a HUGE breakthrough for women because once you have received ADA accommodations, the judges and attorneys MUST adhere to protocols developed for ADA which are federally based and help accommodate your needs in order to function in court. Protocols not followed are prosecutable, making the courts highly attentive to meeting federal protocols. This could also apply to your children if they have PTSD, and could hopefully impact how they are to be treated in court and how their needs must be met.

• The Institute does NOT prepare Accommodations Reports. We are simply providing you with information about what they are and how/where to get one.

Now, before we get a FLOOD of letters and emails with questions about this topic, here is a brief summary of what you need to know:

• You must legitimately have PTSD. If you have already been diagnosed with PTSD, you’ve already jumped one hurdle.
• If you need to be diagnosed, you must be evaluated by a licensed professional such as a mental health professional or a psychiatrist.
• Once you are diagnosed, you will need to draft your PTSD Accommodations Report. This is a highly specialized, time-consuming and lengthy report of approximately 10-15 pages. It is unlikely that your doctor or health care professional will construct something of this nature as it addresses specific areas to meet the criteria for ADA.
• The Institute does NOT prepare Accommodations Reports. There are ADA Advocates – professionals – who can help with this but, of course, they charge for this report; however, we believe that what the report renders to you is highly worth the investment.
• This is NOT the same thing as being declared “disabled,” and has nothing to do with physical or mental disability or acquiring disability payments.
• PTSD, if diagnosed, does become part of one’s medical and/or psychological record.

We believe that these Accommodations Reports are the beginning of leveling the playing field when it comes to being in court with pathologicals. We also believe that children who are diagnosed with PTSD and who have acquired it from living with the pathological may have a far more arguable case about custody when courts try to mandate visitation with the very one who caused PTSD.

(**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

Everyone knows what ‘coitus interruptus’ is–but what you really need to know is what ‘emotional obsession interruptus’ is!

In the past, I have talked about the inherent traps, pitfalls, and perils of how people get roped back in to the pathological relationships during ‘weak moments’ of family or relationship fantasizing about normal relationships. There are no Normal Rockwells, oh, I meant ‘Norman’ Rockwells with narcissists and psychopaths. As much as you want to paint the picture of a happy family, that’s not what you got.

What you do have is a pathological dynamic. Discussion about family fantasizing stirs up many people who want to remain in the fantasy. Loneliness is subjective. You’re with them but you are STILL lonely because pathology doesn’t pay attention to anything other than itself.

One of my brilliant proteges, Carol, has SOOOO understood the issue about pathology, personality disorders and the lies you tend to tell yourself —wrote me this brilliant analogy of people who don’t want to ‘get it.’ She is speaking for the people who get offended when you discuss ending the relationship or when the newsletter hits them hard on some aspect of their denial. (read this with some sarcasm….)

“I am offended that someone shed the light on psychopathy in the newsletter. I am offended that I might be set free from my psychopath. I am happy and joyous to be in the secret and dark world of my psychopath. I am happy to unsubscribe from the very thing that might set me free from my soul destroying psychopath. I am happy to continue on the path through hell with my charming psychopath. I enjoy my time more when I spend it with a pathological.”

This ‘emotional obsession interruptus’ as I like to call it, is a re­framing technique that works incredibly well when said out loud. Repeat Carol’s often…but say it OUT LOUD and not merely just read silently.

Fantasizing normal family life is nothing new. The truth is, people want healthy families. They want what they see others have– enjoyable and meaningful relationships. Then they try to reproduce that with their own families who may not have the same capacity for normality.

Pathological people have challenges that interrupt their ability to sustain the consistent positive change you want them to make. ‘Wanting’ to have JUST ONE occasion in which everyone gets along, there is no fighting, no one gets drunk or hits someone, or no one overtly insults others doesn’t mean that the pathologicals in your life have the ABILITY to give that to you.

Repetition compulsion is often re­enacted within relationships. This is repeating the same event over and over trying to get a different and satisfying outcome. This is, sadly, what we often see in Adult Children of Pathological Parents. At 43, they are STILL trying to have that ONE Christmas with a narcissistic mother or a borderline father so that a healing can take place in them. Each year they start with the same hope that this year the parent, sibling or partner will do something kind and sweet or will ‘behave.’ They desperately feel like they need one restorative experience to heal their dysfunctional family memories.

Repetition compulsion can leave adults trapped in this never ending desire for just one good experience, but, now they have pulled their own children into the same cycle creating an inter­generational experience of exposure to pathology. (Ever see the movie ‘Stuart Saves His Family?’)

While it is painful to face the reality that pathology is related to the inability to change, grow, or have insight about their own behavior, it is less painful than putting yourself and your children through another cycle of hope and despair. Pathological parents, siblings, or partners can challenge you in ways that are kinder to yourself to just avoid.

(**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 many other newsletters, I have written extensively about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and recovery. Much of learning to heal from, or live with, PTSD has to do with learning to live a gentle life that is less stressful. You can read about PTSD and the “Living the Gentle Life” series of articles in past newsletters and on our website.

However, PTSD as a stress disorder is an indicator of extreme stress. If you have it, that means you have suffered an emotional, physical, spiritual, sexual, and/or psychological trauma that was severe enough, or long enough in duration, to significantly impact your health.

Having a stress disorder means two things:

1. You were significantly stressed or traumatized.
2. The stress and/or trauma has affected your functioning level.

PTSD can be short-term and resolved with treatment within a few months, or it can be chronic and life-long, often reactivated by MORE stress or MORE traumatic events. In my case, I have chronic PTSD that is reactivated when I am worn down, too stressed, not living a gentle life, or when other challenging life events reactivate it. A few years ago I lost my mother, my foster son, my mother in-law and my sister, all in a very short timeframe. Losses that are coupled close together can have a similar effect.

With PTSD, whether it’s short- or long-term, you are likely to have a reduced level of productivity. You can have impaired concentration or sleep disruptions, become hyper-vigilant and have an exaggerated startle reflex. You can have anxiety mixed with depression, intrusive thoughts, emotional numbing, flashbacks and panic.

None of this lends itself to being able to work well in a consistent or productive way.  Even if you are unemployed, the quality of your daily life is disrupted and your life productivity in your day-to-day living is reduced. This is why people often need treatment for PTSD, which could be short- or long-term treatment in the form of weekly counseling, group counseling, inpatient treatment, or any combination of these.

PTSD as a stress disorder has its long-term outcomes in medical conditions as do many other stress disorders. Unresolved stress and trauma (whether it’s PTSD or everyday stress) can, and most often does, manifest into medical conditions. Part of seeking rehabilitative alimony in court with a PTSD diagnosis is because of the loss of productivity and because of the long-term effects on your health. Now more than twenty-five years after the murder of my father, I am continuing to see the medical outcome of chronic PTSD in my health.

Often in court, women are unaware they can have their attorneys argue for rehabilitation alimony or medical coverage for treatment FOR THE FUTURE. So many don’t realize how their health could be impacted now and for years to come. Stress and PTSD have many long-term medical possibilities, including:

Autoimmune disorders:  fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, Epstein-Barr, lupus, multiple sclerosis

• Various forms of arthritis
• Gastrointestinal problems
• Migraines and TMJ
• Female reproductive problems
• Ongoing anxiety and depression
• Thyroid and adrenal fatigue
• Sleep disorders
• Diabetes

• And, most commonly, a combination of these

Settling your divorce or court case with the pathological and NOT considering the future medical outcome of the stress he produced in YOUR BODY is unwise. We do know that many of these stress disorders and/or PTSD will continue on long after he is gone and in the end, affect your health in some way because, at the heart of the medical conditions that develop, is adrenal fatigue.

Adrenal fatigue is the culprit most likely associated with medical disorders that go on to develop. Treating and managing adrenal fatigue could actually prevent many of the disorders that will later develop because of untreated and unmanaged fatigue of the adrenals. Here is a link on the topic and the book from which we took the adrenal fatigue quiz: www.adrenalfatigue.org/

Chronic stress wears out the adrenal glands that support other healthy functioning in your body. When stress, poor diet, lack of sleep and unresolved problems wear out the adrenal glands, your body is in a downward spiral and cannot heal from stress or PTSD. To find out if you have adrenal fatigue, here take the quiz at www.adrenalfatigue.org/take-the-adrenal-fatigue-quiz.

If you do have adrenal fatigue, this is a stepping-stone to other medical conditions if not treated immediately. More importantly, your body has started down that path. If you are in a court case, please advise your attorney of this disorder as you may be able to argue for your need for continued medical coverage and care regarding stress disorders.

(**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