Why You Only Remember The Good Stuff of a Bad Relationship

By Sandra L. Brown

Over and over again women are puzzled by their own process in trying to recover from a pathological relationship. What is puzzling is that despite the treatment they received by him, despite the absolute mind-screwing he did to her emotions, not only is the attraction still VERY INTENSE but also the POSITIVE memories still remain strong.

Women say the same thing--that when it comes to remaining strong in not contacting him (what we call 'Starving the Vampire') she struggles to pull up (and maintain the pulled up) negative memories of him and his behavior that could help her keep strong and detached.

But why? Why are the positive memories floating around in her head freely and strongly and yet the bad memories are stuffed in a 'mind closet' full of fuzzy cobwebs that prevent her from actively reacting to those memories?

There are a couple of reasons and we'll discuss today the first one. Let's think of your mind like a computer. Memories are 'stored' much like they are stored on a computer. Pain and traumautic memories are stored differently than positive memories.

Pulling up the negative memories from your hard drive is different than pulling up a memory that is on your desk top as an icon emblem. Traumatic memories get fragmented on their way to being stored on the hard drive. They get divided up into more than one file. In one file is the emotional feelings, another file is the sights, another file the sounds, another file the physical sensations.

But a WHOLE and complete memory is made up of ALL those files TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME such as what you emotionally felt, saw, heard, and physically experienced. Just one piece of it doesn't make it a complete memory such as just the positive memory.

A memory is good + bad =complete.

But when things are traumatic, (or stressful) the mind seperates the whole experience into smaller bits and pieces and then stores them seperately in the mind because it's less painful that way.

When women try to 'remind themselves' why they shouldn't be with him, they might get flashes of the bad memory but strangely, the emotional feelings are NOT attached to it. They wonder 'where did the feelings go?' They can see the bad event but they don't feel much about what they remember.

If you are playing a movie without the sound, how do you know what the actors are passionately feeling? It's the same thing with this traumatic recall of memories. You might see the video but not hear the pain in the voices. The negative or traumatic memory is divided up into several files and you are only accessing one of the files---a place where you have stored the positive aspects of the relationship.

To complicate things further, positive memories are not stored like negative memories. They are not divided up into other files. They don't need to be---they aren't traumatic.

So when you remember a time when the relationship was good or cuddly or the early parts of the relationships which are notoriously honeymoon-ish, the whole memory comes up--the emotional feelings, the
visual, the auditory, the sensations. You have a WHOLE and STRONG memory with that. Of course that is WAY MORE appealing to have--a memory that is not only GOOD but one in which you feel all the powerful
aspects of it as well.

Now, close your eyes and pull up a negative memory...can you feel the difference? You might see it but not feel it. Or hear it and not see much of it. Or feel a physical sensation of it but not the emotional piece that SHOULD go with the physical sensation. No matter what your experience is of the negative emotion, it is probably fragmented in some way.

Negative and traumatic memories are often incomplete memories--they are memory fragments floating all over your computer/mind. They are small files holding tiny bits of info that have fragmented your sense of the whole complete memory. These distorted and broken memory fragments are easily lost in your mind. 

If you have grown up in an abusive or alcoholic home, you were already subconsciously trained how to seperate out memories like this. If your abuse was severe enough early on, your mind just automatically does this anyway--if you get scared, or someone raises their voice, or you feel fear in anyway---your brain starts breaking down the painful experience so it's easier for you to cope with.

Next time we will talk about one other way your mind handles positive and negative memories and why you are flooded with positive recall and blocked from remembering and feeling those negative things he's done to you.

The Pathological: a Child Prodigy-Savant of Human Behavior - Part II

By Sandra L. Brown, M.A.

In my last article, I began talking about the natural ability that pathologicals have in reading human behavior. We talked about how the child's emotional developmental deficits actually spur them towards compensation in these areas by trying to hide their lack of a full emotional spectrum, lack of insight, and lack of ability to sustain emotional and behavioral changes.  They learn to compensate by studying human behavior and 'mimicking and parroting' when they want to fit in. But what about when they DON'T want to fit in, or when they become adults?

Erik Erikson studied human development and his theory says that there are 'emotional tasks' that must occur before the next leap of growth can occur. These are building blocks of emotional structure of development.

The first task as a baby is to bond. After that come the tasks in this order that must occur to be a healthy and normal person:

·         Trust builds on bonding

·         Autonomy (or independence) builds on trust

·         Initiative (or leadership) builds on autonomy

·         Industry (or pride in ones accomplishments) builds on initiative

·         Identity builds on industry, etc.

There are more developmental aspects all the way through old age. But these give us something to look at--all the aspects of emotional development that must occur (and did not occur somewhere in the list) for the pathological-- Bonding, Trust, Autonomy, Initiative, Industry, Identity.  When these building blocks of character were being laid (and mislaid), holes in the soul develop around those building blocks that were not laid.

Instead of learning trust, they learn to con other people's trust and yet mistrust everyone. Instead of learning independence they are either horribly dependent and parasitic or aloof and not the least bit interdependent within relationships. Instead of initiative (or leadership) they either feel inadequate or superior or con others and the only place they lead others is 'astray.' Instead of industry and finding meaning and pride in their accomplishments, they see their accomplishments highly connected to the ability to superbly manipulate and con others. Their pride about their abilities is more related to the ability to manipulate than to any other abilities they may have. Instead of a healthy self identity, their identity is now highly connected to their choices. Since many of them are delinquent and deviant, their identity is connected not with something positive but with their darkest character flaws.

All of these developmental tasks that should be completed: bonding, trust, independence, initiative, industry, and identity are the building blocks established by teen years. We can easily see how and why their adult years are filled with problems and anguishing relationships. If you don't bond, trust, have interdependent relationships, your idea of accomplishment is conning, and your identity is linked to your bad character--THERE ISN'T MUCH TO WORK WITH!

Pathologicals have difficult adulthoods AND they make everyone else's adulthoods difficult too. The child prodigy studying what works with humans is largely squeezed down to 'WIIFM' (What's In It for Me). Studying others to 'fit in' gets replaced by the adult skills of conning, manipulation, lying, embezzlement, and other honed arts. By the time the emotional development of the teen years have hit, the bonding, trust, interdependence, accomplishments and lastly identity---are long tweaked into pathological dynamics. Oddly, the personality 'age' stops growing and you rarely see pathologicals emotionally older than 14 but the behaviors get tweaked up a notch to adult skills of adept conning.

What was once a science project of 'Why am I different?' as a child becomes 'Cool, I'll use it against them' as an adult.  The child prodigy who studied human behavior so well is the relationship idiot savant. It just takes women awhile to figure out that what he espouses in the beginning isn't really what he's all about. What didn't happen in his emotional development will ruin their relationship and her, personally.

Murder in Progress: Elizabeth New Jersey

[In the town of Elizabeth New Jersey, a murder is being planned, in progress, by a commissioned police officer as I write this post.]

The officer and his wife have been married for more than a dozen years. The couple has 2 children. Yesterday, she had her husband served with divorce papers after years of having a gun pulled and cocked to her head, numerous rapes, and terroristic tactics to keep her a victim and not call police for help. “I’ve had enough” she said. “My husband is not going to get away with it.”

This officer has not acted alone, receiving assistance from his fellow tin shield cowards in uniform as they assist this bozo with a badge. To add fuel to this already deadly flame, the officer’s brother is a high ranking Lieutenant, his supervisor in the same department.

Similar to Kathleen Savio , wife of former Bolingbrook Police Sgt. Drew Peterson,( who is awaiting trial for her murder) found dead on March 1, 2004, in a dry bathtub, Savio was also silenced with the assistance of fellow officers with the same pattern of conduct taking place in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

During the months leading up to the discovery of Kathleen's corpse, officers routinely sat in their squad cars in front of her house, drinking coffee -- the ultimate 'screw you' for thousands of police officers' wives whose cries for help fall on deaf ears. In March 2002, Drew Peterson and Kathleen Savio filed for divorce. On March 11, 2002, Kathleen secured a temporary emergency order of protection. In an unusual move before the divorce was finalized, Kathleen also signed a power of attorney so Drew could buy a home just down the street with his then-underage new love interest. Victims of violence always wish their aggressive, abusive partners would move on to someone else. Kathleen’s strategy was brilliant. She got out of her own way; however humiliating at the time, she disarmed Peterson by waiving her rights to the property as a marital asset. Kathleen knew firsthand the danger she faced from Drew, a police officer and abusive husband, if she refused to sign the document. She signed it only out of pure fear.

When all her attempts failed to get help from the police -- those whose job it is to serve and protect -- Kathleen Savio wrote letters to then-Will County Assistant State’s Attorney Elizabeth Fragale documenting Peterson’s alleged abuse. They included claims that in July 2002, Peterson held a knife to her throat and threatened to kill her. But Savio was only further victimized when the state attorney’s office dropped the ball. Prosecutors should have filed separate felony stalking charges for threatening phone calls from Peterson and for each time he stalked her. They didn't -- not even when the court issued the emergency order of protection against him.

Sending the letters was a courageous move not only by a victim but by a police officer's wife. These letters, written and signed by Kathleen, would not see the light of day until a parade of media swarmed down on the home at Pheasant Chase Drive until after news broke that Stacy Peterson, his fourth wife, had vanished

The Elizabeth, New Jersey's officers wife has also written letters to Attorney General Eric Holder; Newark Attorney General’s office; Office of the Director of the Elizabeth Police James Cosgrove; Chief of Police Ronald Simon; Union County prosecutor’s office; Sen. Frank Lautenberg; New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; and the Mayor of Elizabeth. The letters were sent on September 22, 2010, detailing the times, dates and details of the horrific violence. The only person whom responded so far is the Mayor who contacted the officer’s wife earlier this week.

Here is a brief overview of it, in her own words, what she has experienced: a Police Officer from the Elizabeth Police Dept., in Elizabeth, NJ. I had my husband arrested 8/12/2010, and was granted a Temporary Restraining Order of Protection. Which was later dropped because the night before going to court; I was threatened by a private caller to drop all charges. I was intimated and scared and never showed up. The Temporary Restraining Order was dropped.

On 8/19/2010 incident of dropping TRO, this gave my husband the opportunity to harass me with phone calls, and threatening texts. I t would start out just being friendly to escalating to vivacious threats of harming me. I tried to ignore them, causing me emotional distress and fear. I fear him, because after many years of mental and physical abuse from him, I know this anger and rage....I know he is going to come after me or what’s most important in my life "My Daughters". This man suffers from a narcissistic personality disorder, which I would have the dept. have him evaluated psychologically.

On September 20- 22, 2010, my husband decided it was a day to harass me with over 50 calls to my home and texting. I sent a email to his Internal Affairs office stating to please advice the officer to leave me alone... this was ignored by the Captain. Nothing was done, because he continued until September 28, 2010. I had to go to Ocean County Court and get another TRO. Which was granted, and he obeyed the TRO... I have a concern with his internal affairs dept. they are conducting a investigation, in which to me seems fictional. I understand that the code of blue is a brotherhood to protect each other. Well in these cases there should be protection for the victim not the Police Officer. We are not trained in the law or how to inflect bodily harm, nor do we carry guns and badges. We have no power or authority to manipulate the justice system.

I could continue but you get the idea. The Elizabeth New Jersey’s officer wife currently has a civil restrain order, which means nothing for her safety and life.

As she say’s “ It’s just a piece of paper, telling him to obey. But it gives me no protection from Police Dept. should he violate the civil order.” I And every physical abuse after my beating, he would throw the phone at me, and “ Go ahead bitch call the police” and laugh.

“I don’t want to be the next victim I want to be safe and alive for my daughters.”

I currently am in the possession of information and documents that I will not hesitate releasing, including names and badge numbers should another incident or threat to harm this officers wife from Elizabeth, New Jersey, take place from this point going forward.

I should mention before I receive correspondence from those angry officers who attempt to post anonomously or send me emails laced with threats, that I was the daughter of a decorated Chicago violent crimes detective. I am an expert in the area of officer related intimate violence and homicide. My career began in 1989 when my mother was murdered by my father.

Gentlemen, I have no problem coming to Elizabeth, New Jersey as I did recently in Garvin County, OKlahoma, with an army of media and others if the powers in place, fail to immediately stop this murder in progress.

(Susan Murphy Milano, is with the Institute for Relational Harm Reduction & Public Psychopathy Education for more information visit http://www.saferelationships.com/ and is the author of the new book "Time's Up A Guide on How to Leave and Survive Abusive and Stalking Relationships available for purchase at the Institute, Amazon.com and where ever books are sold. And she is the host of Time's Up on http://www.herewomentalk.com/ and she is a regular contributor to the nationally syndicated show with Dr. Laurie Roth on http://www.therothshow.com/)

Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit by Susan Murphy Milano from the Book "Time's Up" from Courage Network on Vimeo.