Am I Who He Says I Am?

By Sandra L. Brown, M.A.

One of the chief complaints of having been with a pathological is that you 'acquire' his view of you. In previous articles I discussed the 'pathological world view' which is the 'lens' through which he sees himself, others, and the world. This view of the world is processed through his own pathological disorder which is why his view of the world is not like a normal person's view. His view is negative, self- focused, grandiose, paranoid, critical, and self-promoting. He sees others as always wrong, out to get him, stupid or inept. He sees himself as right, the victim, or the only one that knows anything at all.

He sees you as the "revictimizer" of him, wonderful and yet horrible, needed and yet hated, smart yet dependent on him, in need of his brilliance, faulty without him, as pathological as he is--and the list goes on.

A lot of the work we do with women is to help them understand that what they are feeling is often the result of HIS pathological world view-thrust upon and used to define them.

Pathology is the inability to change and sustain change, grow in any meaningful way, or develop insight about how one's behavior effects other. If he can't change:

•  He projects his inability on you, making the problem in the relationship YOUR fault or YOUR inability to change.
•  He acts as if you shouldn't ask him to change, or pretends he has changed, when he hasn't.
•  He makes you 'think' you are asking for something huge-something wrong for him to change, OR that only you need changing-he's fine.

If he can't grow in any meaningful way:   

• He projects his non-growth onto the relationship and suggests it's the relationship stagnation you are really experiencing. 
•  If you could only GROW to accept him in all his pathology, then the relationship would thrive.

If he can't develop insight about how his behavior affects others:  

• He projects his undeveloped insight on you and says these are your traits, and you simply don't understand "what you are doing to him." 
•  He says all his anger is yours, all his deviancy is yours, you are just as sick as he is which is why you are a great match, all his lying is yours, all his manipulations are yours.

That's because in pathology they are MASTER PROJECTORS. It is in fact, one of the "symptoms" of pathology. They take all their pathological attributes and say they are YOURS.

Over a period of time of this intense projection, several things happen:       

• She begins to believe these negative and disturbing attributes really are HER personality. 
•  She normalizes his behaviors (and the behaviors he claims are hers) so they seen less disturbing to her. 
•  Her self-esteem drops; she no longer looks for ways to disbelieve him about these attributes. 
•  If her self esteem drops low enough, she no longer seeks to leave.

Women who seek coaching through our phone support or retreat programs come in 'programmed' to believe HIS pathology is actually theirs. Some of our treatment is much like the treatment cult survivors or hostages would receive when they have been 'brainwashed' to believe they were bad so they were taken hostage.

Coercion techniques, the Stockholm Syndrome and other psychological hostage-taking maneuvers are common with women who have been in severely pathological relationships.

Would you take someone who was held as a prisoner of war and just send them home and tell them they will be fine? Would you tell them they don't need specialized help in order to reform their thinking to their former patterns of thought? Would you tell them to just go back to work or find someone else or go get on Match.com and all will be well?

In many cases, I have seen women come to our retreat program in the same "shape" as people suffering from Stockholm Syndrome-they are emotionally, physically, financially, and sexually exhausted. They have tapes playing in their heads that he is normal and she is sick. They have been told for so long by a brilliant pathological that they are mentally ill and should seek treatment. They have been told that everything that is black is really white, and that everything that is bad is really good.

The Master Projection he uses causes similar symptoms to people who have been held captive, thrust into cults, or held prisoner in other people's belief systems. These are intensely programmed beliefs that are not "removed" simply because you breakup. Lingering effects means that specialized treatment is required.

But the first step is recognizing these symptoms in yourself-that HIS pathological attributes have been assigned to you by him, and quite possibly none of them are true. Learning to sustain that belief is where help is often needed. Just for today, allow the possibility that none of what he said is really about you. See if all those attributes aren't really his.

Sandra L. Brown is the Founder of The Institute For Relational Harm Reduction and Public Pathology Education.  Visit her website if you want to learn more, or to take advantage of her services:  http://saferelationshipsmagazine.com

Am I Responsible for How He Acts?

By Sandra L. Brown, M.A.

One of the most frequently asked questions in pathological relationship counseling is "Did I make the person behave like this?" The clients often believe they bring out 'the worst in him' or so the pathological wants them to believe. The pathological likes to label his own acting out, cheating or other inappropriate behavior as someone else's fault. This is called projecting. One of the characteristics of a number of permanent personality disorders is the trait that they don't take responsibility for their own behavior. They have a victim mentality and blame others and the world for their shortcomings and ultimately, their bad behavior. Normal people 'own' their own behavior; pathological people project it onto others.

By the time the client comes to counseling from the aftermath of effects from the relationship, she believes the relationship, its problems and its demise were all her fault. She believes the pathological's propaganda and has a lot of remorse, guilt, and self depreciating thoughts about herself that 'if she only acted differently then so would he' and the relationship would be on better footing.

Let me ask you this...."If he had a brain tumor, would you feel responsible that his body produced a brain tumor? Would that be your responsibility?"  I doubt it. People do feel bad that someone else got a brain tumor, but they don't feel 'responsible' or 'to blame' because someone got a brain tumor.

The often shocking aspects of Cluster B personality disorders are that what is driving their behavior is not a brain tumor but it is a brain disorder---in many, many forms. We expect that a brain disorder would be 'noticeable' to others. It is--in time. By the time the relationship ends, you DO know that there are behavior problems; you just don't know how, why, or where they are generated.  Cluster B personality disorders carry with them an astounding array of problems stemming from the brain and their own neurology.  These problems drive the pathological's impulsive, out of control behavior and distorted thinking processes.

Even a decade ago, we didn't have the information we have today about the wide-reaching neuro problems associated with pathology and personality disorders. While for many years we may have 'suspected' a very physical reason for the behavior--the pathological lying, spending, cheating, violence, addiction, and other behavioral problems-we didn't have the concrete knowledge now generated from neuroscience, neurobiology, brain imaging, and other brain studies.

Here is a tiny snippet of the kinds of information being generated about brain dysfunction in personality disorders. This in no way covers all of it--but it gives us some place to begin looking at it as being as much a medical brain syndrome as it is a psychological syndrome.

• · Genomics--molecular building blocks of DNA affected by pathology.
• · Proteomics--location, interactions, structure, and proteins affected by pathology.
• · Neurotransmitters affected.
• · Hippocampus--part of the brain that is related to impulsivity affected by pathology.
• · Amygdala--part of the brain that is related to impulsivity affected by pathology.
• · Neuroinformatics -A library data base about thousands of different brains and what is unusual about them including pathological brains.
• · Cellular signaling show involvement of genetics in pathology.
• · Low levels of brain enzymes are related to violence.
• · Genes on certain chromosomes create schizophrenia, bipolar, etc. New research wants to find out if it contributes to pathology.
• · Genetic vulnerability causes significant differences in neurological development in children with psychopathic tendencies.
• · The number of copies of different genes has already been linked with a variety of medical conditions and the expectation is that these copy number variants will be very significant in personality disorder research.
• · A complex array of varying genes underlies the many different outward manifestations of personality disorders which can be seen in early childhood despite a loving and stress free environment.
• · Stressful/abusive environments can push a milder case of personality disorders into a full blown active personality disorder.
• · Phenotype images the size and shapes of brain organs related to personality disorders.
• · Serotonin reception 5-HT plays a role in controlling offensive aggression (or not!)
• · The lack of transporter molecules predisposes people towards impulsivity, emotional instability, etc.
• · Polygeny (a single trait that can affect many genes) seems to underlie personality disorders.
• · Those who metabolize dopamine faster are at higher risks for anti social behavior.
• · An enzyme that helps break down dopamine and serotonin are linked to impulsive and aggressive behavior, substance abuse, criminal behavior.
• · MAO-A gene is linked to Cluster B personality disorders.
• · Neural circuitry problems are related to trouble with reinforcement learning so they are not likely to learn from punishment, also related to impulse violence.
• · TPH brain enzyme is related to behavioral problems associated with anti social behavior.
• · MRI imaging shows that areas of the brain related to excitability respond differently in psychopaths.
• · Certain words cause psychopaths to respond differently than normal people (blood, sewer, hell, rape, etc.)
• · Some parts of the brain show higher activity in psychopaths, some areas lower activity in psychopaths.
• · Weak limbic regions of the brain in psychopaths cause them to grapple with emotional language.
• · Corpus callosum is different in psychopaths so they process information between brain hemispheres differently which effects interpersonal skills and low reactions to stress, high reactions to aggression and unregulated behavior.
• · The amygdala in psychopaths have less reaction to fight-flight responses This causes psychopaths to feel restless, spurring them on to raising hell just for the excitement value.
• · Slower neural reactions are related to their lack of fear which is also genetically based.
• · Lack of fear throttles the development of the conscience.
• · Orbito-frontal portion of the brain causes psychopaths to have trouble organizing their behavior, reduces their ability to control their impulses and the ability to learn from punishment.
• · Difficulty with abstract meanings like the word 'justice' generated from right brain quadrant, also problems with nonverbal cues related to emotions.
• · Dorso-lateral Prefrontal Cortex affects some personality disorders ability to think logically and rationally.
• · The anterior cingulate cortex affects some personality disorders ability to focus on something they don't wish to hear thus being able to block what they want to hear, it also produces (or doesn't) the feelings of empathy.
• · The limbic system which is affected in some personality disorders negatively influences their ability to regulate their emotions through emotional reasoning.
• · The hippocampus is affected in some personality disorders which negatively impacts the emotional response system.
• · Hyperactive amygdalae cause intense and slowly subsiding emotions when they suffer even just a minor irritation. This can cause an overreaction to a minor constructive criticism.
• · Lowered serotonin levels in the brain affects increased impulsivity.
• · Smaller size of right parietal lobe in some personality disorders.

Yeah, I know--that's a lot of science to wade through but maybe you get the point: you didn't break him and you can't fix him. This fascinating decade of science has answered so many questions for so many---people who can let go of the guilt and fantasy that what's wrong with him is merely 'willful behavior' or 'a bad attitude' or 'needs more counseling.'  Personality disordered brains are different in their genetic makeup, chemistry, circuitry, regional brain development, neurobiology...and the list goes on. In fact, we are realizing so much of the brain is affected---in borderline personality disorder, in anti-social, in psychopathy--so much of Cluster B is traced now to significant brain impairment. (For more information read the book 'Evil Genes' available on our website).

For many years I have been teaching the Three Inabilities related to pathology:

1. The inability to grow to any great emotional depth
2. The inability to consistently sustain positive change
3. The inability to develop insight about how their behavior affects others.

I developed these inabilities from 20 years in the field of providing services to the personality disordered. Although I suspected there was hard-wiring and hard science behind it, it wasn't until recently that I was finally able to find out why the Three Inabilities are actually correct and why they don't sustain positive change. It's not because they want to screw with your head....it's because of their head.

You didn't produce anything--you're so influential that you can setup his genetic patterns.  Sorry--you're not strong enough to 'will' his amygdala to change. Bad news here--you are not gonna 'love' his limbic region into correct functioning. And hate to break the news that all the 'Law of Attraction' books in the world aren't gonna get his brain chemistry to be normal.

And you might as well cancel the relationship counseling because being tolerant it isn't gonna change the size and function of various brain regions. Stopping nagging or trying the relationship 'just one more time' isn't going to alter his brain enzymes and neurotransmitters.  Even Batterer Intervention groups aren't gonna change his corpus callosum and make it less aggressive.

He doesn't have a brain tumor that you are responsible for 'giving him.' He does have a brain disorder. You aren't responsible for that either--how his brain did and did not form. In the medical world, we seem to accept some disorders much more easily, like Cystic Fibrosis or Mental Retardation. With these disorders, you can often see visible symptoms. In pathology, you also see symptoms over time.  The difference is that the symptoms are visible not through external medical conditions but through relationships. We find the symptoms of psycho-pathology related to brain dysfunction right in the middle of your relationship.

Sandra L. Brown, M.A. is the Founder of The Institute for Relational Harm Reduction and Public Pathology Education.  Visit her site for information about services and products:  http://saferelationshipsmagazine.com

Recovery Without Justice

By Sandra L. Brown, M.A.

At the heart of the victims' rights movement that I was involved in during the 1980's after my father's murder was the concept of judicial justice which would lead to psychological justice. It's a great concept and in a perfect world it would work in all situations. If you were wronged by the pathological person (physically hurt, conned out of money, screwed up custody situations, infidelity, spiritual abuse, etc.) the pathological would be held accountable in the courts for his behavior and more importantly, he would be forced into victim restitution in which he would have to repay or do something as a sign of his guilt and your pain.

Restitution, in and of itself, really doesn't heal anything. It does, however, make the victim/person harmed feel like the scales of justice changed.  The scales, which once grossly tilted toward him, now tilt in the victim's direction. For a brief moment in court, and for however long it takes him to pay or do the restitution, he is officially 'guilty.' Everyone knows he was charged and found guilty; now he is 'paying the price' for his actions. For a brief moment in court, a judge believes the victim! He believes the monster really did what the victim said he did. That, in and of itself, is often the psychological justice that victims really look for, and it helps them to heal.

In the case of murder trials, which I often attended, the family cannot be compensated in any true way that relieves their pain and suffering. Their loved one was murdered. No amount of restitution touches a human life. The best the family can hope for is either physical payment, prison, the death sentence, or some other act that the court assigns from the monster to the victim's family.

The judicial system acts as the conscience of this country. Victims seek solace in the courtrooms and chambers, hoping that justice will alleviate the pain, horror, and stigmatization of being a victim of the monster. But we know that in many cases, and I dare say most cases, that's not what happens. Restraining orders are not granted, arrests are not performed for stalking or violence, and children are given over to the pathological who is overtly violent, sick, drug addicted or otherwise an inept parent.

He continually violates the rules, but the court does not impose sanctions.  He doesn't pay child support, but his visitation continues.  He does not pay alimony, yet the court does not make him pay it.    He conned/stole thousands of dollars from you, but the court does not make him pay it. Your legal bill skyrockets as he does not pay what he has agreed to pay or been ordered to pay. Taking him to court again and again does no good; the pathological continues his behavior. The judge does not see past the expertly-crafted mask to the pathological's true nature-he gives him the benefit of the doubt, thinking him normal. Even when the court does order compliance, it does no good: the pathological laughs at court orders. You stand by, mouth gaping and wondering "Where is the justice? HOW does he get away with this?"

I have repeatedly said that the universe is strangely tilted to the pathological's benefit. If ANYONE will get away with a con or a criminal act, it will be them. The universal scales of justice tilt in his favor. Ironically, this somehow influences the judicial scales of justice. In the 20 years of doing this work I have seen pathologicals literally get away with murder, rape, embezzlement, breaking and entering, stalking, domestic violence, child abuse, and more. This ranks as the 8th Wonder of the World -- how pathologicals con their way out of the most vicious deeds and often never pay in any way for their behavior.

In these cases, women's hopes for justice, connected to their psychological healing, are dashed. The scales of justice will never be balanced -- she is not vindicated in the way that helps her heal. Even if he is found guilty of something, he rarely pays the price. If he is suppose to pay a fine, he doesn't. If he is suppose to go to jail/prison, it's postponed or over-turned. If custody is denied, it's later granted by another judge. If he embezzled, it's forgiven in exchange for an admission of guilt.

Victims' rights and its connection to judicial and psychological justice doesn't play out often in pathological relationships. The psychological justice that the victim is counting on in order to vindicate her -- her moment in which the conscience of this country believed her -- doesn't happen. Since we understand that psychological justice is what is most likely to help victims heal, now what?

I sternly tell victims of pathological relationships that they must recover without justice. We are not discussing 'what is fair'; the pathological has already skirted the issue of 'fairness.' He doesn't live that as a concept, and the law doesn't use it as a concept with him. If you desire to recover, heal and move forward with your life, you will have to recover without judicial justice. Without victim restitution. Without the conscience of this country validating your story.

You have to recover without a second of judicial support. Women who hinge their recovery on judicial justice or waiting for her day in court, or 'when he gets what's coming to him' will never recover. The universe is tilted in his favor, and your own recovery must be a daring adventure in the face of a lack of victims rights. Sometimes the only personal justice is recovering and living a great life. What he did to you doesn't define you, hold you down, or stop you from succeeding in your own spiritual outlook.

In the end, the only thing you really have control over is how you choose to see your situation. If you see yourself as a victim of the situation, you won't recover until you move past that view. If you see the situation from a different perspective - horrible things happened to you but don't define or restrain you, you will move forward -- with or without justice.

The most unfair situation is what you have lived through and the aftermath of the effects of the pathological relationship. In the face of this grossly dehumanizing experience is the indomitable spirit of recovery that can guide you to not only survive, but thrive in the face of great pain. I have every confidence you can heal, even without justice. Let us know if we can help you do that.

Defeat the Vampires!

By Heidi Hiatt

WordPress.com blogger annotoole posted the first video listed below today. After I watched it, I realized that a well-known author has posted a whole series of videos to arm the public against manipulative and abusive people.

(Sarah! When did you do this? These are brilliant! What a fun and interesting way to help people avoid and break free from those we’ve always called vampires. Well done, and I love the nods to Lindner and Cleckley. My only beef is the swearing, but I understand why it’s included.)

Ladies and gents, we’ve dated, been engaged to, and married these people. We’ve worked for, are related to, and socialize with them. Some of us may be with them now. Like moths to light, they are drawn to strong, sensitive, successful, giving people that they can use as power sources in an attempt to fill the bottomless pits inside of themselves.

They come to us with a tragic circumstance or critical need that we loving people feel that we are destined to fix. They read us carefully and parrot our values, likes, and dislikes back to us so that we feel instantly bonded to them. They hide truths about their pasts and presents so that we will fit neatly into the niche in their lives that seems to have been custom-made for us.

But once we find that there is a disconnect between their words and actions, that they frequently say they’ll do things they don’t do, that they refuse to maintain proper boundaries with the opposite sex, and so on, they will start to push us away. We become the enemy. Everything becomes our fault. We are constantly reminded of what horrible people we are and how wonderful their other targets (partners) are in contrast.

The more you know about the hidden parts of their life and their affairs, the more you will be attacked. They will enlist the help of others to make you look like the instigator, and cut you loose without any regard for your well-being to allow them to finish their other meals. Because ultimately, they are predators, and you, as a whole, loving, sacrificial child of God, are a feast to them.

I remember what I said before I made the terrible mistake of trusting a vampire: either he’s the smoothest talker I’ve ever met, or he’s the one. He turned out to be the former, the exact type of soul-sucking black hole vortex these videos discuss, to whom I was merely a filling station on the highway of life.

Lacking light, hope, faith, and warmth in his life, he turned to multiple women at once to satisfy his sickness and moved on to more. The endless lies allowed him to act as if he were a serious relationship candidate but be something else entirely. His past, once verified, was different than he said or perceived that it was.

When questioned he could not inflict enough head games, gaslighting, and insults combined with compliments to keep me off balance. When you’re not standing on your own two feet you can be dragged along behind the psycho wagon easily, questioning if something’s wrong with you when the problem is in fact him.

Both men and women are capable of this behavior. Most adults have either experienced these people or know someone who has. They come from every walk of life and class in society. They pry their way into our hearts with pity and consume us like fire.

But remember– we are stronger than them. That’s why they were attracted to us in the first place.

Years ago, I began to realize that the people in my life who attacked me for not bowing to their soul-sucking darkness all seemed to be inwardly deformed by the same disease. When I started to research this, I read Dr. Robert Hare’sSnakes in Suits and was floored to find that someone had already penned a book about one of my experiences.

Since then, other experts have continued to affirm my experiences in words eerily similar to my own records of what has happened. The experiences of vampires’ victims are universal. As their misdeeds and predatory exploits are brought into the light, victims are learning how to beat them at their own game.

Arm yourself with the knowledge in these videos, draw on God’s unlimited strength, grace, and mercy, and break free from these vampires forever!

Mr. Invincible – The Invisible Psychopaths Among Us:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YaVYBsQXTo

The Old Soul Mate Trick: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0BLMp1Xbso&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Mr. Duplicity – The Passive-Aggressive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U88tcoLQHqU&feature=related

Extreme Energy Vampires Amongst Us: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oMa7yvzW_Q&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Exposing the Mask of Insanity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXEgzhMKGeg&feature=BF&list=ULvc1aD1xexV8&index=1

Dark Souls– Mind Games, Manipulation, and Gaslighting:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwWBHRKFYCA&feature=BF&list=ULvc1aD1xexV8&index=9

The Silent Treatment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IwEnZPa0N8&feature=BF&list=ULvc1aD1xexV8&index=14

Getting Rid of a Psycho: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuReWbacyPY&feature=BF&list=ULvc1aD1xexV8&index=20

Empaths and Narcissists– What Do They Have In Common?:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Gw6OUVuwY&feature=related

An evil man is ensnared by the transgression of his lips,
But the righteous will escape from trouble.
-Proverbs 12:13

Pathology is usually quite subtle, at least in the beginning. –Sandra Brown

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.

Triggers and Knee Jerk Reactions During the Holidays

By Sandra L. Brown, M.A.

The holidays are stressful under the best of situations. Add to it a dangerous and pathological relationships and you can have a prescription for **guaranteed** unhappiness.

The pathological relationship never lies dormant during the holidays. It's an opportunity to recontact 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 mannipulation 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 down hill 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? One night with the twinkle of Christmas tree lights and a ribbon on a gift 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 unbelieveably 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 thru 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. 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!!


Sandra L. Brown, M.A. is the CEO of The Institute for Relational Harm Reduction and Public Pathology Education.  http://saferelationshipsmagazine.com

External Locus of Belief: Is it True, is it REALLY True?

by Sandra L. Brown, M.A.

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

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

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

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

OR, are your beliefs externally hinged? "If you say so Sandra--if you say he's pathological, then I guess he is." "If he scored high on the P-scan (developed by Dr. Robert Hare) then I suppose that is correct...."  Statements like these are related to people who have external locus of belief. They don't really believe it themselves; they are hinging their belief system to someone else's belief systems--usually mine or another expert in pathology. Somewhere along the line they haven't really 'come to believe' that the pathology is his. It's still some distant reality 'labeled' by a therapist but you don't own it inside your self. This makes accepting it, reallllyyyyyy accepting it, hard for you because you then need to be reminded every 30 seconds that he is in fact, permanently pathological. Once you are out of ear range of a therapist or some other external validating system (books, DVDs, CDs, etc.) will you still accept his pathology?

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

Most people need a time of 'coming to believe' -- it's like building faith in anything else--we study and come to believe. Pathology is the same way--you need some education, some time to digest this big wad of bad news, and some time to work a plan of 'accepting the things I cannot change.' Almost everyone who faces the fact of pathology in someone else has this same 'coming to terms' process. We expect it.

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

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

If your locus of belief is still external and it doesn't shift and become internal--just know this is a risk factor for you. Holding the belief system steady is the challenge of overcoming cognitive dissonance. When it doesn't get over come eventually, either you learn to do what the 12 Steppers call 'Fake It 'Til You Make It' (do it 'til you believe it) or face the rising statistics that you're likely to believe the internal chatter and make a Bee line back.

http://www.saferelationshipsmagazine.com

Trait Examination OR Character Assassination?

By Sandra L. Brown, M.A.

Part of the problem we face in trying to get to the nitty-gritty of pathological love relationships is that

"how we do it" or "what we call it" is judged so severely that it impairs sharing the valuable outcomes that are learned.

There are groups of professionals, women's orgs, and service agencies that tip toe around what we "call" patterns of selection in relationships. There are unspoken rules and heavily weighted opinions about "what" we can discuss and "how" we discuss the outcomes.

What am I talking about? Since the 1970's which largely kick started the women's movement, the way society discusses specifics about women's choices in relationships’ their patterns of selection; her personality traits, mental health,  and sexual addiction/deviancy has been largely discouraged and semantisized 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 of the pathological love relationship including biology, temperament, or engrained/learned, or conditioned traits. We may study him but we already have a "theory" for her which is not to be disturbed.

Compare this to any other field of mental health and it's absurd that we would say "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 pick the victimizer.

Could we learn something about that?

How will Cancer be won or a cure for AIDS 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 one 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 aspects of the victim, 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 other 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 darn political correctness and emotional politics of "labeling" it something that certain groups find offensive. They test and crunch numbers and put it in a journal without all the rig-a-ma-roy. But in our case, where we are a notch below the researchers, what we study, how we describe what we found, is subject to so much scrutiny that many clinicians and writers hesitate to publish what they found.

So it has been with many of the things that 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 huge notch in the "Women Who Love Psychopaths" in which 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 ground-breaking trait identification that it was and yet still; the victim groups saw it as labeling.

How can we help women if we don't understand their own biology?

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 now thousands of women who have read the books, been counseled by our trained therapists, come to our treatment programs?

How would we have gotten 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 own brains and the consequences of our biology on our behavior, choices, and futures. We know that MRI's are being done on psychopath's brains revealing areas of brains that work differently. Some day, I think that may cross over and other personality disorders and chronic mental illnesses will be MRI'd as well so we understand how those disorder effect biology and brain function.

But what about victims?

* If we put the word "damaged" away and instead looked at how "different" brain regions in victims function, over function, under function, are influenced by 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 (or ignores) red flags, 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 (even as awful as he might be) are so much stronger than the abuse memories?

* 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?

* Then would we know who is at risk?

* Would we understand better, how to TREAT the victim in counseling?

* How to develop prevention and intervention?

* Or how intensity of attachment could be either a temperament trait or a brain function instead of merely "victim labeling."

I am not only interested in the psycho-biology of the victim but how the psycho-biology affects patterns of selection and reactions in the most pathological of relationships. When we start really dealing with an open dialogue about these survivors, looking past ridiculous theories that 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. 

Sandra L. Brown, M.A. is the CEO and Founder of The Institute for Relational Harm Reduction and Public Pathology Education.

Is It Love or Attraction?

By Sandra L. Brown, M.A.

Too often our relationship selection is generated more from attraction than anything else. So knowing 'who' and 'what types' you are attracted to will help you understand your patterns of selection. Some people choose characteristics--helpfulness, humor, gentleness or on the other hand aloof, emotionally unavailable or bad boyz representing qualities they seem to be drawn to. Other people are more physical in their attraction and find the physicality of someone either a 'go' or a 'no.' Maybe you like blondes or blue eyes which drives your pattern of selection.

Unfortunately, sometimes “Traumatic Attraction" seems to drive our patterns of selection. Those who have been abused (especially as children) can have unusual and destructive patterns of selection. While this may seem the opposite of what you would expect from this kind of childhood history, these patterns are largely driven by unresolved trauma. People who were raised in alcoholic, dysfunctional, or abusive homes are likely to repeat those exact patterns in their selection of a partner. They often select individuals who have similar 'characteristics' to the abusive/neglectful/addicted adult they grew up with or were exposed to. The characteristics could be physical (how they look) or behavioral (how they act) or emotional (how they abuse/neglect).

The unresolved abuse issue drives them to selecting abusers for relationships. Today, they are mystified as to why they keep picking abusive/neglectful/addicted people for relationship partners. The rule of thumb in traumatic attractions is, "That which remains unresolved, revolves around and around through our lives until it is resolved."

So, when you have no idea that attraction (good, bad, or dysfunctional) is guiding your selections, you just keep picking the same way and getting the same thing. But because the world keeps using the word 'love' you use it too and you label your attraction-based-choices (that are largely dysfunctional) as 'love' and then you become confused about the nature of this thing called 'love' too.

Your attraction is NOT love. It is merely attraction. What DOES or DOES NOT happen IN the

relationship may be more reflective of 'love' than anything else.

Remember the saying, "Love is patient, love is kind, love does not seek its own..."? It helps to reflect how love is 'other centered' not in a codependent and frantic or needy way but in a way that helps others be interdependent in relationships. Love is often attributed to positive 'attributes' such as:

Joy - love smiling

Peace - love resting

Patience - love waiting

Kindness - love showing itself sensitive to others' feelings

Goodness - love making allowances

Faithfulness - love proving constant

Gentleness - love yielding

Self-control - love triumphing over selfish inclinations

--Source Unknown

"As long as we believe that someone else has the power to make us happy then we are setting ourselves up to be victims"

(From: Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls)

The opposite of healthy love is what we often call 'toxic' love. Sometimes understanding what toxic 'looks like' helps us to see what real 'love' should look like too. Here is a short list of the characteristics of Love vs. Toxic Love (compiled with the help of the work of Melody Beattie and Terence Gorski.)

1. Love - Development of self first priority.

Toxic love - Obsession with relationship.

2. Love - Room to grow, expand; desire for other to grow.

Toxic love - Security, comfort in sameness; intensity of need seen as proof of love (may really be fear, insecurity, loneliness)

3. Love - Separate interests; other friends; maintain other meaningful relationships.

Toxic love - Total involvement; limited social life; neglect old friends, interests.

4. Love - Encouragement of each other's expanding; secure in own worth.

Toxic love - Preoccupation with other's behavior; fear of other changing.

5. Love - Appropriate Trust (i.e. trusting partner to behave according to fundamental nature.)

Toxic love - Jealousy; possessiveness; fear of competition; protects "supply."

6. Love - Compromise, negotiation or taking turns at leading. Problem solving together.

Toxic love - Power plays for control; blaming; passive or aggressive manipulation.

7. Love - Embracing of each other's individuality.

Toxic love - Trying to change other to own image.

8. Love - Relationship deals with all aspects of reality.

Toxic love - Relationship is based on delusion and avoidance of the unpleasant.

9. Love - Self-care by both partners; emotional state not dependent on other's mood.

Toxic love - Expectation that one partner will fix and rescue the other.

10. Love - Loving detachment (healthy concern about partner, while letting go.)

Toxic love - Fusion (being obsessed with each other's problems and feelings.)

11. Love - Sex is free choice growing out of caring & friendship.

Toxic love - Pressure around sex due to insecurity, fear & need for immediate gratification.

12. Love - Ability to enjoy being alone.

Toxic love - Unable to endure separation; clinging.

13. Love - Cycle of comfort and contentment.

Toxic love - Cycle of pain and despair.

Love is not supposed to be painful. There is pain involved in any relationship but if it is painful most of the time then something is not working. There is nothing wrong with wanting a relationship - it is natural and healthy to desire that. If we can start seeing relationships not as the goal but as opportunities for growth then we can start having more functional relationships. A relationship that ends is not a failure or a punishment - it is a lesson.

Sandra L. Brown, M.A. is the CEO and Founder of The Institute for Relational Harm Reduction and Public Pathology Education.

Emotional Phantom Limb Pain

By Sandra L. Brown, M.A.

In a session someone says "I really miss what we had. I could get over this if it hadn't been in the most wonderful relationship of my life. I just feel like something has been cut out of me. Like I'm missing a big part of myself now."

Pathology is marked by the issue of illusion. It's why our logo is a mask because it best represents the mirage of normalcy that pathologicals can often project, at least for a while. Cleckley from the 1940’s was a writer about pathology  and referred to it as "The Mask of Sanity." He states that pathology gives all the surface signals of deep connection, the most fun ever experienced with someone else, someone who is really into you yet behind the curtain you are being used as a distraction, a pay check, grotesquely as a "vaginal doormat" or some other form of "feeding" for the pathological piranha.

What you are experiencing you are internally labeling as "normal" or "wonderful" or "love" and yet it really isn't any of those things. It's just a label of experience you have tagged him with. If someone else was watching your relationship as a movie and watched the scene in which the pathological is exposed for what he is, your scene would be tagged and labeled by the watcher very differently than how you thought of your own experience.

That's because the watchers would see the pathological's behaviors and words as manipulative and the watcher would undergo a distinctly different view of the storyline. Your labeling of your experience isn't always accurate. As I often say, "Your thinking is what got you into this pathological relationship. Don't always believe what you think."

Being invested in being correct is part of the human condition and is in part, the way our brains work. The more important the question such as "Does he love me? Is this THE one?" The greater the pleasure will seem from labeling the experience as positive. The more positive the relationship is perceived, the more invested you will be to label the experiences and his behavior as positive and to get the reward of your label such as "him, marriage, or the relationship." Of course none of this is problematic except if you have misread the illusion, believed the mask, and labeled an experience with a narcissist, anti-social, or socio/psychopath as "positive."

The illusion is that:

* He was normal

* He was in love with you

* He was what he said he was

* And he did what he said he did.

In pathology, that's never the case.

* Their attachments are surface (which isn't love)

* They are mentally disordered (which is not normal)

* They never present themselves as disordered/sexually promiscuous/and incapable of love (so he wasn't what he said he was)

* And they harbor hidden lives filled with other sex partners, hook ups, criminality, or illegal/moral behavior (so they don't disclose what he's really up to).

What you had (that you can't possibly miss) is a pathological relationship.

What you miss, is the ability to wrap yourself up like a blanket in the illusion-to go back to the time before you knew this was all illusion.

Women often say when they try to break up they have the feeling that something is cut out of them. They feel like they are missing a part of themselves. This sensation is similar to what is called "phantom limb pain" that is a medical mystery of sorts. When a person has an arm that is accidentally amputated, the portion of the brain that use to receive sensory messages about the existing arm goes through a series of changes that causes it to misread the brain message and creates the "ghostly" illusion that the arm is still there and in pain.

Even though the patient can see that the arm is gone and what they are experiencing is an illusion, they can't stop the distressing phantom limb sensations of wanting to believe the arm is still there, the arm is in pain, the arm is anything but gone.  The amputee must learn to cope differently by beginning with relabeling the experience they are having which is the pretense of the arm is a perceptual illusion.

So it is with those leaving the illusionary pathological love relationship. The emotional pain you experience is based on the illusion the pathological presented, a perceptual illusion that was mislabeled, experienced as positive and invested in. Keeping that positive illusion is initially important to you. Learning to adjust the cognitive dissonance which is the ping ponging between he was good/he was bad is the challenge in overcoming the ghostly emotional baggage of phantom relationship pain.