Remembering Our Roots:Joyce's Brown's Influence on The Pathological Love Relationship Recovery Process

 

By Sandra L. Brown, M.A.

This weekend marked the 4th death anniversary of an extraordinary visionary. Many of The Institute for Relational Harm Reduction's highly acclaimed purposes, products, and processes came from what Joyce lived through, talked about, and role modeled for others.


Joyce, like other leaders, did not set out to do anything extraordinary. She simply set out to heal after two back-to-back pathological relationships. First a 25 year relationship with a narcissist and then an upgrade to a sociopath for 10 years left Joyce in the typical emotional fetal position that is common of the aftermath of pathological relationships.


She went through the normal stages of pathology recovery asking,


"What just happened?"


"Did I do that?'


"What's wrong with him?"


"Why am I so obsessed with this?"


"What's wrong with me? Why am I attracted to men like that and what does it say about my life that I would end up in a relationship like that?"


Without the benefit of mental health therapy and with only the support of a few close friends (who were quickly becoming weary of the ongoing saga of 'why' her, why him, why he moved on quickly, and why he picked the new woman), Joyce managed to piece together not only a recovery, but some profound insights that changed the quality of her life forever.


By then, at age 60, it would have been easy to say she would not likely find love, or heal. It would have been even easier to get bitter, get revenge, get hyper focused on him and his latest antics, or get in a fetal position and stay there.


But remarkably, Joyce rose from the dirt she had been ground down into. Like the symbol of the Rising Phoenix she not only rose, she dug out every particle of dirt that could be transformed from crusted pain and milled it for life changing insight.


She didn't keep these golden gems to herself--she talked to women about relationships wherever she was. Some of her approaches have trickled down to help other therapists work with women leaving pathological relationships.


Joyce believed women tended to drift sideways into pathological relationships looking for fun and excitement which actually pointed at what that woman needed in her life that would prevent her from taking just any old relationship.


"If you aren't living a big enough life that is as big as your heart, or as big as your personality, or as big as your dreams, then any old psychopath will do."


She poignantly asked herself "What is or is not going on in my own life that I would end up with a sociopath? Sure I didn't know he was one, he said all the right things...but what could this possibly be pointing out to me about me, the condition of my own life, and what needs to happen so I don't choose like this again?"


16 years later she had answered her own question:


In her 60's she went to college for the first time, became a short term missionary, she started her life in the arts of painting, sculpting, and pottery, she moved to a one room beach house so she could 'make up for lost time and play hard,' drove a convertible Miata to feel the rush of adrenaline she no longer had because the sociopath was gone. In her 70's she took up belly dancing to prove to herself she was still attractive, went to Paris to see handsome men so she knew she could still flirt, and got a motorcycle so she always had something hot to ride (!)--hey, I'm just quoting Joyce here. She became a hospital Chaplin to comfort the sick and fed the poor every week to give some of that hyper empathy away least it go to another psychopath. She sailed a Catamaran to the Bahamas to challenge her fear because she could not swim.


"A relationship is the icing on the cake. It is NOT the cake. Don't confuse the necessity of living life to be the icing. Living life IS the cake. Anything else, including relationships, is just the icing."


The Institute's own Jennifer Young who does phone coaching and our tele-support group had this to say about Joyce's impact on her and the women she helps, "Joyce Brown carries a big impact on my work with women. On her own she developed the innate ability to care for herself. That care translated into real solutions for disengagement from a pathological relationship. I believe the biggest, specific idea that has come from Joyce is the idea of 'Not One More Minute". I have shared this concept with many women who instantly feel the ability to disengage....not one more minute means I will not allow you to take one more minute of my energy, my love, my care, my compassion. It provides an end point...a point to say I'm done. This change in thinking, that I stop it, is crucial. It means that she has come to know and understand that he will not change, but I still can...and I will. So thanks to Joyce Brown for showing us the way to the end!"


At her death at age 76, she laid in a hospice bed only hours from death. I told her I wanted to toast her life. She said "Crank this bed up!" She fluffed her hair and with a glass of Jack Daniels in her hand, she said "I have had a great life. I lived, I learned how to have a great life, and I was loved. Who could ask for more?"


Her life lived well is what has impacted thousands of women worldwide and is the main thing women come away with who attended our retreats. Sadly, in this day and age, living a great life seems to be an extraordinary accomplishment. Her lecture on 'Get a Great Life' is what has spurred women on to not merely limp into recovery dragging their soul behind them. But to burst into recovery and fill their lives to the rim with all the things that her big personality needs in order to live fully. Lifeless living is what caused many women to seek the psychopath so full of energy that it seemed exciting and vibrant. Joyce said, "The problem is pointing to the solution. I loved the energy of those men! But what was that energy and why couldn't I have it another way? Was a psychopath the only way for me to feel life?"


Joyce learned that vibrancy comes from a life that is full of the things that interest, motivate, support, and challenge HER. If she wasn't living a big enough, interesting enough, motivational enough, supported enough, and challenged enough life....she would drift again into the arms of pathology to fill that space.


Feel how big YOU are and fill your own life with a great life!


From one of our readers, she wrote on Joyce's Facebook Memorial:


"Thank you, dear lady, for your continued inspiration - a legacy you've left to many you never knew but who have come to love you for your feistiness, tenacity, grit and that wonderful sense of humor!"


To celebrate Joyce Brown during her death anniversary and the month of DV Awareness Month, we are giving you our MP3 down load called 'Get a Great Life' inspired from Joyce's story for only $5! (Normally a $12 value).


To listen to a short clip of the audio, click HERE


TO PURCHASE, CLICK HERE


Get a great life and stop the cycle of pathology!

Sandra L. Brown, M.A. is the Founder and CEO of The Institute for Relational Harm Reduction and Public Pathology Education.  She is the author of several best selling books, including How to Spot a Dangerous Man and Why Women Love Psychopaths.

The Power of Relapsing

By Sandra L. Brown, M.A.

Never before in my 20 year career have I seen more 'relapsing back into pathological relationships' than I have lately.

Women:  What's wrong with me? Why do I do this?

Sandra:  I don't know....why DO you do it?

Women: I didn't know what I was doing...

Sandra: Yes you did. Contact is a choice.

Women:  I just thought he changed this time.

Sandra: No you didn't---you know pathology is permanent.

Women: I was lonely.

Sandra: Loneliness is not fatal--but these relationships often are.

Remember: your loneliness and need does not change his permanent disorder.

Nothing has changed except your thoughts about him and the relationship. That's the only change. Since pathology is marked by an inability to change and sustain positive change, your change of thoughts is the only change in the relationship. And maybe your desire or need.

Relapsing begins FIRST in the mind long before it becomes a behavior-seeking missile fired off to destroy yourself and your recovery. This is why being in a Pathological Love Relationship Support Group is so important---whether that's in a chat forum, an in-person support group you attend, or an online tele-conferencing group. You need support that keeps your THINKING  outside of the fantasy zone. Without support, you are likely to sink right back into the old fantasy hopefulness that keeps you glued to a go-nowhere and dangerous relationship.

Relapse Thinking sounds like this in your head:

• · You take all the material you've learned from books or online back to the pathological. You try to convince the pathological that they are disordered and need help.
• · You tell the pathological what your counselor said about them, you, or the relationship. You hope the weight of a professional's words will change the pathological's mind about their condition.
• · You say, "Now that I 'think' I know what 'might' be wrong with the pathological, I'll wait and watch for him to demonstrate these behaviors. Then I'll have evidence for why I'm leaving."
• · When the pathological, DOES demonstrate one of the behaviors, you either point it out to them as proof you were right, or, you find reasons why the behavior isn't 'exactly' what you read and therefore, they may not be pathological after all.
• · You read the materials and literature looking to find all the traits the pathological doesn't have. You re-read the literature on good days so you can cross off behaviors the pathological isn't demonstrating today.
• · You find reasons to disbelieve the literature about the disorder.
• · You avoid your counselor, our website, or others who know about the disorder.
• · You become 'spiritually hopeful' so you can stay in the relationship because God is going to heal them.
• · You begin reading Positive Psychology materials so you can hope the pathological can change even though pathology is about no-change.
• · You call the pathological's girlfriends or exes to get them to confirm or deny he's pathological.
• · You hire a private investigator to follow the pathological, break into their phone or computer, for 'just a little more info. on why you should leave them. When faced with the results, you still don't leave.
• · You feel more compassion toward the pathological than anger for your own pain.
• · You focus on the few good times and stuff your own feelings about his deceitful behavior.
• · You encourage the pathological to carrot-dangle some future hope or potential to you so you can say "We'll try it ONE MORE time."
• · You think you are confronting the pathological because you stand up to them. You are not being victimized by them if you are voicing your thoughts.
• · You minimize the pathological's previous deceitful, manipulative, dangerous, exploitative or lethal behavior by saying "I was probably over-exaggerating it."
• · You label yourself "just as sick as them" so you might as well stay with them. No one healthy would want you.
• · You envy the pathological's lack of conscience and remorse and see it as a 'good life' feature. You wish you were like that and cared less about what happened to you. Everything seems to go their way because they lack conscience.
• · You hyper-focus on the pathological's behavior and avoid taking care of yourself. They, and your relationship with them, become the reason for your unhappiness, health, financial, other problems.
• · You study to death all the traits of every kind of disorder you think the pathological might have. You don't leave because you 'want to totally understand it before you leave' and need just a little bit more understanding or validation from others--their family, their therapist, your therapist, your friends, etc.
• · You start softening, missing the pathological, minimizing their behavior, focusing on your own loneliness, and panic about whom or what they are doing, make excuses to have contact with them. And ~ OUILA~ you're back in.

The 'emergency session' calls that everyone wants to have is AFTER they have done one of these behaviors and feel awful about their relapse. The emergency session needs to be WHILE you are having these thoughts and BEFORE you act on them. Every time you go through one of these relapse cycles:

·         It numbs you more and more to leaving. 

·         It makes it easier and easier to relapse. 

·         It's easier for the thinking to begin again in your head, totally unrecognized by you.

You damage YOURSELF each time you move in and out of the pathological love relationship.  You damage your sense of reality even further--training YOURSELF how to hypnotize your belief system with one of the thinking phrases listed above. You also teach the pathological how to lure you back to the relationship. They aren't stupid! They are master behavior analysts, and they study which manipulative tactics work on you. Stop teaching them!

There is so much that the pathological relationship has legitimately done and damaged in you. But there is so much you DO TO YOURSELF in your relapsing. Relapse prevention requires work. It doesn't just 'happen' that you declare you are 'done' and you stay gone. If it takes a whole village to raise a child, it takes a whole community to help you get out and stay out until MUCH TIME down the road; you are strong enough on your own. I said, MUCH TIME.

Day one of healing does not happen until you get out, and stay out, and have been emotionally disconnected for several months. When people say they are recovering, but drift in and out of the relationship with constant relapse contact, I don't consider them in healing.  They don't have even day-one under their belt yet. For those of you who are truly ready to start a new life, we are here to help you. We offer teleconferencing support groups. Here's one way to get the support and help you need to get out and stay out. And don't forget we offer help in almost every format imaginable: books, e-books, workbooks, hypnosis CDs, mindfulness skills training, retreats, 1:1s with Sandra, phone coaching.  With all these resources available, there just isn't a reason to stay stuck on the un-merry-go-round of a pathological relationship.

Un-wedge yourself!