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