Joy -VS- Happiness, Part I

by Sandra L. Brown, MA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Untie your happiness from the ends of his shirt tales…

(Watch for Part II next month!)

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. www.saferelationshipsmagazine.com

The Gift of Fear/The Curse of Anxiety

by Sandra L. Brown, MA

Is it Fear Or Is it Anxiety?

Women who have been in pathological relationships come away from the relationships with problems associated with fear, worry, and anxiety.This is often related to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or what we call ‘High Harm Avoidance’– being on high alert looking for ways she might get harmed now or in the future.

PTSD, by it’s own nature as a disorder, is an anxiety disorder that is preoccupied by both the past (flashbacks and intrusive thoughts of him or events) and by the future (worry about future events, trying to anticipate his behaviors, etc.). With long term exposure to PTSD, this anxiety and worry begins to mask itself, at least in her mind, as ‘fear.’ In fact, most women lump together the sensations of anxiety, worry, and fear into one feeling and don’t differientiate them.

Fear is helpful and safety-oriented whereas worry and anxiety are not helpful and related to phantom ‘possible’ events that often don’t happen. To that degree, worry and anxiety are distracting away from real fear signals that could help her.

In the book which is now a classic on predicting harmful behavior in others, Gavin deBecker in ‘The Gift of Fear’ delineates the difference between what we need fear FOR and what we DONT need anxiety and worry for. In some ways, the ability to use fear correctly while stopping the use of anxiety and worry may do much to curtail PTSD symptoms.

deBecker who is not a therapist but a Danger Anaylst has done what other therapists haven’t even done–nix PTSD symptoms of anxiety and worry by focusing on true fear and it’s necessity versus anxiety and it’s faux meaning to us.

The term fear was used by Freud (in contrast to anxiety), to refer to the reaction to real danger. Freud emphasized the difference between fear and anxiety in terms of their relation to danger:

~ Anxiety is a state characterized by the expectation and preparation for a danger–even if it’s unknown ~

~ While fear implies a specific object to be feared in the here/now. ~

(Anxiety is: ‘He MIGHT harm me’ where fear is: “He IS harming me with his fist, words, actions, etc.”)

If you heard there was a weapon proven to prevent most crimes (including picking a dangerous partner) before it happened, would you run out and buy it? World-renowned security expert Gavin deBecker says this weapon exists,but you already have it. He calls it “the gift of fear.”

The story of a woman named Kelly begins with a simple warning sign. A man offers to help carry her groceries into her apartment—and instantly, Kelly doesn’t like the sound of his voice. Kelly goes against her gut and lets him help her—and in doing so, she lets a rapist into her home.


“We get a signal prior to violence,” Gavin says. “There are preincident indicators. Things that happen before violence occurs.” Gavin says that unlike any other living creature, humans will sense danger, yet still walk right into it.

“You’re in a hallway waiting for an elevator late at night. The elevator door opens, and there’s a guy inside, and he makes you afraid. You don’t know why, you don’t know what it is. And many women will stand there and look at that guy and say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to think like that. I don’t want to be the kind of person who lets the door close in his face. I’ve got to be nice. I don’t want him to think I’m not nice.’

And so human beings will get into a steel soundproof chamber with someone they’re afraid of, and there’s not another animal in nature that would even consider it.”

Gavin says that “eerie feelings” is exactly what he wants women to pay attention to. “We’re trying to analyze the warning signs,” he says. “And what I really want to teach today and forever is the feeling of the warning sign. All the other stuff is our explanation for the feeling. Why it was this, why it was that. The feeling itself IS the warning sign.”

What happens over and over again is that women dismantle their OWN internal safety system by ignoring it. The longer she ignores it, the more ‘over rides’ it receives and retrains the brain to ignore the fear signal. Once rewired women are at tremendous risks of all kinds…risks of picking the wrong men, of squelching fear signals of impending violence, shutting off alarms about potential sexual assaults, shutting down red flags about financial rip offs, squeeking out hints about poor character in other people…and the list goes on. What is left after your whole entire safety system is dismantled? Not much….

Women, subconsciously sensing they need to have ‘something’ to fall back on, swap out true and profoundly accurate fear signals with the miserly counterfeit and highly unproductive feeling of worry/anxiety.

LADIES– WRONG FEELING!

Then they end up in counseling for their 4th dangerous relationship and wonder if they have a target sign on their forehead. No they don’t. They have learned to dismantle, rename, minimize, justify, or deny the fear signals they get or got in the relationship. As if their ability to ‘take it’ or ‘not be afraid’ of very dangerous behavior is some sort of win for them. As if their ability to look danger in the face and STAY means they are as tough or competitive as he is…

No–it means they have a fear signal that no longer saves them. Their barely stuttering signal means it’s been over-ridden by her. She felt it, labeled it, and released it all the while staring eye-to-eye with what she should fear most.

Then later, or another day or week passes and she has mounting anxiety–over what she wonders? She has a chronic low grade worry, whisps of anxiety that waife thru her life. She can’t put 2+2 together to figure out that ignoring true fear will demand to be recognized by her subconscious in some way—an illegitimate way through worry and anxiety that does nothing to save her from real danger. Her real ally (her true fear) has been squelched and banished.

When coming to us for counseling she wants us to help her ‘feel safe’ again when actually, we can’t do any of that. It’s all in her internal system as it’s always been. Her safety is inside her and her future healing is too.

She will sit in the counselor’s office denying true fear and begging for relief from the mounting anxiety she is experiencing. She doesn’t trust herself, her intuition, her judgments–all she can feel is anxiety. And with good reason! True fear is her true intuition…not anxiety. But she’s already canned what can save her and now on some level she must know she has nothing left that can help her feel and react.

Animals instinctively react to the danger signal–the adrenaline, flash of fear, and flood of cortisol. They don’t have internal dialogue with themselves like “What did that mean? Why did he say that? I don’t like that behavior—I wonder if he was abused as a child.”

An animal is trained to have a natural reaction to the fear signal–they run. You don’t see animals ‘stuck’ in abusive mating environments! In nature, as in us, we are wired with the King of Comments which is the danger signal. When we respond to the flash of true fear, we aren’t left having a commentary with ourselves.


“The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination.” – John Schaar

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. www.saferelationshipsmagazine.com

Healthy Love - What in the World is That?

By Sandra L. Brown, M.A.

Hope you had a good Valentines Day! And since Valentine's Day is upon us, I thought it would be a great discussion about what happens in Pathological Love Relationships--- that attraction is on over-drive while love (from a pathological) is lingo-bling.

But what about real love, healthy love? People write all the time and say 'When are you going to write How to Spot a Healthy Partner because with as many bad relationships that I've been in, I can hardly tell the difference between what should be obviously toxic and what should be obviously healthy.'

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 & 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 you are probably in a Pathological Love Relationship because the end result of these relationships is 'Inevitable Harm.' Let's be clear that there is nothing wrong with wanting a relationship - it is natural and healthy. 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. And these lessons are mostly about pathology, its permanence, and the lives it affects without discrimination.

 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. www.saferelationshipsmagazine.com

Related articles

• Loving Your Self (saferelationshipsmagazine.com)
• Monthly Special (saferelationshipsmagazine.com)
• Are You Really as Far Along as You Think You Are? (saferelationshipsmagazine.com)
• Crazy Little Thing Called Love (americanheartassociationcharlotte.wordpress.com)

Time’s Up: Let Me Count The Ways to Save A Life

By Susan Murphy Milano

April 2010 launched the book, Time's Up: A Guide on How to Leave and Survive an Abusive and Stalking Relationship. The information contained in the book has been used by many victims of abuse in the almost 2 years since it became available to the public, and those who chose to follow the information in the book, are all still alive at a time when we are seeing record numbers of intimate partner murder/suicides and whole families being annihilated.

The Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit© is still not being used to its fullest potential by the legal, medical, and advocacy program communities, but it is available in many forms to the general public, and the testimonials are astounding. The testimonials are not just coming from recovered victims, but from those brave advocates who are using it on their own to best assist the victims who come to them for help.

Although not yet fully used as accepted practice in shelters and agencies across the country, Time's Up and the Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit© is being discussed throughout the nation in the domestic violence assistance community.  In the meantime, I've made this life-saving, but simple procedure available in as many formats as possible so that it's in the hands of those who need it most, the abuse victim.

Where can Time's Up and the Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit be found?

The website Document the Abuse was created to house all the information about the Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit©, it's purpose, it's benefits, and how to become certified to properly use the information on a case by case basis. The future of it's success lies in the organization of advocates in all victim services fields and their training in how to properly administer and create the individual safety plans and the EAA.

Time's Up: A Guide on How to Leave and Survive an Abusive and Stalking Relationship

The over-sized paperback book is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and all online retailers. You can request it through your local book stores if it's not yet being carried there.

It's also available on Kindle and as an ebook (pdf format) through several sites including Susan Murphy Milano's website and blog, susanmurphymilano.com and The Institute for Relational Harm Reduction and Public Pathology Education saferelationshipsmagazine.com 

Coming Soon!

The Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit © will soon be available in two new formats, an "interactive pdf" as well as the long awaited app from Apple.  Stay tuned for the announcements and where you can find them!

Time's Up is being translated into Spanish, we're very excited about being able to more effectively serve the Latino population, and will keep readers abreast of when it will be available.

Susan Murphy Milano is a staff member of the Institute for Relational Harm Reduction and Public Pathology Education as an educator and specialist with intimate partner violence prevention strategies directing prevention for high risk situations and cases.


susanmurphymilano.com

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.

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

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.

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

By Sandra L. Brown, M.A.

People often want to know why people with personality disorders (pathology) often have the worst and most inappropriate behavior indicating they are clueless about others feelings AND YET they are often enabled with the uncanny ability to know human behavior so well that they can con even the most knowledgeable of people.

This 'savant-like' experience with human behavior reminds me of the Scripture that says, "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away." Cluster B Personality Disorders, no doubt, rack up their miles in huge emotional and behavioral deficits. ("The Lord Taketh Away"). I've discussed this at length in articles and books-- what causes a personality disorder has to do with what DOESN'T happen when the personality is forming from 0-8 years of age.

Deficits = Disorders.

Not getting what a child needs WHEN they need it can help create a personality disorder. Normal childhood development does not include severe neglect, being raised by a pathological and learning to see the world through the eyes of a narcissist or sociopath, or being abused. 

Whatever the 'cause' of the personality disorder, (exposed to pathological parents or being born with neuro-abnormalities) let's consider the budding pathological child for a moment. Let's put out of our mind just for now the disordered adult he grows into. Let's say we have a 9 or 10 year old child. We'll call him Pathological Pete. Through no fault of his own, has a personality disorder. That means he:

· does not have the full spectrum of human emotion

· has blunted feelings of love/compassion/guilt/remorse

· has impulse control problems

· has difficulty being able to know right from wrong

· is not motivated by punishment when he does wrong

· is tantalized by risk and reward


His friend across the street is the same age and not personality disordered. We'll call him Normal Ned. Normal Ned:

· has a full spectrum of emotions

· feels bonded

· feels, love and compassion

· is motivated by punishment so he feels guilt and remorse

· has impulse control over many of his actions

· understands the basic concepts of right and wrong.

· Although he likes risk and reward, he has enough impulse control not to be led consistently by pleasure.


One day Pathology Pete is over at Normal Ned's. While playing in the house, the boys knock over a vase and break it. Normal Ned knows the story behind the vase: it's the only thing his mother has left from her mother. His mother got it as a gift on the death bed of her mother. She always prized the vase and felt her mother's presence when she looked at it.

Normal Ned's mother begins to cry; her son has empathetic feelings that his mother is sad and experiencing loss because of the broken vase. Normal Ned goes to her and tries to comfort her as Pathological Pete watches.

Pathological Pete has NO idea why Normal Ned:

(a) feels bad that the vase was broken (he thinks: so what, go get another one)

(b) why Ned would go to his mother and hug her and pat her (he thinks: why does she need that?)

(c) why Ned offers to replace the vase

(d) why it was even wrong to be playing with a ball by the vase.

Pathological Pete stands off to the side watching this 'unusual' reaction and interaction between Normal Ned and his mother. In comes Normal Ned's brother, Normal Nathan. Normal Nathan sees his mother crying and also tries to comfort her. Pathological Pete watches, wondering "Why did Normal Nathan go to her? He didn't even break the vase?"

Pathological Pete stands awkwardly aside, watching what to him is like a Sci-Fi movie--feelings, actions, behaviors, and motivations he doesn't understand. Over and over, throughout his childhood and into his adolescence, this incident is repeated.

Pathological Pete witnesses people having feelings he doesn't experience. They have emotional reactions that he doesn't understand. They have reactions, behaviors, and motivations that are foreign to him. Pathological Pete is bright--he is a smart child, but he can't figure out why he doesn't 'know' what other kids seem to know:

· how to act

· how not to act

· how to feel certain emotions and when and why


Pathological children figure out early they are 'different'--they just don't know why.

Since he has a need to appear normal and fit in with everyone else, the pathological child studies the behavior of those around him, looking for clues on how to appear normal. If he sees someone cry:

1. He watches how other people respond to the crying. (he learns behavior)

2. He studies the face of the person who caused the crying. (he learns the "I'm sorry" look)

3. He tries to determine what made the person cry. (he learns what makes a person cry and what the potential benefits/consequences are to the person who caused the crying)

Children who grow to be pathological become little psychologists by their teenage years. They have studied other people's behavior so intently that they understand on a manipulative level:

· what makes people hurt

· how to get out of consequences for having hurt others

These little child-prodigies have studied human behavior since they were 5 or 6 years old--they are emotional savants.

On one hand:

The "Lord Taketh Away" part: they do NOT have the full spectrum of emotions, so they cannot fully understand how others experience emotion. In this, they are somewhat emotionally retarded.

On the other hand:

This is the "Lord Giveth" part: They compensate by using their intelligence to study the reactions of others, learning to mimic facial gestures, language, lingo and behaviors. They develop a mask for any occasion.

Pathologicals "mirror-image" you in a relationship: they watch and listen, then mimic and parrot back all you say and do. This is why they feel like a soul mate--you are essentially looking at a mask of yourself.

The pathological polishes these skills through years of practice. He starts using them on his mother, his sister, his Sunday school teacher, girls at school...and later on his bosses. He practices those skills anywhere he can tweak the manipulation and look normal enough to fit in.

What began as a simple adaptation in a child--trying to understand how normal people relate and behave--evolved into manipulation. At some point, the child/teen must come to the conclusion that they DON'T have these feelings, limits, boundaries, and experiences. "What the hell...just gotta go with it" is their normal reaction.

The adaptation is no longer to understand normal people and compare/contrast them to his own experiences. It has become a survival behavior to help him get what he wants. He learned to produce masks to mimic the emotions and understanding he lacks.

Sandra L. Brown, M.A. is the Founder of The Institute for Relational Harm Reduction and Public Pathology Education, as well as the author of several books, including her latest, Women Who Love Psychopaths.