Grieving the Pathological Loss, Part 2: The Personal Side

In the last article, we began talking about the grief process as it pertains to ending the relationship with your dangerous (and often, pathological) person. Even though the relationship was damaging, and maybe you even initiated the breakup, you cannot sidestep the necessary grieving. Women are then shocked to find themselves grieving at all, given how abusive, damaging, or horrible the relationship was. They tell themselves they should be grateful to be out and this negates their own feelings of loss. The end of a relationship always constitutes a loss, whether he died or whether the relationship merely ended—the heart recognizes it as the same—a “loss.”

I mentioned in the last article that grief is natural. It’s an organic way the body and mind try to rid themselves of pain. That’s why it’s so necessary, because if you did not grieve you would have no way to eventually be out of pain. Grief is the way a person moves through the loss and to the other side of health and healing.

Without grief there wouldn’t even be a POTENTIAL for healing because grief must take place for healing to later occur. To stuff your grief, or try to avoid it, is to sabotage your own ability to heal. For every person trying to work through the ending of a relationship, grief is the healthiest response.

Some of the losses associated with the end of the relationship were discussed in the previous article. Many of you have written me to talk about the ‘personal side’ of grief—the other aspects that were lost because of the pathological relationship which must be grieved.

These include the loss of:

·       your own self-respect

·       respect of others

·       trust of others

·       your ability to trust your own instincts

·       your own dignity

·       your self-identity

·       your self-confidence

·       your self-esteem

·       hope

·       joy

·       the belief that you can ever be different or better

These significant personal losses may not always be recognized as ‘grief’ but more as all the deficits that have been left behind because of the pathological relationship. Although he is gone, this is his mark upon your life and your soul. These losses reflect the loss of your self and your own internal personal resources.

Stripped away is your ability to recognize your former self, the ability to tap into what was once the strength that helped you in life, and to respect your self and your life choices.

Of all the things that need grieving, women indicated these personal losses are the most devastating. Because, in the end, you are all that you have left—when he is gone, you must fall back on your self for your healing. But what is left has been described by survivors as ‘an empty shell of a former life’ … ‘a garden that is overgrown with weeds and in disrepair’ … ‘a once-stately estate that has been vandalized and abandoned’.

To begin the arduous task of healing and repair requires that you turn inward and draw on your resources. But what was there feels like it is gone You may want to begin the healing from the pathological relationship but you are stopped short in your tracks by the necessary grieving of all things internal that are now gone or damaged.

Clearly, the first step is to grieve. Let us know if we can help you take that first step.

(**If we can support you in your recovery process, please let us know.  The Institute is the largest provider of recovery-based services for survivors of pathological love relationships.  Information about pathological love relationships is in our award-winning book, Women Who Love Psychopaths, and is also available in our retreats, 1:1s, or phone sessions.  See the website for more information.)

© www.saferelationshipsmagazine.com

Grieving the Pathological Loss, Part 1

Over and over, women are shocked to find out how badly they feel about leaving a dangerous/pathological man. As horrendous as the relationships has been, as hurt as they have become at his hands, and the emotional/physical/financial/sexual/spiritual cost it takes to heal…they still say “Why in the world am I so sad and in so much grief?”

One of the things we have discovered from our Women Who Love Psychopaths research project is that ‘loving’ a pathological (not just a psychopath, but any person with a pathological disorder) seems to involve having a very intense attachment to the relationship. Most women report that ‘loving’ them is like nothing else they ever experienced. They indicate that it’s more intense than other relationships, there are more mind-games that keep them very confused and unable to detach, and a kind of hypnotic mesmerizing that keeps them in the relationship LONG after they know they should have left.

Because of this intense bonding, mental confusion, pathological attachment and a hypnotic connection, the woman’s grief is likely to be HUGE. This is often confusing to her because she has suffered so much damage by the time she leaves that she thinks she should be ‘relieved’ to simply be out of the relationship. But when the paralyzing grief mounts, she is aggravated with herself for being in so much pain and grief over the ending of something so ‘sick’ to her.

Lots of women are confused as to ‘whom’ or ‘what’ it is they are actually grieving over. Grief can seem so ‘elusive’—a haunting feeling that is like a grey ghost but can’t be nailed down to actually ‘what’ the loss is.

The end of any relationship (even a pathological one) is a loss. Within the ending of the relationship is a loss of many elements. There is a loss of the ‘dream’ of partnership or togetherness, the loss of a shared future together, as well as the loss that maybe he would someday ‘get it together’ or actually ‘love you.’ When the relationship ends, so does the dream of being loved (even if he was technically not capable of truly loving anyone). There is the loss of your plans for the future—maybe that was buying a home, having children, or taking a big trip. There is the loss of shared parenting (if that occurred), loss of income, loss of being touched or held, the loss of sex, and numerous other losses.

Although a lot of women may actually see a lot of these hopes and dreams as ‘illusions’ it still constitutes a loss and women are often surprised at the kinds of things they find themselves grieving over.

In the breakup, some women lose their pets or their house or career. Some lose their children, their friends, her relatives or his. Some have to relocate to get away from him because of his dangerousness, so they lose their community, roots, and home.

No matter what it is you perceived you no longer have… it’s a loss—and when you have loss you have grief. People spend a lot of time trying to stay on the perimeter of grief—trying to avoid it and stay away from the pain. But grief is the natural way to resolve conflict and loss. It’s the body’s way of ridding the mind and soul of ongoing pain. It’s an attempt at rebalancing one’s mind and life. Grief is a natural process that is given to you as a pain management tool. Without grief there would never be a way of moving through pain. You would always just remain stuck in the feelings and you would always feel the same.

Don’t avoid grief. While no one LIKES grief, it’s important to allow yourself to feel the feelings and the pain because to suppress it, deny it, or avoid it means you will never work through it. I don’t know anyone who WANTS to live in this kind of pain.  There is only one way through the pain of grief and that’s through the middle of it. There are no shortcuts, quick routes or other ways ‘around’ the pain and grief. There is only through it—like a wilderness. But on the other side of it is the promise of healing, hope and a future.

Don’t judge your grief. What hurts, hurts. Even if it doesn’t make sense to you (he was horrible, why am I grieving HIM?)—it’s your body’s way of moving through it so let it. Get help if you need it—counseling, group, medication, a grief group—whatever it is you need.

Don’t set a predetermined ‘time’ that you think you should be ‘over it’. It may take much longer than you think it will or that you want it to. But that’s how it is—grief takes its time.

Grief can look like depression, anxiety, PTSD or a lot of other types of symptoms and sometimes it’s hard to know where one starts and the other one ends. That’s because all too often you aren’t having one or the other, you are having some of both.

Journal your losses, talk about them, tell others, get help when you need it. (We’re here too!!) Most of all, know that grief is a God-sent natural way of working through the pain so you can move on.

(**If we can support you in your recovery process, please let us know.  The Institute is the largest provider of recovery-based services for survivors of pathological love relationships.  Information about pathological love relationships is in our award-winning book, Women Who Love Psychopaths, and is also available in our retreats, 1:1s, or phone sessions.  See the website for more information.)

© www.saferelationshipsmagazine.com

Remembering Our Roots: Joyce Brown’s Influence on the Pathological Love Relationship Recovery Process

This weekend marked the anniversary of the death of an extraordinary visionary. Many of The Institute’s highly acclaimed purposes, products, and processes came from what Joyce lived through, talked about, and 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 in 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 turn bitter, get revenge, hyper focus on him and his latest antics, or just curl into 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 questions.

In her 60’s she went to college for the first time and 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’. She 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 chaplain to comfort the sick and fed the poor every week to give some of that hyper-empathy away, lest it go to another psychopath. Then 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, ‘I have come to know and understand that he will not change, but I still can... and I will.’  So thank you, Joyce Brown, for showing us the way to the end!”

At age 76, as she lay 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, 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 who attend our retreats come away with. 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 souls behind them, but to burst into recovery and fill their lives to the rim with all the things that their big personalities need in order to live fully.

Lifeless living is what causes many women to seek a psychopath who’s so full of energy that it makes their own lives seem so 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.

One of our readers recently memorialized Joyce on our Facebook page:

“Thank you, dear lady, for your continued inspiration—a legacy you’ve left to many. You never knew those who have come to love you [posthumously] for your feistiness, tenacity, grit, and that wonderful sense of humor!”

Feel how big YOU are and, as Joyce did, fill your own life with greatness. As she would say, “Get a great life” and stop the cycle of pathology!

(**If we can support you in your recovery process, please let us know.  The Institute is the largest provider of recovery-based services for survivors of pathological love relationships.  Information about pathological love relationships is in our award-winning book, Women Who Love Psychopaths, and is also available in our retreats, 1:1s, or phone sessions.  See the website for more information.)

© www.saferelationshipsmagazine.com

Denial and Its Power

Acknowledging Domestic Violence/Pathology Awareness Month

With the POWER of Information!

Every once in a while you need to be reminded that not everyone thinks you know diddly-squat. Sometimes it’s the people closest to you who think you really don’t have a clue. It’s not that it’s new to me. It reminds me that not everyone believes me when I tell them I think he’s pathological and it reminds me that denial is a mighty force—like a tidal wave.

My girlfriend’s daughter (I’ll call her ‘E’) could have been in my Women Who Love Psychopaths book—that is, her traits, her background, the men she chooses, the father of her child—are identical to the women in the book EXCEPT she hasn’t broken through her own denial yet. The women in the book broke through their’s long enough to at least answer the survey. E hasn’t come that far yet, no matter how many of my books I give her or how many times I have pounded this into her head when I see her. 

E has a daughter with the pathological who is 9 years old. In E’s daughter’s short life, the pathological has been out of jail probably less than one year, in small increments of months at a time, until he does something else and goes back to jail. He has no empathy and no insight about his behavior. He lives a parasitic life off of others, he deals drugs for his full-time employment (when he’s out of prison), he never learns from his consequences, and he expects others to cater to his pitiful life. In short, he meets the criteria for a psychopath.

I have known E since she was about 7 or 8 years old and she grew up with my children. She’s now 31. E once told her mother, “Sandy doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She may write books, but she doesn’t really know what she thinks she knows. She assumes these people can’t change, but I am the hopeful type that believes anyone can change, especially if ‘they want to’, and with God’s help. You can’t be a Christian and believe that people don’t change.”    

Did you sigh a big sigh reading that? That’s how I feel day in and day out as I see the mixed effects on women from both a lack of public psychopathy education in this country and a whopping dose of denial. Denial is often an underrated defense belief system in terms of the devastation it can cause people. Over and over I watch just one defense mechanism—DENIAL—kill women, harm their children, lose their career over, go into financial bankruptcy because of it, become spiritually bankrupt as well, and emotionally harmed and scarred. All because of one simple highly defensive belief system: Denial. 

Denial is a defense mechanism, postulated by Freud, that when a person is faced with a fact that is too uncomfortable to accept, one will reject it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence. In E’s case that would be: he doesn’t work, he lives 10 months out of every year in jail, he doesn’t pay child support, he lives with his parents or other women, he lies/steals/cheats/deals and has never done anything different. This is the ‘overwhelming evidence’ of psychopathy upon which her denial is based. And I’m sure, in E’s defense, it’s uncomfortable to accept that he’s never going to help her and her child’s dad will live most of his life in jail or in prison.

Denial is different than ignorance. Ignorance doesn’t have the information to make an informed choice. E has the information in the form of previous experience with him, his consistent behavior that never changes, and a lot of information she’s gotten from me, and she refuses to use it to develop honest insight about his traits, behaviors, outcomes, and, ultimately, his mental health. She needs the illusion that he isn’t pathological, that one day he will somehow ‘just be different’. It’s magical thinking at best, and sad, sad, sad denial at worst.

It will cost her everything to stubbornly cling to the belief that he won’t live the rest of his life in jail, live off of others, and do nothing for his child. It may cost her a child abduction when he doesn’t bring her back when he’s supposed to (oh yeah, she already went through that). It may cause her serious financial struggles when he doesn’t pay child support and she must do it all. (Oh yeah, she’s already living that—she has to live with her mother because he doesn’t pay support.) 

It may cost her child constant attachment/detachment problems when she goes for long periods of time and doesn’t see him and is told, “Daddy is in time-out.” (What a way to put it!) Oh yeah, the 9-year-old is already in mental-health counseling, according to her mother, because, “It’s important she has a relationship with her dad.” No child deserves to have exposure to a psychopathic parent.

With denial, E doesn’t see that her daughter doesn’t have a relationship with her dad! And since he is incapable of true attachment, empathy, love, consistency, or insight, what in the world can he give to her? He deals drugs with her in the car and she stays 90 percent of the time with his parents. But denial lets E believe that ‘something’ other than drug dealing is happening in those times her child has with her dad in those scarce moments in-between jail/prison time.

The theory of denial was first researched seriously by Freud’s daughter, Anna. She classified denial as a mechanism of the immature mind because it conflicts with the “ability to learn from and cope with reality”. Learning from reality is what the path of recovery is all about—accepting WHAT IS—his diagnosis, his incurable disorder, his pathology. You can’t learn from something that you don’t accept and you will never cope with something you don’t believe. 

There are so many forms of denial, no wonder it is so prevalent—denial of facts, denial of responsibility, denial of impact, denial of awareness, denial of cycles, even denial of denial! With so many forms to get entangled with, is it any wonder it can take a woman years to ‘come to believe’ that her life with a pathological is unmanageable, dangerous, and deadening? 

The last time I looked in the face of this kind of scary denial—where I was told I didn’t know what I was talking about in explaining possible lethality to a mom, she was shot in the head by him and died in front of her young children. Now parentless AND traumatized, the children are the by-product of his deadly pathology and her deadly denial.

I hate denial because I saw someone die because of it—and all to protect and defend an illusionary concept of a relationship that DIDN’T EVEN EXIST the way she believed it did simply because she didn’t want to face reality.

Reality is a gift. It’s the only truth. Truth is bigger and even safer than hope. Hope in him gets plenty of women and their children hurt when denial eclipses ‘overwhelming evidence’. Why women who love pathologicals hang onto denial like a shark has been the focus of our award-winning book, Women Who Love Psychopaths.

(**If we can support you in your recovery process, please let us know.  The Institute is the largest provider of recovery-based services for survivors of pathological love relationships.  Information about pathological love relationships is in our award-winning book, Women Who Love Psychopaths, and is also available in our retreats, 1:1s, or phone sessions.  See the website for more information.)

© www.saferelationshipsmagazine.com