Am I Pathological, TOO?

People who were raised by pathological parents, or with siblings who are pathological, are more likely to repeatedly date pathological people. Some of the patterns of partner selection have to do with learned conditioning—learning to normalize abnormal behavior until that is the norm. 

Some pathology can also be genetically transmitted, so people are often concerned if there are down lines in their family tree where pathology exists. For instance, one of the Cluster Bs with a fairly high transmission rate is narcissism. Psychopathy, too, is genetically transmitted way too often! 

Clients have two concerns about pathology and its effect on them:

1.     If pathology can be genetic and my parents were pathological, am I PATHOLOGICAL, TOO?

2.     If damage can be done when parented by a pathological, am I DAMAGED?

Pathology can be genetic. There are many people who are born to, and raised by, pathological parents who are damaged by this pathological parenting, but don’t grow up to be pathological themselves. There has been a lot of research and study about this issue of resilience in people and why some do become pathological and others do not.  Nonetheless, about half of the children of pathological parents do NOT become pathological from genetic transmission or from pathological parenting.

However, many of these 50 percent who do NOT become pathological from genetic transmission or pathological parenting are STILL negatively affected by the parenting they did receive. They may carry aftermath symptoms that affect their choices, patterns, feelings, and behaviors. You might be plagued with self-doubt, low self-esteem, chronic caregiving of others, and/or a total disregard for your own needs or self-care. You could battle depression or chronic anxiety, or fight nagging pessimism about your future or the world around you. You might be dangerously naïve, never trusting your own instincts, and constantly be taken advantage of.

You could have eating disorders, sexual addictions/other sexual disorders, or obsessive- compulsive behaviors. You could medicate your feelings with drugs or alcohol or find abusive religious affiliations to take up where your pathological parents fell away. You may have emotional intimacy problems, or jump from relationship to relationship, fearing abandonment or being alone. Or you may engage in what is known as “sexual anorexia”—the forbidding of yourself to ever be intimate or loving with someone else.

Whether you understand why your parents (or siblings) behaved like they did, or you are engulfed in compassion and pity for their illness, the rubber meets the road at the point where your needs went so chronically unmet that you now have your own emotional problems because of what you didn’t get at those crucial developmental points of your life.  Compassion, pity, forgiveness and understanding don’t help you with what you never got from the most important people in your life. If you recognize these symptoms in yourself you probably were/are affected from pathological parenting.

If you learned to normalize abnormal behavior, no wonder dangerous and pathological men look like pretty normal people for you to date! Pathological parenting instills a pathological worldview about yourself, others, and the world around you. The “others” part of the worldview is how you keep ending up with pathological men—narcissists, sociopaths, and other dangerous types. What you learned at the feet of your parents was that black was white and white was black. So many women find that their level of attraction to pathological men was largely generated and supported within the pathological family.

This is a complicated issue that has its roots in several factors related to your adult life. Some of these patterns are related to:

·       Your chronic pattern of selection in men

·       Your inability to recognize and respond to red flags

·       Your non-existent boundaries in intimate relationships

·       Your pathologized worldview that sees black as white and white as black

·       Your ongoing symptoms of relationship confusion, PTSD symptoms or other symptoms you might be having

Reading relationship books or going to relationship counselors is not going to address your pathological worldview and your corresponding symptoms and patterns of selection in men. Your unique family system and relating difficulties need to have the specific understanding and treatment associated with adult children of pathological parents.            

We do recognize your unique needs. And we also understand your concern about having been so chronically exposed to pathology through your early years and its devastating results now in your adult life. Rest assured that if YOU were pathological, you would most likely NOT be reading this newsletter or seeking out treatment for your symptoms. Pathologicals don’t stay in counseling or treatment. If you see yourself in the list of symptoms from pathological parenting in this newsletter, rest assured they are VERY treatable!

The good news is that you can recover! Get the help you need in order to stop the cycle of pattern selection and the aftermath symptoms that plague you!

(**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

When Friends Don’t ‘Get It’ About Him

Remember the line 'You're known by the company you keep'? Well, I don't think that ONLY includes the pathological and dangerous man... it also includes your 'friends' and 'family' members who may be emotional accomplices of his.

Someone wrote me awhile back and said, "Please write about this -- when your own friends don't get how sick he is and think you should go back, or they think you're over exaggerating his faults."

There are a couple of things to consider here. First of all, your pattern of selection of dangerous, pathological, or not quite healthy people probably exceeds just your intimate relationship selections. It might also include your friends, cohorts, buddies, family members and even bosses. Women who enter recovery from pathological relationships and attend the retreats quickly figure out that their lives are LOADED with other pathological people! Not just him!

That's because those temperament traits in you that I've talked about are just as active in ALL your relationships as they are in your intimate ones. Don't be surprised to find these types of people hidden in all corners of your life. Many women realize they have some house cleaning to do in terms of clearing out all the unhealthy people from their lives once they recognize what pathology is and WHO it's in.

Secondly, the dangerous and pathological people often attract people to them. If your friends and family members have your emotional characteristics, they are likely to STILL see him how you USED to see him. They haven't been hurt up close and personal by him to 'get it' the way you do. Since these are Jekyll-and-Hyde guys, they have one face for you and another adorable and charming one for everyone else. Women get confused when they gauge whether they should be with him based on what OTHERS say about him.

Intimate relationships are just that – personal and PRIVATE! Others don't see him behind closed doors the way you do/did. Their take on this charming charismatic guy doesn't include everything your gut has told you about him or that you have come to recognize by experiencing his bad/dangerous behavior.

When you are ending the relationship, he's likely to pour it on to all your family and friends -- the tears, the confusion and shoulder shrugging ("What did I do?") and pleading ("Help me get her back!") Those family and friends who have the same HIGH traits of empathy, tolerance, and compassion as you do are likely to fall for it. Top it off with the fact that almost all pathologicals also proclaim to be 'sick or dying' when the relationship is ending. This makes for a cheering squad lined up to backup his sad and pleading stories.

Then there's the 'finding religion' guy who blows the dust off his Bible and is sitting in the front row of church week after week telling your pastor/rabbi how 'unforgiving' you are of him.

Yup. Your friends are likely to point to all that pew-sitting and think there's something to it. But YOU know better... you've seen it all before. Remember - the core of pathology is that they aren't wired to sustain change so this too shall pass.

Getting confused about what other people think of him goes back to the central issue of you having ignored your red flags when you met him. Don't ignore those red flags again when people who don’t have a clue about what true pathology is tell you that you should 'give it one more shot'. You know what you know. Tell yourself the truth and let the cheerleading squad fall on deaf ears.

(**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

He Seems Happy Now, Will I EVER Be Happy Too?

There are a lot of distortions that go on about the pathological man’s ability to ‘be happy.’ One of the issues of permanent personality disorders and pathology is that, at the core of them, is unhappiness. That is why they have so many angry outbursts, attitude problems, and failed relationships.

Some of them fake the external appearance of ‘happy-go-lucky’ or act as if their lives are fine. Partners need to look below the ‘presentation’ and question what he’s showing at face value. Survivors fall for it the first time by getting in the relationship with him and then fall for it a second time when believing his external presentation of his ‘life without you in it’.

I chanted it like a mantra so I’ll continue to say it, “Nothing changes in pathology because it’s hard-wired to not change.”

If he was horrible with you, he’ll be horrible with her (eventually). If he was at the core of himself, miserable/unhappy/unsuccessful, NOTHING will change. Go deeper than looking at this flash-in-the-pan faux presentation that he WANTS you to see and then feel bad about because you are not with him. Psychopathology does not change and neuroscience continues to teach us why his hardwired brain doesn’t allow for change. If you don’t believe me, at least believe science.  His change is not going to happen now and not simply because he is with someone else. Pathology is not a light switch you turn off and on at will. 

The real question is will YOU ever be happy again? Survivors misread their own ability to be happy in the future because they are all wrapped up in STILL watching him, rating him, and gauging his happiness against their own.

A recovery question is: Why are you STILL watching him? What in the world does he have to do with YOUR future happiness?

Do you know why watching him affects your own ability to recover and find happiness?
Because the longer you watch him, the more intrusive the thoughts become, and the more ping-pong brain of cognitive dissonance you keep, the more miserable you stay, and the longer you postpone your own recovery and joy.

When survivors are being honest about what they fear most, it is that he will go on and have this fabulous life and ‘be good to another woman’ and you will never meet anyone. Since you do want to eventually meet someone healthy to love... what healthy guy wants to be with a woman who is obsessed with a pathological man, whose eyes are not on THEIR new emerging relationship, but on what the ex is doing next? Instead of your eyes being focused forward on the future, you have your head turned backwards looking at your past and what he’s doing. What does new Mr. Healthy see? You, filled with regret and revenge—not really good material for a new relationship, eh?

It IS understandable why you are angry that he appears to be happy with someone else and you are not. It is also understandable, after what you have lived through, that you wonder… if you’ll always pick pathologicals… if you’re too damaged to ever have a healthy relationship… if you are even capable of feeling anything other than intrusive thoughts, much less joy. These are totally normal questions considering what you’ve been through. But those answers are not found in glancing over your shoulder at him. There’s no going back.

‘Drag an axe and clear a path’ into your future. Work on yourself (let us help you!) so you understand why you chose someone like that, how you ignored so many red flags, and understand your own personality traits that leave you vulnerable for relationships like that. There is plenty to heal from! Then, when you’ve done all the work, LIVE. Don’t search internet dating sites where PREDATORS live. Just live a joyful life and allow health, vibrance, and joy to direct you. It’s when you aren’t seeking that you find that which you have been waiting for. Joyce Brown, my mother and mentor for this work, said, “A man is not the ‘cake’—a relationship is only the icing on the cake of a good life.” 

Heal you! Get a great life... and the rest will fall into place. My mother, when she was dying, said, “I’m not afraid to die because I’ve lived a great life. I’ve had so much fun and I’ve been so loved. Who could ask for more?”

(**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

LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! Will I Ever Find MINE?

February brings Valentine’s Day—a trigger month for many women who want to just ‘slip back into the fantasy’ of everything we associate as a culture with Valentine’s Day.  It’s one of those trigger months, like November and December (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve), where women want to ‘look the other way’ in order to have a nice day or time with him. Just for 24 hours she wants to pretend he really isn’t pathological. She wants the chocolates, a dinner out, dancing, a little romance—and 24 hours of normalcy. But at midnight, the Cinderella dress turns back to what it was and the carriage that carried the handsome prince is now a pumpkin with field mice.

Pink and red hearts do not make his pathology ‘turn off’ for the convenience of a lovers’ holiday.  Women get frustrated and want to know, “Will I ever find MY love? When will it be MY turn to find someone worth loving?”  

I don’t know... can you:

• Stop focusing on him?
• Be willing to manage your intrusive thoughts of him?
• Redirect your obsessions from him to your own self-care?
• Create a full life so you aren’t lonely?
• Build a foundation of support that doesn’t include ‘having to be’ in a relationship?
• Learn to find fulfillment in activities that don’t only include intimate relationships?
• Treat your symptoms of anxiety, depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?
• Heal your sexuality?
• Embrace spirituality?
• Learn to be attracted to guys who aren’t proverbial bad boys?
• Dig deep to see what all your relationships have in common so you don’t repeat the pattern?
• Memorize what pathology is, and stop looking for loopholes?
• Take a year or maybe even two years OFF from dating to nurture all those places in you that are wounded and broken?
• Take time to learn what your trait proclivities are (read Women Who Love Psychopaths) so you know how to safeguard yourself in the next relationship?
• Seriously UNDERSTAND how your traits and his traits are a magnet to each other?
• Most of all... can you LOVE yourself?

Realize YOU ARE ENOUGH FOR YOU! If another relationship DOESN’T come along... you WILL survive. If you’re really determined, you’ll even THRIVE. Get grounded—sink your feet into the earth of your soul and declare you’ll never be uprooted again... no matter what—you’re grounded in you and reality—not fantasy. Be willing to challenge old belief systems, old assumptions, old patterns, and old preferences.
This month is Valentines Day... you’ve fallen in love with all sorts of things and people... you’ve fallen in love with illusions, dreams, hopes, and pathology.  It’s time to fall in love with you!  I know who you are... you know why? Because after all that research we know EXACTLY who you are—you deeply attach and love, you are loving to the Nth degree, loyal, trusting, sensitive, and very invested in relationship happiness.

You’re a TERRIFIC woman that any NORMAL man would be blessed to have.  No one is alone during the ‘month of love.’ We stand hand in hand, bridging the gap for each other—connected and bonded by a sorority of shared experiences, pain, and yet, hope. If you need a hug for Valentines Day, there are plenty of cyber hugs floating through here.

Learn to love YOU. Nothing happens and no one else does until you do. Give to the world that part of yourself that is so rich and deep. There are lots of ways to be loved—be loved by giving back, by reaching out to others. Valentine’s Day is for lovers. Be the lover of your own soul. We celebrate that with you...

(**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

Recovery Without Justice

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

Of course, restitution in and of itself really doesn’t heal anything.  It’s just the victim or person who was harmed feels like the scales of justice, that were so grossly leaning in his direction, got balanced into their direction.  For a moment in court, and however long it takes him to pay or do the restitution, he is officially “guilty” and everyone knows he was charged as such.  He is “paying his price to his victim” for his actions.  For a moment in court, a judge believes you!  He believes the monster really did what you say he did.  That, in and of itself, is often the psychological justice that victims really look for and it helps them to heal.

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

The judicial system acts as the conscience of this country.  Victims seek solace in the courtroom and chambers hoping that justice will alleviate the pain, horror, and stigmatization of being a victim of the monster.  But we know that in many cases, and I dare say, in most cases, that’snot what happens.  Restraining orders are not granted, arrests are not performed for stalking or violence, children are given over to the pathological who is overtly violent, sick, drug addicted, or otherwise an inept parent.  When the pathological doesn’t pay child support, nothing is done and the child is still sent to him. The thousands of dollars he conned out of you or stole from you is not returned.  When alimony isn’t paid, he gets away with it.  Repeated visits to the courts do nothing to convince them, or to open their eyes to the true nature of his behaviors. Anything that is court ordered he defies and laughs at.  You stand, mouth gaping and wondering, “Where is the justice?  HOW does he get away with this?”

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

In these cases, women’s hopes of justice are dashed as it is connected to part of their psychological healing.  The scales of justice will never be balanced—she is not vindicated in the way that helps her to heal.  Even if he is found guilty of something, he is rarely ever held to the standard of the law it’s connected to.  If he is supposed to pay a fine, he doesn’t.  If he is supposed to go to jail or prison, it’s postponed or overturned.  If custody is denied, he receives it by another judge. If he embezzled, it’s forgiven in exchange for an admission of guilt.

Victims’ rights and their connection to judicial and psychological justice will not get played out often in pathological relationships.  The psychological justice that the victim is counting on in order to validate her—her moment in which the conscience of this country believes her—doesn’t happen.  Since we understand that psychological justice is what is most likely to help victims heal, now what?

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

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

In the end, the only thing you really have control over is how you choose to see your situation.  If you see it as a victim and are unable to move past that view, you won’t recover.  If you see it as horrible things that happened to you but don’t define or restrain you, you will move forward—with or without justice.

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

HEALTHY LOVE - WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THAT?

by Sandra L. Brown, M.A.

Since Valentine's Day was 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).  

Love	Toxic Love
·   Development of self is first priority	·  Obsession with relationship
·   Room to grow, expand, desire for other to grow	·  Security and comfort in sameness; insensitivity of need seen as proof of love (may really be fear, insecurity, loneliness)
·   Separate interests; other friends; maintain other meaningful relationships	·  Total involvement; limited social life; neglect old friends, interests
·   Encouragement of each other's expanding; secure in own worth	·  Preoccupation with other's behavior; fear of other changing
·   Appropriate Trust (i.e. trusting partner to behave according to fundamental nature)	·  - Jealousy; possessiveness; fear of competition; protects "supply"
·   Compromise, negotiation or taking turns at leading. Problem solving together	·  Power plays for control; blaming; passive or aggressive manipulation
·   Embracing of each other's individuality	·  Trying to change other to own image
·   Relationship deals with all aspects of reality	·  Relationship is based on delusion and avoidance of the unpleasant
·   Self-care by both partners; emotional state not dependent on other's mood	·  Expectation that one partner will fix and rescue the other
·   Loving detachment (healthy concern about partner, while letting go)	·  Fusion (being obsessed with each other's problems and feelings)
·   Sex is free choice growing out of caring & friendship	·  Pressure around sex due to insecurity, fear & need for immediate gratification
·   Ability to enjoy being alone	·  Unable to endure separation; clinging
·   Cycle of comfort and contentment	·  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. 

 



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Gender Disclaimer: The issues The Institute writes about are mental health issues. They are not gender issues. Both females and males have the types of Cluster B disorders we often refer to in our articles. Our readership is approximately 90% female therefore we write for those most likely to seek out our materials. We highly support male victims and encourage others who want to provide support to male victims to encompass the issues we discuss only from a female perpetrator/male-victim standpoint. Cluster B Education is a mental health issue applicable to both genders.

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