By Sandra L. Brown, MA
October 16 marks 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 Love 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 hyperfocused on him and his latest antics, or get into a fetal
position and stay there.
But remarkably, Joyce rose from the dirt which 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 Love
Relationships.
Joyce believed women tended to drift sideways into Pathological
Love Relationships looking for fun and excitement, which actually pointed at what
these women needed in their lives that would prevent them from taking on 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 60s 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 70s she took up bellydancing to prove to herself she
was still attractive, went to Paris to meet 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 using Joyce’s
words 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 of
drowning 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 Love
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 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 attend 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 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 the
psychopath who’s so full of energy that it makes their 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 came from a life that was full
of the things that interested, motivated, supported, and challenged 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!
One of our readers memorialized Joyce
on our Facebook page:
“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 [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.)
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