Sanctuary for the Abused
Saturday, August 01, 2020
WHY DOES IT TAKE SO LONG TO GET OVER A PATHOLOGICAL PARTNER?
by Peace
Relationships with psychopaths take an unusually long time to recover from. Survivors often find themselves frustrated because they haven't healed as fast as they'd like. They also end up dealing with friends & therapists who give them judgmental advice about how it's "time to move on".
Whether you were in a long-term marriage or a quick summer fling, the recovery process will be the same when it comes to a psychopathic encounter. It takes at least 18-24 months to get your heart back in a good place, and even after that, you might have tough days. I certainly do!
The important thing here is to stop blaming yourself. Stop wishing it would go faster. Stop thinking that the psychopath somehow "wins" if you're still hurting. They are out of the picture now. This journey is about you. If you come to peace with the extended timeline, you'll find this experience a lot more pleasant. You can settle in, make some friends, and get cozy with this whole recovery thing.
So why is it taking so long?
You were in love
Yes, it was manufactured love. Yes, your personality was mirrored and your dreams manipulated. But you were in love. It's the strongest human emotion & bond in the world, and you felt it with all your heart. It is always painful to lose someone you loved - someone you planned to be with for the rest of your life.
The human spirit must heal from these love losses. Regardless of your abuser's intentions, your love was still very real. It will take a great deal of time and hope to pull yourself out of the standard post-breakup depression.
You were in desperate love
Here's where we branch off from regular breakups. Psychopaths manufacture desperation & desire. You probably worked harder for this relationship than any other, right? You put more time, energy, and thought into it than ever before. And in turn, you were rewarded with the nastiest, most painful experience of your life.
In the idealization phase, they showered you with attention, gifts, letters, and compliments. Unlike most honeymoon phases, they actually pretended to be exactly like you in every way. Everything you did was perfect to them. This put you on Cloud 9, preparing you for the identity erosion.
You began to pick up on all sorts of hints that you might be replaced at any time. This encouraged your racing thoughts, ensuring that this person was on your mind every second of the day. This unhinged, unpredictable lifestyle is what psychopaths hope to create with their lies, gas-lighting, and triangulation.
By keeping them on your mind at all times, you fall into a state of desperate love. This is unhealthy, and not a sign that the person you feel so strongly about is actually worthy of your love. Your mind convinces you that if you feel so powerfully, then they must be the only person who will ever make you feel that way. And when you lose that person, your world completely falls apart. You enter a state of panic & devastation.
The Chemical Reaction
Psychopaths have an intense emotional & sexual bond over their victims. This is due to their sexual magnetism, and the way they train your mind to become reliant upon their approval.
By first adoring you in every way, you let down your guard and began to place your self worth in this person. Your happiness started to rely on this person's opinion on you. Happiness is a chemical reaction going off in your brain - dopamine and receptors firing off to make you feel good.
Like a drug, the psychopath offers you this feeling in full force to begin with. But once you become reliant on it, they begin to pull back. Slowly, you need more and more to feel that same high. You do everything you can to hang onto it, while they are doing everything in their power to keep you just barely starved.
Triangulation
There are thousands of support groups for survivors of infidelity. It leaves long-lasting insecurities and feelings of never being good enough. It leaves you constantly comparing yourself to others. That pain alone takes many people out there years to recover from.
Now compare that to the psychopath's triangulation. Not only do they cheat on you - they happily wave it in your face. They brag about it, trying to prove how happy they are with your replacement. They carry none of the usual shame & guilt that comes with cheating. They are thrilled to be posting pictures and telling their friends how happy they are.
I cannot even begin to explain how emotionally damaging this is after once being the target of their idealization. The triangulation alone will take so much time to heal from.
You have encountered pure evil
Everything you once understood about people did not apply to this person. During the relationship, you tried to be compassionate, easy-going, and forgiving. You never could have known that the person you loved was actively using these things against you. It just doesn't make any sense. No typical person is ready to expect that, and so we spend our time projecting a normal human conscience onto them, trying to explain away their inexplicable behavior.
But once we discover psychopathy, sociopathy, or narcissism, that's when everything starts to change. We begin to feel disgusted - horrified that we let this darkness into our lives. Everything clicks and falls into place. All of the "accidental" or "insensitive" behavior finally makes sense.
You try to explain this to friends and family members - no one really seems to get it. This is why validation matters. When you come together with others who have experienced the same thing as you, you discover you were not crazy. You were not alone in this inhuman experience.
It takes a great deal of time to come to terms with this personality disorder. You end up having to let go of your past understanding of human nature, and building it back up from scratch. You realize that people are not always inherently good. You begin to feel paranoid, hyper-vigialant, and anxious. The healing process is about learning to balance this new state of awareness with your once trusting spirit.
Your spirit is deeply wounded
After the eventual abandonment, most survivors end up feeling a kind of emptiness that cannot even be described as depression. It's like your spirit has completely gone away. You feel numb to everything and everyone around you. The things that once made you happy now make you feel absolutely nothing at all. You worry that your encounter with this monster has destroyed your ability to empathize, feel and care.
I believe this is what takes the longest time to recover from. It feels hopeless at first, but your spirit is always with you. Damaged, for sure, but never gone. As you begin to discover self-respect & boundaries, it slowly starts to find its voice again. It feels safe opening up, peeking out randomly to say hello. You will find yourself grateful to be crying again, happy that your emotions seem to be returning. This is great, and it will start to become more and more consistent.
Ultimately, you will leave this experience with an unexpected wisdom about the people around you. Your spirit will return stronger than ever before, refusing to be treated that way again. You may encounter toxic people throughout your life, but you won't let them stay for very long. You don't have time for mind games & manipulation. You seek out kind, honest, and compassionate individuals. You know you deserve nothing less.
This new found strength is the greatest gift of the psychopathic experience. And it is worth every second of the recovery process, because it will serve you for the rest of your life.
If you're worried that your recovery process is taking too long, please stop worrying. You've been through hell and back - there is no quick fix for that. And what's more, when all is said and done, these few years will be some of the most important years of your life.
from this fantastic site
Labels: bad relationship, cruel, damaged, devalue, discard, get over it, healing, idealize, move on, narcissism, narcissist, no empathy, pathological, psychopath, psychopathy, ptsd, recovery, sociopath, sociopathy
Friday, January 10, 2020
Couples' Counseling & Marriage Counseling Does NOT Work in Abusive Relationships!
In fact, in many cases, couples' counseling has increased the violence/abuse in the home.
Couples' counseling does not work because:
Couples' counseling places the responsibility for change on both partners. Domestic violence is the sole responsibility of the abuser.
Couples' counseling works best when both people are truthful. Individuals who are abusive to their partners minimize, deny and blame, and therefore are not truthful in counseling.
Couples resolve problems in counseling by talking about problems. His abuse is not a couple problem, it is his problem. He needs to work on it in a specialized program for abusers.
A victim who is being abused in a relationship is in a dangerous position in couple's counseling. If she tells the counselor about the abuse, she is likely to suffer more abuse when she gets home. If she does not tell, nothing can be accomplished.
If you think you will benefit from joint counseling, go AFTER he successfully completes a batterer's intervention program and is no longer violent for one full year.
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Would marriage counseling be better? He won't go for help unless I go with him.
No. Domestic violence advocates strongly advise battered women not to participate in couples counseling, family counseling, and mediation programs. It may not be safe to talk about your feelings in front of someone who could hurt you later and blame his behavior on what you say.
Many battered women say that these kinds of counseling do not stop the violence and often increase their danger. Also, going to counseling together suggests that you share responsibility for his violence.
You are never responsible for his violence. Even if your partner is not willing to change, support and assistance in figuring out what you want to do are available at your local domestic violence program. They can help you plan for your safety.
***
Couples counseling is NEVER an appropriate way to deal with domestic violence. Therapists who offer couples counseling when domestic violence has occurred or is occurring do not understand the dynamics of domestic violence, and are practicing unethical and unsafe services. Men who abuse need to be in group intervention programs with other abusers.
***
Be wary of anyone who advises couples or marriage counseling. This isn't appropriate for abusive relationships. Most communities have agencies that provide individual counseling and support groups to women in abusive relationships.
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Perpetrator Intervention Programs For Abusers
Abusers can enter voluntarily or be court ordered to Perpetrator Intervention Programs. It is important to note that there are no guarantees that he will change his violent behavior. He is the only one that can make the decision -- and commitment -- to change.
An intervention program should include these factors:
Victim's safety is the priority.
Meets minimum standards for weekly sessions (16 weeks).
Holds him accountable.
Curriculum addresses the root of his problem.
Makes no demand on the victim to participate.
Is open to input from the victim.
What programs teach:
Education about domestic violence.
Changing attitudes and beliefs about using violence in a relationship.
Achieving equality in relationships.
Community participation.
In the program, an abuser should become aware of his pattern of violence and learn techniques for maintaining nonviolent behavior, such as "time outs" "buddy" phone cals, support groups, relaxation techniques, and exercise.
How do you know if he is really changing?
Positive signs include:
He has stopped being violent or threatening to you or others
He acknowledges that his abusive behavior is wrong
He understands that he does not have the right to control and dominate you
You don't feel afraid when you are with him.
He does not coerce or force you to have sex.
You can express anger toward him without feeling intimidated.
He does not make you feel responsible for his anger or frustration.
He respects your opinion even if he doesn't agree with it.
He respects your right to say "no."
Am I safe while he is in the program?
For your own safety and your children's safety, watch for these signs that indicate problems while he is in the program:
Tries to find you if you've left.
Tries to get you to come back to him.
Tries to take away the children.
Stalks you.
If you feel you are in danger, contact the National Domestic Violence crisis line.
Six Big Lies
If you hear your partner making these statements while he is in a treatment program for abusers, you should understand that he is lying to himself, and to you.
"I'm not the only one who needs counseling."
"I'm not as bad as a lot of other guys in there."
"As soon as I'm done with this program, I'll be cured."
"We need to stay together to work this out."
"If I weren't under so much stress, I wouldn't have such a short fuse."
"Now that I'm in this program, you have to be more understanding."
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Questions Women Often Have About Batterers and Batterer Programs
He says that I do things to make him angry. Am I to blame for his violence?
No. Abusive men often blame other people or situations for their violence. Many say their partners provoke them. The truth is that no one can cause another person to be violent. His violence is never justified. How he behaves is his choice and his responsibility. In fact, you can probably think of times where other people made him angry and he chose not to respond to them with violence or abuse.
What is a batterer program?
Not all batterer programs are the same, but some of them include education about domestic violence, and what communities are doing to hold abusers accountable. Depending on the program, the education can include informing your partner that he alone is responsible for what he does, that abuse destroys families and that he can change if he chooses to.
How would my partner get into a batterer program?
Most batterers participate because the court ordered them to do so. Many men say that they would not have gone or stayed in the program if they had not been court ordered. Some men attend without a court order, and others go as a way to convince their partners not to leave or to take them back. Unless a batterer is truly committed to being accountable for his behavior and to stop being controlling, he is unlikely to change his behavior, with or without a batterer program.
Will he stop abusing me if he attends a batterer program?
Any man can stop being violent and abusive if he really wants to stop. Some batterer programs provide good information to participants. However, going to a batterers program does not guarantee that he will stop battering and does not guarantee that you will be safe. In fact, many men who are attending or have attended a batterer program continue to be violent and/or controlling.
To best protect yourself and your children, it is recommended that you keep in contact with your local battered women's services/program, especially while he is attending the batterer program. To find out what options and support services are available to you in your community and to learn more about batterer programs, you can contact your local domestic violence program or shelter.
My partner says he'll get help for his drinking. If he stops drinking, will he stop being violent?
Don't count on it. Alcohol and other drug abuse do not cause domestic abuse, even though batterers often use substance abuse as an excuse for their violence.
Batterers who drink or use drugs have two separate problems that need to be handled independently. Even if your partner stops using alcohol or other drugs, he is likely to continue to be abusive.
Labels: abuse, adult children of narcissists, bad relationship, batterers, change, couples counseling, emotional abuse, marriage counseling, mental, narcissist, pathological, psychopath, verbal abuse
Saturday, August 11, 2018
Are You In An Abusive Relationship?
Does your partner continually monitor your time and make you account for every minute (when you run errands, visit friends, commute to work, etc.)?Does your partner ever accuse you of having affairs with other men or women, or act suspicious that you are?
Is your partner ever rude to your friends?
Does your partner discourage you from starting friendships with people of the same gender?
Do you ever feel isolated and alone, as if there were nobody close to you to confide in?
Is your partner overly critical of such things, as your cooking, your clothes, or your appearance?
Does your partner demand a strict account of how you spend money? Do they want autonomy, however, on how THEY spend money?
Do your partners moods change radically, from very calm to very angry or vice versa?
Is your partner disturbed by you working or by the thought of you working?
Does your partner become angry more easily if your partner drinks?
Does your partner pressure you for sex much more often than you’d like?
Does your partner become angry if you won’t go along with his or her requests for sex? (sexual positions, sexual practices or frequency, also)
Do you quarrel much over financial matters?
Do you quarrel much about having children or raising them?
Does your partner ever strike you with his or her hands or feet (slap, punch, kick, etc.)?
Does your partner ever strike you with an object?
Does your partner ever threaten you with an object or weapon?
Has your partner ever threatened to kill either himself, herself or you?
Does your partner ever give you visible injuries, such as welts, bruises, cuts, black eyes, lumps on the head?
Has your partner talked you into doing something, and then made you feel guilty or ashamed about it?
Does your partner keep you up late, asking about real or imagined sexual or romantic incidents?
Does your partner force you to apologize for things you didn’t do?
Does your partner insist you ask permission to spend money for household or personal items, whether the money is a community fund or your own income?
Does your partner call you names with sexual connotations such as "slut" or "whore"?
Does your partner flaunt relationships or flirt with others while in your presence?
Labels: abuse, bad relationship, controlling, isolation, mood swings, rude, verbal abuse
Tuesday, July 24, 2018
Why You Blame Yourself for Bad Relationships — and How to Stop
by Craig Malkin, Ph.D.
“He gets into these irritable, bristly moods and I know I should give him space,” she explained. “But I just start worrying maybe he doesn’t even want me around."
“Has he said anything to suggest he’s upset with you?” I asked.
“Not really” she answered quickly. But she seemed to be pondering the question. "I’m sure there’s something I must have done. Otherwise he wouldn’t act that way around me.”
“What if it has nothing to do with you?” I challenged.
“I hope not,” she said with a hint of alarm. “Because if it’s not me, then I can’t ever do anything to make things better!”
Have you ever seen yourself as the problem when things seem to go wrong in your relationship? Or blamed yourself for not feeling happier with your partner? Tina certainly did. She firmly believed she could prevent Ken's moods, or at least avoid making them worse, if she simply changed her own behavior (by being quieter or more patient or less needy—the list went on). And the more she found herself culpable when trapped in the room with his unsettling silence, the more depressed she became. How can we understand her behavior?
It might have something to do with a difficult childhood. The people most prone to self-blame have often been invalidated or even abused in their families. It’s widely observed by researchers and clinicians, alike, that childhood emotional abuse leads to some of the harshest patterns of self-blame—a life long pattern of viewing oneself as the problem. Since the most stressful experiences are the ones we feel we can’t control or predict, no doubt one reason people turn to self-blame after abuse or neglect is that the alternative explanation—my parents or siblings are chaotic, hurtful people and the world is a dangerous place—is simply too terrifying to accept. Imagine being trapped in a home with two (or more) unpredictably cruel people. Better to think you can do something about your mistreatment—even if it means pointing the finger at yourself. In this way, children of abuse often trade their self-esteem for a sense of agency.
But it isn't just people who’ve been emotionally abused who fall prey to this sort of thinking. We all inevitably turn to self-doubt when we're afraid we can't control our experience. Once, for example, one of my daughters, then 9 months, was practicing a precocious (and terrifying) run-walk at the very moment my wife and were straightening a rug. She hit a lump in the carpet and slammed head first into the only one-inch square of exposed wood in our entire baby-proofed living room. It happened just inches away from me, and I played the scene over and over in my mind, searching for the exact moment I could have blocked her fall.
Rationally, of course, I knew there wasn’t anything we could have done differently. But I still blamed myself. At least if my lack of vigilance was the problem, I could prevent a future tragedy by watching more closely. But if the accident simply reflected the cold randomness of the universe, that meant something far worse: no planning or foresight could ever prevent bad things from happening to the people I cared about. Even psychologists have trouble swallowing that pill. So I kicked myself instead. After all, that’s when we all turn to self-blame: at those very moments we can’t accept how helplessness we are to control our fate. Beneath self-blame, there’s often a powerful wish for control.
This is also the key to understanding Tina's behavior. She really doesn't believe Ken can change—nor do most people who blame themselves for a bad relationship. If we’re not the problem, then our partner’s surly moods or disinterest can only be altered through their efforts. And the less faith we have—as Tina seemed to—that they can ever make those changes, the more we risk finding fault with ourselves. If our hope for a happy relationship lies in our partners’ hands, and they're not up to the task, then the situation truly is hopeless. And hopelessness is a far worse pain than self-doubt.
Tina, for example, focused most of her efforts on changing herself. But for all her frantic attempts to be a better partner, she remained afraid or unwilling to ask more of Ken, terrified that he either didn’t care to—or even worse, couldn’t— change for her. She hid that fear, even from herself, beneath layers of self-blame.
If you’re a self-blamer, like Tina, the way out, of course, is to start considering what other people can do to help you feel better. And you can only do that if you accept that your partner not only can, but should change their hurtful behaviors—not because you've tried to do something different (again), but because they care enough about how you feel to do something different themselves (renowned marriage researcher, John Gottman, calls this “openness to influence”).
In other words, the onslaught of self-blame only stops once you realize that your own feelings of disappointment are legitimate enough to be heard. It's when you finally tell someone you feel hurt or upset by their behavior—and exactly what they can do to help you feel better—that you truly learn whether or not they care enough to change what's hurting you. And if they don’t care about that, you need to know as soon as possible. Or you could end up stuck in an unhappy relationship, blaming yourself for feeling bad. And that would depress anyone.
Check out www.drcraigmalkin.com for more tips and advice, as well as information on his book in progress.
Labels: abuser, ACONs, adult children of narcissists, bad relationship, belief, blame, childhood abuse, daughter of narcissistic mother, doubt, invalidation, loser, self-blame, twisted thinking, unhappy, voicelessness
Friday, March 09, 2018
Passive-Aggressive Behavior
Passive-Aggressive Behavior
By the time I was 7 or 8 I was being cool in a passive-aggressive response to her attempts to be close to me I would not let her touch me, I would not show happiness if something good happened or pain if something bad happened. I would just say "it's ok" no matter how much it wasn't. I also "showed" her and my dad by not getting the type of grades as I was capable of getting in school. I have spent much of my life sabotaging myself to get back at them.
Passive-aggressive behavior can take the form of sarcasm, procrastination, chronic lateness, being a party pooper, constantly complaining, being negative, offering opinions and advice that is not asked for, being the martyr, slinging arrows ("whatever have you done to your hair", "gained a little weight haven't we?"), etc. If we don't know how to set boundaries or will go along with anything to avoid conflict, then we often will agree to doing things we don't want to do - and as a result we will not be happy doing them and will get back at the other person somehow, someway because we are angry at them for "making" us do something we don't want to do. A classic scenario is being asked where you want to eat and saying "oh, I don't care, wherever you want to" and then being angry because they take us somewhere we don't like. We think they should be able to read our mind and know we don't want to do whatever. Typically, in relationships, one partner will ask the other to do something and the person who can't say "I don't want to do that" - will agree to do it and then not do it. This will result in nagging and scolding which will cause more anger and passive-aggressive behavior.
The way to stop being passive-aggressive is to start being honest (first of all with ourselves), having boundaries (the more we get in touch with our inner children the more we can have boundaries with the angry ones that are causing us to be passive-aggressive), saying no when we don't want to do something. It is easier said than done. On one level what we are doing is recreating our childhood dynamics of being criticized by our parents.
It is because at our core we feel unworthy and unlovable that we have relationships - romantic, friendship, work - where we will be criticized and given the message that we are bad or wrong. Because we don't Love our self we need to manifest people outside of ourselves that will be our critical parent - then we can resent them, feel victimized, and be passive-aggressive. They are in fact just a reflection of how we treat ourselves internally. The more we can learn to defend ourselves internally from the critical parent voice the more we will find that we don't want critical people in our lives."
SOURCE
Passive Aggressive Personality Disorder was folded into Narcissistic Personality Disorder in the DSM. It is no longer a separate disorder from Narcissism.
Labels: abuse, anger, bad relationship, behavior, dynamics, narcissism, narcissist, passive-aggressive, resist
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
6 Stages of Leaving an Abusive Relationship
(could take years or weeks - no time frame)
1. Managing the Situation
The point at which abuse/violence is first experienced is a crisis for the relationship,and although some women end relationships at this point, the majority do not. They find, or accept, an explanation for the incident which allows for a future. They develop strategies to manage the situation and incidents of abuse.
2. Distortion of Perspective/Reality
Gradually more and more of a woman's daily life and thought processes are affected by abuse/violence. Managing anxiety, trying to make sense of why, takes up her energy and attention. Answering why often involves her taking responsibility. Coping is increasingly focused on trying to do and not do certain things, or defiantly acting certain ways knowing the consequences. Either approach means repeated abuse can be understood "by herself and others" as yet again her responsibility.
3. Defining abuse
It is often only after a number of assaults or abusive incidents, that women define the abuse as abuse/violence. This is not just about using the word abuse/violence, but seeing herself as someone being victimised and the man as someone who is an abuser. For this to occur some level of responsibility has to be placed with the abuser and events understood as a recurring feature. (Abuse can be emotional, sexual, verbal or financial)
4. Re-evaluating the Relationship
Once the relationship is understood as one in which abuse/violence occurs a re-evaluation process begins. Decisions take place in a changed context of meaning. The possibility of leaving temporarily or permanently, of engaging processes to contain violence, becomes easier to contemplate.
5. Ending the Relationship
Most women make many attempts to end abusive/violent relationships and the reasons for returning include believing his promises to change, the absence of acceptable practical alternatives, pressure from others, the absence of effective protection.
6. Ending the Violence
Contrary to popular myth, ending a relationship does not always ensure the violence ends, it may in fact place women at greater risk of serious, and even fatal assault.
INFORMATION ON GETTING OUT
Labels: abuse, bad relationship, danger, domestic violence, leaving, reality
