According to the National Institutes of Mental Health, “anxiety is a normal reaction to stress. It helps one deal with a tense situation in the office, study harder for an exam, keep focused on an important speech. In general, it helps one cope. But when anxiety becomes an excessive, irrational dread of everyday situations, it has become a disabling disorder.” Put another way anxiety is supposed to help us. The parts of the brain that produce feelings of anxiety are similar to the parts of the brain that process pain, another negative emotion. Anxiety and its cousin pain help us by signaling danger and causing us to avoid. Their job is to inhibit behavior. The part of the brain that processes pain and anxiety is called the Behavioral Inhibition System or BIS.
I have observed that anxiety is the single biggest obstacle to recovery from a pathological relationship with a sociopath (psychopath). The aftermath of these relationships leaves a person with terrible anxiety, dread and when anxiety/dread is overwhelming, avoidance sets in. Avoidance coping leads people to withdraw from life and responsibilities and the result is only more anxiety. A vicious cycle sets in where anxiety leads to avoidance, avoidance behaviors get us in trouble, that trouble leads to more anxiety, that anxiety leads to even more avoidance”¦and so on.
Why is a pathological relationship different from all others? Why is the anxiety experienced afterward so profound? I think the roots of the anxiety have to do with 6 things:
1. During the relationship, mind games, undermine a person’s confidence.
2. During the relationship the victim is intentionally isolated from potential sources of support.
3. During the relationship the sociopath/psychopath does things that harm the victim’s relationships with significant people in his/her life.
4. The break-up of any relationship causes anxiety, conflict laden relationships more so.
5. In the aftermath many victims face financial problems.
6. In the aftermath many victims face legal problems.
O.K. , I admit the anxiety is caused by a total destruction of the framework of a person’s life!
I think that our psychological defenses can operate so well that many people underestimate the degree to which anxiety influences their behavior and the level of avoidance coping they engage in. The best indicator of anxiety, in my opinion is this avoidance coping.
Just what is avoidance coping? Avoidance coping means that a person denies or minimizes the seriousness of a situation. He/she uses a self—protective strategy and actively suppresses stressful thoughts. Most importantly, behaviorally speaking avoidance coping means an avoidance of tasks that might in anyway remind us of the stressor and avoidance of doing many of the tasks of life. Since avoidance coping requires so much mental energy, there is not enough left for getting work done. Instead, people tend to get satisfaction through other activities like eating or watching TV.
I got to thinking about avoidance coping this week because I tutor a 15 year old in math and he described his own behavior which is a good example of avoidance coping and its consequences. I hadn’t seen this student for about a year. I worked with him for several years and the last time I saw him he was in 8th grade and was doing very well in that he could solve simple algebra problems. Now in 9th grade, he is failing math so his mother called me. When I tested him, he had regressed. He could not do any of the tasks he could do easily only a year ago.
I asked him what happened. He said, “The things I know I do. When I don’t get something, I don’t want to do it. I get home and feel like I would rather ride my bike, so I do. Then I don’t do my homework.”
The point I want to make to you, is that I worked with him for only an hour and he got a 93 on the next test! Due to this victory, he feels a great deal less like avoiding. So I ask you, are there things you are avoiding that you could actually succeed at if you just stop avoiding? Wouldn’t an A grade at some task that you are avoiding boost your confidence and serve you better than that nagging feeling you are not doing the stuff you are supposed to do.
My student’s mother has some negative words for her son’s motivation. She says he is lazy etc. She just does not understand the degree to which anxiety is producing his dysfunctional behavior. He doesn’t outwardly appear anxious, though inwardly he is. Just that little contact with me reduced his anxiety enough to help him face that which he had been avoiding. Just like my student, even when we don’t appear anxious, our avoidance behaviors often lead to further damage to our already damaged relationships.
If you are avoiding too much, I encourage you to stop avoiding. Confront those tasks that are causing you dread, fear and anxiety. In the end you will feel a lot better. You might get an A grade if you try and not trying always leads to failure-an F. Next week more on anxiety and coping.
LL: it’s strange how life can whirl around. Never know what’s up. He spent all those years doing exactly what he felt like and wanted. Now, the curtain is closing slowly on his little drama on the stage of life. It was his choice.
TB for what it is worth, I think many of them end up pitiful if they live long enough to get old, wrinkled and sick. They lose their power to attract others, to use and con others, they love their power and status, but some of them never give up trying though.
Look at Hugh Hefner though, with his 23 yr old GF and him more than 80. LOL ROTFLMAO Like that is some kind of love match. LOL I think the man is so narcissistic even if he isn’t a psychopath, and I think there are women who are willing to trade their bodies and sexual favors for whatever it is that he is offering and it ain’t “love” or even “good” sex either, I imagine. LOL I think Hef is actually so narcissistic that he thinks that what he has is “classy” or “desirable” when it is, to anyone with any class, just DISGUSTING. In my personal opinion, anyone who envies him is just as low as he is. YUK! But each to their own. My P-sperm donor was just the same way, “bought” younger and younger wives/women and thought that was “classy”–and though he was raised in a family that had some worth and respect in the community, he didn’t get any social education obviously as to what is respectable or even acceptable.
I remember one time when he was “entertaining” some game rangers from South Africa who came over with a load of Rhinos to the US and he took them to a MEXICAN WHORE HOUSE in Tijuana and they GOT OFFENDED. They were all married men and hadn’t been to the US before and wanted to see some sights, so he took them to a whore house across the border and couldn’t understand why they were OFFENDED. LOL ROTFLMAO
TB,
my exP was ready to move on and he wanted the house, which was in my name. We were never legally married and he lived “underground”, everything that had responsibility tied to it was in my name, except his car and truck and the helicopter. The business was in my name, my car and truck, the house, all the credit cards.
He wanted me to write a will but he wouldn’t just ask me to. instead he said,”You know… I worry about what will happen to you if I die. I should write a will. And I should get life insurance so that you are taken care of. A person who is grieving can’t work or deal with anything. I really should get life insurance”. My STUPID response was to say, “oh, me too! I’ll get right on that and get us both wills and I’ll get some life insurance for me so you can pay bills if I die.”
And I did. I made myself worth more dead than alive. dumbdeedumbdumbdumb.
TB
How old is your ex Spath now?
LL
Sky – yah, but YOU’RE STILL ALIVE AND THE DUMB F*** DIDN’T WIN!
Ox: I agree, most of them don’t give up trying. I’ll tell you something I realized with my second P and that’s they don’t really care HOW they get the worship. Bringing up Hugh Hefner is a great example. See, I couldn’t understand how my last X didn’t understand these young teen girls he was hustling were not really interested in him personally, as he was losing his looks rapidly. I watched him closely and I realized something: they will use ANY means they have to obtain worship. They don’t care about love. They don’t care if these people truly love them. ALL they care about is the POWER. And if they use money to obtain the power over these girls/women, that’s fine, they will gloat at the sheer power and thrill of holding the money over their heads and making them dance like puppets. Sex is power. They use the sex to humiliate and, once again, force these girls/women to basically prostitute themselves to them. In other words: they get their power rush in any perverse power play they can or have to use. That’s why they get into a lot of sadistic bondage sub cultures. Mine was straight as an arrow around me for years, but as the years wound down, I began to see he led a whole different life away from me. And NO telling what all he was into and/or got into. With normal people, we want our relationships to consist of love and care. But, these people simply want to OWN your body, mind and soul. Look at Charlie Sheen and the porn stars. He knows they are good time girls, going where the money is, but that’s his turn on-power and sexual power over these females. Hugh Hefner doesn’t mind these gals don’t really care about him. Their job is to keep the illusion going and reality at bay. His job is to fork over the money to keep them rolling in dough. As my X said: “Using people is all right as long as it’s mutual.” And there you have it straight from the P’s mouth.
LOLOL-took them sightseeing in a whorehouse! BWAHAHAHAHA!
sky: Aren’t they clever how they spin those words? Never directly ask for anything, just plant the seed. And that’s something else my X said: “Just plant the seeds, and the other person will water and grow the plants.” And so it goes….
Twice,
They are like letting a fox loose in a hen house!!! Look out women…. here he comes!!!!! There will only be one survivor and if she lives after his abuse, she will be lucky!!!
What whores they are and whore chasing adreniline junkies they are…. anything but reality, security and comfort!!! They rob it all from you!! ARGGHHH. Get behind me Satan!!!
SC1
oops…sorry!
LL: he’s in his early fifties.
so: for real! Only mine is losing his stud status. Aw, pardon me while I don’t cry. ;p