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.
YES !! TRUE STATEMENT OXY.
Thank you. I will apply this advice….right now. I have a list of long-term and short-term goals that I had posted on my cork board. After going NC from the spath, I covered it up with a piece of paper so I couldn’t see what was written on it!
I just uncovered it…..now I will attempt to…um…read it again….
This was a great article on coping through avoiding. Is it PTSD or is it a lifelong pattern or habit of dealing with low level anxiety, that then is brought out in full force due to the added stress of having your life’s framework destroyed?
It can be a hard thing to break through. It is definitely true, though, that taking any small action to just get started, even if you do not feel like it, brings relief and some momentum to carry you forward.
I loved Candy’s list of “motivations.” I wanted to offer something that has helped me recently — it is just a way of viewing it that has been helpful to me. I know I got it somewhere — probably on this site! So I am not taking credit for it:
You can view Human Motivation as falling into 3 categories:
1. Power/Control “I rule the Universe and everyone/everything in it”
2. Greed/Lust “I’m taking this because I want it”
3. Love/Regard for others
So we all have all three of these motivations in different measures. The first one is pretty self explanatory. The second one deserves a little explanation; it has to do with pure taking — either just as this object that you want so you take it (the impulse control issue) AND it also has to do with power/control, because you can take FROM someone in order to have power and control over them…. even if you don’t particularly WANT the thing you just took from them. I think this motivation #2 covers a lot of things, including smearing (taking) someone’s reputation, and rape.
And motivation #3 is the one that is present in 96% of the population and missing in 4%. This also makes me think of the “Love is Patient and Kind” etc. where if you lack love — even if you appear to do wonderful things — you are nothing.
So, I see the sociopaths as lacking or severely deficient (continuum, remember) in #3. Love/regard for others is where you don’t simply GIVE (which could be forcing upon someone something which they don’t want, which is a form of intrusive meddling), but you OFFER. And you don’t TAKE (or steal) — you ACCEPT and RECEIVE. It is a reciprocal, respectful transaction which honors yourself and the other person. Utterly missing in sociopaths.
And I think it is fair to say that all of us have some measure of the power/control motivation AND the greed/lust motivation (we are after all human), but that we otherwise do a decent job of keeping it in check, through our love and regard for each other.
And sociopaths have are motivated primarily or exclusively by power/control and greed/lust. Total disregard for others.
I have also viewed my ex-husband spath as the author of his own script in the play which he directs, and we are the supporting actors in this play about himself, and we are supposed to read from his script. But we don’t. We wander away from it and our deviance from his script is a great affront to him — so he rages and punishes and intimidates us. A tantrum. But there is no reasoning with him, because the peon supporting actors aren’t supposed to argue with the director.
Hi 20years,
Good analogy with the script! I totally agree. That is how my P father and ex spath were. By their logic, we deserved punishment for deviating from the lines!
I agree that sociopaths lack #3 on your list, but I also think that rape and in some cases smearing someone’s reputation is still about power/control for a spath. I remember watching something about this awhile back about prisoners convicted of rape, and a psychologist was explaining that it’s not even about the sexual experience for them. It’s all about dominating their victims, which goes back to control. With a sociopath, it probably has both elements going on, though. Spaths usually have a high and inappropriate desire for sex.
Panther,
If you had a business, you would have a sort of “mission statement” and some goals for that business so you could see if you were working in the right direction. We really need to do the same thing with our lives, I think, so having a list of short and long term goals I think is a good idea.
If you don’t have a goal/destination you can’t figure out how to get there.
Gloria/20 yrs
QUOTE: I have also viewed my ex-husband spath as the author of his own script in the play which he directs, and we are the supporting actors in this play about himself, and we are supposed to read from his script. But we don’t. We wander away from it and our deviance from his script is a great affront to him so he rages and punishes and intimidates us. A tantrum. But there is no reasoning with him, because the peon supporting actors aren’t supposed to argue with the director.
COMMENT: That is a GREAT analogy of the way they act when we deviate from the “script” we are supposed to be reading from.
There are so many, many responses to this EXCELLENT article that I simply didn’t read all of them.
Anxiety. Inevitable anxiety. I had heard tales of people who would describe having had an “anxiety attack” or “panic attack,” and I felt very sorry for them because they just let things snowball over them and didn’t now how to cope. That was before. This is now: the anxiety that is induced by sociopathic involvement runs so deep that it can become crippling to the point where medications like Xanax and antidepressants have to be prescribed just to prevent a complete mental breakdown.
This level of anxiety can also factor into inexplicable illnesses and injuries, chronic infections, and other physical maladies. It is a statistical fact that women (primarily) who have experienced emotional or physical trauma on a long-term basis develop auto-immune and gastro-intestinal diseases. http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/domestic+abuse
Natural practitioners can readily pinpoint HOW and WHY this occurs. It’s a whole-human-reaction, and PSTD, chronic illnesses, inexplicable injuries, and auto-immune disorders are very, very common for any human being (but primarily women) who experience severe emotional or physical trauma – ANY emotional or physical trauma, whether it’s at the hands of an abusive parent or through the machinations of a sociopathic supervisor.
I would be interested to see how many LoveFraud members have been diagnosed with a chronic illness.
Brightest blessings!
I’m re-reading a lot of older articles, and the main reason is that I’m experiencing some triggering and subsequent anxiety that, IMHO, is excessive. Of course, some of this anxiety is my own fault, but I want to open up a discussion about how to manage triggering.
“Feelings are not facts,” has been my mantra for a good, long while, now. It has dragged me through some pretty dark days, and I “know” that these words are true. But, with this recent financial issue, I have spun myself into a near-meltdown, and I feel that I’m backsliding.
Could some readers please post their methods to manage triggers and escalating anxiety levels without using medications?! LOL I have Xanax on hand, but I don’t want to rely upon any medication as a coping mechanism, at this point.
Thanks!
So, I had a meltdown and was angry at myself for having HAD one – and, this reaction is a rote one. The anger was likely borne of “guilt” that I lost control. I won’t even consider how many times guilt played into the exspath’s agenda. Guilt for needing new clothes. Guilt for needing medicines. Guilt for needing gasoline.
It was a subtle and effective programming effort on the exspath’s part. “It’s all about what we NEED as opposed to what we WANT,” was his common response to my seeing something that appealed to me – clothing, cookware, bedding, or even a dwelling. SO subtle – he never came out and said, “No, you may not have any of that.” But, the inference was just as loud.
So, how dare I behave like a human being? That was the crux of my anger at myself – guilt for BEING human, and guilt for ACTING human.
I do not know how I accomplished this, but I was able to refocus my energy on doing something rote – mundane. A simple task like loading a dishwasher or making lists of things that I needed to do. It took a good while, but once I was involved in a task, the intensity of the anxiety began to dissipate.
Now, this isn’t to say that I”m completely anxiety-free. I have a tough row to hoe coming up in the next 3 weeks. But, there will be some measure of closure, finally, and I am trying to look at the upcoming events as something positive.
Predicting….for me, my attempts to predict outcomes, behaviors, or events has always been a part of the shame-core because everything turned out badly, in my mind, because of expectations. THIS time, it’s going to be different, and my expectations weren’t met to my personal satisfaction. Therefore, why bother HAVING any?
Earlier in the day, I was only feeling that I had regained control of myself, and not that I was “feeling better.” Now, I am feeling better and giving myself a pep-talk instead of a brow-beating.
Yeah….I’m human. Yeah….I will be learning to manage the aftermath for the rest of my life, I think. Yeah….it sucks, but I’m not alone and I have the desire to grab my emotional bull by the horns and wrestle him down.
Brightest blessings!
Oh yah Truthspeak: the only way to fly…
Blessings to ALL of you….