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.
Liane: Can I ask what you mean when you say “The over anxious have the best long term prognosis”? (I am not trying to be stupid here)
i think it breaks down neurons or something. i remember the first S feeling like i just have to wait till this blows over. and with the second S i remember thinking “omg, i hate you ____.” but the anxiety feels like it is stuck in my brain. like a neuron broke down. it’s one of the main last things that i need to get over.
Hi Swallow,
Just to let you know that at the age of 58, I entered medical school and graduated four years later. Since my encounter with my sociopathic ex and several ongoing encounters with my sister – instigated by mother – I have been in sort of a holding pattern… As for Zoloft, I’m one of those people who don’t take well to medications and haven’t had so much as an aspirin in over 25 years. I do take calcium (which is calming) and some other phytonutrients and I feel good and have lots of energy – except for applying myself to this avoidance problem… thanks for your comments and suggestions.
Louise
My daughter is in first year medical school and it TOUGH. Well Done!!!
Swallow
swallow.
“I am sure if did a survey of people targeted and ensnared by a psychopath you would find that many of them have previously suffered some kind of emotional trauma and abuse when young.”
Yes you would find that link between most of us.
OxDrover
[I read some research lately about rats under stress vs rats not stressed.]
Interesting thing about that is when she (PD) left us, the children and I don’t get sick (flu’s, colds etc) as much. In these two years of her absents, I only had a small cold that lasted for maybe a few days. Same with my boys. So with that said, man does stress do a number on us physically, mentally and emotionally!
People at risk for alcoholism can have high anxiety if they do they “medicate” themselves with alcohol. People with anxiety issues tend to be conscientious, empathetic and to experience guilt (excessive guilt). These traits lead them to seek treatment and try to change. They can therefore get better.
On the other side of the coin, sociopathic alcoholics generally have low anxiety. Instead of drinking to “medicate” themselves they drink out of boredom or excitement seeking. The low anxiety types usually don’t have much guilt conscience or empathy. They have a poor prognosis because thier drinking is everyone else’s problem.
I am rereading a book “Emotional Intelligence,Why it can matter more than IQ” by Dr. Daniel Goleman, (Formerly editor of “Psychology Today,”) ISBN: 0-553-09503-X, who also wrote “Vital Lies, Simple Truths.”
Dr. Goleman goes into the chemical and electrical working of the evolution of the brain, and why sometimes our emotions react to a perceived threat BEFORE our thinking mind even gets the message that there is a threat, much less what it is. We may OVER react to an emotionally upsetting thing that triggers our emotional responses.
He answers some of the questions about our reacting to emotional memories buried in the brain that we are not even consciously aware of, and of trauma that took place when we were children. He holds out more hope for overcoming the genetic predisposition to psychpathic thinking for children than any legitiate writer I have read, by using emotional intelligence training for children.
Boy, does this book make sense when you are dealing with a “P” and answers a lot of the questions about the “crazymaking” that we go through emotionally after trying to deal with the insanity of the P’s “logic.”
I shared this book with my son C (the one married to the DIL-P who tried to kill him) and it apparently really struck a cord with him and has helped him so much.
The book isn’t just “theory” or “research” information, but also practical ways to help ourselves use our logical minds to over come our emotional over reactions. Suggestions for raising the at risk child who has a psychopathic parent or grandparent, and other good information. I highly recommend it.
Free,
When I read your post, it is almost word for word what I went through. Even the back problems and I am only 40. I don’t drink that often now, its just that my stepmom and dad made a comment about it the other day.
Believe me, I am very ashamed about all the drinking I did when I was with him and the dui’s. It was a way I found to hide so it wouldn’t hurt so much. Of course it only made things worse, then I had to deal with myself and how I felt after drinking.
My family seems to be convinced that I have a drinking problem tho I don’t drink hardly ever and if I do, I do not tell them. I feel like I am the only one who turned to alcohol to escape and it is an awful feeling.
“I am sure if did a survey of people targeted and ensnared by a psychopath you would find that many of them have previously suffered some kind of emotional trauma and abuse when young.
Concur with this statement. Anyone care to try and explain why? I’ve been working on my own theories, and they’re just theories. Part of it though is that we respond to the secretive nature of the P or N because our childhood traumas were all in secret. So we can separate the “good guy” from the “bad guy” and they have a better chance of peaceably coexisting separately in our mind (so we can love these people in the way those who have not experienced such a thing could never imagine).
What conclusions have you guys reached?
“I feel like I am the only one who turned to alcohol to escape and it is an awful feeling.”
rperk, I am sure you are not alone. Though this is not what I did this time around, years ago after dealing with the same thing I kind of did, many years ago.
This time I figured that crutches weren’t gonna work. I have to do a full-tilt boogie healing intervention on myself. But temporarily, we all did what we had to do to get through the worst of it. Please don’t beat yourself up!!!