This week I received a letter from a woman asking, ”What is wrong with me, why would I feel bad and believe his twisted stories? I am really sick, aren’t I? I fell for him 2 times! After almost losing everything, including my life with the first one?”
I have answered this question before but the issues raised by these questions are so important that I’ll discuss them again.
The real question here is, what exactly is love? Love is the glue that binds us together as a social species. Without love, we would all live solitary lives, husbands and wives would not stay together, parents would not care for children and none of us would have any friends. Scientists have found that the social glue we call love has at lease four different ingredients.
Attachment is the first ingredient of love. Attachment is defined as a compulsion to seek proximity to a specific special other. Seeking proximity means trying to get near the other person, i.e., calling him/her on the phone, driving by his/her house, sending emails. A compulsion is something a person feels he has to do. It is an unconscious force that drives behavior. Typically, once a compulsion starts, it will produce a great deal of anxiety/fear until it is acted upon. For example, people with obsessive compulsive disorder, OCD, have urges to do things and will feel overwhelmingly anxious until they do what those urges tell them to do.
Having sex with someone, sharing emotional intimacy and time, create attachment. This attachment means a compulsion to be with that person. Typically, people with an underlying tendency to have anxiety have stronger attachments because they experience a compulsion to be near the other that causes anxiety until it is acted upon. People who already have anxiety, have anxiety on top of anxiety, and feel more compelled to give in to the compulsion.
Generally speaking, it is good to be unconsciously compelled to be near loved ones. These compulsions remind me not to get too busy to call my dear parents. They also remind me to keep track of my teenaged daughter, even though she is more independent now. Problems only arise when one has the compulsion to be with a person with sociopathic personality traits. There is nothing worse than a compulsion to be near a psychopath!
Sociopaths and psychopaths are con artists. They entice others to form attachments to them through deception and trickery. The problem is that our unconscious minds do not distinguish between attachments made after deception and those made legitimately. Furthermore, the anxiety psychopaths create in their victims only serves to strengthen attachment!
The woman who wrote me asked, “What is wrong with me, why would I feel bad and believe his twisted stories?” When a person is under the influence of a compulsion, he has to adjust his view of reality to fit that compulsion. For example, people who feel a compulsion to repeatedly wash their hands see germs everywhere. If we feel the compulsion to seek proximity to someone, we automatically believe that person is good. In these instances our beliefs are caused by our actions, not the other way around. We may think we love someone because he/she is beautiful, when in reality he/she is beautiful because we love them. (There is a song from the musical Cinderella, Do I love you because you’re wonderful or are you wonderful because I love you?).
What I have written explains why attachment/love is like addiction. Really, it is addiction that highjacks the attachment pathways in the brain. All this explanation is of little value unless it can help us deal with ourselves better. So the real problem is, what does a person do when he/she discovers a compulsion to be with a sociopath/psychopath?
It is very important to recognize the role that anxiety plays in compulsions. Combat anxiety and you combat compulsions. Start by not drinking alcohol and avoiding excessive caffeine. Alcohol temporarily relieves anxiety, but the anxiety intensifies when the alcohol wears off. Next, get enough sleep. Will power is required to fight a compulsion; lack of sleep impairs will power. Fight anxiety by exercising and cultivating quality friendships. At least, have a dog to take walks with! (Louise Gallagher’s dog has helped her to recover; she wrote about this in Dandelion Spirit.)
Many people who are fighting compulsions to maintain proximity to a sociopath/psychopath become so self-absorbed that they fail to honor important obligations to self, work, friends and family. This reaction only magnifies the attachment compulsion, because guilt only increases anxiety. Furthermore, neglect of children makes genetically predisposed behavior worse, and children who behave badly are a source of stress/anxiety.
To all of you who are parents, your relationships with your children can either hurt you or help you when it comes to recovery. If you focus on loving your child and spending quality time with him/her, your anxiety will go down for three reasons. First, if you are emotionally distant from your child, your own unconscious mind knows this and makes you anxious. Second, quality time with your child will make your child easier to live with over time. Third, real intimacy with your child will relieve your anxiety. This is healthy, not unhealthy, you and your child need each other, especially during times of stress. Intimacy is what family is all about.
I bring up this issue of our children because what I find is that many parents, especially mothers, become preoccupied with their relationship anxiety and withdraw from their kids. This response only makes them more anxious. It only serves to create a more dysfunctional family for the children.
We are challenged in life to do the right thing for ourselves and our families in spite of anxiety and compulsions. Start today to get well by seeking your own true well-being.
For more information, see:
Good post and I’m throwing in a question.
Without going deep into my background I want to say, I am truly recovering with the help of friends, family and a great therapist. I have had a long history with N’s or P’s and am now trying to love myself, forgive myself and move forward. However, I still am caught in the trying to understand phase.
My rationalizing the “whys” continue to haunt me. I feel pity for the last N that I broke off with almost a year ago. I have had NC for the last 5 weeks. It’s so difficult some days but I sit on my hands if I have to. This relationship was 8 years.
He abuses… alcohol and is a gambling addict. Lies, lies and more lies. Borrowed a large sum of money I will never see. Addiction. My thoughts are that he could also have Aspergers. Drinking and gambling could help him cover this.
However, the bottom line is whether he is an N or P or alcoholic or mentally diseased person he is bad for me.
I wonder if it is possible that addictions can cause a permanent change in the brain to create this behavior. It doesn’t let him off the hook one way or the other, just some thoughts and questions I have for loveblog readers.
In addition, loveblog is an awesome site I’ve recently been reading and thanks for all the help.
Any others have addictions or aspergers diagnosed or observed in your N/P’s?
Hi OxDrover,
Yes, beginning to see the light, yet pulled back repeatedly as I learn “how to crawl” before I can learn how to walk on my own two feet.
Is there a simple way to access a previous post I commented on if I wanted to see your reply?
There may be, not sure! I’m a computer dummie! You might e mail donna and ask her. I am able to get up the blog, on a day when I have good air card service, or cuss the darned theng when I don’t. LOL
It is difficult to learn to move on to the healing road and to stay there. It seems so long and so hard, but there are people here to hold your hand or “boink”you with teh cyber cast iron skillet if you are too hard on yourself! LOL I think forgiving myself for putting up with the chaos from first one P and then another was the hardest thing I have ever done. But it is like peeling an onion, you get through one stinking layer and there is another one to peel back, but you just keep on going, one at a time, until you “get there.”
I’m been on the healing road for quite some time, and each day I feel stronger and better and learn something new to work on. rome wasn’t built in a day and neither are we, we have new ways of coping and getting healthy things to learn and try out and use and it takes time. Getting him out of your life will be the biggest hurdle, but the best, because once you are NO CONTACT with him, you can start to get enough VISION that you can see past his FOG–fear, obligation and guilt—that blinds us. Hang in there!!! (((hugs)))
I am very attached to my children. I want nothing to do with my ex S!
My therapist looks at me like I might be worse off then she thought when I say I’d feel little more than relief if he was found dead in a gutter. But then again, I don’t think she believes he’s more than just mentally unhealthy. After all, “a sociopath wouldn’t feel anything if they kicked or beat their child” but anything short of that is something else…and redeemable. Surely he’s among the former and not the latter????
I digress…
Anyway, it is VERY hard not to be reactive when your child comes home from an overnight with the other parent in the same clothes (down to the underwear) you sent them in after wearing them at school all day. Hives all over his legs and bottom, a new bruise on his back the size of an original silver dollar with no explanation, and saying his father “hates” such and such move… he says it’s “stupid” and exclaiming he got to watch the Spiderman movie with the Green Goblin (PG-13).
My son just turned 4 a couple of weeks ago! Who’s the adult here? What’s going on that I’m NOT hearing about?
I’m ATTACHED to my child…I can’t get FREE from the S! And the S will USE my ATTACHMENT to my child to tweak my everlasting, last nerve!!!
Outraged by the condition of my child when he came home yesterday,
Duped
DancingWarrior,
I haven’t discovered a filter yet for the site. I use Mozilla Firefox as my browser. On the Edit menu it has a Find function that allows you to search a page as you would a document, looking for key word/s. When you launch it, look for it at the bottom of the window. That might help you sift through to find specifically what you’re looking for.
Dear sotired,
Dear it doesn’t matter what his diagnosis is, if he is TOXIC he is poison, slow poison, and you don’t need it. I know it is easy to be caught up in the what if and why but the thing is, it doesn’t matter. DOES NOT MATTER! Many Ps also “self medicate” with drugs/alcohol/excitement (such as gambling) but no matter, you must stay NC—GOOD FOR YOU!!!
It starts out for them, but becomes about US–why did you stay for so long? We can’t fix them but we can improve ourselves. Keep on reading here great articles, go back through all the old archived articles and read every one, just the articles fo rnow, but read read READ> Knowledge=Power take back kyour power!!! ((((hugs))))
Duped: I know it must be awful to send your kid to stay with someone you can’t trust and that you know can’t love him (or you) but try to stay focused on the BIG ISSUES like I tell Banana, your son won’t die from dirty clothes, but I would make photographs of him (time and date stamped) of him as he leaves and as he returns, just to keep for an evidence documentary, also measure and photograph all bruises and tape record anything your child says about how he got the bruise. Kids do get bruises. Put a ruler up beside the bruise as you take the photograph, and try to down play it with your child so he won’t snitch you out.
Document, document document!!!! and whatever you do don’t blow a gasket or even mention anything to your x about the same clothes etc. it isn’t a good idea to let them in on things that you are watching, and he won’t care, in fact, he may be glad it irritated you. Hang in there sweetie! Do the best you can! That’s all anyone can do is the best they can. (((hugs)))) and God bless you and your son.
Oxy,
You are correct! Good advice and wisdom of which I’m aware… and yet I blew a gasket anyway. This tends to happen, regardless of wisdom and progress, right before I start my menstrual cycle. I have it in my calendar as a reoccurring appointment and a reminder, as does probably he by now. I’ve vowed to not react or make big decisions during this vulnerable time period.
But I did…and now my guilt in enabling him further and setting progress back by a few months is what dominates the cycles of my brain more so than any actual risk to my child.
Good news is, he’ll be back to doing the same within six weeks. Bad news is, he’ll be back to doing the same within six weeks.
Need I say more?!?!?
Duped
Yesterday I encountered him unexpected. I COULD NOT HELP trying to have one good talk that would sort everything out, any more than I could help myself getting his address off an electoral register site and writing him a letter saying how hurt I was.
Today I got a new copy of Women Who Love Too Much, which hurts in the right way – the pain of recognising what this really is. Also I recalled a book I read once, something for alcoholics who can’t get on with AA (I’m not alcoholic – my mother was). In this it says you are NEVER out of control. Every single thing you do is in your control. Every action you make is in your conscious control. I had to walk back a mile on icy pavements (sidewalks, US people!) to confront him. Who had a gun to my head?
I chose to go and confront him. I could certainly have prevented myself from doing so. It was my deciision, just like having “just one drink” is a conscious decision on the part of an alcoholic. This is a lesson I have to learn again every single day.
Oh, and did the One Last Talk sort everything out? Three guesses…
Christmas is a horrible, lonely time for me. This post is a moment of sanity which I cannot guarantee will last. Now the people at the centre are saying he may wish to come back to the writing group where we met (a group I greatly value) and they cannot stop him. So THAT nags at me. So I am not sane. But now I WANT to be sane – that’s vast progress for me. Before I wanted him back, I wanted to try again, I wanted him to be the lovely man he was that time, and – above all – I wanted to win.
Yes, living a good life is winning. But I wanted the sort of winning where he was crying on the floor.
Trying as hard as I can. This helps. Thanks, all.
Hi Huytongirl, I think you know already but sociopaths can’t feel shame nor guilt…it’s always someone else’s fault…even the psychiatric ward or the prison can’t change them nor break them. There’s no talking them into sanity…at the best you’ll get a most unsincere apology.
So talking to them is pointless and could even backfire and make you feel miserable (they are good at that too as you know) but don’t be angry with yourself for trying though. It’s only human. Just don’t do it again – next time ignore him. That’s the only way you can annoy him (I was going to write “hurt him” but he’s beyond that too). Really indifference is the best revenge – even if you need to fake it at first. They are all about control so everyday you don’t contact him is a day he’s not controlling you and you’re winning.
Why couldn’t they stop him from re-joining that group? Have a good chat with someone you trust in that group. Use words like “bully” and “stalk”. My S tried something similar and someone just told him he was not welcome. In another place he was followed around by a security guard – didn’t come back.
Good luck – Xmas is a depressing time for many people, only a few more days and it will be over.
Dear huytongirl,
Sweetie, your post WAS AND IS SANE, and you are so right, we HAVE CONTROL and we have a CHOICE to exercise it. So do they. Difference is, THEY DON’T CARE WHO GETS HURT.
I am so glad that you ARE SANE, and I know that each day you can and will make BETTER CHOICES…that’s what life is all about for all of us, not just you.
We all made some bad choices, and we must forgive ourselves for those choices, and quit beating ourselves over the head for them, but today, just for TODAY we will make better choices.
This man is NOTHING, fancy accent be damned! No accents make you better, no accents make you worse. NOTHING makes him a whit superior to anyone, what makes him INFERIOR to others is he does not care how he HURTS OTHERS.
If you see him again, SNUB him like the queen would snub a convict. Just pretend he isn’t there, that he is invisible, that he is just as interesting as a plastic potted plant, don’t even let on that you notice him. After all, do you speak to plastic potted plants? Or reply to them if you think one of them talked to you? Of course not.
So give him the PLASTIC POTTED PLANT TREATMENT, it is what he deserves.
Happy holidays!