The American Psychiatric Association is in the process of updating its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the DSM-5. This is the “bible” used by psychiatrists and other mental health professionals to diagnosis psychiatric conditions, including antisocial personality disorder. Two members of the committee working on personality disorders have resigned, stating that the proposal displays a “stunning disregard for evidence.”
Dr. Liane Leedom and I had issues with how the first draft described antisocial personality disorder, which was why we conducted a Lovefraud survey back in 2010. Based on the survey results, we submitted Lovefraud’s comment about sociopaths for the DSM-5. The description was since revised, but apparently there are professionals who are still dissatisfied.
If the professionals can’t agree, no wonder the rest of us are confused.
Two who resigend from DSM-5 explain why, on PyschologyToday.com.
Also…. it is a whole different ballgame for a person who is in a relationship with a spath. For some of us, yes, it is about SURVIVAL and you do whatever you have to do (repress, express, whatever) to survive. You are stumbling in the dark, if you do not know about spaths.
it’s a wonder some of us ever find the exit out of that nightmarish hall of mirrors and stumble out into the blinding sunshine.
The experience of being locked into a relationship with a spath is a continuous assault on us, trying to get us to forget who we are. It is injury upon injury, striking while the wounds are still fresh, to beat us down.
Again, I think it is a wonder that some of us DO escape and don’t give up in hopelessness and despair.
It makes me very angry in a Mama Bear way when I see yet another story about courts that do not understand or care about emotional abuse. I think this is a pervasive brainwashing that many people fall for: did he hurt you physically? or was it “just” emotional?
We all know that the emotional stuff is waaaaaaay worse than anything they can do to us physically (though of course there are emotional wounds inflicted along with the assaults on our bodies).
If it is invisible, then it didn’t happen? it is not real? We just imagined it? or we are just being “emotionally reactive?” or we can just toss it off and get over it?
Just because “they” can’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t real.
20 years, I loved your wild horse analogy, so very poignant, and compassionate.
I was given a wild horse, and I am riding it to the very best of my ability. Some times it gets riled up, and it reacts to certain kinds of stimulus in a very reactive way. I have come to learn what the stimulus is, and how my horse will react, and furthar, I have learned WHY my horse reacts like that. I have learned my wild horse needs something that only I can give it, and I work at that a little bit everyday. I have also learned to, not only avoid a certain stimulus, but to protect my wild horse from that stimulus, by providing for my wild horse what it is always seeking IN the stimulating object. My wild horse is seeking something that the stimulating object can never supply. My wild horse reacts to that. It doesn’t like that at all. My wild horse gets a little unruly.
Kim,
🙂
you got the right idea, I’m thinkin…
Oh, my goodness. I just can’t believe I finally found a place where people understand me! Thank you so much for all of your words of understanding and advice.
Sparklehorse,
I’d like to ditto the responses about spath attorneys. After the hell I endured for 12 years I finally gained the courage to get out only to be taken for $25,000 by a lawyer who was as evil as my ex. It was much like when a rape victim claims that she was raped for a second time in the court system. That’s exactly what it was like for me. The lawyers care about how much money they can make from you, and that’s it. In my state only 10% of divorce and custody cases go to trial. People told me that it’s because the lawyers are all in cahoots with each other. I didn’t believe this, couldn’t believe it until I experienced it for myself. They basically work together even though they are on opposing sides, to make the most money, get you to fight to the bitter end, take all you’ve got, and then force you to settle in the end because you have no more money to fight. I WOULD NEVER HAVE BELIEVED THIS IF I HADN’T EXPERIENCED IT MYSELF. This is what happens in my neck of the woods. I’ve heard it over and over again, and it’s what happened to me. Except God is gracious and I fired my evil lawyer and found a SAINT/ANGEL/WOMAN OF GOD on the other side of the state to help me at the bitter end. It if weren’t for her I have no idea what would have happened to me and my poor kids. Yes, there are a few good lawyers out there, but I think they are far and few between and unfortunately victims of domestic abuse are often re-victimized in the court system.
20 Years,
Thanks so much for that wild horse analogy. I know this will help my dd in so many ways. YAY! I’m finding what I need here. Thanks so much!!! And yes, I still get so mad when I think of that lady and her “lose the window, gain a mirror” analogy. Unfortunately this is the mentality in family court.
Yeah, if I had been in that parenting class, I would have handed out mirrors to all of the parents present and the next time that lady let loose with “lose the window, gain a mirror” everyone could hold up their mirror — facing the lady. Jeez.
20years,
One thing I have to say is, great analogy! Have you ever watched the animated movie, “Spirit”? It has some great catchy songs in it and it’s about a wild horse who’s spirit can’t be broken and it’s perfect for life lessons. My daughter and I used to watch it when she was younger and we watched it again a couple of months ago. She cried and I asked why? She said “that’s what happened to you.” I thought she was right. But it is about strength and fighting to get out of being held captive. Spirit, the horse, meets an indian boy who helps him as they both are free spirits who are fighting capture. One of the best songs which is very empowering for me is, “Get off of my Back”. We also have the soundtrack…lol
I can tell you are an excellent mother! I, too, had my parenting challenged. I was called “the most reprehensible mother I have ever encountered” by his attorney??!! I was accused of threatening to murder my daughter (spath did this and then turned it around to my daughter saying I wanted to abort her but he saved her from it! IN FRONT OF THE RT!) and that she needed to be removed from my care immediately as she was in grave danger and I needed an emergency psychiatric evaluation!!! I was living my life and parenting while running a company for 22 years. I had no complaints with my company or traffice tickets or crimes and I wasn’t on drugs. I was stunned and taken down by all of this. I had no idea the way these cases play out and they may as well have laid my heart on a hot skillet!
The abusive RT kept saying when I went to drop my daughter off, “Are you going to act like a mother today?” in a very snide voice (probably 6 different times) and it went over my head as I was a mother every day and I didn’t get it!!! In true spath form she was attempting to get me pissed and to react. I was too confident and/or dense. LOL A single father friend of mine told me how hilarious he thought it was that it blew over my head. That’s when I realized the RT was dangerous. She had a PHD and was supposedly one of the BEST but I found out she’s one of the “dirty dozen” which is what I call those on the court roster who’ll do anything for a buck. (to mothers and children)!
I wish you had been my mother! Feelings were not only WRONG but punishable and you fought the fight as did I while you become shunned by neighbors and friends as they are afraid of what they don’t know or understand. We have lost so much. We were ordered to 3 different MONEY MONGER court professionals per week. 30 miles each way to and from and he was “father of the year” and had never even raised a houseplant.
I want this house of cards to go down more than anything. I am involved with a documentary that is going to congress and many more groups to expose this.
Just so you know I firmly believe 20 years and lovinglem, the more professional you are, the better the mother you are, the more degrading and abusive they are to you. Believe me.
Eralyn, I want to know about this documentary when it is ready for public consumption. That sounds wonderful!
And thank you for the tip about the movie “Spirit” — no, I have never seen it, but it sounds like I would love it!
It sounds like you had a parallel experience in many ways, to what I went through. With the attacks so over the top that they might go over the tops of our heads! LOL
In my case, I sat there in stunned silence at some of the accusations. I couldn’t believe my ears. And my “lack of response” then struck the CPS agent-attackeur as “I’m concerned…. because you (20years) don’t seem *at all concerned* by what I’m saying to you!” I was a stunned deer caught in headlights, shocked into a dissociative PTSD reaction, which I at least had the intact intellect to realize I’d better not breathe a word of or it WOULD be used against me.
But this is so abusive, and it makes me so angry, and there are so many of us being attacked like this, and when you attack the mother, you attack the child!!! “in the best interests of the child” — HA!
20years,
They are trained to do this. They used military tactics on my daughter to “deprogram” her away from her custodial parent. This is so they are more willing to accept the abuser (even if he has sexually or physically abused the child). There is a compaign to stop single mothers. The statistics are showing 75% of the prisoners come from single mother homes. They are pumping billions of tax dollars to give fathers the children at least half of the time. While I agree with this concept, the ones in litigation are not appropriate to be looked at this way. There is usually abuse going on.
Our government is campaigning for marriage as two parent famiilies have proven to be best for children. Instead of realizing those are good 2 parent families not the family who has abuse going on. If you look at where taxes and federal funds are going, you can see their buddies are opening non-profits under the guise of “teaching” “training” these ideas and teaching men to be fathers etc. But if you follow these non-profits, there is no evidence that they are doing anything except collecting paychecks from the governmennt (tax free) and holding seminars for major bucks. It must stop!
The documentary is Lawless America. A mother I met through another tv show, had spent 12 years abused by family court and her daughter was removed from one day by the police on a fraudulent petition the father (who the child didn’t know) filed and it took her 4 years for the mother to get her back and she SNAPPED. The father did this as he was getting approved for disability and apparently did it saying he was the sole provider of the only child he knew he had and he got an extra $500 per month if he claimed she was with him. She never got justice and once he figured out he could just lie to the courts he did it more and she is still paying HIM child support and the daughter is 22 years old!! He owed her $60,ooo in arrears he got erased fraudulently and fraudulently told the courts she was in arrears. 12 YEARS she’s been fighting this and nobody cares!! Not their problem! She’s a wonderful person and it’s so sad. She donated to Lawless America and she wants children to be helped as her children at home suffered and her child who was snatched needs help too. It’s bizarre!!!
Eralyn,
I will check out the documentary — thanks.
I know I got of very “easy” compared to a lot of people. I did not lose my children. I merely got threatened with their removal and forced into family therapy with me, the 3 kids, their spath dad and spathwife for about 6 months. I also merely had to go through the violation of an investigation where I, too, discovered that “nobody cares,” and I had to repair my faith in whatever deserved my having faith. And I had to figure out what that was. My entire worldview was turned upside down. But that is “all” that happened to ME.
Widespread corruption and greed by the professionals that have turned this into an “industry.” It is a growing monster. People’s livelihoods are entwined in separating children from their protective and loving parents, and then providing “therapy” (brainwashing) to twist everyone’s mind further, all in the guise of helping.
it is this backwards way of saying up is down, good is bad, things are not what you think they are — my spathdar lights up really brightly! But this is not like a spath spouse that you can divorce. This is your own government doing this to you. 🙁 And our tax dollars funding it. It is an outrage.
Loving parents are good for children, and abusive parents are not good for children. That pretty much sums it up for me. Logic tells us that the small percentage of contentious divorces/custody cases, perhaps there is a spath involved, and 50-50 custody is maybe something to reconsider.
We all know that prisoners are more likely to be spaths than not, or a much higher percentage than in the regular population. People are still not grasping the connection, that there is a very large genetic component to this, and so perhaps it is not so much the fault of the “single mother” as it is the fact that one of the parents is a spath, and that caused the divorce (or the impulsive pregnancy, or something like that) which produced the child who inherited the genes and grew up to be not so very law abiding.
I know that sometimes spaths marry each other, but we all know that there are a lot of unions between spaths and normal, loving individuals who are potentially great parents.
I am very “pro 2-parent families” of 2 normal, loving individuals (not spaths) and maybe teach more of the normal, loving people what spaths are in advance, so you don’t mate with them and keep the genes going (yeah, I know that spaths can have normal children, too. I have some of those…)
Well yes, it was the very harsh “techniques” used on me and the kids that first stunned me, and then made me go, “whoa!!!!” because I had blithely assumed that if I was a law-abiding, nice, good type of person, then nothing bad would ever happen to me, or if falsely accused somehow, then a quick explanation would suffice and they would send me on my merry way with a smile and an apology for having bothered me. HOW WRONG I WAS.
But most people in my circle are still caught up in the same belief. They think nothing like this can ever happen to THEM. It just happens to people who deserve it, or other people. But not THEM. I say, if it can happen to ME, it can happen to YOU or ANYONE. But they still don’t get it.
20years,
I believed as you did. You do the right thing and nobody is going to bother you except in some freak situation that would need some explanation and you move along. All things straightened out. WRONG!
My boyfriend at the time could not believe what was happening. He’s pretty much the custodial parent of his son who is 6mo older than my daughter. I did everything I was told which was protect this child from psycho! Then years later they came in and blew my life apart and it was status quo not a freak accident. I literally looked like a POW. I didn’t eat except to stay alive for over a year. I shook internally from the trauma and screamed audibly in my sleep. I was always a sprinter in running and life, not real good at pacing myself. This became a marathon of abuse. I kept running at full speed in every direction I could think of. I didn’t bother with my business, taxes, bills or anything. I was non-stop at the courts, lawyers, psychologist and any meetings or groups who had to do with family court. I was on the internet and connecting mothers to my connections while screaming my story and telling my story in hopes I would hit the right button and be helped. My business tanked. I was the youngest female to ever be contracted with the company who was the foundation of my business 22 years ago and they cancelled my contract at the beginning of this year (lack of production).
I didn’t have the money for my attorneys, court ordered counseling for me and the child which we didn’t need previously, sanctions from the courts based on lies and I found out the father was in fact “going to prove I was clinically insane”!!! WTF? That was laughable in the beginning. “Run her out of money, run her down and take the kid and she WILL be paying YOU child support” was the mantra. All from a man who the child never knew at 10 years old. (9 time felon in my county alone!) He had ONE advocate in his corner and it was a crooked “pastor/psychologist” who knew how to obtain fathers rights funding through faith based organizations and free attorneys. They handed him a job making $180,000 per year when he had never made $40k prior!! (more prison re=entry federal funds) MY TAXES, YOUR TAXES!! I found all this out as this bizarre life beating unfolded.
I am very proud that I shut down this phony fraudulent pastors (home) church and after a two year+ investigation the assistant state attorney revoked his psychology license using the very words from my complaint. I HOPE I run into this crook on the street! He’s been taking tithings tax free for over 15 years from unsuspecting christians! They paid for his 3/4 million dollar home. (he previously owned a $150,000 condo) The dumb psycho could never have done all this without this mans brains behind it. They stole my garbage, tapped my phone and had me followed all in an effort to build a case against my credibility as unbeknownst to me, he was a fraud. I was threatened by psycho to NOT pursue my complaint for several reasons but I didn’t really see what I had to lose and have since been thanked by the state for making them aware of this crook. It cost me and my child, life as we knew it but I am glad I pursued it and I believe the asst state atty may be one of the reasons psycho is GONE right now and I retained custody of my child.
That’s just part of it. Nobody around me knows as it sounds too bizarre and I don’t think they could wrap their mindsa around it. I have considerred a lawsuit against this phony pastor/psychologist but I am not sure if it would be worth it. I DO whole heartedly believe this has all been a criminal act with many people plotting to do the above but I perservered and they failed. It sounds crazy but is all true.