We recently received the following letter that expresses very well what many victims tell us they feel. Although I have written on this subject before, this week I would like to share new insights on healing and recovery.
I spent two years in a relationship with an antisocial psychopath. In the last four months, since I last saw him, I have built a new life, I get on with my life, I am successful in my job, I am a good mother, I am comfortable in my own skin, and, for the first time in my life, am content to live a single life.
This sounds like a success story, but in every minute that my mind is not occupied by the routine of daily life, I am totally consumed by thoughts of my “ex”. Most of these thoughts revolve around the things he did and said. As we all know – the words and actions of these people are almost always opposite. After all, someone who “loves you more than anything……wants to be with you more than anything…….wants to marry you….is 100% committed to buying a house with you”, doesn’t hit you, trip you up, get on top of you with is hands round your neck, spit on you, and leave you to pay $4,000 a month for a house you moved into a month before (just to mention a few of the nightmare scenarios).
I need help with two things in particular:
– Every morning now, for over a year (since he left me paying for the house, a day after my dad died and my ex said, “you should be glad he’s dead”), I have woken up, and the very first thing that enters my mind is him. I am totally emotionally exhausted. I dread going to sleep at night. How can I stop this? It is worse, in some ways, than the abuse itself. I have considered going to a hypnotherapist, but am scared that, like medication, there could be “side-effects”. What should I do?
– My ex and I had an amazing sex life. I know this is common with psychopaths, and losing this I can live with. What I can’t live with is remembering how we were together in bed, in a very deep emotional way. We could lie there for hours, just stroking each other, massaging each other, “grooming” each other. When we fell asleep we would move through our three positions every night, all the time touching and stroking until we fell asleep. I can’t get that out of my head, and I miss it so much. I can read over and over again that, “it wasn’t real”, but it doesn’t remove the fact that it happened, and the feeling was real. How do I disconnect that amazing feeling from the person who gave it to me?
I really need help. Being so completely unable to control my thoughts is killing me, and though I can keep thoughts of him out of my mind when I’m totally busy, I can’t be busy all the time as I’d be exhausted!
I hope you have some insight, and thank you for your help.
First let’s repeat the basics. You cannot heal mentally without also addressing your physical health. Our friend is wise to be concerned about her state of exhaustion. It is important to eat healthy foods and get 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day. Also consider taking a daily multivitamin with minerals like calcium. Please limit alcohol and do not use street drugs.
It is very common for victims to respond to the financial and other life stress by feeling like they have to be energized and vigilant. This feeling that we have to be “on alert” is magnified by what our friend describes in her letter. The minute we slow down, we experience “the thoughts.” In fact, hypervigilance is noted to be a symptom of PTSD.
For many victims the hypervigilance comes naturally at first due to stress hormones. But, since this feeling of energy and alertness becomes a habit, victims want to maintain it. To do so over the long run they turn to caffeine.
Excessive consumption of caffeine (more than about 120mg/day) leads to insomnia, anxiety and depression. It is not difficult to overconsume caffeine since a Starbucks’ Grande has over 300mg.*
Many victims are afraid to cut down on the caffeine because they fear that if they are not super-alert they can’t keep going, and the thoughts will come back. Victims are also afraid to fall asleep because they fear being attacked in the night.
So how do you end the vicious cycle? How do you stop wanting to be on alert? First, you have to convince yourself that it is necessary to slow down and you have to have a means of coping with your fear/anxiety. Acceptance is an important ingredient here. Unfortunately, we have to accept that we are going to feel pain, fear and anxiety. That is a normal and even necessary part of this process. We often spend too much energy trying to fight the pain, fear and anxiety. A good therapist will tell you that tolerating these is an important part of recovery.
It is OK to let yourself feel it. I can say that to you because I say it to myself.
Apart from tolerance, coping by using relaxation techniques, exercise, psychotherapy and friendship is important. I recommend Stress Management for Dummies. I use that book to teach therapy students about stress management. Everything you need to know is in there and it is an inexpensive book.
About sleep- if you don’t sleep well you will be too tired to heal and you will be even more likely to need caffeine. Please discuss these alternatives with your physician, but I will mention two over-the-counter sleep aids that are considered safe in the short term that is why you can get them without a prescription. I believe Melatonin is the best option because of few side effects. Diphenhydramine is another option found in over-the-counter sleep aids. Be aware that this medicine causes weird anxiety reactions in some people and can cause you to want to eat at night. Since it dries out your mouth, it can also be bad for your teeth if you don’t brush well before bed.
Now I will specifically address the good and bad memories. In many experiments researchers have shown that good and bad memories are part of separate brain circuits. When people are in a good mood they have better access to “good memories.” When they are in a bad mood they have better access to “bad memories.” That is why the more you fight the pain and the fear, the more you will only remember the good part of that sociopath you were involved with. The good experiences you had with him/her are stored in a different brain circuit from the bad experiences you had.
The more you tolerate the pain, the more integrated your recollections will be because you will have emotional access to both the good and the bad at the same time. It is best not to try to over-control your thoughts, let them flow. Manage the pain and anxiety with relaxation techniques.
I also officially give you permission to enjoy the good memories you have. Those memories don’t have to cause you to try to go back. They are there as a record of your very real life experiences. The fact that you may have enjoyed some of the time you spent with a sociopath is O.K. and doesn’t mean you are a bad or stupid person.
Having said all this, it can take many years to get beyond all these symptoms. 4 months is a very short period of time, though it seems like an eternity when you are suffering. I am glad to see our friend is fighting, questioning and seeking. As for many of us, the well being of a child will be enhanced by her healing.
Please know that your children are aware of and observe your struggles. How you handle memories, pain/fear and anxiety can set a good example for them.
i felt it ~~!! 🙂
I am getting the feeling that you love yourself just a little more this evening, and it makes me very happy. I have tears in my eyes.
JAH,
I consider myself to be the kind of person that knows just a little bit about alot of things. And many things I am completely ignorant.
There are only a few topics that I know alot about. Alcoholism is one of them. I had a recovering alcoholic for a therapist years ago. I learned ALOT from her about alcoholic behavior and alcoholic thinking and much more. More than I learned from all the books I read and Alon combined.
If this is his first time drinking since Jan it might be possible ( now in hindsite) that there were a few signs that he was going to fall off the wagon. That first year of sobriety is very difficult.
Sometimes you see a decline in meetings (if he was going) Or a “false sense” of he is fine and will never drink again so he doesn’t need the support. Or just plain old excuses.
If he was trying to get sober on his own that is a very slippery slope. It is very hard. Compare it to getting over a P/S/N without ANY kind of support system whatsoever.
If I remember correctly I thought you had posted at one time that he drank for many years and you were unaware of his alcoholism? I call this “closet alcoholism” for lack of a better term. And my husband was one of these. The only difference was that I knew he was drunk but he hid the bottles from me. The closet alcoholic can be baffling because you never see them drink but the end result is they are intoxicated. My husband hid his drinking well, when we were dating but the intoxication became apparent when I lived with him.
It is the hardest kind of alcoholism to deal with in my opinion, because they can pull it off and hide it from so many people in their lives that never see them drink. Bosses, parents, their own children ect. And because they believe they have the “power” to hide it so well, it is hard to trust them when they have lived this secret and kept it from so many.
Because alcoholics will deny, deny deny….It is the nature of the desease.
The best thing you can do for yourself right now is to actually learn as much as you can about this desease and try and understand it to the best of your ability.
“Open” AA meeeting are another great resource for learning about it. You need to learn to detach and this is a very hard thing if you don’t understand what you are detaching from.
henry,
I agree with star. Suicide leaves a wake of guilt for those left behind. We somehow think we should know that they were contimplating this. But we don’t know.
Your sister would want you to be happy. I have tears in my eyes to.
You sent me a big teddy bear hug once when I needed one and Im sending you one back.
henry,
My tears are because I think it will be a painful process for you to go through BUT I do think it will bring you to the other side of this. And once on the other side of this childhood pain, I think you will be free in a way you never have felt before.
Pain that stays with us from our childhood into our adulthood holds us in captivity. And because it seems such a “part of us” we sometimes don’t even recognize in ourselves that it is there.
Until someone else points it out to us or until some life changing experience (such as your X p) presents itself in our lives….And in trying to heal from that experience we get stuck. And don’t understand why.
These childhood tramas are why we get stuck. Because we never healed from them.
Henry,
I’m sending you some great big cyber hugs!(((()))))! I am so sorry you are feeling down. It is so hard to be alone sometimes. The only “contacts” I have with the “outside world” are work & church. I have acquaintances at both, no one I would consider a real friend, tho. Last year I took a Sunday school class on Total Forgiveness, & this year I have started one entitled “The Battlefield of the Mind”, by Joyce Meyer. I hope it helps me to process all this garbage in my mind & heart. I am so worn out with all these thoughts & nightmares. Every time I think I might be ready to reach out my hand to someone, my inner self snatches it back in total fear. I hate feeling this way…
I am similar to everyone here having gone through the period of obsession throughout the relationship and a period of obsession in knowing it is over and trying to understand the pathology I was actually living with. I consider each new piece of information I get a paradigm shift that allows me to look at the whole in a totally new light, but requires that I relook at everything again.
When I first started seriously thinking that maybe he did have a personality disorder, I started copying and pasting from websites things that resonated from articles and other people’s experiences. I copied pages of descriptions from abuse websites, the original Mask of Sanity transcript – I gathered till I had over six hundred pages of information. I think in doing this I was creating a resource to show myself this was not a normal relationship. Any problem I ever raised was quashed, minimised, ignored, devalued or renounced by him. In my mind he cannot argue with six hundred pages = that proves it for me.
In addition to this I started writing my own specific examples of behaviours and attitudes based on what I read – if I read about passive aggression, I would write five or six pages about situations where he had employed this tactic and what the effects were on me as a result of his strategies.
It really is a wonder I didn’t end up in a psych ward. This person warped and denied every impulse I had screaming within my body that this was bad. He denied there was anything wrong and said my instincts were all off kilter – how could he have anything but the best intentions for me?
Like everyone else, I am decidedly reluctant when it comes to relationships – I have been single for over two years now and know I am wasting what little time I have left. I just can’t seem to move though. I feel old and vulnerable too. I don’t want to go out drinking and put on my fake mask that everything is great and dandy. I just want to curl in a corner and cry for my lost life – the life that should have happened.
I am on the way back up though – this is a hundred times better than it was four years ago when I really didn’t want to be alive anymore. THAT was a scary time. He didn’t beat me – he gave it everything he could but my light was stronger than his void of nothingness. I was almost destroyed in the fight, but there is enough flicker of light left to combat the dark 🙂
SStiles – I am in the same position as you – lots of aquaintances but few real friends who would understand. I am lonely but don’t have the energy to waste in ‘do-gooding’ at the moment by getting involved in volunteering or community work. I need to reserve it for myself and my health condition. I am hoping we recover our old selves once the wounds are cleaned out and get a chance to heal. I won’t be as accepting in future though – I was a real doormat in the past!!
Arohanui Dr Leedom – thankyou so much for sharing your experience and vast knowledge. The fact you are so educated and advanced gives others the courage to admit that although they have great careers they were sucked in by a leech as well.
Pollyannanomore,
First of all, I’m totally in awe of your cataloging and researching skills. You could probably write a thesis or a book on sociopathy. That is pretty impressive. It sounds like this helped you to come out of denial and stay out. This is tremendous. I don’t know your story, but I’m guessing you were with him for a while, so the work you have done is great, and you should give yourself a lot of credit for this. (Many graduate students would probably hire you to write their thesis for them!)
Right now, you are still hurting and trying to force yourself to forget about your ex. But this is counterproductive when you are still grieving, as it sounds like you are. You need to first give yourself permission to feel like crap, no matter how long it’s been. You are not wasting your time by loving and accepting yourself for where you are at. If you just let yourself be where you are at, you can trust that one day, it WILL change.
The next step is to look at what was going on inside of you while the relationship was starting and while it was progressing. What was it inside of you that was vulnerable? What weaknesses (or strengths) of yours did he exploit? Asking these questions and looking for honest answers takes the focus off of him and puts it on you, which is where the real work begins. You may learn some things about yourself that are painful or difficult to look at. Facing all of those things will get you to the other side of the healing process. All of us are in different stages of this process.
Right now, you are still hurting and trying to force yourself to go out and find someone else to forget about your ex. But this is like putting a bandaid on a broken leg. You are genuinely hurting, and you need to address the cause of the hurt, which may have nothing to do with the sociopath.
I hope any of this may be helpful, and if not, it doesn’t hurt my feelings if you tell me I’m wrong. 🙂
Witsend, Yes, you remembered correctly. Thank you. I have reread and reread what you wrote, and also just called to go see a therapist next week. “Closet alcoholic” Yup. And I am detaching. Or at least I’m saying all the right and mature words. I’ve told him this is his problem, he is the only one that can fix it, that I’m just watching what he does, and in the meantime, I’ve got to concentrate on my job. So I am more determined to really detach and get my intestines back under control. Thank you. I’m just trying to put it all out of my mind. But he was gaslighting me, projecting, all that…which I didn’t think he was capable of. It has shook me, as it is very P behavior, but he treats people well, I know he isn’t a P, but it shook me for him to try those tactics on me.
Star I think you deserve a Gold Star for being therapist of the week, if not a gold star a Bozo Button for being so sweet. Your insight is valuble, thanks again,,,Polyananomore – I am impressed with your post. Back when this all first happened I slept with books about sociopaths and personality disorders, I was trying so hard to find the answers. Have you read the essay on Romeo Bleeds? I dont know the link but it describes living with a cluster B so well. And isnt it ironic that you and I both say we are 100% better now than then, but still we continue with healing ourselves, I guess that is a good thing.