Ever since the beginning of recorded history, humans have been trying to understand and explain the mysteries of love and sex. Over the past few decades, scientists started using specialized equipment to measure physical arousal by attaching devices to private parts. More recently, they’ve been observing the most important romantic organ in the human body—the brain.
Forbes wrote about the research of Andreas Bartels, Ph.D., at the Imperial College of London. Bartels used a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine, which can capture images of brain activity, to pinpoint the areas of the brain that are activated by love.
Bartles did a study of 17 people who were madly in love. He had the test subjects look at photos of platonic friends and of their loved ones while he observed activity in their brains. The resulting images clearly showed that certain sections of the brain are stimulated by love.
The scientist then did another study to observe the brains of mothers looking at their infants. The images showed that exactly the same areas of the brain were stimulated by maternal love, except for an area in the hypothalamus in the base of the brain that seems to be linked to sexual arousal.
The conclusion, therefore, is that specific areas of the brain light up at the prospect of love.
Bartels also noticed something else: When the test subjects were feeling love, certain areas of the brain were turned off. The scans showed that three regions of the brain generally associated with moral judgment go dim.
Chemistry of love
Then there’s the chemistry of love. Helen Fisher, Ph.D., a professor at Rutgers University, has written that three networks in the brain, and their associated neurotransmitters, are associated with love. They are:
- Lust—the craving for sexual gratification, which is linked to testosterone in both men and women.
- Romantic attraction—the elation and yearning of new love, which is linked to the natural stimulants dopamine and norepinephrine, and low activity in serotonin.
- Attachment—the calm emotional union with a long-term partner, which is linked to oxytocin and vasopressin.
Fisher also did a study using fMRI technology. She scanned the brains of 40 men and women who were wildly in love. When these people gazed at photos of their beloved, the scans showed increased activity in the areas of the brain that produce dopamine. This neurochemical is associated with feelings of excessive energy, elation, focused attention and motivation to win rewards.
Dopamine, by the way, is also the neurotransmitter associated with addiction.
Effects of arousal
Research has also proven what we’ve probably all experienced—sexual arousal can make us throw caution to the winds.
In another study using fMRI technology, Dr. Ken Maravilla of the University of Washington found that sexual arousal dims down the parts of the brain that control inhibition and, perhaps, moral judgment.
“These are things that keep you in line, and in arousal they may become less active, allowing you to become more aroused,” Maravilla said, as quoted by Wired Magazine.
In a paper called, The Heat of the Moment: The Effect on Sexual Arousal on Sexual Decision Making, Dan Ariely, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and George Lowenstein, of Carnegie Mellon University, documented that being sexually turned on affected the judgment of college-aged men. (Well, duh ”¦)
Specifically, Ariely and Lowenstein found that, “the increase in motivation to have sex produced by sexual arousal seems to decrease the relative importance of other considerations, such as behaving ethically toward a potential sexual partner or protecting oneself against unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease.”
But another of their findings was, “people seem to have only limited insight into the impact of sexual arousal on their own judgments and behavior.” In other words, most of us don’t appreciate how strong the sex urges are, and how they can make us do things that perhaps we shouldn’t be doing.
Sociopathic seduction
So let’s look at all this information in the context of our relationships with sociopaths.
Two of the main strategies that sociopaths use to snare us are love and sex. They emphatically proclaim their love and consciously seduce us into having sex. So what happens?
- Love causes specific areas of the brain light up, and at the same time, areas associated with morals and judgment go dim.
- The areas of the brain that produce dopamine become active, and dopamine is related to addiction.
- Sexual arousal dims the parts of the brain responsible for inhibition and judgment that might prevent us from making bad choices.
- We don’t recognize the impact that sexual urges have on our judgment and behavior.
Dr. Helen Fisher writes that the three primary brain systems associated with love evolved over the ages to play different roles in courtship, mating, reproduction and parenting. They are Nature’s way of ensuring the survival of the human species.
Sociopaths convincingly proclaim their enduring love and their sexual desire for us. Not realizing the pervasive deceit of these predators, we believe that they love us. We have sex with them, and the sex is great. Many Lovefraud readers have been amazed at the sociopath’s sexual appetite and prowess.
Therefore, sociopaths hijack our brain through our feelings of love and the bonds of sex. In their seductions, they turn the natural psychological and chemical functions of our brains against us.
oxdriver
can i ask you how you work on getting rid of that ingrained pattern? i recognize a lot of what you described in myself. people think im so strong all the time and i cant seem to reach out for help cause i dont want it either at the same time ( or dont trust enough, my p ex was probably the first person ever i allowed to let all of my guards down with….), i keep holing myself up in the same patterns to. but enough about me, i would like to understand how youve been able to succeed in breaking such patterns ( or are at least on the right track). im in my twenties i dunno if that matters at all but you seem a bit older and wiser?
Dear MariaLisa,
I’m 63–that is a bit older! Wiser? Not sure about that, but have been dealing with Ps my entire life–and been “trained” to give to others ALWAYS and NEVER to myself, and always keep up th eAPPEARANCE that “everything is lovely” even when my LIFE IS CHAOS and I am in great pain. FAKE it. Keep up a MASK to cover my feelings. Never let the feelings of despair or pain show. Never make a fuss when someone is secretly abusing me. DO NOT talk about it outside the family, and can’t talk about it inside the family because I am told that I must PRETEND ALL IS WELL…of course they did not use THOSE words, but instead told me I would go to HELL if I did not “forgive” (but forgive was defined as pretend it didn’t or wasn’t happening”)
I started seeing CRACKS in the reality of this manner of living, but if I said anything I was emotionally punished as an adult where I would have been physically punished as a child or teenager for pointing out these cracks. A therapist told me once when I was in my 30s that I had the “thickest pair of rose colored glasses” she had ever seen. she told me that I would view dog doo doo through them and think it was CANDY! A very crude analogy, but I think she was RIGHT ON!
I walked on egg shells, so afraid to upset anyone who was making me miserable, I looked at people who were abusive to me and asked what was wrong with ME, rather than what was wrong with THEM.
It has only been a bit over a year since I have started to be both AWARE of these abuses (sometimes subtle) of “friends” who were not really friends, and who were taking advantage of me. At first I would cry, and then ask my son D if I was being “UN-reasonable” in setting a boundary (asking them not to treat me this way) I was SO AFRAID of “offending” anyone.
Funny thing was, I could stand up for myself well with strangers or people who were not close to me, but not with “friends” or family. So, I set the boundaries, and they stepped on them and continued the bad and abusive treatment of me. So, that gave me courage and I finally stood up and SET MY FOOT DOWN and said YOU WILL NOT TERAT ME THIS WAY in my own home, please leave.
You must be PREPARED that if the person yous et the boundary for does NOT respect it, that the RELATIONSHIP IS OVER.
I have told this story before but I am sure you have not read it because it was moths ago, but a long-time close friend of mine, a former college mate of mine, started to be “pushy” in some small trades we would make of things I had he needed and things I had and he needed and we would trade items. Then we had a small deal on raising some poultry together, nothing big or financially large (total amount was $100) but he did NOT keep his part of the bargain. I had felt uncomfortable in the other things, like he was trying to “take advantage” of me for just a few dollars, but this one was BLATANT NOT KEEPING HIS WORD AT ALL.
I confronted him about this breaking of his word and he said “Oh, no I didn’t BREAK the deal, I just CHANGED it.” DUH!!!! then he began to yell at me, call me a liar and so on, acted really BADLY—and this is afetr 25+ years of “friendship” and I told him to leave my home and never contact me again. I did NOT feel bad in doing this, because I do NOT deserve to be treated that way, much less in my own home. He never apologized or made any action or statement of remorse or acknowledged that he had done wrong at all.
My other “friends” (close friends of my late husband and my son D) were the same way, and continued to try to abuse my “good nature” for their own benefit, including small thefts. It was painful when I loved each of these friends so much, but I realized I did NOT deserve to be treated like that.
One otehr friend that I love dearly would occasioallly do something that hurt my feelings, and I told her about it, she japologized and said “I didn’t realize” it and she has NEVER DONE THAT AGAIN. Our relationship is BETTER than ever.
So you can SEE almost immediately who is your REAL friend and who is NOT. Look at their actions as well as words. If the words are sweet and the actions are NOT then you know the truth of the matter. Sometimes the Ps will be sweet to your face and say “sorry” but their ACTIONS are not demonstrating “sorry” or sure not for very long. REAL friends and people who value you do not knowingly treat you badly.
So if you are feeling that yo umust be very careful not to offend someone who is OFFENDING OR HURTING YOU, then set a boundary, speak with them about this behavior. If they will NOT discuss it, or not show remorse or concern, then get them out of your circle of trust. You may have to continue to work with them, live next door to them, etc. but you do not have to TRUST them or associate with them closely in your life and your heart.
That is about th eonly way I can explain it. I hope that makes sense.
oxy
it hurts to read youve been suffering for so long. i truly hope your elderly days ( your my moms age, so i hope you dont mind me calling it ‘elderly’!) will be so much more peaceful! acceptance and self love is so important. yet so difficult when youve not been programmed to do so.
im learning to do the affirmations. i dont know if youre familiar with them?
im so happy myself to have gotten out of my family and for the first time truly establishing my own life. i feel a lot of emptiness and loneliness and insecurity( while coming across to other people as a woman of the world, even an unemotional one, but like you I was the opposite), but i am understanding more and more its those inner voices that do that and it needs work to change them. it just sometimes feels like a darned lonely battle. me and my ex discussed these things so much. we were as he said working on ourselves within the safe haven of our relationship ( i was basically his slave but it sounded so good….!!!??)
i especially like your last paragraph, cause its something to remember everytime!!
Thanks, Oxy. I’ve been writing this post for a while, and you and MariaLisa have been swapping posts while I’ve been doing it. I hope this adds something to the discussion.
The only real cure I’ve found for this is to stop pretending that things are okay, and grieve.
There’s something about facing up to these feelings, and surrendering to how we really feel about it, that is kind of magical. The good doesn’t come from crying. It’s that the crying brings us back in touch with ourselves, and the real beliefs about what we want and deserve. We’re really not crying about them. We’re crying about our own lives, how they’re not the way we hoped they’d be. And somehow that brings us back to what we have to learn and do to rebuild.
We don’t really think about this until we stop doing it, but stuffing and denying and faking is a form of collaboration. It’s like agreeing to be beaten, agreeing to enable it by keeping the secret, not protesting it with every fiber of our bodies and souls.
We get into these habits when we’re children, and we really have no choice. As children, if we fight back in abusive situations, we risk our whole survival. But then, when we take these survival strategies into the adult world, we are trained to be passive, to be afraid of speaking up or drawing boundaries. And most particularly, we are trained to put other people’s wellbeing ahead of our own.
There are a lot of historical, social and biological issues that complicate what I’m saying here. Mostly for women, though they affect men too. It wasn’t that long ago that women were property, and their ability to support themselves usually came at some social costs. When I grew up in the ’50s, both working and divorced woman were often stigmatized. The impact of birth control and the computer revolution makes it possible for me to talk about these issues to women who can actually imagine financial and emotional independence without sacrificing a great deal for it. But it doesn’t mean that the influence of our history — and present reality for women in other cultures — doesn’t continue to affect us.
That’s a side trip, but it’s meaningful to what I am saying here. We can make a choice to stop thinking, feeling and behaving like victims. Just because we make that choice doesn’t mean that we don’t have to work to unlearn beliefs and behavior that hold us back. And in doing so, not just change ourselves, but also stop the transmission of power-based dysfunction across generations, in the workplace, and wherever we live and act.
There are simple words that can make a difference in the way we think and how we communicate. “This hurts me.” “This is not what I want in my life.” “I am disappointed.” “I don’t understand this.” “This doesn’t work for me.” “No I don’t agree.” “I think another way would be better.”
They’re reactive phrases, negative reactions to what creates fear, anger and grief in us. But they are also positive in the way they reflect caring for ourselves. And describing, even in a negative way, of what we really want, what we think would be good for us.
One of the most damaging aspects of the splitting I described is that it actually is a form of gagging ourselves. In order to protect ourselves or keep the peace or “earn” love, we lie.
In my case I never told the truth about myself in all the years of my life. Never said what I really wanted. Never was honest about how I really felt. I was always trying to please someone, to make sure that they continued to want me. It was only in recovery from the relationship with the sociopath that I realized that I could never have a healthy relationship if I couldn’t find the courage to risk rejection. And then, for me, the great challenge was, and continues to be, understanding my own feelings. When I get triggered, it can take me days to sort it out. But now, I have to, because I don’t want to lie to myself or anyone else anymore.
Obviously, I’m not suggesting that we become emotionally transparent in every environment. Not all relationships are intimate and trusting ones, so not all relationships get “all of us” without any withholding. Work is about work. Parental relationships are about caring for the children. Casual relationships are relatively superficial. But at minimum, we should understand ourselves, so that we can make appropriate choices about what to communicate in order to take care of ourselves and get what we want and need. If we are in denial with ourselves, we can’t do that.
So to get back to the strategy for ending this, it’s to take our losses seriously and grieve them. Be conscious of the difference of how we wanted it to come out and how it did. Make it out us, our live, and interpret these dramas as something that happened to us. Us. It’s not about them. It’s about our dreams and hopes, our learning, and our recreating our lives with more knowledge of what we really want and how to get it.
Focussing on them is going for one thing. Extracting the learning. And for most of us, this long focus on them that is typical in the early stages of healing is about one thing only. It’s shaking out the facts and memories to reach the conclusion that a bad thing happened to us.
That’s a simple phrase, and you’d think it would be easy to get to that conclusion. But for most of us, it takes time. We have to sort through a lot of conflicting feelings and memories. But eventually it does get clear. And when it does, we can move forward to figuring out what to do about that sort of thing in the future, what we are going to learn from this so we’re smarter, stronger and able to love in healthier and more productive ways.
Forgive the long post. I’m really tired today. For some reason, I haven’t had much sleep in almost a week. But I wanted to say this, because I think it’s really important.
Kathy
Dear MariaLisa,
It was difficult for me to accept that my egg donor (mother) would lie to me, and that then to realize she had lied to me my entire life, and made me accept her lies as “truth”–accept her lies as the BASIS of my belief system, both personally and religiously. It was a SHOCK even at my age at the time (60) but it was ONLY when I realized that my ENTIRE belief system of what was the CORRECT way to deal with bad people (inside or outside of the family) was WRONG, was EVIL, it was only then I could formulate a NEW belief system and a new way of reacting and acting myself.
Again, this gets down to our fundamental SOULS of ourselves what we believe and what we ARE. I read Dr. Viktor Frankl, a German Jewish physician who was in the prison camps of Hitler, and suffered the total loss of everything except his life. Afterwards he wrote a book called “Man’s Search for Meaning.” I HIGHLY SUGGEST that you read this wonderful and life affirming book about the EMOTIONAL CONSEQUENCES of suffering and how we must find some meaning in it or die. Either a physical death or an emotional death. This book has been printed in many languages and many places so I am sure you will be able to find a copy. It helped me so much to put a REASON for all of this, a meaning to it rather than just “random” suffering or “bad things happen to good people”—it was a turning point for me.
Stay on the path to healing the rest of your life MariaLisa, it is the only way that we can grow and continue to grow in my opinion, I am so glad that you have started on this journey in your youth because it will benefit not only YOU but your future relationships and your children’s future relationships. I hope it will help you NOT marry a P and try to raise children with one. I totally disagree with kathy about the cause of psychopathic mind sets, there is so very MUCH research evidence to show that there is a HUGE GENETIC COMPONENT in this, not only environmental or abuse that causes thie thinking. In my own son’s case, he was never abused, but turned out jsut like my psychopathic father, who had 3 other kids and only one of us 4 sibs was like my P sperm donor. The other 3 were normal people, in spite of the fact that my P father abused his 3 youngest, they were NOT Ps themselves, in fact, the one who was a P was NOT abused and was the “golden child” of that 3 younger group. He is also the only one of the 4 of us who had any contact with my P sperm donor at the time of my P-sperm donor’s death a couple of years ago.
My life now is very good, I am no contact with my P son and with my egg donor, my P sperm donor is dead and I have no contact with the sibs either, thoug hI would have liked to ahve contact with the two who are not Ps, it didn’t work out, but I can accept that. I have “weeded my garden” of close associates who are abusive or dysfunctional, and now only associate with those who love me and treat me with respect and kindness and do not try to use or abuse me. So life is good. I have PEACE in my life, I have GOOD friends in my life, and my two good sons are close to me, so what more could anyone want as they wind down their days on this earth? I no longer live in terror (though I do use CAUTION) and am quite able to stand up for myself. I still work on learning each new day and am grateful to my creator for all the blessings that He has afforded me. If I can use some of the things that have happened to me to encourage the young women (and men) I meet here, that is even better and makes it all more meaninful and productive. God bless you!!! (((hugs))))
Dear Oxy,
I get SO inspired by reading for instance your last post here. I will get that book! I use amazon, they ship books all over the world and I read English.
I wonder about the genetic part. My p ex told me he had a psychopathic father ( who was also an alcoholic) who abused him everyday of his life ( but 99% of what he told me turned out a lie so im not sure to believe this), but he has a lot of sisters ( a lot!) and they get along fine and function normal in society….
I sometimes wish AA would focus more on psychopathy ( there is definitely a correlation), I feel they sent my ex into the world with just more lies to tell ( also to himself he honestly believes his only problem is alcoholism, but his crimes have only become different and he gets caught less) and i wont even start on how he abuses the buddy system.
Again, Im so inspired by how youve overcome your suffering at least to the point you are feeling peace in your life.
Also thank you Kathy for taking time to write even though youre so tired. Your ideas about grieving are insightful, although i need to think about this a bit more, i just dont know when im just rolling back into telling myself im grieving but really am not letting it happen…stuff like that. ( so out of touch with my emotions)
its middle of the night here, i need to get some sleep. i hope you are having a wonderful day in the states!
DEar MariaLisa,
I am glad that you are starting to learn about all this, and to apply it to your own life and your own emotions, etc. It IS A LONG PROCESS, and can’t be done over night, but we must learn to spot them, and not let them get into us too deeply, and we must also learn how to respond to them….so it is a double learning process, about them and about ourselves.
As we learn and develop our own strength and TRUST in ourselves. After we have been fooled by a P once we sort of lose trust in OURSELVES to judge other people’s intentions, so we aer having to learn to TRUST OURSELVES again, after we have let ourselves down. I think that SELF trust is the hardest to get going again, I know it was for me. Now that I am learning to trust myself more, I feel so much more secure in my decisions and don’t second guess myself as much.
Keep learning my dear, and by the time you are my age, you will be a sage of a wise woman! (((hugs)))) and God bless. Oxy
Oxy marie Lisa and kathleen,
your exchanges here lastnight have been really important and timely for me to read .I think Oxy you described what I was trying to get to the bottom of when I asked about ‘splitting’, and the way in which I have been operating over the years, and Marie Lisa has kind of put her finger on the question which was how do you work on that ingrained pattern. Kathleen you insight is always so valuable and increadible.
(also – ML the dynamic of your relationship with this creep is so similar to how mine set up, thank you so much for talking about it so openly, it really helps me to understand)
‘Yet, even seeing this pretense in myself, I did nothing to change it, and it used up so much ENERGY I could have used for REAL HEALING, not “Faked” competence. Even now, when this is my “default” coping, I must watch for it returning, and not let the “pretending’ (to myself as well as others) creep backk in. It is difficult to change life-time coping skills. That is though what I am working on, and will I imagine have to work on for the rest of my life because they are SO INGRAINED.,
Ugh. My mother (who I am NC with) has turned up at my house because it is my daughters 18th Birthday ( an arrangement made with my daughter in secret!). I am sitting holed up in my studio, reading here for strength, while she is in the kitchen merrily drinking tea and showering her with gifts. I feel a bit like I am hiding in my own house(grrr!), but I want NO CONTACT, I am not yet near an indifferent enough stage to be in the same room. I will once again speak to my daughter about how I feel about this tomorrow as I don’t want to cause a fuss on her birthday, I think her wanting presents became more of a temptation than her respect for my wishes:( I always feel trapped or ambushed in these kind of situations because it always seems that if I assert myself It will always end up as me ‘causing a fuss and ruining something.’…
“… sadly i was quite taken by his intelligence in conversation. now i know it was intelligence in manipulation””
Sometimes i wonder was he intelligent at all . I am amazed by my own blindness, or it was mirroring??? He used to parot my words to impress others, to “learn’ the answers and how to expres empathy, love, comfort, and all the feelings he never had. Thats why they are intrested to hear our story : TO LEARN to talk about love/empathy. To learn about expressions of feelings. I would not say it is manipulative intelligence, because it is not genuine, just KARAOKE game 🙂
Tons of promises, none of them true, some even crazy, like: take my eyes if i ever let u down.
He loved to swear (what i really hated…another red flag).
Once i asked him to stop swearing, because honest people are having a word (of honour) and they do not need to swear. Later on, i read one his conversation where he used to “convince” new victim how honourable person he is, telling her he is not gonna swear , because his word should be enough :))))))
Like a lyrics , they are repeating our (victim’s) words suitable for exact occasion/feeling
It is so hurting to see ur own words, born from ur soul, USED, and than to realise he/she never listened u with empathy. We striped our souls and hearts infront of someone who did not listen to our pain/secrets/needs, but who listened to extract some “suitable” proverbs. GRRRRRRRRRR