Understanding helps us heal from our painful experiences. Understanding also helps us avoid repeating those experiences. What is understanding? Understanding is knowledge gained by our higher-verbal brain that helps it to manage our lower non-verbal brain. Understanding is, therefore, a path to our own impulse control. In the next few weeks, I am going to present a series on the science of motivation. I hope that a new understanding of motivation will help you in your quest for healing.
Where does motivation come from?
The first thing to understand about motivation is that it does not originate in our higher verbal brain (the cerebral cortex). It originates in our non-verbal, lower brain or limbic system. This part of the brain performs the functions of what Freud called the unconscious mind.
The unconscious mind is very much like wind. It is unseen yet very powerful. We know it exists because we see its effects and we can feel it. Yet, we do not know exactly where its force is coming from. Just as an experienced sailor uses his understanding of the wind to travel, one who understands motivation can use its energy to go far.
Motivation starts with the anticipation of pleasure
Motivation research began with the discovery of the fact that rats will press a bar to obtain various rewards. This discovery allowed scientists to study motivation in mathematical terms. For the first time, we had a measure of desire and therefore motivation. If a rat pressed a bar many times, he showed a strong desire for a particular reward. With these measures we discovered that motivation starts with the anticipation of pleasure. Something about pleasure is rewarding in that pleasure causes behaviors to be repeated.
We soon discovered that all the things that act as rewards and that increase motivated behavior are sources of pleasure. These things are food/water, sex, entertainment, possessions, affection, social dominance and substances of abuse. When a behavior causes us to get these things, we repeat that behavior. Thus, by some brain process, an association is made between an action and its outcome—getting a source of pleasure. All rewards influence motivation by affecting the same brain process.
Pleasure is necessary for learning an association between action and obtaining reward. This association, once made, causes behaviors to be repeated. Repeated behaviors are motivated behaviors. Pleasure, therefore, is the beginning of motivation. The things that give us pleasure are necessary for survival and we physically need them. We want and crave these things and we like them because they are sources of pleasure.
Needing, wanting and liking
There is an interesting interplay between needing, wanting and liking. For example, when a person is starving, food is much needed, and thus very pleasurable. Food becomes less needed, and thus less pleasant, for someone who has already eaten. The motivation for a particular type of reward is not constant but waxes and wanes, as does the pleasure from that reward. One piece of chocolate, for instance, can be quite tasty and rewarding. But even a chocolate connoisseur will probably only experience disgust if he or she is forced to eat two pounds of chocolate at once!
Recently, scientists trying to understand addiction have discovered something truly remarkable. That is, although pleasure is required to establish a behavior pattern, pleasure is not required to maintain that behavior pattern. Wanting related behaviors can occur in the absence of pleasure and are called compulsions. The bottom line is that wanting to do something and liking to do that something are not the same.
Cues from the environment become associated with pleasure in the early stages of establishing a motivated behavior. Later, these cues trigger wanting to do the behavior even in the absence of pleasure obtained by that behavior. Addiction is the best model for understanding this aspect of motivated behavior. Long after the addict has stopped feeling pleasure from the addictive substance, things that remind him of using trigger drug cravings and the compulsion to use. The brain pathways that are active in craving, wanting and pursuing addictive drugs are the same ones involved in all motivated behavior. This is why addiction affects all motivated behavior.
Motivation and healing from a relationship with a sociopath
Where am I going with all this psychology? I am trying to convince you that your compulsion to be with a sociopath can continue even after the relationship has stopped giving you pleasure. The sociopath knows instinctively that all he/she has to do is hook you in the initial pleasure phase, and you will continue to feel a compulsion to be with him/her. Sociopaths typically change in their relationships once they sense the other person is hooked or attached.
Just as cues trigger craving in addicts, reminders of the sociopath can trigger a longing for that initial relationship. Furthermore, just as complete abstinence is the only hope for recovery from addiction, staying away from the sociopath is the beginning of recovery.
Even though the maintenance of addiction and attachment to an undesirable person are the same, I do not believe that attachment to a sociopath is a sign there is something wrong with you. The sociopath and the substances of abuse hijack a brain pathway meant to serve survival. Once hijacked, the survival system becomes a path to destruction.
If a sociopath has hijacked your attachment pathway, start to break the compulsion today. Use your conscious mind and stay away from the person, don’t answer emails or phone calls. Remove from your life as much as possible reminders of the relationship. Distract yourself with other pleasures. Lastly, do not isolate yourself from other people. Since the sociopath has hijacked your attachment pathway, if you are “starved” for affection, your craving for him/her will only increase if you are lonely.
Next week we will discuss the brain pathways and hormones involved in the love bond.
Hi Learningme
Just checking on you….how are you doing?
I have a question. What is the difference between recovering from an addiction to a relationship with a sociopath (in my case an extreme narcissist), and recovering from just a “normal” relationship where things simply didn’t work out and you part ways peacefully? Don’t people who leave each other, who are NOT disordered, also experience a feeling of missing the other person so badly that it’s like an addiction? What is the difference?
Some of you know my story from other postings, but my ex-N (and I’m still battling the no-contact thing, what with the divorce still pending) doesn’t want to give me up. He is seeing a therapist and willing to admit to all his wrong-doings. But I’m just beyond going back anymore – too much betrayal and abuse and lies. If he can modify his behavior and do better with someone else, good for him, but I’ve had enough. So why am I still questioning my decision.
The issue of the addiction plagues me. I’ve been separated 2.5 months now and every single day is a battle for me, I have to have the same conversations with myself, my friends & family, to convince myself that it IS for the best that I leave. That even if he improves, it doesn’t matter anymore. That I haven’t somehow been too hard on him and judged too quickly, and thrown out a 13-year marriage that could have been salvaged. Why does part of me still fear having regret over cutting him off.
Hi Tmassar
Your question: “Don’t people who leave each other, who are NOT disordered, also experience a feeling of missing the other person so badly that it’s like an addiction? What is the difference?”
I’m not an expert on addiction. In fact, the only addiction I’ve experienced is the one with the S and now I can understand how overpowering an addiction can be. I believe the neuropathways in our brains have been altered in the process so we’re fighting against our own chemicals.
I think part of the difference may be that people who aren’t addicted to their partner are not overwhelmed by desperation to reconnect at any cost even at the expense of their sanity, their emotional stability, their children/pets, their work or friendships.
They don’t have to struggle to put on the brakes. This addiction, like all others, can cause a sense of powerlessness over our feelings or actions. Someone who’s addicted to ice cream (ok…maybe me sometimes) will struggle knowing that there’s still ice cream in the freezer when someone who’s not addicted can forget about it.
TMASSAR, glad to see you here. MY opinion, and that is all it is is an “opinion” is that when we have a normal “this isn’t working out” thing with someone who is not an N or a P (and BTW I think your N is a P rather than just an extreme N, because an “extreme N” =a P) anyway, when you break up with a normal relationship, you may be angry at them, or you may be sad, but you won’t FEEL BETRAYED and USED.
It is the feeling of betrayal, the feeling of being disrespected, gaslighted, mindf&@ked, when they “at first” were “everything” you thought you wanted on a silver platter—I think it is realizing that it ISN’T like a normal break up.
Your “symptoms” that you are describing sound to me like the “addicted” problem, otherwise it wouldn’t be THAT hard. I’ve had several relationships over my adult life time that lasted from one to four years (never married them but close) and each of those break ups was somewhat painful, but I am still FRIENDS with all of these men, we still keep in contact, we respect and LIKE each other. None of these men ever BETRAYED me, or called me names, or used me, or LIED to me. My divorce was painful (my husband was mentally ill) and his father was a psychopath and using him and me, but I don’t feel that my X betrayed me or used me, or never loved me, I don’t and never did hate him. I was never so angry at any of these break ups that I lay awake nights wondering how I could “get even” with them. Then realizing that my mind was twisted and that wasn’t “Me”—because I’m not like that, vengeful.
The FAKENESS of their “love” is another thing that is painful.
Your X may be “playing the game” with therapy and so on, but I will bet the farm against a nickle that he is just using that for another manipulation tool to get back with you. I don’t have to have a crystal ball, or be a witch or a gypsy to make that prediction. I think everywoman and man here will second me on my “prediction”—it is WHAT THEY DO.
Tmassar, your marriage can’t be saved, it NEVER WAS. It was only your fantasy that he presented to you, he was never what he pretended to be. He was always what he IS. A liar and a cheat. They can’t comprehend normal emotions and bonding….it is all about them. I am sure right now that he has been taken away from his “security” he is frightened and scared that he may have to go out into the world to find another victim, and you were so willing for so long, it made him feel secure to have you there.
Second guessing yourself is normal though, I think we all do it, I know I did with every psychopathic relationship I ever had, but in retrospect, NO CONTACT is the only way to “win”
I’m proud of you for holding to your resolve, and it will strengthen and the second guessing will decrease. When I am “making” a decision I stress out more until it is “final” and then I usually relax and dont’ look back. (((hugs))))
Hi OxD!!! Great, great to hear from you. I hope you’re well.
“He was always what he IS.” – what a great line – it’s so ironic, just today he emailed me to say “I am not what you think I am” (ie, with respect to his philandering) – i found that such a tragic statement coming from him.
Yeah, extreme N = P – this made me laugh out loud.
Indeed he was secure with me – I offered him everything – emotional sanity, the appearance of a normal healthy relationship, a second income, and all his creature comforts. And I let him do his own thing, I tried not to make demands because when I did, there was hell to pay.
I write these things and I think, what HAPPENED to me, that I would even doubt myself???
I feel sorry that he suffers these disorders, that he probably can’t have what he wants: a normal life. It’s a tragedy, no matter how much bad stuff he did.
But you’re right – I do feel betrayed, used, confused, hurt in a way that has no clarity to it. And remaining his friend – I can already see it’s impossible.
Hi Gang….. Learning me—– My x made threat’s to me, once when I told him he had to leave and he could’nt take the car. He said if I don’t get the car I WILL ROCK YOUR WORLD. I was kinda stunned at that comment, after all I had done to make him human. Well he did rock my world, one stone at a time. It took almost three year’s of wanting to believe him, trying to love him. I gave him my soul. I became empty and of no value to him, he had drained me of all life. So he left, and now is with his next victim. The last thing he said to me was. ( Actually I am a honest person until I get f—ked over). Learning Me- Please listen to Eyes Opened and read every post. Why would we want to be with someone that make’s cruel threat’s? Love does not hurt. You have come to a place in your life where it is TIME to move on. I was like you, just a big bundle of nerve’s, I never wanted to kill myself but dying would of been better. I just wish I had found this website along time ago, then I would not have kept taking him back. The last time I even begged him to come back, I said if you don’t come back that means you HAVE been using me all this time. It was the final realization that all my doubt’s were right. It was hard to accept. But educate yourself about personality disordered people and in the process you will find yourself again. Because he will leave you in the end, I regret that I was the one that got left the last time. I wish I had left him sitting at the bus station like the homless drifter he is…..
DEar Tmassar,
I hope that you can stay with your resolve now, but there may come times that you start to doubt again, and if you do, come here and read and re-read, and your strength will return.
Yea, it is a shame that ANY creature would be in this world totally ALONE and they are alone because they can’t bond to anyone in a normal sense of needing and loving another person. BUT that is NOT our responsibility to give them sucor because they’ave had bad luck in the genetic and environmental pool. Just like a rattle snake is poison, and while you may feel empathy that he doesn’t have a lot of “friends” because of that, no matter how much you love it, or pet it, it is NOT GOING TO GROW FUR AND BECOME A PUPPY. Your soon to be X husband is the same way, no matter how much you pet him or love him, he isn’t going to gorw a conscience and start loving you. It just AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN.
Good luck with your divorce, and hey, watch your back, whenhe realizes you are really REALLY NOT coming back he may become vindictive and try to screw you over in the settlement—NEVER LET YOUR GUARD DOWN FOR A MINUTE, HE IS WHAT HE IS….and you know what THAT is!
((big hugs))))
Dear henry: Think of it this way. When you met, didn’t you think he was your soul mate, the best relationship you ever had in your life … never arguing, always liking the same things, couldn’t believe your luck that someone out in the world was that compatible with you? Yeah, then after they got what they wanted from us … they moved on … and not with the ones that were behind the scenes either … someone new … All of a sudden, there’s a crack in the fascade. The once happy relationship is causing some sort of friction, except the friction doesn’t come up at an appropriate time, it comes out of no where … out of the blue. So we question them if there is something wrong. Answer: NO, nothing is wrong. So we believe them on that answer and we’re still going strong on the relationship, just thinking we’re hitting this rock patch, or our partner is off in their emotions … give them space … give them room. When all along, they’re dragging us in front of a train and we didn’t even know we were on the tracks. That’s why it’s so devastating. Get it. That’s what all these Ex’s did to us … the Madonna trip using people to step over to get what she wanted. And any Madonna fans out there … don’t shoot me … it was her quote in a magazine years ago how she used everyone to get where she is. So don’t shoot the messenger please.
Wini– Like I have said before, he left here in much better shape then when he came here. New teeth. a driver license for the first time in 10 years. Insurance in his name. A 2000 ford ranger, paid for! A better paying job! He even took my clothe’s!!! And all the hanger’s!!! This website is priceless. NOBODY understand’s the damage. Only those that have been with and survived the evil’s of the dememted physco’s understand. btw Madona is no fan of mine, and she is getting divorced, again. I hope her X get’s million’s……………
P. S. sorry but I cant spell the best!!!lol and speaking of his white ford ranger, man I never knew their where so many white ford ranger’s! when I see one I get a little panic attack………..not because it might be him but because I had to sell my new truck and am now driving a 95 chevy…..