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.
Speaking of addiction, as much as I love Lovefraud, I feel like I’m getting addicted to it. Has anyone else felt that? I’m not sure I like feeling so compelled to check in here. Maybe I’ve switched my addiction from him to here.
Hmmmm….
Yes and no. How is that for a “definite maybe”? LOL
I think it is sort of like an AA for victims of the sociopaths.
We were addicted (in some ways) to a “narcotic” of sorts, the high we felt with them. Yea, we are now “clean and sober” but there is always the tendency that we might “fall for it again” and so we continue to learn and reinforce our “sobriety” by communicating with others, and also we help those that are just “getting sober” or that are contemplating sobriety.
Healing is a journey, not a destination, just as “getting clean and sober” is a journey for someone addicted to alcohol or drugs or whatever.
I think the “test” is do you have a life outside of lovefraud? Do you think about other things besides recovery?
I’m here a lot, but I’m retired, and I work on the farm and other things and when I come inside to sit down and rest, or to hydrate myself, I just check in. I can put in 8 hours a day of work, it just takes me 12 to do it! (with breaks in between) LOL
Things sill occasionally “trigger me”—even as well as I was doing I got triggered by an encounter with my mother a couple or three weeks ago (retirement takes away your concept of “time”) LOL so I do know that I can “fall off the wagon” when I least expect it. Getting a daily dose of strength and good ideas, etc. and feeling that my posts DO help others gives me a sense of accomplishment, as well as reinforces my “sobriety.”
I also realize now that I am not “craving” a relationship with a man like I did. I am not as vulnerable as I once was, but in all relationships we have there are bumps in the road and I get strength to handle them from lovefraud. I am pretty new at setting boundaries for those in my closer circle, and that is an anxiety producing thing. By coming here and WRITING about boundaries and how important they are, I reinforce MYSELF. I guess in someways it is like journeling.
I’ve always found that when I am TEACHING something I learn MORE than the students I am teaching if that makes any sense.
I get a feeling of growth and uplifting of spirits in exchanging posts with people I have seen down on their knees like I was, and now they are standing tall. What a short time ago that Henry and Lilygirl were as “crazy” as I was when in the depths of despair, and now they are starting to stand tall and help lift up others. HOW WONDERFUL IS THAT!!!
What about the Bird and the Baby Bird! How wonderful to see how Bird has progressed in the last three months from total despair to being the proud mother of her child, what strength she has shown in her road to recovery from the depths of despair she was first in when she got dumped by her “soul mate”—-Gosh, was that just three monts ago? It is only one year ago (well two weeks short of a year) that I was still in HIDING from the Ps before they were arrested! Look how far I have come in that year! My life is back on track. How ungrateful for the suport I received from here I would be if I didn’t offer a hand out and a hand up to some newbie coming here in total chaos and craziness, filled with pain at disocvering their “soul mate” was a psychopath. Telling them that IT WILL GET BETTER.
If that’s “addiction” to lovefraud, so be it. It isn’t the “only” life I have, or the only thing I think about, but it is comforting in several ways. The lovefraud peeps aren’t my only friends, or my only interests. But for now I think I’ll stay. (((hugs))) to you all!
Dear OxDrover: I agree with your YES and NO answer.
Hey, for those still grieving after they are gone … they were mirroring us. I believe that is the highest form of a compliment. Anyway, just lessons to learn as we go through life … meeting people such as the (obnoxious of the world) … gets us to our true spiritual selves … aka closer to God. Not a bad trade off if any one would cares to view it the way it is. More pain in our lives on the path to God … the closer to God we get.
Peace.
Eyes Opened. I understand what you say about feeling addicted to Lovefraud. If it weren’t for this website, I probably would have taken back the other addiction (him), and from the knowledge I have gained here I will not continue with the same damaging pattern’s. This is a place for me to re-affirm myself that , yes he is a sociopath. Sometime’s I just need to vent or journal. The few friend’s that I have don’t understand. I hope someday I can move forward and not feel the need for this website. But eyes opened (you) are helping me and other’s recover. I have become attached to many screennames here and their story’s. I wonder what is going on with rriinnaa, and what in the hell is LilyGirl doing? Yeah we might be addicted, but I like to think I have found a safe place to heal. I am not here as much as I was in the beginning- but I still need my daily fix of lovefraud peeps. And I find some good humor here, sometimes I wonder if Beverly and I were dating the same jerk. And Baby Bird, wow that’s so cool to be aware of her struggles and the birth of her baby. I could go on and on about what this website has done for me. Thanks Donna and the rest of the gang!!!
This is the most informative piece of information I have been wanting to receive. Thanks so much. Now I see that there is a life out there for me after this destruction!
Hi Ox, Henry and Free
Thanks for your insight, and thank you Henry for your sweet words. They’re so kind.
Like you, I’m so grateful for Lovefraud and love my friends here, but I want to question any addiction I set up….and, interestingly, I think part of me is addicted to LF. It’s not bad, it just feels like there might be rite of passage at some point.
I did take a break right before New Years because I wanted a clean slate but then I dropped back in again just to see what was going on with everyone and…got hooked. It’s a good thing on one hand; it proves that LF is helpful and interesting and friendly. It really gave me clarity.
But, now it may be transitioning into a hook for me, rather than just transitioning into a healthy recovery from the S and I’m mulling over what that means. It’s not a bad hook; it’s just a hook now and I try to fight my hooks.
And, I have wondered if, because of where I am in my recovery, if by continuing to relate to my S experience, through the thoughtful posts and comments, if I’m not just connected to this site, but in some unconscious, comfortable way, to him…which I don’t want.
The mind is so complicated and can get so entangled. I haven’t come to a conclusion; it just feels like maybe this is something I need to look at for myself. It’s an interesting position to be in.
I need to figure out for myself when there’s a healthy time to stay and when, like other little baby birds, I have to tuck all my new strength and knowledge under my wings and fly into the future without keeping tethered to the past.
I may have to take my own advice and just leap. I think it isn’t now but maybe soon down the road.
Free..
Yes. I think you’re right. The beauty of it is that it’s all a very gentle, organic evolution into the future. It’s like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, hopeful and….like you…free.
In a way the posts and blogs are like a “serial”—Tune in again tomorrow fans, and see what happens with ……” except instead of a psychopath for a “hero/ine” you have the people recovering and you know their stories and you want to find out if they are doing well or continuing doing well. Maybe that is an “addiction”—or not, but it I don’t think is harmful.
I think it takes a great deal of time to process all the crap inside, not just getting to the stange that you CAN get out of the insanity and START to heal.
I’m seeing new things about myself that I never saw before–everyday. Good things and things that I would like to change. Much of the time those things come from a post here that makes me trigger on to “Ah ha” and then I think about it on a personal level as it applies to me.
I used to get so frustrated with my mother, from childhood,, she would “mind read”—tell me what I was thinking that she didn’t like…and most if not every time she was dead WRONG. I would try to “defend” myself and say “no, that’s not what I am thinking NOT at all” and Then she would accuse me of being a liar on top of “not thinking right”–DUH! Now, I realize that NO one can tell you how you think, they may say “you seem sad” or “you seem happy” but they can’t KNOW for sure.
How do you defend yourself from the “thought police?” You can’t of course, but it puts YOU on the defensive. I realize now that I shouldn’t have even tried to “defend” myself from that, but I got hooked inot it and I did try to defend myself from unjust accusations. That same behavior carried over to dealing with the Ps—
Now I do not J.A. D. E. Justify, Argue, Defend or Explain. It’s an easy concept to grasp AFTER you have seen it (it isn’t original from me of course) but it is sooo GOOD to know it. To use it to protect yourself from unjust accusations. It isn’t second nature to me yet, though, and so I have to stop myself when I start to JADE. It is like setting boundaries, first you have to determine when you need them…..when you start feeling like you are walking on egg shells around someone, or they are doing anything that makes you uncomfortable. Some people seem to do this automatically, but not having learned to set boundaries in a healthy manner when I was a child and a young adult (with family or people who are close) I have had to learn to do so. It is a painful process frought with uncertinty on my part. I don’t want to be “unreasonable” and since it is all shades of gray, not so much black and white, I have to determine by each individual circumstance what is “reasonable” and what isn’t.
I am learning though to do so and NOT feel guilty. I am learning to take care of myself instead of neglecting myself to take on responsibilities for others that they should be doing for themselves.
I’m learning to “listen” to myself—to know when to push myself to do something and when not to. I realized today that I had been procrastinating over something I needed to do, and procrastinating, finding anything to do instead of what I knew I needed to do…so finally I “made” myself do it. I did it, it took about 10 minutes and it was over, but for some reason (I’m not sure why) I just didn’t want to do it. There was a time when procrastination would have been okay, but that time is past now, and I need to do the things I need to do in a timely manner unless there is a REAL reason not to.
So I know that I still have a long way to go before I can say “I’m pretty well there”—I know I am a lot closer now than I was a year ago that’s for sure, but it does take TIME and work. Time to contemplate our toes if that is what we want to think about to zone out, and time to quietly listen to our inner desires and fears. Time to set priorities and times to not set priorities.
Though I “have come a long way, baby,” I do realize that when you look at the continual crisis and trauma I have been through over the past four years since my husband died July 14, 2004, one year is little enough time to process all of it.
Just making the 180 degree turns I have made by itself, cutting out the Ps from my life, is a big enough “change” to cause plenty of stress. Life does go on though, and we have to keep living, keep breathing, keep doing laundry, keep mowing the grass, keep cooking, and so on. I have been fortunate that I have been able to retire from a stressful job so I didn’t have to keep working while I processed all of this insanity, and I admire those of you who have kept on working and raising kids and playing soccer mom while your inner worlds are falling apart. It all takes energy and stamina.
I’m just grateful to God for being alive and having the chance to heal and to have the family and friends I do have that DO understand, and for the peeps here at LF that REALYY understand from a first hand experience. ((((big hugs to you all)))
Eyes and Free Yes you both make a very good point. I think coming here comfort’s me but at the same time keep’s me connected to the pain. Several week’s ago my son said I was spending too much time focusing on what (HE) did to me and I just needed to get over it, get off the computer and start living again. I think about (going out) gettin involved with someone, maybe I need to find some new friend’s. But I still feel numbed by my experience with the Boogerman. I think I am still healing. But YES I understand what you are saying, thank’s for expressing that Eyes, it is something to ponder……..
Thanks, Henry.
And, you know, I wonder about some of the other screen names. I, too, wonder about Riinnaa.
Do you remember Sorrow, the Danish woman? That was such a sad name for me to see and she was so distraught and confused. I was so worried about her and hoped that she was still out there reading and catching herself.
It’s the ones who are so raw and in such pain, isn’t it, that cause us to fear for their safety and welfare. LearningMe is another one.
Who else haven’t we heard from lately?