By Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired)
Most of you know I have spent a good portion of my life training animals of various kinds dogs for obedience and to work livestock, horses, donkeys and cattle (oxen).
When we train animals, we “condition” them to do X and they receive Y reward. Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, conditioned dogs to expect to be fed by ringing a bell every time they got fed. Eventually when a bell was rung, even though there was no food in sight, the animals expected to be fed, and their bodies reacted by making them “slobber” at the mouth, just as they would if food were present.
B.F. Skinner, and American psychologist, observed that animals who had intermittent rewards, rather than continual rewards, would continue a behavior longer than animals who got rewarded every time they did an act. For example, a rat that pushed a lever and got a grain of food every time, would quickly stop pushing it if the food didn’t com. But a rat that sometimes got a food pellet when he pushed the lever would continue to pound on the lever for a very long time, or even never stop pushing it, even though he did not get a food pellet.
In humans, this “intermittent” rewards works in a slot machine, or in gambling games, because every once in a while you get rewarded. Therefore, you keep hoping that next time will be THE TIME.
Psychopaths and intermittent rewards
You may ask what this training technique has to do with psychopaths. Well, just as Las Vegas was built on intermittent rewards for gamblers, relationships with psychopaths are built on the intermittent rewards they give us.
At the first part of the relationship, the psychopath “love bombs” us by giving us the good things we enjoy compliments, doing things for us, great sex. WOW! We think we have found nirvana. Just as a dog I am beginning to train gets a treat every time he “sits,” then only sometimes when he “sits,” the psychopath only gives us the “loving” some of the time. Also, just as I eventually no longer give the dog a food treat any time he “sits,” and the most he will get is a “good dog” verbal compliment, or a scolding if he doesn’t sit fast enough, the psychopath quits giving us treats and gives us “scoldings.”
We have been conditioned by the psychopath to be and do what they want, because we still desire that initial “love bombing,” and we dread the “scolding” they will give us if we don’t “jump” when they say “frog.” We keep on hoping against hope that we will be able to please them again. We do whatever we can to keep the scoldings to a minimum and get them to reward us with “love” again.
Running for bread
It doesn’t make any kind of difference if the animal we are training is a dog, a parrot, a donkey, an steer, a horse ”¦ the conditioning works the same. Intermittent rewards cause the desired behavior to continue. If we give continual rewards every time they perform the behavior, it wouldn’t take long for the behavior to be extinguished when we stopped rewarding it.
My mammoth jack donkeys, Fat Ass and Hairy Ass, haven’t had a piece of bread (their preferred treat) in a year or more. But any time I go to the hangar and open the freezer, they come running up to the fence on the never dying hope that I will get bread out of the freezer and give them a piece. They are totally “conditioned” to that treat, and they know that the opening and closing of the freezer is what always preceded them getting a slice of bread.
The psychopath we have had relationships with know what “rings our chimes,” what makes us happy and what makes us sad, or what makes us angry. It is like a panel of buttons on the front of our chest. They know just the exact words to say, or the thing to do, that will press our “buttons” and get the reaction they want from us.
No Contact is the answer
No Contact keeps those buttons covered. That is why it works.
Psychopaths know that in the past, if they pressed “button A,” you would do B. So they will keep on trying because IT ALWAYS WORKED IN THE PAST. They just know if they keep doing it, it will EVENTUALLY work again. So they will press it harder and faster and longer. Just like some old lady sitting at a slot machine, plugging in quarters, she just “knows” that the very next quarter will get her a reward. Just like my donkeys running up to the fence when I open the freezer, they still hope to get a slice of bread, a reward.
Expect when you go No Contact that the psychopath will up the ante and will work harder and longer to get a reaction. If it takes 30 times for them to eventually get a reaction, THEY LEARN THAT it takes 30 TIMES TO GET A REACTION. If next time it takes 40 times, they learn that they must work a bit harder to get a reaction, so they keep on and on and never stop.
So hang in there. Once you make up your mind to go NO CONTACT, then STAY no contact, because if you give them ANY reward of ANY kind, even a well deserved “cussing,” it is still a reward. It is ATTENTION, and even negative attention is attention. Not being noticed at all is the worst punishment they can have.
If you are required by law to have contact with them, like if you share children, do it only by e-mail, so that you have a record of it. Discuss ONLY the children. Do not respond to any nasty comments they make. Refuse to discuss the other person with your children, and Gray Rock them entirely. NO emotional responses at all. If possible, get someone else to pick up and drop off the kids, so you do not have to see him/her. Or do it in a public place, a police department parking lot if necessary.
We can stop them only by not responding. So when your ex is trying to push your buttons, just think about Joyce’s donkeys Fat Ass and Hairy Ass running up to the fence for a slice of bread. Visualize your psychopath with long ears, standing there trying to get a reaction from you, and then DON’T GIVE IT. Take control and refuse to allow the psychopath to make you respond to his/her button pushing!
God bless.
To Be Free
Ox Drover
Thank you for answering. Yes, he is a spath and I do know that now from reading. I could never understand why he acting so strange and mean sometimes. He definately lovebombed me at first with many gifts. Then it was that I could nothing right and I couldn’t please him. Even though I know all this, I want to talk to him. I always suspected he was talking to other females but he would assure me he didn’t. I caught him in numerous lies. What is wrong with me that I would want ANY contact with him?!!!
skylar
To Be Free,
What we know and what we feel are sometimes in conflict with each other. You know he is an evil spath, but until you can integrate that into how you’re supposed to feel about it, you are left with emotional responses that are ill-suited for the situation.
This is why I have a problem with Spoons posts about our beliefs being at the root of the problem. It isn’t what we believe, it’s the left over emotional responses that have created neurological pathways in our bodies as well as our brains. Of course beliefs are one component, but it isn’t enough to KNOW differently. We need to FEEL differently.
I’m not exactly sure how to bring that about, since I’m still slimed by the parental programming.
Yet, I had no problem eradicating the spath from my “love” feeling. Maybe it’s because I spent so much time studying them, that I know exactly how they think, and I find it repulsive. Maybe it’s just the result of time passing. With my spath, I had several years of disgust and disappointment to prepare me for leaving him. The only thing that made me stay was pity and loyalty. I had not been in love with him for a long, long time.
Ox Drover
Skylar, think you and Spoon are BOTH right….if that makes any sense. Our beliefs are part of the root….like thinking if we love them enough they will love us back…but the cog/dis of feelings versus reality is also the problem.
We start out learning about THEM, but end up learning about OURSELVES.
Truthspeak
Tobefree, take a piece of paper and a pen – literally, a piece of paper and pen. Make 2 columns. The left column will be subjected as “Facts.” The right column will be subjected as “Fantasies.” Write what you know to be true in the left-hand column. Then, write what you wish were true in the right-hand column. Then, on a separate sheet of paper (or, on the back of the Facts/Fantasies page), write down EVERYTHING that you “love” about the ex-boyfiend. Then, compare what you think that you “love” about him against the lists that you prepared.
Precisely why “No Contact” is an imperative to recovery. WE feed the fantasies, not the spaths. They simply create them, and we keep them alive.
Brightest blessings
To Be Free
Skylar,
Thank you for that. When you said about the emotional responses being neurological, it brought to mind what happens when I don’t hear from him. My anxiety levels increase trememdously and then if or when I do hear his voice, I calm down. I really hate this. Makes me feel out of control. We were together for 2 1/2 years.
The other thing that hurts is that I know he is starting to see someone else. Not that it is good for me to be with him but the thought of the rejection hurts.
To Be Free
Wow, Truthspeak!
I will certainly do that. I can see where that will bring clarity to the false/reality aspect of the situation. So many times I would say: “I wish he would just act right.” or “Why can’t he act right?” He would for a short period of time then it was right back to the same way of jerking my emotions around.
Truthspeak
ToBeFree, if wishes were fishes, nobody would EVER go hungry……
What we WANT to believe often is in direct opposition to what really “IS.” I don’t particularly “like” this fact, but it’s a fact, nonetheless.
Brightest blessings
skylar
To Be Free,
I know, it’s very strange isn’t it? You KNOW he never loved you, and he doesn’t love the next one. Yet, it still feels like rejection!
Here’s how I think about it, this may help you:
He never loved you, but somehow you felt you might be able to MAKE him love you. You’re self esteem is what is at stake here.
You think highly of yourself, you can do anything you set your mind to, so why can’t you do something that seems so easy to do. How hard could it be to make someone care? You just have to be kind and loving. Surely, that will make him love you, right?
The answer to why he doesn’t love you is: because these strange people react to everything BACKWARDS! YEP! That’s right. If you love them, it makes them HATE you. Amazing, isn’t it? Who would have imagined? Not only are they incapable of love, they HATE those who CAN love. In our attempts to make them love us, we did everything wrong, we loved them first.
My point, To Be Free, is that you are feeling the narcissistic injury of rejection because you think his rejection reflects on you. It does NOT. It has nothing to do with you. You are loving and lovable. His inability to love is the reason he “rejected” you.
Rejection is the wrong word. It implies a judgement by a person CAPABLE of judging worth. Spaths clearly are NOT capable of that. This is evident by their lack of VALUES. They don’t even know what is valuable until WE show them what WE value, then they envy it.
Perhaps that’s what we need to do: create a new lexicon for describing what spaths do. This would help us make new neurological pathways in our brains which would help in our healing process. As long as we use the same words that we do for normal people, on the things that spaths do, we are RE-INFORCING their fake messages to us.
When a spath pretends to “reject us” or when they devalue and discard us, they are actually PROJECTING their own feelings of low self-worth on to us. So we must use those words to describe their behavior.
So, To Be free, from now on remember that the spath isn’t capable of judging worth or rejecting anything. He is only capable of PROJECTING HIS OWN LOW SELF WORTH ON TO YOU and ACTING OUT HIS FEAR OF ABANDONMENT by abandoning you.
Hope that helps.
Donna Andersen
To Be Free –
These relationships are highly addictive. So what your are feeling is not love, it is ADDICTION. And it does create neurological pathways in the brain. That is why NO CONTACT is so important. The longer you stay away, the stronger you’ll become. But if you relapse and have contact, it’s like starting all over.
To Be Free
Good one!
Well, let me just explain myself alittle. I was married for 23 years to a wonderful man. Have 3 great children. He passed away from cancer amost 3 years ago. This ex came around shortly after my husband died. I felt like I knew who he was because we were friends in high school, 30 years ago. I had not seen him since high school. Mistake number one: thought I knew him!
I was so vunerable but didn’t realize it. He took full advantage of that!! My friends and family could see right through him but I would just rationalize all the red flags away.
The main reason I knew I had to get rid of him was because I could tell that it was coming down to me loosing my relationship with my children or keeping my relationship with the ex-boyfriend. I choose the children. Now I am dealing with all the aftermath of the relationship. It is harder to me than caretaking a sick husband and loosing him. Even though I lost my husband, always have in my heart the fact that he loved and cherished me. (I have friends and family would testify to that!)
It does help me express what I’m going through.