When I was a med student, I studied animal models for human stress and depression. The best animal model of what a psychopath does to others is that of the rodent resident-intruder paradigm. In this model, males are introduced into the home territory of other males, they experience social defeat and are removed before they are injured. Repeated exposure to this situation produces a defeated animal who is chronically submissive and gives up without a fight whenever he encounters other males. Below is the posture of a defeated mouse.
The physiology of this defeated rodent resembles human depression very closely. The defeat state can be reversed with antidepressants. Defeat is associated with elevated stress hormones, immune dysfunction and learned helplessness.
I think it is important to know that the potential to develop the defeat mentality exists within us. In humans this mentality takes on a more sophisticated form. When defeated many people become enveloped by what I call “the victim identity.”
Identity or self concept means how you think about yourself and how you think others perceive you. Identity and self concept always includes some component of how dominant or socially potent we consider ourselves to be. Social status is another related part of the self concept.
An encounter with a sociopath/psychopath often leaves a person defeated in every sphere of life. The status, reputation, career, finances that took a lifetime to build vanish. The victim is left in limbo, not knowing how to put the pieces together.
It is in this limbo that the victim identity develops. A person who used to be financially well off and productive having lost everything now adjusts to that loss by defining him/herself as “victim”. This victim identity is further supported by the constant pain and anxiety the person feels. Why do I hurt? Why have I lost? Why am I defeated? I experience all these things because I am a victim.
The minute I say, “I am a victim.” That word victim becomes part of my self definition. There is a certain comfort in the victim identity. It helps a person explain and cope with their external reality and internal symptoms.
The danger in the victim identity is that it will come to be the totality of a person’s self-definition. Once this happens, the victim stops living, and is like the defeated mouse, assuming the posture at every challenge.
I challenge you today to consider the place your identity as a victim has in terms of your total self-definition. Is the trauma the first thing you think of when you think of yourself? Are you being fair to yourself when you identify with your victim status? Perhaps you have a good deal more living to do than your victim identity will allow?
It is important to be whole. That means the part of you who is/was a victim gets integrated with the other parts. “Victim” has to become just a piece of the puzzle that is you.
I confess that I am aware of my victim identity most in the company I choose to keep. I feel most comfortable relating to other people who understand psychopaths and what they do. If that also describes you realize that is a sign of victim identity. It is important to acknowledge these tendencies and balance them by having friends who are not victims or family members of psychopaths/sociopaths.
It is especially important to spend time with functional families/couples who love and care for each other.
Try never to take pride in your status as a victim or use it as an excuse for dysfunction. If you experience symptoms of PTSD, that is a challenge to overcome not a curse you are condemned to live with.
Ask yourself today if you really want to be like that poor defeated mouse.
For another opinion and further discussion of the victim identity see The Line between Victims and Abusers (although I do not agree with all Dr. Stosny says here).
Liane,
This is fascinating. I think it helps explain the experiences of many Lovefraud readers, especially those who experience domestic violence.
I think so, too, Donna. Great article and link Liane. I know for me I went through a period of really feel beaten down and fearful of everybody and everything and questionning everyone’s actions and motives–even decent people who obviously had no unlterior motives. I’m much better about that now, but still have a “problem” with trusting men and my own judgement when it comes to the idea of dating, but I can also see progress in my attitudes towards that. Sandra Brown had advised me not to date for two years, to give myself that time as recovery time and I feel that was some of the best advice I’ve ever been given. Since I’m not dating, not only am I not unloading my own baggage on some poor guy who may be a great guy, but the time has enabled me to find out all sorts of things about myself, and to develop alot of hobbies and interests and basically learn to be alone and not feel like I “need” someone else to make me happy or entertainment and I enjoy that.
Another thing I feel very fortunate in is that I made a great choice in the neighborhood I moved into. I’ve previously lived in nice neighbohoods, but never one as down home and “Mom, apple pie, and hospitable” as this one. It is a very family oriented neighborhood where Dad’s and Mom’s walk or bike in the evenings with their kids and Dad’s are out in the yards playing basketball or pitch with their children–things like that. And everyone knows everyone else and people stop by and sit on the porch to chat, and everybody pitches in to help someone if there is a problem. And almost everybody has a couple of cats or a dog. After a few years being surrounded by constant chaos, people who boozed and drugged it up and had such nasty attitudes etc., being exposed to people who are so direct opposite is like a breath of fresh air.
I especially liked when you said: “Try never to take pride in your status as a victim or use it as an excuse for dysfunction.” Of course everyone goes through a really raw period and has their own struggles towards healing. Although I understand trying to recover what you lost and also taking action to protect yourself, I do find it disturbing when people use their victim status to justify harming someone else.
I’d like to add PTSD can be reduced/treated by talk therapy, prayer and learning about the abuser and their implements of abuse. I use/used bibliotherapy- I read about psychopaths and in turn have studied what in me makes me prey. I blogged on that here:
http://holywatersalt.blogspot.com/2009/05/new-life.html
Also that pic of that poor little rat reminds me of how my own little dog looked and acted by the time we got away from my ex. Animals really are very feeling and I think she was also traumatically bonded to him because she never knew what to expect–one minute yells and screams at her, the next he would be offering her treats. She became extremely paranoid, hiding from him when he’d call her, then when the treats would come out she’d get all happy and bouncy and go to him, then the nastiness would come out and she’d start to shake and hide again. I really hate my choices put her through that. Now I do pay close attention to how a person treats an animal. If I see unkindness there, I don’t want them in my life.
Dear Dr Leedom, thank you so much for this very interesting article! When I was a little kid I really felt being “put” around by magic hands and set into unbearable situations and then whoosh put into another situation before something REALLY BAD would happen, like the mouse in the example. It was always for “my best” or “to help for the best” for mum, my brother, my sister, the family etc., and it all confused me tremendously. I did not know that there is an animal model to mimic my upbringing 😉
But NOW I am having choices, I can leave ANY cage I do not like!
I reconnected just this year with my first friend ever. We met when we both were 5 years old, and got separated very abruptly when my parents decided to put me into another school in the mountains at age 6 to “help” mother recover from a difficult birth when she had my brother, as mountain air is good for recovery, as I was told, to bring a little sacrifice for the good of the family, my brother and my mother; and by the way the parents had great fun doing lots of winter sports while my sister and I were struggling with a completely different school system, another language and new kids and the like. My friend back then found another “Best friend”, and I was left out alone and miserable when my parents after a couple of months decided to return to our hometown.
Now my friend is just marvelous, we are both very glad we could find the way back to each other’s heart, and she is wonderful with her kindness, understanding. She is living herself in a marriage that lasts now for 30 years that everybody thought to be a failure from day one (especially my hypocrit mother). She got married when she was 18 years old, got her two children within a year, and she married a shift worker who has been living his teen age years under the bridges, with an alcoholic father. They managed their lives and everything just fine, they are very interesting, loving, caring people, their children are a great joy, and I am very lucky having such wonderful friends, both very validating and putting a very healthy perspective in my life in the aftermath of the X.
I can also relate to the “victim’s entitlement”, and also the link you gave (why on earth the perpetrators in my life could have brillant arguments being ALWAYS the VICTIMS themselves and having THE perfect victim’s vocabulary; for one most of them are lawyers…).
Thank you so much, LF is really a safe haven with lots of great people gathered, to think and read and vent, and it is a really wonderful mirror to see oneself and it helps to get all the tools to help oneself to find the door out of the cage, to recharge the batteries again and to be able to step out of this door and enjoy life again. Namaste and towanda!
My shrink used to call this “catastrophising” He would say, “You must stop catastrophising!”. This was when I was involuntarily placed in a psychiatric unit for paranoia when the P solicitor stole everything through with my inheritance and my home and had me charged! He is still doing it today to others.
I didn’t say anything to the shrink because it was true… I WAS made POWERLESS! AND YES I WAS A VICTIM!!! I had to pretend everything the shrinks said was right to be able to get out of the place! It doesn’t take long to work that out..ask ANY patient in there!! I felt like a mac truck had hit me and I was still on the side of the road nearly dead and they were all saying, “pretend nothing happened and you are just fine and then we will let you leave the side of the road “. So I did, and I got out..like all the rest.
IT TAKES AS LONG AS IT TAKES!! i.e. to get over repeated trauma at the hands of psychopaths. Do NOT add guilt and shame that you are being “a victim” to the list.
It took me until 54 yrs old to meet Oxy and Rosa and Rune and Witsend and all my fellow survivors to get past the RAGE and loss I had inside me. We human “victims” are NOT left without ENORMOUS anger and defence. WE ARE NOT LIKE A PSYCHOPATHIC RAT!!!!! Our recovery it is still unfolding and all in Gods time..not mine and not anyone elseses.
P.S> And we “victims” do not eat each other like rats do.
Tilly: If I invite you for dinner, you can be sure that YOU are not the main course. No, you won’t be “on the menu”!
Dr. Leedom: Paradoxically, I’m encouraged by your article. Thank you for letting me know that when I feel like that beaten-down mouse in the picture, it’s not just my lack of character that some days makes it hard for me to “suck it up and get back in the game.”
You said, “An encounter with a sociopath/psychopath often leaves a person defeated in every sphere of life. The status, reputation, career, finances that took a lifetime to build vanish. The victim is left in limbo, not knowing how to put the pieces together.”
I have not only been through all that, but the whole arena I worked in for 10 years has vanished as the economy has changed. I feel like every time I try to re-establish some small toe-hold, I get smacked down again.
Of course, us survivor types think we should beat ourselves up some more for not having the strength, or courage, or whatever, to triumph.
Maybe I should lay off on the “beating myself up,” and try for a few small success experiences to get that slump out of my shoulders and start developing some grounded optimism.
Has anyone researched with those defeated mice to see what gets them encouraged again? Somehow I’m not thinking it’s “talk therapy.”
Rune,
You said
“Of course, us survivor types think we should beat ourselves up some more for not having the strength, or courage, or whatever, to triumph”.
I am still learning about this part of the healing process. When Justabouthealed commented that we shouldnt place blame or guilt upon ourselves…but just continue on with our lives, dont devote time to picking apart what happened, etc.
In certain relationships I have been able to do that. But this relationship with my extox — I was not able to. I just want to express that I think its learning and growth when we challenge ourselves (not beating ourselves up) or when we can say, hey I was weak or I lacked self-respect , or self-trust…think JAH refers to it as self-protection….whatever we call it I never once went inward with reflection with a sense of guilt or blame…it was with a sense of learning and growing…and that it was okay to take the focus off of him and POSITIVELY help myself triumph through finding more of my core strength and courage to not ever allow myself to be that beaten-down mouse again…
I wonder if there were any mice who stopped and changed direction when placed in the home territory of more dominant male mice. The article says the mice were “removed” before they were injured…but I wonder how many , if given the choice to not to be forced into the rodent-resident intruder paradigm study….who might have never chose to place themself in that situation over and over and over again…until beaten down to depression….etc… Because there are some humans who do not ever end up as the victim-type or in situations like ours… they made different choices as soon as they were aware of the red flags…
Those mice in the study didnt have a choice….the difference is we do!
I imagine if the mice voluntarily chose to be in that situation -part of what would encourage them in the aftermath – would have to be the process of acknowledging without guilt or blame or beating themselves up….the choices they repeatedly made…so as to learn and grow and inspire change ahead and different choices going forward for themselves…But matter of fact…I didnt have the tools or awareness to REMOVE MYSELF…STOP. CHANGE DIRECTION….that choice was always there for us (not the mice in the study – they had to partake in the study) but we didnt know what we know now…does that mean we are beating ourselves up or learning and growing by admission and understanding of ourselves and all we can now be….
I could care less who he is and why he does what he does NOW…but for me, until the focus became about what can I learn from my experience, my choices, my lack of knowledge of choice and protection…until I reflected ON MYSELF AND MAKING FUTURE CHOICES FOR THE BETTER IN A POSITIVE AND HONEST WAY….I couldnt get off of that toxic wheel….
I had to learn new additional strengths and courage within…more self-respect, self-protection and the abiiity to be honest and real about any relationship Im in…and I had to learn that I could stop and change direction..anytime I want to chose to for my health and safety.