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).
Rune
Bopeep: I lost everything.
I am still here. I am glad that I can help you see your wonderful qualities. Yes, get the book, “Women Who Love Psychopaths,” and you will see for yourself how they pick us out and use us.
I hope you are able to move Plan B ahead. I will watch for your posts. If I can encourage you through this challenging time, helping you survive this predator, then I am gaining back something I lost as well.
Nolife
Thanks Learntheless & Rune,
I know I am in a way better situation than most. I count my blessing that I have only my life saving swindled and got in a huge debt, which I have cleared most of it by now. I do not have any kids, but I am still married to him and trying to get the paper done. So he will not have any entitlement. He promised to do it because he is in the states but he disappeared on me again.
Anyway I keep myself very busy so that I don’t have time to think about what happened. I also stay strong because of my family & friends. I never let anyone see me cry, not even my ex. I always am bubbly & cheerful in front of people, and I cried alone by myself. I am not being a fake, just don’t want people to worry about me. Esp. everyone has their own plate of problems. Anyway in Asia, most of us do not show much emotions. This is our upbringing.
But I find that I am able to express myself freely here, show my weakness, not be ashamed of what happened to me because you guys won’t judge me. I thank all of you for that.
Hopefully, with this outlet to express my pain, I could really heal. I wish I could heal soon so I could truly contribute and be useful again.
Rune
“Nolife”: I admire your courage and your strength in all you have done to overcome, and in finding your way here.
You said you are in Asia. I respect your privacy, but I traveled in Thailand and Malaysia and have some understanding of the differences in society.
The fact that you are a woman of such strength and courage out of a society that doesn’t generally respect women says a great deal to me.
I will watch for you, and I hope to see you making great steps forward in your life, and separating yourself from this pain.
Nolife
Thanks Rune, I wish the same for you and the rest of the people here 🙂 Mostly to those who only read this website and suffer alone. Hope you can find help soon.
jackie56
Hi Folks – I hear the ‘why me?’ I have learned through the therapy exactly why me – I am active, intelligent, capable, high achieving in my career and that is exactly why – someone they can feed off. Chuck in my deeply hidden insecurity and longing for a loving relationship and its easy to fool me. The answer is – don’t get into any kind of close relationship until you learn how to guard yourself. My therapist advises I don’t get involved with anyone and drop all expectations of a loving intimate relationship – for a long time possibly forever given my age. Sad but safer – while I long for it I am vulnerable to the predator type. I need to feel contented with my life as it is and on my own with a good circle of family and friends to support me – to reduce that neediness from my childhood. Facing the reality of being on my own for the last 25 years of my life is sad but not as sad as the thought I might get conned again. I’ve learned the truism – ‘if it (he)seems to good to be true then it (he)probably is…’
Ox Drover
Dear jackie,
Your therapist GETS IT. I’m 62 and feel the same way, but am now moving on toward being confident and completely OK by myself. I think it is human nature to want a mate, and I had a great one for 20 years until his passing 5 yrs ago, but after his death I was so needy I was hooked by a P…it only lasted 8 months but what a ride, 4 months of bliss, 4 mo of hell, then another 4 months of grief.
ONE is a WHOLE NUMBER, and not just half of two.
sabine
Jen 2008
OMG – I’m so broken up about your poor little dog. What a sin! It’s a very good red flag to watch – how people treat animals – I agree.
You must have felt so bad for your little pup – thank god you chose to move on so now both you and he are at peace….
Good for you!
KATYA
I found myself being successful and lonely and exactly as you did, I fell for someone who turned out to be a psychopath. I am losing my mind, trying to prove to the court system that he is a sick and manipulative man. While his ex wife and daughter told me of all the lies and all the behaviors associated with the APD, they both refused to come forth to help. I have a toddler with this man. My toddler already once exhibited oversexuality and inappropriate behaviors toward women. Now that he has not seen his dad in 6 months, he is a normal kid. His dad wanted nothing to do with our child after I kicked him out since learning that he had cheated on me with at least two other women repeatedly and never contributed to the household, but took my money instead. Still, I loved the man and tried to convince him to go for therapy and to seek Alcohol counseling. I pushed him too far with my demands and as a pay back he filed a Joint Custody petition. I am looking at thousands of dollars, knowing that this baby is not of much interest to his Dad, and also worrying that he’d do something with my son, to my son just to spite me. Any suggestions?
struggling
I feel terribly defeated and have that anxiety spinning in my chest and stomach and head. I don’t want to feel this way. I saw an attorney today and was told basically that the agreement that the p and I signed concerning our separation and divorce aren’t worth the paper it’s written on. I don’t understand, I researched the library (i’ve only started using the internet in the last few months) and got copies of local court papers, I used a real agreement also signed by a local judge so ordering, and came up with what I believed to be a legitimate agreement format and we put in our settlements as we agreed.
Since talking to the attorney, I have been going through forms for my area on the internet and I still see a legitimate document. All the attorney would say is its just not good. It has to be … I’ll never get him to sign a fair agreement again and a contested divorce with him (oh please, God, no!)… They will order him a whole lot more visitation and I can’t prove how dangerous he is to my son… there is so much more but I fear him stumbling onto this sight and recognizing who I am.
I feel like my little bubble has been popped and strangely I feel like I’ve just spent a day with the p. One of my low days i guess. I feel like the mouse in the picture above.
skylar
http://www.brothersbloom.com/
click on “video” and then on “card trick”
I just got this movie and will watch it tomorrow. I can’t wait. It’s about us, only this time WE WIN.