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).
thanks duped.
i am having a hard couple of days. up and down on a roller coaster. got an xmas card from my (insert disorder here) father from him and mom. (mom obviously isn’t okay enough to do cards 🙁
boxed card. subtle. conflicted about the $100 in it. need it, will keep it. it will keep my phone and internet connection hooked up, which i need for work. but would rather not keep it. he is such a bottom feeder. throws crumbs at me, in every way imaginable. I am beginning to un hook from him. know that it is imperative. I look forward to the next exercise in the BETRAYAL BOND that looks at historical abuse.
not well today. sad and lonely and frozen. HATE my job right now and am sucking at it. which is scaring me, too. some extra guilt – like cranberry sauce to the turkey. little spiral going down.
underlying is that I have to make a few decisions about my housing situation. and i am having a really hard time with it. right now it looks like crappy option a, b or c. it is overwhelming.
One step,
The holidays can really make us feel worse emotionally when we are going through an already difficult time.
Having the emotional roller coaster ride is something that is pretty common after removing the trama/drama from our lives. But it is certainly hard to even keep up with our own emotions from day to day. Sometimes it even feels like minute to minute that our emotions can change.
You have alot going on. And I think that you are overwhelmed. I can’t think straight when I am overwhelmed.
Maybe some of what I have done in the past can help you.
For me when I am overwhelmed I really have to STOP. Clear my head.
Then write down on paper a few prioritys. What I DO need to focus on. Maybe 2 or 3. No more. And I make myself only work towards what I listed on the piece of paper. In order. Number one being the first priority.
Often I feel just like you do that none of the options are good. But I pick the best of the options and work towards that.
Once you tend to accomplish one or two of your goals it is easier to move forward. Otherwise you stay stuck in that downhill spiral and feel like you are getting nowhere.
Baby steps….But steps in the right direction.
One step at a time….Just like your name.
One hour at a time….
Break it down so it feels more manageable. One minute at a time if necessary 🙂
Hey Dupe,
Same feeling here – I think that a sociopath’s life is like a video game. Once they’ve won one level, they go to the next level. “Now I’ve got 3 girlfriends let’s see if I can manage 4”. “Ok, isolated, vulnerable women: done that, boring, too easy; next level: happily married woman/qualified psychiatrist/condolezza rice…”
And yeah sometimes they lose…or at least don’t win as much as they wanted. Well done for fighting back!
One Step – you should frame that gift!!
thanks witsend. i have had to break it down to just a few things a day. woefully inadequate to deal with what must be dealt with in the timelines, but it is all i can do, so that i feel like i am succeeding.
the housing thing feels too huge. i did go to a service agency and talk through some options yesterday. the woman was wonderful, but i realized on the walk home i hadn’t really come away with some important questions answered, cause i FORGOT to ask – so, i think i have to put that on my list for today and call her back.
I lay in bed for three hours this am – unable to stop my mind from racing. i kept trying and i kept not being able to. i think i might just say to myself – this is going to be a bad day, and let it be. arthritis is flaring, so there is pain also.
I was expecting that christmas would be hard. there is no money for anything – I am not giving gifts at all. i had decided last year that I was opting out of christmas and would go back to my old celebration of the turning of the season – so i am not sure why i am so upset by my financial lack, possibly because i am so distracted that i can’t enjoy the season regrdless. i think it is that i know that things are going to get a lot worse financially before they get better, and it is frightening the hell out of me.
my grandmother sent me a little gift and i used it to go out and go square dancing as my celebration, it was really nice.
and yes, thank you re the roller coaster. I just had an email from a friend who asked me something about the spath – and I could see that answering cost me something, AND that if I got into talking about it it WOULD distract me from the ick of the roller coaster – and delay my healing.
and unfortunately this ick is part of the healing. i just have a really hard time with it as i have dealt with depression in the past and i so don’t want to go there – and this sure feels like it. but maybe this is temporary – just that when i see ANY manifestation of depression it scares me.
and i don’t need any more fear. i am frozen so much already.
okay – little next step – take work letter to the mailbox.
I have to do a lot of cold calling right now for my work – and it is is soooo hard. i don’t think it is the right approach for this part of my contract and i understand that the reason i am doing it is because the committee i work with are trying to pass the buck. and i am rebelling against taking the wrong action at the wrong time by the wrong person, as it might hurt the organization in the long term, and makes me feel like a stupid goof in the short term. it is demoralizing.
okay- walk through snow to post box.
thanks agian. i am outrageously isolated, so replies mean a lot.
hey duped – which one? the clear anger, the money from the disordered father OR the night out sq. danicing?
One Step,
Baby steps…You can do this.
Being isolated just makes your situation worse. But isolation is what many of these toxic people do to us. Weather it by actual distancing us from friends and family (miles) or by trashing our reputation (smear) so we can’t reach out to old friends.
The best thing you might do right now is vent here at LF about your x situation and try and not talk about it to your friends as much. Maybe try to talk to them about other things if you can.
I only say this because sometimes our friends get “tired” of hearing about this because they don’t really understand the situation to begin with. Lord knows it is hard to DEFINE exactly what you have gone through and put it into words that people who don’t “get it” can understand.
That is the case with my friends anyways. They care about me deeply but I know they don’t get it….So I have tried weening myself from talking to them about it.
Ick is a part of healing. But ick can be also the place we get stuck to long…. So try to do little things for yourself to de-stress. I know you don’t have extra money but do something relaxing for yourself EACH day. Read, take a bath, watch a program, take a walk….Something to stop your mind from racing. Something to distract you from thinking to much and becoming overwhelmed.
One minute at a time. Write everything important down.
I think One Step has such a brilliant way of talking about sociopaths that I can’t imagine anybody being bored!
one_step_at_a_time,
I think I’m about at the same point in my healing and recovery as you are. Hold on and remember your username..one_step_at_a_time.
I got an email from an out of town friend this morning asking me if it’s really final between the boyfriend and me. I told this friend the basics of what happened 2 months ago when I left the x N/Spath. Having my friend ask me that question NOW after coming to my senses and feeling all of the devastation, triggered the heck out of me. I choked up, started shaking and closed the email. I couldn’t even reply.
I’m also isolated. My family are all out of town. I have few friends. No one really understands. I lost my house, my car, my money, my job. What little I could do for Christmas this year, is homemade.
I’m also physically completely depleted. I have lost so much weight that I am a stick. I’m a nervous wreck. I have broken out in hives (the last time that happened was 20 years ago..the last time I had contact with my P-mom). I have anxiety attacks and can’t sleep properly, my stomach is a nervous mess and my arthritis has flaired up as well. So, I just want to say, {{hugs}} I know how you feel.
My ex N/S also has and probably still is (I have stopped my hyper-vigilant ‘patrolling’ of his online activity for my own sanity) conducting a vicious smear campaign against me – A lot of it on the web. He, like your ex, also got other’s involved by giving a twisted, projecting, character assasination of me to them (all of it a TOTAL MIRROR of WHAT HE IS) – the stereotypical PITY/VICTIM PLAY of the sociopath. This is exactly how he hooked me in the beginning as well…that and a few other tricks he had up his sleeve.
The added emotional violence of having of the Spath’s duped minions ALSO doing his dirty work is so indescribably shattering. Mine also ‘garages’ all of his exes and uses them. I have had multiple threatening emails and public message board threats to me, by one of his exes. I don’t know if you are still monitoring your exes online activity by proxy. But, when I stopped doing that, it actually lessened my fears. I thought that by checking on him and knowing what he was up to, that I would be safer because I’d know what he was up to. It was having a worse effect on me emotionally though.
It’s INCREDIBLY HARD to not check on him. I feel compelled to almost on a daily basis. He is all over the web like a shark in a swimming pool convincing women left right and center what a poor, poor, loving, hurt abused guy he is. I just thought I’d let you know that for me anyway, it DOES help me not feel violated and threatened when I stay away from anything to do with him. I try to picture him falling off the face of the earth.
As for being isolated, your mind racing and what to do about that. I have the same problem. I am currently living with relatives until I can get social housing, which I am on a waiting list for. It’s tough. When I feel like I’m going to go crazy. I do something constructive that doesn’t involve my brain going around and around.
I clean (small tasks..one at a time). I organize. I bake something. I played a video game with my nephew and I had NO idea what I was doing!! LOL The ONLY video game I’ve ever played was Pac Man. Any kind of hobby or task that involves your hands and isn’t too strenuous can get your mind off the bad feelings.
Go easy on yourself.
That’s what I keep telling myself too 🙂
Also, I have a hard time concentrating, so reading for any stretch of time is difficult. Most music is too much of an emotional trigger for me.
However, although I am more of spiritual person than highly religious, I absolutely LOVE inspirational, religious, and gospel music. My fave Christmas music are the most religious songs. They can be so healing to listen to.
I heard this song that is on Jewel’s Christmas CD (wonderful CD btw) and I wanted to share the lyrics with everyone on LF. The song is called “Hands” and I’m sure most have heard it before. I find it very healing to listen to.
Hands
by Jewel
If I could tell the world just one thing
It would be that we’re all OK
And not to worry ’cause worry is wasteful
And useless in times like these
I won’t be made useless
I won’t be idle with despair
I will gather myself around my faith
For light does the darkness most fear
My hands are small, I know
But they’re not yours, they are my own
But they’re not yours, they are my own
And I am never broken
Poverty stole your golden shoes
It didn’t steal your laughter
And heartache came to visit me
But I knew it wasn’t ever after
We’ll fight, not out of spite
For someone must stand up for what’s right
‘Cause where there’s a man who has no voice
There ours shall go singing
My hands are small I know
But they’re not yours, they are my own
But they’re not yours, they are my own
I am never broken
In the end only kindness matters
In the end only kindness matters
I will get down on my knees, and I will pray
I will get down on my knees, and I will pray
I will get down on my knees, and I will pray
My hands are small I know
But they’re not yours, they are my own
But they’re not yours, they are my own
And I am never broken
My hands are small I know
But they’re not yours, they are my own
But they’re not yours, they are my own
And I am never broken
We are never broken
We are God’s eyes
God’s hands
God’s mind
We are God’s eyes
God’s hands
God’s heart
We are God’s eyes
God’s hands
God’s eyes
We are God’s hands
We are God’s hands
Merry Christmas to everyone on LoveFraud
Peace & Joy in the New Year
I just dropped in and read today’s posts on this thread. I know it’s hard to deal with the emotional stuff, but truly everyone here sounds so good. Being able to talk about it, put words on it, makes it seem almost like the music of this time of our lives.
I wanted to share something that helped me, when I was going through this emotional rollercoaster thing — swinging from grief to anger to anxiety to feeling tough — in the space of a few minutes, it seemed sometimes.
I’d take down a small framed mirror from the wall, get into bed, sitting up with the pillows at my back, bend up my knees to hold the mirror, and have a visit with myself. Somehow this is different than just feeling buffeted by all the feelings. I’d ask myself how things were going, and that was enough to start amazing conversations.
I think that the different feelings come from different parts of ourselves. I sometimes found myself getting into arguments, often really funny ones, with different aspects of me that were fighting with each other. (Like the part that feels like I’m stupid, and the part that feels like a victim, and the part that wants to be spiritual, and the part that wants the rest of us to get serious about the money thing, and the part that’s still romantically yearning.) Getting this stuff out into words, and taking all the bits of me seriously, letting them have their say, seemed to help. And often, they settled things between them, recognizing why each felt the way they did and finding compromises that worked.
I don’t know if this sounds crazy, but there have been periods of my life when I did a lot of this mirror-talking. And some of the things l learned about myself really turned out to be helpful to me and other people.
I’ve had periods of clinical depressions too, and for most of my life, I’ve been scared of any feeling that I fear might send me back into that. In recovering from this relationship with the sociopath, I found another technique to deal especially with feelings that I really didn’t want to have.
That was to deliberately pay attention to them, and turn up the volume. If I had anxiety, I got right inside it and jacked it up, scooting around my mind to find everything that was contributing to it, so they could all yammer at me at the same time.
There was something about this that created psychological distance. There was all the yammering noise, and there was me that was watching it. I even found that I was capable of saying, “Okay, gang, take a break. I’m going to do something else now. I’ll get back to you later.” And just mentally walking away from it.
It didn’t solve the problems. They still had to be dealt with. But it removed the emotional charge from them.
These days, when I’m more… what’s the word? … maybe less fraught all the time, I still get triggered by things. Everyone does. And when it first happens, the feelings come up big, and it’s hard to see anything except through them. But I’ve gotten pretty good now at going, “Oh, what’s this?” And it does the same thing of creating psychological distance. I still feel what I feel, but there another part of me that’s looking at it. And it gives me the opportunity to pay attention to it, and then take a breather from it. Not resolving anything, but just not getting taken over by my nervous system.
I think one of the hardest things in the world is being afraid of how we feel. Or not wanting it. Especially since, I think these feelings are important messages from some part of us asking for attention. So blocking them or denying them is, I think, a bad thing. But we also need to be able to choose when we want to deal with things, even with ourselves. And not let our emotions be tyrants over us, wearing us down and making us even more vulnerable.
I read somewhere that our minds are like our crazy uncles. We have to hang out with them, but we don’t have to believe or do everything they say. I loved it, but I’d adapt to we don’t have to jump every time they bark at us.
Happy holidays everyone.
Kathy
@....... Icanseeclearlynow: if you feel the urge to look up the sociopath, tell yourself that it’s ok to have that urge but that it’s not very good for you. Find something else to do and decide to do that other thing first – tell yourself, first I’ll do that other thing, and I can always check what the f***er is up to later if I still want to.
Anyway you can’t really know what they’re up to from what they say or write…they’re always lying…so shallow and manipulative…
One step, you sound like you’re doing everything that needs to be done, or at least a fair share – including the work-related phonecalls and posting the letter…it may feel like a pain in the neck at the moment but you’re doing it anyway, so that’s great, well done!