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).
EB: Thank you so much for the info! I did not know about some of these websites, I’ll check it out!!!
“EB: Thank you so much for the info! I did not know about some of these websites, I’ll check it out!!!”
shabbychic2
Erin is right about the search and how to use the internet. Some people just don’t understand this simply rule. 1) What you put on the web stays on the web.
But when we talk about s/p or and then understand the lack of impulse control many of them make the mistake and will do and say things on blogs and sites that other can go back and read themselves. Because s/p don’t think before they leap they will put themselves into positions and sites that can later haunt them. They will hate and smear other people just as easily on the internet then they will whenever they do a smear campaign with a ex or a person they want to trash. We call them “trolls” “socks” and other names to id them. These are people filled with hate and use the internet and other peoples like emotional toilets.
I have one myself on a site called dating psychos. I been dealing with this one for 3 years now. They are persistent and just like a p/s don’t give up. Really it’s all about supply and one should never take anything said to you personally. Anyway read if you want but please be advised of the harsh language.
http://www.datingpsychos.com/view_psycho.html?psycho_id=680
Hi All,
Liane: I looked at that picture, of the defeated little mouse, and before I even read the article I could feel what it was going to tell me. Oh, I have been that little mouse so many times in the last few years. And I appreciate especially how you relate that you are aware of your victim identity when hanging with others who know/have experience of psychopathy. Mostly because I have that experience too, and it has sometimes frustrated or worried me. But the way you put it in your article, along with the suggestion to hang with folks who have not been victimized or are otherwise involved, makes it feel less worrisome. Thank-you.
EB: Wow, congratulations on coming up with the truth on this ‘gentleman’. Great hearing how much you have learned. How you aren’t doing what you would have done in the past! Very inspiring. It is just amazing how they will post the EXACT opposite of what they are. Loving father!?
Someone else (I am not sure who) wrote about s/p’s giving themselves away on the internet, not having the ability to self-edit and control their impulse to ‘rant’. I have also seen something quite the contrary. There are those folks who HAVE managed to stay under the radar, who, when you google them look like superstars (perhaps this is more of a narcisstic quality?). I don’t bring this up to say that online searches are futile. But just to point out that we have to use all of our intelligences with these folks: our intellect (online searches, books, this fab blog, etc…), our body/instincts (stomach ache, a ‘sense’ that something isn’t right, mania and low energy, feeling off-center), and our emotional intelligence (feeling confused, sad, depressed, worried, doubtful).
None-the-less…EB I love reading this success.
Thank you for this.
Dear slimone,
you said “There are those folks who HAVE managed to stay under the radar, who, when you google them look like superstars (perhaps this is more of a narcisstic quality?). I don’t bring this up to say that online searches are futile. But just to point out that we have to use all of our intelligences with these folks”.
So true! My X and also the X of my sister were “too good to be true” on the internet as I did a background check. TOO perfect, and TOO much of good, SO fabulous and wonderful, PLENTY of information, as if Mother Theresa meets George Clooney combined with Albert Einstein. The homepage was SO full of HIS good acts to humanity, SO elaborate, SO clever, with nice pictures of a big “puppie” with a sad twist in his eyes. (Though all about his children, no mention of the women he has the children with, which made me think in a relieved way as I remember now: he has no issues anymore with the wives; SO WRONG; or SO TRUE, he could not care less!). Now in retrospect I get nausea thinking about it, but back then I was very impressed and swepped away!
libelle
“So true! My X and also the X of my sister were “too good to be true” on the internet as I did a background check. TOO perfect, and TOO much of good, SO fabulous and wonderful, PLENTY of information, as if Mother Theresa meets George Clooney combined with Albert Einstein.”
I can relate to this because I know those that are too perfect to good. Whenever anyone wants to be “too” nice and “too” helpful my radar goes beep beep unlike if I come into a contact with someone I know to be a s/p then it goes BEEP BEEP.. But my point is being “too” much there still should be a thought in the back of our minds “why is he/she being “so” nice? Remember manipulators need to get their foot in the door and they can’t get there but being upfront and honest. They get there by being deceitful and then will show us a very impressive and good front. They go to external showcasing to do so with all the bing bing they can find and use. Drew Peterson would be in my book the perfect example of this.
James
Did You expose your x on that Psycodate-ing site?
I don’t think exposing a psyco ,If you know they are violent is a good healthy idea! Perhaps because women are less likly to commit violence? Remember Wornos! Peace
James :
“Mother Theresa meets George Clooney combined with Albert Einstein.” ha ha… I’m still laughing at this image!
Mother Theresa admitted in her diaries that she only felt a “connection” to God for two weeks and 15 hours of her entire life. On two separate occasions. Whilst she worked tirelessly to help others regardless of this, she was still very distressed about it.
George Clooney is obviously a player and a narcissist. Just look at his best friend Brad and partner Ange. It is so obvious what will eventually happen there…those poor kids (or poor “future Ps”). And you can smell Jennifer Anniston a mile away off.. i.e. the stink of a psychopath.
As for Einstein, he was such a genius I wonder how his relationships went?
i.e. Mother Theresa felt a connection to God for two weeks in a row, once. And then for fifteen hours, once.
I wonder what techniques are most effective for PTSD. I read elsewhere that PTSD is like a post-hypnotic suggestion from the trance state that kind of hits you when a major trauma hits. I’m not sure if that is right or not.
Is hypnosis useful then in recovery? What about the eye-movement therapy? And what about cognitive therapy?
For a specific phobia I had had since a child, cognitive therapy worked really well for me, without a therapists help, just by reading about it in a book and applying the principles. (I used to pass at even the sight of someone in physical pain. I was constantly keeling over! Once I fainted from just walking through the doors of a hospital. Now I can watch operations, help in emergencies, etc.)
I think Oxy has said the eye movements helped her and someone else posted some techniques to use to try it on yourself, but now I can’t find them!
Also, diluting the memory by making it funny has helped me.
But just wonder what is best for PSTD from a BAD MAN.