Editor’s note: Resource Perspectives features articles written by members of Lovefraud’s Professional Resources Guide. Rebecca Potter works as a licensed mental health counselor in West Palm Beach, Florida.
I’m every woman ”¦ It’s all in me ”¦
By Rebecca Potter
Rebecca Potter profile in the Lovefraud Professional Resources Guide
Sadly, on February 11, 2012, the world lost another woman’s voice when Whitney Elizabeth Houston died in her hotel room. The press talked about her drug and alcohol use, her bizarre behavior, etc. Reporters briefly mentioned her tumultuous marriage. Did we lose another beautiful woman’s voice to the tragic, permanent, emotional and physical side effects of leaving an abusive marriage, and/or the struggle of trying to protect her young child from a dangerous man in the legal system?
A quote from a news article reads:
“When Whitney Houston decided to end her marriage with Bobby Brown, the thought in many minds was why did this decision take so long in light of the history of infidelity, scandals, drug and alcohol arrests, and marital problems during their marriage?”
It appears that Whitney’s life took a turn for the worse when she entered into a relationship with Bobby Brown
Although I can only offer a hypothetical opinion as a therapist, her struggle seems hauntingly familiar. Is it possible that Whitney Houston suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? Those of us who have left an abusive relationship understand the fear and anxiety we developed in the relationship. We know it is hard to leave, and repeated exposure to the trauma creates Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The neurological and biological effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms affect our ability to clearly identify what is happening. The powerful biological responses of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder may cause an abused woman to under react (dissociate) or to overreact (perhaps explaining some of Whitney’s bizarre behavior). What we also know is that the mere exposure to a dangerous man in a relationship causes a continuous roller coaster of biological and neurological reactions that affect our brain chemistry and create anxiety. This biological reaction from post traumatic stress disorder can be triggered instantly by any environmental cue (where the abuse occurred, angry voices, displeasure from someone, etc.), long after leaving the abusive situation.
Lack of effective medical treatment
Sadly, many women medicate this anxiety with drugs and alcohol. The medical community, governed by insurance corporations, will allow and cover drug and alcohol treatment usually only for 30 days. Drug and alcohol treatment is ineffective with patients who have suffered trauma and betrayal bonding. Still, the standard approach is to use prescription medication to treat the substance abuse. These professionals know all too well that an addict is going to relapse. Professionals know that recovery involves a desire to heal, to attend meetings, and professional therapy, for much more than 30 days of treatment.
Whitney went to treatment and possibly in treatment she was given her prescription medications. She left treatment early, but continued to be given the prescription medications, continued to abuse substances and possibly continued to be triggered by trauma symptoms. It is unlikely that she was informed and educated about the permanent and pervasive effects of a dangerous relationship.
What if Whitney would have been able to seek treatment to understand the betrayal bonding that occurred in her relationship with Bobby Brown?
What if ”¦
- she had been treated with biofeedback
- she learned to recognize the trauma triggers
- she had connected with a group of other women who could have supported her
- she had heard from other professional women who had given so much of themselves to a man who was not able to love and return love because of a serious mental illness and genetic disorder
- she heard from others that they endured the emotional , financial, mental traumas, who stayed because they were trying to live by God’s law and supporting an erratic husband
- she heard that many women feel relief when a husband finally hits them, because they are able to recognize physical abuse, but have become numb to verbal, mental, and financial abuse
- she knew what to expect when she went to the court system, that she would then be abused by attorneys who wanted what was left of her money and the fear she may have felt from a legal system that could award her child to an abuser
- she knew that due to mere exposure to the trauma and domestic violence her daughter could marry the same type of man
- she understood that personality disorders are an enduring pattern of behaviors; stable and long duration that are inflexible and pervasive across a broad range of personal and social situations
- she knew that the abuser could appear so supportive and caring to groom and gain her trust
- she knew that the sexual intensity between them was part of the betrayal bonding component
- she knew that many women begin substance use to try to connect with these abusive mates
- she knew that exposure to these kinds of people would leave her emotionally and physically ill and leaving him would expose her to devastating financial harm
- she knew that these abusers looked for injured folks and put up a mask to draw them in, usually with intense personalities and sex, only to take everything and leave them
- she could have let go of the fear and shame that haunted her
A tragedy
The world lost a beautiful musical voice. My hope is that the world learns from the tragedy of Whitney. To all other beautiful voices who may currently feel or have felt the pain of betrayal, I encourage treatment with professionals who understand the complex treatment of trauma, professionals who clearly understand the effects of abusive betrayal bonds used by so many in our society to take and pillage from innocent people.
God bless you and keep you Whitney Elizabeth Houston and ALL OTHER VOICES who struggle with healing from trauma bonding.
Rebecca Potter, LMHC is a licensed therapist in Florida who has also suffered trauma from a former abusive husband and a corrupt, abusive family court system. She can be reached at: tlc211@gmail.com.
For more information, read: Inside Whitney Houston’s violent marriage to Bobby Brown on TheDailyBeast.com.
Thanks for your support, Katy. It’s ironic you should say that. Because after this latest round of healing my inner child (which happened in the bathtub last night – lol), I started to feel like this idea of an external “home” was irrelevant. My heart is starting to feel like my home. It’s a very odd feeling which I’ve never felt before.
But having said that, Costa Rica still calls to me – for the beauty, the climate, the peace and happiness of the people, and most important, the SIMPLE way of life. I’m also feeling a strange pull to go to India all of a sudden. This is kind of new.
Star, I’m so happy you’re going back to CR in another few months. Yay!!!!!!! Traveling has always been what you described it to be for me: healing. On the one hand I get to live in a total different environment, see so much beauty (I’m a total jungle fanatic… there’s no place where I feel like my most innocent learning self than in the jungle), do so many physical activity day in and day out, and yet have so much easy time reflecting back on the “home life”.
Athena,
I wish I could give you a step-by-step program to help you from staying NC. Unfortunately I don’t. I know I didn’t even have that big an issue with missing him as much as I feared. But I can share what it was that made it easy for me: total acceptance that his mask was never a real person, and that there was nothing to ‘win’ back. I was still addicted for a couple of weeks, but it was rather easy to remain cold turkey, because of that total acceptance. I don’t mean just understanding intellectually, but I knew it to the chore and bones of myself. And that made it very easy to detach from my ‘missing’ feelings. I felt them, I even accepted and expected to feel it, but after allowing myself to feel it, I let it go and detached myself from that again.
I’m saying this, because when I read what you wrote in this thread, I get the feeling that you intellectually ‘know’ it, but there’s still a part in you that makes him the object to get acceptance, feelings of worthiness from. It’s as if you still give him the power to judge you: that if he gives you attention, lovebombs you, that you then can feel worthy again. That’s not something he’s doing, but a power you’re giving him in your mind. And I think you can only still give him that power, if a part of you still believes that the mask is somehow innate and real within him, or if you hang on to a belief that if you miss him it must be a sign that you really love him and that he somehow must be the one.
The things that helped me to realize how through and through fake he was, and that there was truly never anything that I could gain from him, were a few conversations I had with his ex-es… the interactions he had with them in the earliest stage, in the original lovebombing phase. For me that stage still had a genuine feel for me, as if he ‘must’ have had feelings for me (shallow, or attraction, but something)… until I learned what he had been doing and saying to the other ex-es (keeping them as back-up supply) during that exact stage. They told me in a way as if they thought I knew and was aware of it at the time, which is why I knew they were telling me the absolute thruth. But they gave me the power of a reality that occurred totally outside of my awareness at that early time. And that’s when I knew and totally felt he could never be real or give me what I would normal people to give me in a relationship (friends, work, love). Nor did I ever second guess that deep gut understanding and acceptance of that reality.
It was a very painful process… not because of the missing, but because it was very shocking to look the emptiness of it all in the eye (emotionally and mentally, not physically)… the world was not how I had believed it to be… totally facing the cognitive dissonance. And most of my backlash issues have to do with that realization, rather than missing him. The missing feelings and pain were a piece of cake in comparison to the pain I felt for seeing my world image and beliefs destroyed.
These are the questions I think might be helpful to you:
Is it possible that a part of you still hopes and believes that the mask might be genuine? Do you rely on his behaviour to disprove or prove your own beliefs? Do you need his validation more than your own? Are you more afraid of the pain of losing your beliefs of the social world than of the pain of being with him?
I can’t tell you how to get to that place of to the chore understanding and belief about him. Nobody can (And I refer to the allegorical example of Tommy who tells his followers they can only reach enlightenment by playing pinball and making themselves blind, deaf and mute. It was how he reached an understanding, but not necessarily how others should) But I can tell you that this chore understanding and belief about him is what made me never look back to ever want to be with him again.
Star: Beautiful Costa Rica! I am so jealous of you. xxoo
Whatever you do, BE HAPPY and LOVE LIFE and I sure hope they have computers there, where ever you are going, so you can keep in touch.
((big hugs, Dear….))
Always ~ Dupey
R.I.P. Beautiful Whitney.
Thank you for all of the melodies that will forever live in my head.
Heartfelt condolences to her daughter…
May Blessings follow her where ever she goes…
Dupey
Darwinsmom,
great post to Athena. Your analysis fits for me as well. It was the information I got from my parents – that my dad overheard spath say he was only with me for my money – which cinched it for me in my head that he was sinister.
The overheard conversation occurred within the first 3 months of the relationshit, when I was head over heels in love with him. I understood that if he didn’t love me then, he NEVER loved me. That’s why I’m so disgusted with my parents for not mentioning it until 25 years later. The timing would have saved me 25 years.
At that point, I was confused. I knew he had sinister intentions but couldn’t figure out what his ORIGINAL intentions were because when we met, I had not been in the car accident which awarded me the large settlement. So WHAT did he originally want from me? I imagined all kinds of nefarious schemes to sell me into slavery.
So I asked the guy in the sushi bar, “what did he want from me, I was only 17?” G said, “he wanted something you had.”
Now I understand that spaths are just envious of everything. They see you and me as having some unfair advantage because we are happy and they aren’t. That’s, of course, a good enough reason to destroy our happiness.
Sky, it is indeed a great pity that they never told you. And ‘pity’ is a euphemism. They had a moral obligation to tell you. 25 years is a lifetime, and he nearly killed you, if you hadn’t escaped.
I can’t blame that ex for not telling me. We had no contact, except for what the ex-spath wanted to me to read from her chats with him at the time to illustrate how she was still hung up on him (and I never asked to read that, he just showed it) a bit (though accepting he was with someone else, they had broke up several months before I met him). Besides, she had no reason to tell me he was attempting to visit her in Norway, because she thought I knew, and she had told him no, unless I was to visit along with him. But that little bit of info was such a contrast to his mask to me at the time (the man in love with me), as well as what he portrayed to feel for her (he gave off the appearance he was annoyed by her in their chats), that it confirmed what I feared. And that was the moment I preferred the painful cognitive dissonance state over pining for him with hope that I might be wrong.
Darwins Mom
What a great post.
Yes, I keep watching the behavior of my spath, looking for a sign of some sort that he really loves me. I do need to be validated and in my head, he does that for me. I need to stop this, and just validate myself.
Yes, my spath, like yours, always had back up supply.
It sinks in intellectually that it’s not what he DOES, but who he IS that I have to accept.
Skylar has called my spath a “failed spath”. I see his mask slip and I call him on in all the time. In that slippage, I allow myself hope. That is wasted energy.
To your point, I need to just accept this.
a) I need to go “no contact with him personally.
b) I need to go “no contact” with him in my head.
I know this means not fighting with myself to try to control my thoughts and force myself to NOT think about him (does denying oneself anything ever work? No). Instead, when I DO think about him, I need to see him clearly in my head, and accept that the whole story of “us” was bullshit. To your point, it’s an issue of an earthquake. My worldview has shifted. And I’m arguing with that in my head.
Hugs and thanks.
Athena
Stargazer said:
“This is why I say to anyone obsessing—just do something different ”“ something you would not normally do. And see how it changes you.”
I am doing just that! I am going for martial arts classes. I am determined not to be a victim anymore. After the first one I was so tired and sore but fairly content with myself. I get to beat on things and take out frustrations while working on my physical condition. When teaching me how to do a certain punch/elbow jab combination one of the guys said to use it when my boyfriend got out of line. I said, “I wish I had known about this earlier!”
Just kidding of course, I would not use violence against another person unless my life depended on it.
And while my ex was not physically violent (though at times he was with inanimate objects) his attitude was like emotional sandpaper wearing down my soul. I am taking my power back.
I felt like a shell of who I used to be and of who I wanted to be. I was made to feel as if I were the irrational one. Every argument ended with him “winning” because he was a superior manipulator, was willing to yell the loudest and curse the most and spoke to me in ways my conscience would never have allowed me to speak to him.
Darwinsmom:
I wish I could speak to his exes–one in particular. Unfortunately I have no way of doing so. I have tried finding her. I COULD message someone who knows her asking how to contact her but in order to do that I would have to talk to someone in his social sphere and I am not going to do that. If I am meant to speak with her, or any of them, it will have to be God’s plan and not my own to force.
I do know he had many negative things to say about ALL his exes and according to Bancroft’s book THAT is an early warning sign you are with an abusive person. When he talks about how screwed up his exes were, how everything was their fault and he takes no responsibility for anything bad that happened in their relationship it means he will probably be saying all that about YOU too one day.
I have to wonder what all he is saying about me to his new gf (a back-up supply he was nurturing before we even broke up and within a week of our split was seeing her). She probably does not even know they began dating a week (or less?!) after we broke up. I am fairly sure I was a well-kept secret. And if she DID know all about his split from this horrible selfish girl (me) well then she is not very smart for dating someone who just stepped off my yacht and onto her lifeboat.
Vision:
I LOVED your post about the fly!!!! It gave me a good laugh! Ladies please take the time to unwrap the package FIRST, lol.
Darwins Mom, Vidya
I have about 80% visibility to my spath’s relationshits with other women. Early on, when I first stumbled upon his lies (the first couple of weeks), I was having a “WTF” moment and just started researching HIM (it was a red flag, but I didn’t want to believe it, and I honestly didn’t know that a little red flag was a BIG F’ING PROBLEM).
In any case, over the course of my experience with my spath, I have developed great visibility into his world – his relationships with other people, neighbors, colleagues, parents, etc. So I can see the oattern of lies, the duplicity, the strange cycles he has (I think he’s also a bit borderline) and the women.
Sometimes I got caught up in the little stories – this or that particular event. But removing myself from the day to day bullshit allows me to see the TRENDS. And the TRENDS are exactly what you say they are. They are unchanging. He treats all people the same. He is an equal-opportunity liar and manipulator. You are right, if he criticized other women before you, he’s criticizing you now to other people.
So I am not sure that there is much need for you to talk to your spath’s ex. Whatever your experience was, I can guarantee you, hers was EXACTLY THE SAME.
Athena
Athena,
Listen to the voice inside you. You know you are not happy. Be brave enough to take the first step of removing him from your life. The first few steps are the hardest but your own momentum will carry you through if you stick to your convictions.
I too brushed things aside in the beginning. Red flags and my gut instinct telling me something wasn’t right. During the first few months my ex and I were together I saw part of his conversation with a girl online. It was sexual and crass. I freaked out. He said she was just a friend (and she did live far away so I knew she was not a threat in the physical proximity sense but it was the emotional betrayal that stabbed me through the heart). I told him I was NOT going through what I went through in a previous relationship, where a guy left me for a girl he met online. He became extremely apologetic (one of the few times he ever was), was almost in tears, messaged the girl and told her he could not speak to her in that way anymore because it made his girlfriend feel bad and he felt terrible about it. She responded, “at least one of us has a conscience.” He had closed the window when I saw it so the history of their messages was gone (he did not log them) so I never knew the full conversation. That stayed with me the ENTIRE relationship. I could never forget it. I could never fully trust him. I should have ended it then but I didn’t. I wanted to believe in him. Big mistake.
When it ended it turned out my gut had been right all along.
I struggled–and still struggle–with reconciling his good behavior with his bad behavior. It does set up a cognitive dissonance that can only be worked through by realizing the reality he wanted to inject into my world and the reality I so desperately want to be true are not in fact ACTUALITY. I am a little over a month out of no contact and every day it gets better. The first week or two I was an emotional wreck. If he had contacted me and said the right things I would have taken him back. My saving grace was that he was already involved with someone else and had no need of me anymore.
Your spath may try to contact you as well when you break things off. He may say and do whatever it takes to re-establish control. But PLEASE remember it is not LOVE, he does not want YOU back, he is only wanting his control back. And if he does not contact you and leaves you alone (which may make you feel worthless, as it did me), then that is a blessing in disguise.
Once you gain perspective, even a few days to a few weeks out and start to detox even MORE things will become clear to you. It will be hard to not respond to his calls, texts, etc. if he does that. You MUST be strong and have enough self-respect to purge him from your life. Don’t you want to be happy? Don’t you want the chance to find someone who will treat you well and let you be yourself? Do you even like yourself when you are around your spath? You probably don’t. You deserve to be around people who bring out the best in you. YOU can bring out the best in you by kicking that empty human being to the curb and reactivating your most basic instinct which is to SURVIVE and thrive. It’s not about selfishness. It’s about self-preservation–a page out of an spath’s book we would all do well to bookmark for ourselves. Only in our case self-preservation isn’t so we can cover our tracks from our duplicitous actions and continue to use people. For us that page reads differently. For us it’s about demanding the respect we as human beings deserve and taking back our right to be treated with dignity.