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.
Athena,
When you know the reason why you hang on to the hope that he is not as bad as you feared, then you are closer to the key to remain no contact. It is now important for you to find out how you can validate yourself.
“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.”
Exactly! There is no shame in missing him. It is natural and normal that you would. You loved truly and you are bonded. It is painful, and annoying, but the acceptance of it is part of its easing. You can turn the missing feelings into a moment where you honour of yourself: YOU were and are REAL.
“it’s an issue of an earthquake. My worldview has shifted. And I’m arguing with that in my head.”
It is an earthquake. I truly is. I found it horrific. I was in a full state of horror for several months. It was what created the feeling of panic in my mind and disabled me from functioning properly except for observing for several months, and caused more havoc through it. Now, the reality has become accepted to me. I feel sad about this reality at times, but accepting it is also empowering me to choose my battles. More aware now, and not battling the knowledge in my head anymore, enabled me to either cut out the bullshit out of my life or deal with it in a strategic way, without taking it personal anymore: in my personal and professional life. I wouldn’t even want to be unaware anymore now, seeing how much better I have handled certain situations more aptly and to my own satisfaction the past few months.
Vidya,
Only contact an ex of his if it is safe to do so.
I knew who they were, and I picked them out of his FB contacts in the days following our break up and wrote a FB message to them. Another one lives in Belgium and actually called me herself the second or third day after the break up to tell me what a bastard he was, that she was utterly happy for me that he was out of my life. I also contacted a FB friend of mine, who wasn’t a friend of mine. She had friend requested me a few months before my break up with my ex-spath. I knew she had befriended my the spath in FB first, had been in Nicaragua and then requested me, while I wasn’ t there and she possibly couldn’t know. I accepted her request, anyhow. On her pictures I could see when she was in Nicaragua and that she and HER friend knew the spath. Her pics were innocent enough. But I had a suspicion anyhow that her friend my have had an affair with the spath. I hadn’t had the courage to ask until after the break up. The young woman did say she felt it wasn’t her place to tell what happened, but agreed to request her friend if she was willing to talk to me and tell her story. Not only did the friend confirm she had had an affair with my spath, but also how he had stolen from her (she wasn’t certain it was him at the time), and once I was befriended with her I could see the pics they had where he was tagged (he had security settings on the pics of him in which he was tagged so that I couldn’t see them). More I could read the comments he had written on those pics, and then on his fb page how he tried to contact her and sweeten her up after she left Nicaragua an traveled more south, while at the same time I had been waiting for him to come online to talk to me, but never did (he was online, just completely ignored me), and I left “Love you” and “miss you” messages. I could see the whole warbled mix of it. Nobody with any empathy in his bone would have those messages mixed together on their wall. It was just ugly and sick. That’s when I knew he didn’t just never loved me, but enjoyed torturing me emotionally. It was truly disgusting. That fb wall of his was exactly the last straw for me to never doubt what an ugly, disgusting human being he is. And I exposed this deceit on his fb wall with one post, and then deleted ALL my hystory and links with him.
I would be interested to hear the story from his ex-wife, but I have no way of contactign her at all. But I guess it won’t be much different from mine, nor the 3 other woman.
I don’t really contact much people of his circle anymore, but I’m not afraid to talk to them either. Most tend to not tell me what he’s up to now, instinctively or because they respect my wishes about it. But at the very least if I were to say visit Nicaragua ever again I can actually ask them whether he’s around or not (and that is why most keep them as FB contact: to be aware of his whereabouts to stay safe themselves LOL). I have no need to convince them, let alone making them choose. They know they can’t trust him, and trust me. And I know the whole ugly truth after seeing and reading that FB wall in the first week after we broke up. If hypothetically his new victim or his sister-cousin would try to convince me what a swell guy he is… I know they’re wrong and in denial then. There is not even 0.000000000000000000000001 % doubt in me.
Athena,
YOu say you think he is also possibly a “bit borderline”–the personality disorder symptoms overlap to a large extent, so you are probably right on.
A LIAR is not to be trusted….if you can’t trust someone how on earth can you have a relation-shiat with them?
Each time you find yourself thinking about him, missing him, etc. say to yourself “but he is a LIAR, HE IS NOT REAL. I CAN’T TRUST HIM.”
There are also bundles of good articles here on “healing from a sociopath” and though they are not going to magicly heal you, they are good reading for when you are feeling “weak” so go read them…and when you finish the last one go read them again! It will help.! (((hugs))) and God bless.
darwinsmom:
Hiding tagged pictures of himself on fb is a HUGE red flag. My ex did this exact same thing a few months into our relationship. He went from being completely transparent with me, showing me old private pictures online of exes and friends, to privatizing everything.
He reeled me in that way with his honesty and transparency. Once the trap had snapped on me he hid all pictures but his profile photos.
When questioned about why he made his pictures private, he said he didn’t want stupid pictures of him tagged by others and because he could not control what other people tagged he just made them to where only HE could see them.
Are these men cut from the same cloth or what?!
He makes me sick. How could I have been so trusting? In a previous post I made I said I could never fully trust him, but I tried to ignore it because he said the problem was ME and my own insecurities.
No, the problem was him. It was ALWAYS him.
Vidya,
He did the EXACT same thing… heck the first months he gave me his password to upload everything, invited me to chat on HIS fb with his friends. I respect people’s privacy, wasn’t even curious, and he was showing all this. Never abused it. And then couple of months later I discovered I couldn’t see tagged pics of him, because when I tagged him in my pictures I couldn’t even see them from his wall anymore. And when I asked about it, he came with this lame excuse that he didn’t know how to. When I told him of course that I could help him with that, first he made excuses, and then started to accuse me of being controlling. WTF? That was MONTHS before it all going wrong. At some point I did become suspicious because of some wall comments I read of him towards a “friend”. At least her pics weren’t protected, and I saw nothing of real worry, but he was often asking where she was, how she was, and using “Baby”… I actually had noticed some of it months before, but even didn’t think much of it… and then all of a sudden it started to click. Because I feared his denial was a lie I wrote her myself. She said nothing had ever happened between them. Then suddenly she tagged him in her pics and he commented how he liked hte pics and happy to be tagged in them, but why had she waited so long to tag him… she commented it didn’t matter anymore to keep them secret. It wasn’t outspoken, but it seemed as if she was supposed to keep the pics with him secret… only one detail: her pic protections were such that friends of friends could see them, so I had always been able to see them. There just wasn’t anything to see them as a couple on them, just friends had been possible. That she thought she kept them secret until I wrote her to ask her whether she and him had had a liaison (and I asked very respectfully, not to accuse her) is more circumstantial evidence they probably did have an affair. Pity she lied to me about it. It would have saved me at the very least half a year of emotional torment. She probably thought: heck it was a summer, holiday affair… no need to break them up.
Yup it is a HUGE flag.
Darwinsmom & Vidya,
My spath had all kinds of things that he hid from me and I felt perplexed about why he felt the need to hide stuff from me. Like where his friend H lived. One day we were going to meet in the town where H lives. But I wasn’t supposed to know where the house was. Spath said to meet him at xx place. Somehow, I glimpsed spaths car leaving H’s house and going out the back road only to drive back around coming toward the front. So I asked spath why he did that.
He said, “I didn’t want you to know where H lives because I think you are vindictive and one day you’ll try to do something to me.” I thought, “WTF?”
It occurred to me that spath didn’t know me very well. I thought that for some reason he was painting me with a brush that had to do with other people who had tried to hurt him.
Now I know exactly why he did that. It’s because he had always INTENDED to hurt me. And he expected retribution. That’s why they compartmentalize. When you know all of a spath’s sources of supply, and spath stabs you in the back, the spath worries that you will poison his well.
Red Flag : if he tries to keep you from knowing any friends or family members he is compartmentalizing you and he’s up to no good. DUH!
Really if I had just listened to my gut, I would have known because it made me sick to be treated like that.
Oxy, yeah, I see the borderline tendancies in him – he has these crazy cycles of hibernation & then communication – and then not only IF he talks to anybody, but WHOM he talks to. I did read all the stuff about healing. THank you for that. But there is nothing better than talking about it myself, with people I trust, and who are going through the same things. Hugs to all of you tonight.
Athena
Sky,
He wanted to introduce me to ALL the men he knew, but not the women that much. Why would that be, huh?
It backfired: I removed all evidence of me ever being in love and happy with him. Wrote ‘fake’ with the very few pictures he had of us on his own account. And I wrote one wall comment: “ladies get tested for STDs, I know I may have looked like a fool for trusting this man, but at least I had genuine feelings.” :p The people who know us both supported me, some of the people that he considers guys to hang out with and introduce eahc victim to tipped me off how long it had been going on already with the new victim and that he was talking about going to live in London in the first week he had switched.
As far as I’m concerned everyone has been helpful to give me all the info I needed back then to want to move on and know reality. They are still eager to tell me whatever they know he’s been up to: cheating on his present “girlfriend”, using her for paying for their trips (now he’s supposed to be in Australia) and telling me they’ll give me head’s up if I ever plan to visit Nicaragua where in the world he’s at, so I can come without being bothered by him. I don’t ask them about this, not of the past, not the present. I don’t talk about him at all, and if they mention him I change the subject. But it’s nice to know that they’re all happy I’m rid of him and be eyes for me if I would ask them to. I lashed out for a moment for all to see , short and succinct, and then remained silent about him to them. They probably write it off as a response of a woman scorned, but they don’t blame me, because they agree and I hardly discussed it with any of them.
I actually am pretty sure that if I were indeed to visit his village in Nicaragua that i’m welcomed with open arms and have many people who’d look out for me, more now than when I was with him. He didn’t have a good reputation to begin with anyway.
Skylar wrote:
“That’s why they compartmentalize. When you know all of a spath’s sources of supply, and spath stabs you in the back, the spath worries that you will poison his well.
Red Flag : if he tries to keep you from knowing any friends or family members he is compartmentalizing you and he’s up to no good. DUH!
Really if I had just listened to my gut, I would have known because it made me sick to be treated like that. ”
Totally 100% agree!!! After the first 4 months he stopped bringing me around his friends and I never saw his family again. We dated for a year past that. I was doubtful his parents even knew we were together but they sent me a Christmas gift through him so they did know. Honestly I was SHOCKED when I found out they knew we were still together.
When I wrote him a heart-felt email near the end breaking things off (things really ended about 2 weeks after that) I told him all I ever wanted was to be included in his social circle, invited to things he did with his friends–things NORMAL people want from a NORMAL relationship–but he COMPARTMENTALIZED his life. That way he would not be asked what happened with us, no one would inquire about our break-up and he could go on and live life as if we never happened. He had no response to this. Never even addressed it and did not make time to have a discussion with me about our relationship. His friends were in another town and I am sure they never knew he lived with me.
Even on facebook when he was posting about his new job people would comment and ask if he moved here. He never replied to them. Because that would mean he’d have to say where he was staying!! I don’t think his coworkers ever knew he lived with me either. He had his separate worlds and that did not sit well with me.
I now think he had to move on to someone else because I had figured out a LOT of the things in his bag of tricks. I was onto him and speaking out about it regularly. I stood up to him when he attempted to control my free time, wanting 7 days/week with me when I begged to have 3/week nights to engage in a hobby. He was unyielding in that request and I was unyielding in my decision to keep 3 nights for myself. We lived together so it wasn’t as if we never saw one another and my hobby was done right there at home on the computer, hurting no one, just having fun playing a game online, so it wasn’t like he didn’t know where I was, who I was with, what I was doing.
I didn’t give in. For the first time I didn’t give in to one of his requests that would have changed my life for the worse, taking away one of the last things that gave me happiness. And so….he moved out.
And I began to detox. And every day I gain clarity and insight into what he really was–a verbally abusive, emotionally manipulative, self-absorbed, angry sociopath.
Vidya,
oh yes, the spaths don’t like it when you look behind the mask. It was toward the end that he asked me, “When did you stop respecting me?” respect? I never respected him. I felt sorry for him, mostly. How could I respect someone who mooched off me?
So yours left you at that point. Mine decided to kill me at that point. Different paths for different spaths.
😆
It doesn’t matter what the differences are, they’re still all the same. I wish we had an emoticon for :puke: