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. She can be reached at: tlc211@gmail.com.
Surviving betrayal and trauma
By Rebecca Potter
Rebecca Potter profile in the Lovefraud Professional Resources Guide
I recently attended a workshop by Dr. Patrick Carnes, Ph.D., author of The Betrayal Bond. I was shocked by the denial of the psychological community regarding the trauma experienced by survivors of emotional and sexual trauma. I took my worn and used copy of The Betrayal Bond to Dr. Carnes for his signature. He signed my copy and asked, “Why used?”
Dr. Carnes’ work has helped me surface from the web of pain and confusion developed while trying to safely escape an emotionally, verbally, financially abusive husband. When I left, I was further damaged by my exposure to the legal system and Family Court. There was no place that I could go to receive treatment, attorneys took advantage of me, insurance companies lied and hid fraud that they had committed with my former mate. Need Dr. Carnes ask why my copy was used and battered, somewhat like me?
Just get over it and move on
This was the attitude I faced when I tried to find professional legal help. The pain in my body was so real, yet invisible to anyone else. I couldn’t explain the terror that I felt when I had to sit in the same room with my former husband: The intense emotion I felt when he told the courtroom lies and the court believed those lies without evidence. The permission that the Court gave to him, which allowed him to further abuse me and how I was ignored and told, “Just get over it and move on.”
The impact of sexual addiction induced trauma
The field of treatment and intervention for disorders related to compulsive sexual behavior and sexual addiction is a new emerging field. Research has focused on the sexual addict, creating models for diagnosis and treatment, while the partners of sex addicts have been neglected and ignored.
Current clinical treatment models prefer to address the partner of a sex addict as a codependent or co-addict, which basically implies that the partner has their own disease termed: co-addiction or codependency. Codependency is in a category of a process addiction—an addiction to certain mood-altering behaviors, such as a tendency to behave in overly passive or excessively care-taking ways that negatively impact one’s relationships and quality of life. Other process addictions include: gambling, food, shopping, spending and hoarding.
The clinical needs of partners of sexual addicts continue to be ignored, minimized, obscured and gravely misunderstood. Partners actually often experience clinically significant sex addiction induced trauma. These traumatic symptoms are a result from the direct impact of sex addiction:
- chronic patterns of sexual acting out
- relational perpetration
- emotional abuse
- deception
- betrayal
- psychological manipulation
Traditional therapists continue to ignore the symptoms of trauma. These partners often present with symptoms that match rape trauma syndrome and post traumatic stress disorder. Sex addiction-induced trauma is a highly specific type of trauma that involves symptoms of fear and panic of potential disease and contamination, fear of child safety and potential of child molestation, social isolation, embarrassment, shame, guilt and intense relational rupture and attachment injuries.
Neglecting the treatment of trauma and focusing instead on co-addiction and codependency are inadequate and clinically contra-indicated, wrought with moral and ethical challenges. Partners and spouses of sex addicts are a profoundly and clinically traumatized population requiring informed care and ethical treatment.
Recovery
I know, because I experienced similar trauma. Recovery has been a long road. I still experience flashbacks and have adrenal fatigue when my symptoms are triggered. I have started women’s and men’s relationship recovery groups. We meet each week to support each other with the withdrawal of leaving a chaotic relationship and help each other process the deep brain injuries from the exploitation and trauma.
I also suggest that survivors participate in online support groups if they are not able to find a trauma therapist in their area. One online group : www.adultchildrenofalcholics.org. There are phone meetings daily. The websites will list the phone meetings. The pain that you are experiencing is real and must be processed with those who understand trauma.
I look at my marriage as an educational process that I needed to experience to assist others in healing. Yes, my ex will marry others and commit the same abuse. There will be many women and children harmed by his manipulation.
Kim – yes. I was there too. But I’m getting better.
Skylar – I believe I asked you about 1000 times, what you thought the difference was between a S and a N. You said it was the mask. I think you’re right. I have been spending the last few days reading posts on sociopathworld and there is an FAQ section addressing this question. There is a great story about sheeps and wolves, and the answer is the same. A spath is all about the mask.
Superkid,
That same difference applies to a socio vs. a psychopath. The P has an even greater attachment to his mask.
Kim,
what I’m hearing from you is that your ex loved to torture you emotionally. His mask was so good that you would shoulder the responsibility for the hurt he put on you. You kept working on yourself and on making yourself a better person, only to be dragged back into the sadness of being devalued.
He was envious of your goodness. Your question of whether you will ever have a good relationship with someone, is the slime he left you with. My spath walked up to me one day – long before I left him – and said, “Nobody will ever want you.”
Imagine that! That’s what they all want to leave us with. When in fact, we are quite desireable.
The only question left, Kim, is whether we will ever find a person who is worthy of us, because we are special, sensitive and loving people. There aren’t too many of us out here.
There is an article today on PSYCHOLOGY TODAY about N’s.
Here is the link:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/stop-walking-eggshells/201110/what-borderlines-and-narcissists-fear-most-part-1
The writer says she is writing about “N”s yet she quotes SAM VAKNIN, who is a well known SPATH.
Superkid,
I read the article and the three other parts to it from the links.
I especially like part 3. It talks about how borderlines and N’s are different, but in part 3, it talks about how they are alike.
The emptiness and lack of identity is where they are similar.
When professionals can’t agree on a term for the disorder—-Ps vs Ns, vs ASPDs etc—for each of us to have our OWN DEFINITION OF WHAT IS A “SOCIOPATH” vs. a “PSYCHOPATH” or a “NARCISSIST” vs. an X etc. is crazy.
To try to finely “define” the differences between the different words like we are describing a specific species of bacteria for a scientific paper is ridiculous! One wears a mask and one doesn’t, one is a murderer, and one never harms anything, and one is a sex addict and one never wants sex, versus one is a gay person, one is straight and one bi-sexual…..to try to minutely “define” each species does nothing, I think, except muddy the water.
Look at the things that they have in COMMON….the big, important things, like NO CONSCIENCE, NO MORAL COMPASS, NO EMPATHY….then you will realize that whether they wear a mask or not is NOT IMPORTANT– some do and some don’t—just like some are male and some female—what IS IMPORTANT is that we can recognize the BIG PICTURE of NO CONSCIENCE, NO MORAL COMPASS, AND NO EMPATHY….NOTHING ELSE MATTERS…and what you call them isn’t really important either…call them a “ROSE,” but if it has THORNS then it will hurt you and all the “sweet smell” it has is not important. Just my rant for today! LOL
Sky, Oxy, Dar, Kimmy, SK….
Wow. I do read the articles here from time to time. This one along with the following discussions has been so incredibly helpful to me right now in my healing process.
Oxy, this is exactly what I’ve been struggling with lately with the “labels” stuff and to what degree. It really doesn’t matter, although Sky does also make a very important distinction in that whatever you call them, just because they exhibit one trait more than another doesn’t make them any less a spath, although she didn’t word it that way. But it is SO TRUE that one could get stuck in wondering “What” he/she is, rather than than what IS their very essence, lack of empathy, remorse or guilt, across the board, it is the same and it’s ALWAYS toxic.
God Bless.
LL
LL, SKY
Glad you found the article helpful, I will go back and read the one that you mention, SKY.
I do think the labels are helpful – not always – but usually. I am a thinker – I like to slice, dice, organize, differentiate, categorize, and to the extent the labels help me differentiate things, I use them. They’re instructive.
However, Oxy, you are always on target with your very pragmatic “toxic is toxic” approach. Who the F cares when the important thing is that ya gotta get the hell away. So hugs to you for THAT!
SUPERKID
When my husband, who i now know to be a sp with npd left me for the new woman, who he had met via internet 6 weeks previous I was filled with loss and anger as I thought we were in love and we were working towards our future. He had in fact, over the course of 2 and a half years got me to borrow from my mothers estate, sell my house and get myself in £25K of personal debt in order that he could leave the army and move back to the UK and acquire a Security Industry License with the promise that it was all for us and as he would be earning a fortune from his job (once it started) we would get back on track. Of course I completley lost it when he took off with her and she was so patronising to me, telling me that I had not given him the love and support he needed! and that she made him ‘complete’. I told her everything he had done to me, and that I had no idea that he hadnt loved me for a long time (his words after he met her). She just berated me, told me I was haggered, boring and past my sell by date and that she was what he wanted so to leave them alone. She also tried to get police to arrest me for stalking (when they heard my story they declined her request). The thing is she is a single mother of 2 children on benefits (her ex partner is a weekend father).
The point is now I am at odds now that I have discovered the root of his behaviour is this social disorder. Do I let him just get on with his destruction, and although she is behaving in the most heartless, selfish manner toward me and not listening to anything I say she does have children and a mother and father, who like my own have worked hard for their nest egg.
He was violent toward me at the very end and has threatened my life and that of other members of my family but of course I have no proof. I neither like nor respect this girl but I know she is just there for as long as she has something he needs (free housing and I suspect anything goes sex from their comments) but having a conscience tears me apart as to what I should be doing.
Also I am wondering … Is this woman a SP too? I am not sure because of the venom she is exhibiting towards me. If I had been armed with the information she is when I met him I wouldn’t have behaved like her and I wouldnt treat another person in such a way anyhow. Can anyone advise?
mags,
those are great questions. Kudos to you for getting such a good handle on this early on.
Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to answer those questions, but I’ll try to give you a perspective from what I’ve observed.
It’s a sick thing to know that this “social disorder”, as you so very aptly termed it, is contagious. In other words, if a person is attracted to a spath, there’s a very good chance that there is a familial connection and that any past, present or future spouses are either spaths or have spath family members. We are attracted to the familiar.
So the new wife could be spath but she sounds more like she was raised by spaths. So, as much as I’d love for you to warn the family, it’s possible that they are spaths and don’t give a damn.
The things you write are a clue to me that you are NOT a spath, but rather a spath supply or enabler. You are compelled to rescue this woman because you have a kind heart and want the world to be fair and just. I’m with you on that, but I’ve learned that it isn’t up to me. Even though I know that, I still WANT SO BADLY TO RESCUE. Your post is timely because I was just struggling with the exact same thing a few moments ago. I’ll explain by telling you my story.
After I learned that I had been with a spath for 25 years and that my parents had known he was a con artist for the entire 25 years because they overheard him say so, I figured out that my mom and my brother and sister are all spaths. My dad is an N.
My ex-spath found a trojan horse spath to infiltrate my family by marrying my spath little sis. I have told her but she doesn’t believe me. She loves the spath trojan horse. She has a few thousand left of the 50 she had when she married him in 2001. When it is all gone, he will divorce her, leaving her with nothing because she has no other values apart from money. Mom and dad know this and they aren’t helping any at all. Even though she is a spath, I soooo want to rescue her – for so many reasons. She was even trying to get me to commit suicide (her husband was egging her on, but she didn’t know that my spath was at the bottom of it) and it still “kills me” to know that she will get taken by this ugly creature.
Mom and dad (spaths) really liked the idea of me getting f**ked over by my spath so that I would always need them. Same with spath sis. They really can’t wait for her to get f**ked so that she will run back to the nest.
So you see, it’s not simple. It’s sort of complicated. There are spaths and there are UBER spaths. the UBERspaths will take advantage of anyone. the regular spaths just wait for direction.
your problem and mine is that we can’t help feeling compassion for anyone, even the evil ones. That is our difficult lesson to learn: we can’t save others, only save ourselves. I hate it too, but every day, I see that it’s the truth. Believing you can rescue others is a form of narcissism.
Skylar
You wrote lots of times that your parents are spaths and that they betrayed you bc/ they knew your partner had a hidden motive for chosing you. But until this post, I didn’t really see how your parents manifested their poison. Wow. I kinda disagree. It is simple. They did behaviors in order to teach you a lesson, to put you in “your place” which is under their thumb. Of all the posters on here, your story shadows mine so closely.
I was constantly punished for not “knowing my place” (not submitting to their control.) It is simple spath logic. SEEING it is the hard part. I knew that things weren’t right but I couldn’t put my finger on it, it just FELT bad all the time. MY family, like yours, wanted me to suffer at the hands of other people and esp my spouse so I would learn to NEED them, (let them have power over me.) But I didn’t need them for that. I needed them to love me and after learning that would never happen with them, I didn’t have any reason to have any contact with them. They were parasites and I had no use for parasites. Not one.