Last week I picked my daughter up from the Agriscience High School she attends and was greeted with a sure sign of spring. There are dozens of new baby lambs who have all just been born. They are very cute but they also look exactly the same to me. My daughter tells me that they look alike because although there are many ewes there is only one ram, so all the babies have the same dad. Even though the babies look alike and to me they smell alike, each one is unique and special to its mother.
Sheep live in herds and unlike some other mammals they do not care for each other’s babies. A mother sheep must bond to and learn to identify her baby among the vast herd of lambs who are born at the same time. When you consider that sheep are not very smart, this feat is truly one of nature’s miracles.
But why am I discussing sheep on this blog? The reason is FAQ #1. “Why is this so hard for us mentally?” Men and women who have been involved with sociopaths want to know why recovery is so difficult. Sheep, believe it or not, teach us a lot about that.
Farmers have known for centuries that mother sheep are selective and will reject strange lambs but lovingly care for their own. A ewe can be fooled into accepting a strange lamb if she receives stimulation to her cervix and vagina. (Please don’t ask me how the farmers accomplish that one.) Stimulation of the cervix and vagina, as happens during birth are part of what produces the love bond a ewe feels toward her baby.
Vaginal and cervical stimulation induces bonding in the mother. Blocking the sensory impulses from the pelvic region with spinal anesthesia blocks the bonding mechanism. The failure to bond after spinal anesthesia can be reversed by oxytocin injection. In fact, oxytocin injection alone can induce acceptance of an unfamiliar lamb even in a non-pregnant ewe. Acceptance/bonding is also disrupted by oxytocin blocking drugs. There is therefore strong evidence that oxytocin mediates bonding in sheep.
It appears that in mammals, the hormone oxytocin not only helps in labor by inducing uterine contractions and facilitates nursing by causing milk ejection, it is also a bonding hormone. Those women who have experienced motherhood and birth can attest to the fact that for many falling in love with a newborn is similar to falling in love with one’s mate. Men are not off the hook when it comes to bonding. They too have oxytocin, and it is important in normal male sexual function.
Scientists are in the process of unraveling the mystery of how oxytocin induces a love bond between a ewe and her lamb. What has been discovered so far has pretty scary implications for humans. Oxytocin induces plasticity in the sheep smell cortex. That means that the cells that respond to smell become very sensitive such that those which are stimulated by the odor of the newborn develop strong connections. By this mechanism, the smell of the baby is imprinted on the mother’s brain.
Another group of researchers studying rodents have actually pinpointed the molecular mechanism responsible for oxytocin’s action in another area of the brain responsible for memory, the hippocampus. Oxytocin binding to its receptor induces production of another protein pCREB. This protein acts to enhance plasticity and long term memory. The long and the short of it is that oxytocin produces a rewiring of the brain! When you love someone, your love changes the wiring in your brain. Since undoing the wiring takes time, recovery takes time.
In our book, Women Who Love Psychopaths (available April 24) Sandra Brown, M.A. makes the observation that many of the women recovering from relationships with psychopaths seem to be exceptionally trusting of others. I have to admit that that description probably fits me. Well, blame that one on oxytocin too.
Paul J. Zak, PhD, is founding director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont. Has done a series of experiments in which he has shown that oxytocin is also responsible for trust in humans. Oxytocin and oxytocin receptors are found in both men and women.
What about sociopaths? They are not particularly trusting and we know they do not bond. Could the problem be oxytocin? In preliminary studies Dr. Zak and colleagues found that sociopaths may have abnormally high levels of oxytocin. This could happen if there is something wrong with their oxytocin receptors such that they are “immune” to oxytocin. Here is a great talk on oxytocin by Dr. Zak. Just fast forward to 3 minutes and 30 seconds to get past the longwinded introduction.
The oxytocin news isn’t all bad for us humans. Remember that a ewe has more than one lamb over the course of her life, so oxytocin is able to rewire the brain more than once in a lifetime. Many people instinctively know that getting into another relationship will help to erase the memory of a bad relationship. Be careful though, if you are recovering from a relationship with a sociopath, you are especially vulnerable to being victimized again by another sociopath.
The other lesson to be learned is that to heal you must get away from the sociopath. Every time you have any intimacy with a sociopath, oxytocin is released and the bond is strengthened. Any intimacy, including talking and hugging, will stimulate oxytocin release. If oxytocin is released in the presence of the sociopath you will trust and feel bonded to him/her.
Skylar, thanks for bringing this one back. Really interesting. I tried to get to your link but it didn’t work. Hope you’re doing good today.
I can’t get the link to work so I’m going to copy and paste the short article here:
Background
Humans have a strong social tendency to compare themselves with others. We tend to feel envious when we receive less valuable rewards and may rejoice when our payoffs are more advantageous. Envy and schadenfreude (gloating over the other’s misfortune) are social emotions widely agreed to be a symptom of the human social tendency to compare one’s payoffs with those of others. Given the important social components of envy and gloating, we speculated that oxytocin may have a modulating effect on the intensity of these emotions.
Methods
Fifty-six participants participated in this double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subject study. Following the administration of oxytocin or a placebo, participants played a game of chance with another (fake) participant who either won more money (envy manipulation), lost more money (schadenfreude manipulation), or won/lost equal amounts of money.
Results
In comparison with the placebo, oxytocin increased the envy ratings during unequal monetary gain conditions involving relative loss (when the participant gained less money than another player). Oxytocin also increased the ratings of gloating during relative gain conditions (when the participant gained more money than the other player). By contrast, oxytocin had no effect on the emotional ratings following equal monetary gains nor did it affect general mood ratings.
Conclusions
These results suggest that the oxytocinergic system is involved in modulating envy and gloating. Thus, contrary to the prevailing belief that this system is involved solely in positive prosocial behaviors, it probably plays a key role in a wider range of social emotion-related behaviors.
Wow. And P’s have more of it. That’s a surprise. Wonder how it works in new mothers? Bonded partners? Etc.
Hi Kim,
yeah, looks like they have more oxytocin but less receptors.
I noticed many people responding to this post mentioned how good their xP smelled. So did mine!! It was amazing how good he smelled, not under the arm pit smell but just overall. I’ve never known a guy who smelled so good at the end of the day. BUT, in the last few years, about the same time he started to change his attitude and show his evil side, he began to smell really bad. And the smell would not wash off of his clothes. I know it wasn’t just me, because the lady at the laudromat noticed that his clothes smelled like they weren’t coming clean. Just a really bizarre bad smell.
I know he’s always been evil, but he hid it very well for many years. But about 10 years ago, I noticed a change in his ability to con everyone, he just wasn’t very good anymore and it wasn’t working on me either. I think that’s when his smell changed too. It’s hard to remember exactly because, obviously I wasn’t aware of exactly what I was witnessing, but I believe it was the beginning of his decline.
Maybe the we are smelling the excessive oxytocin in them and it’s getting us hooked?
Homework for everyone: go find a P and sniff him. Try not to get hooked. LOL.
Yeah, scratch and sniff, just like a cat!
Seriously though I wonder how the phermones come into play.
I read an another article that says we imprint on our first love. So I feel a little more forgiving of myself, because the P was my first love and I was in deep (and he emotionally raped me then too!) . So not too hard to understand that once I let him get a foot in my life forty years later, I was a goner. Had I known all this stuff about chemicals, etc. I could have fought it better.
Kim,
How is Pinky Doodle btw? One of my kitties, Violet, got an eye infection and I’m really worried. She scratched her cornea somehow.
From what I’m reading, oxytocin isn’t a pheromone it is strictly a hormone, so that is why it’s applied up the nose rather than sniffed. That’s not to say that it doesn’t somehow affect the release of pheromones…
The way it works is that when you produce more oxytocin, you feel happier. It could be that Ps have less receptors in the amygdala or maybe another hormone (cortisole or adrenalin) may be binding to the same receptor therefore not leaving any space open for the oxytocin. Its possible that they secrete more oxytocin when that hormone is not binding to the receptors for whatever reason.
Remember, oxytocin makes you “trust” not “mate”, it’s just that the con man needs you to trust him before you will mate w/him or give him your money. They will usually use the “pity ploy” which can be an appeal to the mothering instinct – which does have a oxytocin connection. I know mine also uses the “ego ploy”. He will ask you, “You have money right? What good is money if it doesn’t make you happy? Use the money to make yourself happy…” something along those lines but it usually involves buying something that he wants, and then he will take it.
What really struck me is that in addition to being a perfect N-supply, I also find it hard to feel envy or gloat over other’s misfortunes. Now it appears to be connected to having low oxytocin. Need to find someone to have sex with.! But not a P.
As for smelling good, I have no clue how that works, thats why we need to do an informal survey here at LF. Does everyone here remember that their PoiSoN smelled really good when you first met?
Skylar, pinky doodle is good, but now has something called a hematoma on the fur covered part of his ear. It’s like a blood blister, I guess, and his ear is puffed up like a puff pastry! I don’t think he got any antibodies or immunities as a baby, since he almost starved to death. I went on line and researched it though, and apparently it’s not serious, he doesn’t seem to be in pain, just looks pathetic, ( maybe that’s why I love him so much). His eye infection is incurable in so far as he will continue to have outbreaks, it is viral in nature, and is called feline herpes virus of the eye. Poor baby. I give him half a Lysene capsule daily to defend against outbreaks. Are you sure your kitty doesn’t have this? It is not contagious to humans, by the way.
I wanted to comment though that the oxytocin hormone is released by way of physical touch, so that a viscious cycle is established, We trust, we mate, we bond, Etc, etc etc. That’s part of the reason it’s sooo hard to end the relationship, even if it s–ks! Know what I mean? There’s a great article about this, but I’ll have to try to locate it. I’ll let you know how to access it. Love to your Kittys.
Skylar, I’m still preatty computer illiterate and there are a lot of things I don’t know how to do, like post a link. That artical is by Sandra Brown at http://www.saferelationshipsmagazine.com...
It is titled: Living the Gentle life part7: Healing Sexually. I could only find part 6, online. I subscribed to the magazine and they sent me part 7 to E-mail. Not sure when it will become available, or how to send it on to you. You can always subscribe though. Very good article!
Hey, look at that. All I had to do was write the address and it came out in red! Yay me. I’m learning.