The damage done to strangers, lovers and family members by sociopaths includes physical, emotional, psychological, social and financial harm. Over the years I have encountered many people whose lives have been damaged in this way.
The victimization alone is very sad, but people suffer not only from the actual damage but from their psychological and emotional reactions to it. It is one thing to lose a large sum of money or time that you can’t ever get back. The losses happened and are permanently in the past. It is another thing for a person’s present to be occupied by that loss.
The Aftermath is often more extensive than the victimization itself
It is my observation that for many victims this aftermath lasts a long time and includes considerable dysfunction and this dysfunction causes additional damage. Many have used the label “PTSD” for these psychological, emotional and physical reactions to victimization. Although I agree that diagnosis may fit some, I have never been entirely comfortable with it applied to this context. The reason is that PTSD technically applies to only to situations that are “life-threatening.” PTSD is an anxiety disorder as opposed to an “adjustment disorder” and some symptoms that victims have are not based in “anxiety.”
Psychologist and Professor, Dr Michael Linden, of the Research Group Psychosomatic Rehabilitation, Berlin, Germany has proposed a new disorder be added to the DSM. This disorder, termed Post-Traumatic Embitterment Disorder or PTED describes the reactions I have seen in many people victimized by sociopaths.
I thought seriously about this blog for two weeks before posting it because suggesting there is such a thing as PTED is far from politically correct and sincerely, I would not want anyone to get the idea that I blame victims for their aftermath symptoms. On the other hand, I hope that those who have the symptoms Dr. Linden identifies will consider addressing them. I am also not in favor of the medicalization of common psychological reactions and so am not rushing to advocate PTED be declared an official diagnosis.
What is PTED?
Just as PTSD is thought to result from the threat of loss of life, PTED results from a different kind of threat. Dr. Linden states regarding PTED, “The core pathogenic mechanism is not the provocation of anxiety, but a violation of basic beliefs. This threat to deeply held beliefs, acts upon the patient as a powerful psychological shock, which triggers a prolonged feeling of embitterment and injustice.”
For victims of sociopath’s the sociopath’s behavior violates core beliefs about human nature and sense of safety. That theme is discussed over and over on this website.
Diagnostic and associated features
The essential feature of posttraumatic embitterment disorder is the development of clinically significant emotional or behavioral symptoms following a single exceptional, though normal negative life event. The person knows about the event and perceives it as the cause of illness. The event is experienced as unjust, as an insult, and as a humiliation. The person’s response to the event must involve feelings of embitterment, rage, and helplessness. The person reacts with emotional arousal when reminded of the event. The characteristic symptoms resulting from the event are repeated intrusive memories and a persistent negative change in mental well-being. Affect modulation is unimpaired and normal affect can be observed if the person is distracted”¦
Besides prolonged embitterment individuals may display negative mood, irritability, restlessness, and resignation. Individuals may blame themselves for the event, for not having prevented it, or for not being able to cope with it. Patients may show a variety of unspecific somatic complaints, such as loss of appetite, sleep disturbance, pain.
PTED is said to be a disabling condition and is very difficult to treat.
Additional comments
Although I read two of Dr. Linden’s papers (see below) I was disappointed that he failed to define what it means to be bitter. How does bitterness differ from other reactions like anxiety or grief? Bitter is not an emotion it is a taste. Is he suggesting that victims have an actual bitter taste in their mouths? In studying dictionary definitions I can offer that bitterness is unique in that there is an anger/hostility component- synonym resentful, hostile feeling.
Provided he can more precisely define bitterness, I think Dr. Linden may be communicating something useful here. That is the idea that we have to mobilize our resources to move beyond events that threaten us. Events that threatened core beliefs may be very traumatic for people. It is important for victims to examine their core beliefs in recovering from a relationship with a sociopath.
I am interested in your reactions to this proposed diagnosis.
References
Linden, Michael, Kai Baumann, Barbara Lieberei, and Max Rotter. 2009. “The Post-Traumatic Embitterment Disorder Self-Rating Scale (PTED Scale).” Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy 16, no. 2: 139-147.
Linden, Michael, Kai Baumann, Max Rotter, and Barbara Schippan. 2008. “Diagnostic criteria and the standardized diagnostic interview for posttraumatic embitterment disorder (PTED).” International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice 12, no. 2: 93-96.
Amber:
I’m confused…..
You DID get your car back? Or you DO NOT have your car and sonny still hasn’t shown up with it?
I’m not sure where I got lost…..
BUT……Have the father pay for the locks to get changed….ignition and doors! Small price to pay for theft!!!
Please do not engage with predators. I am deleting the Evil Clown conversation.
Erin,
GOOD idea about having sonny/daddy pay for the locks. Daddy should have secured the car, he didn’t tell amber or her father immediately, and only when he was “discovered” to be covering up. GOOD idea!
Thank you donna!
Donna
Interesting! I resonate with the description:
‘The person reacts with EMOTIONAL AROUSAL when reminded of the event. The characteristic symptoms resulting from the event are REPEATED INTRUSIVE MEMORIES and a persistent negative change in mental well-being. ‘
But I don’t experience it as a disorder, nor would I label it so. From my own experience, 4 months no contact with P The intrusive memories are fading, arousal when mentioned lessening, I’m feeling a little “bored” with it now and am spending longer amounts of time not thinking about the trauma…if I had read this 2 months ago I would have been alarmed and convinced I was in the grip of some mental disorder, but I am sure the reasons for being “bitter” are okay as deeply held beliefs are thrown up into the air only to fall and land “differently” leaving me with a greater handle on reality…it’s not bitterness, it’s the experience of the truth which hurts terribly but needs to be faced, integrated and leaving me with a greater clarity and up dated less naive deeply held beliefs like ….there are people out there who have no remorse. I need to be aware and vigilant. I have been hurt terribly but now I really get it, and I walk down the street armed with this experience not embittered by it.
Hey guys…I’ve been away for the last 24 hours..my sister just got home from England so it was nice to spend yesterday with her!! Thanks OX for filling Erin in. Yes..car is home…And Yes…dad’s friendship with bad, mechanic, enabling dad is over!! And good idea about having the locks and ignition changed. I’m going to look into that. And Sky..the mechanic dad didn’t ask for us to wait until Thursdsay…MY dad, trying to be a nice guy said he’d give him until Thursday and when my dad told me..I wasn’t too keen. I told my dad Dave was just as guilty as the son, and I didn’t think he deserved until Thursday and I reported it the next morning…then I informed Dave that I reported his son had stole it, and he relayed the message to the kid and I guess that scared him into bringing it back.. I’m just glad the whole thing is over…and when the cops finally catch up with the kid, then I’ll press charges. I’m not going to let him get away with this. So in time….it’ll catch up with him. Well, I’m off to hang out with my sister today. It’s good to have her here. I haven’t seen her in 3 months, so we’ve got some catching up to do. I’ll check in later!! Hope you all have a wonderful day!! HUGS!!!
Dear Stayingsane,
Your post is very empowering! Good way to look at things. Your vigilence to protect yourself now that you know that there ARE evil people out there is what I call “caution”–“once burned, twice shy”–my granny would have said.
Unfortunately, there are those people who STAY locked in the stage of bitterness and do not progress on to successful healing.
I can’t remember the name of the article, but Dr. Leedom did one on the “defeated mouse” that was interesting reserarch.
Glad you are here, Staying sane! Thanks for a good post!
Hi everyone, it was one year ago today that my SP attacked and assaulted my son in his bedroom. Today I actually spent the day in my son’s room, preparing to paint the walls and give the room a fresh new look. As I was doing that, I thought how different it felt in that room today as opposed to one year ago when there was screaming, tears, pain, and broken furniture. It has also been 1 year of NC! I’m proud of myself for that.
However, earlier in the week, the foster dad who is caring for my son in his theraputic mentoring home informed me that he had a visit from my SP’s parents asking him to prepare an affadavit basically describing how troubled my son is, etc so they can use it for the SP’s appeal. They say their son has been wrongfully convicted because we all lied. I still find hard to believe how they continue to support him 100%. Talk about enabling! Well they live in complete denial. Of course the foster dad refused to help.
ICthruhim, Congrats on your 1 year of NC! You sound like you are doing so much better! I can just imagine the SP blaming your son for what happened, his parents sound as dumb as nails. Yea for the foster dad!! I hope your son is feeling better also. What a good idea to paint the walls!!!!!
Stayingsane,
“”it’s not bitterness, it’s the experience of the truth which hurts terribly but needs to be faced, integrated and leaving me with a greater clarity and up dated less naive deeply held beliefs like ”.there are people out there who have no remorse. I need to be aware and vigilant. I have been hurt terribly but now I really get it, and I walk down the street armed with this experience not embittered by it.”
Insightful, empowering, profound!
Thank you.
I can see this really touched a nerve.
“The person’s response to the event must involve feelings of embitterment, rage, and helplessness. ”
I am weeping as I read this because I have felt this way my whole life. I am 53 years old, and I have suffered from depression, endometriosis, migraines, fibromyalgia and chronic
pain most of my life. I had a good career managing computer networks but was forced to retire on disability 10 years ago because of intractable pain. I was able to work most of the first 10 years with fibromyalgia, for which I am thankful.
I and the rest of my family have been devastated by psychopaths before I was even born. I have become bitter because now I can see in my siblings the same damaged patterns. I suddenly feel that I am surrounded by narcissists and sociopaths and the healing I expected will never take place. Am I paranoid? It is an awful feeling to know that most of your family will stab you in the back (and have) at the first opportunity. I do not know who to trust anymore.
When my mother was home for the summer before her senior year in college, she was raped by a “date.” Because this was in the 1950’s, she had to carry the child to term and give it up for adoption. Although her family was supportive, she felt a lot of shame, because she basically had to “hide” from society during the pregnancy. She felt she was “damaged goods,” which I think set her up for exploitation by other sociopaths. She met my father through a friend when he was still in med school, was completely charmed by him (he was a musician and the life of the party) and got married. She also has some narcissistic tendencies – a predilection for rage if you made her angry.
My father was a drunken sociopath (and psychiatrist) who beat my mother constantly – until her face was so punched up she would not leave the house. I was the first child, then my two younger sisters were born before he died in an auto crash when I was seven, one sister five, and the youngest not even two. She tells me stories like (when I was a baby): “He chased me around the house with a knife and said he was going to kill me. I ran to a neighbors, he was then taken in chains to the navy brig,” leaving me to wonder “where was I when this was happening?” He also tried to commit suicide numerous times.
I asked her yesterday “Did my father ever tell you he was sorry after these incidents?” and she said not at all, he acted like it didn’t happen. I guess he could ignore her black-and-blue face. That’s just when I decided, just yesterday, that he was indeed a sociopath.
I know I suffer from delayed and chronic PTSD. My sister,
who was only five when my father died, remembers a lot of things that I have no memory of. I have only 2 memories – one when I was at least 6 – I was standing ouside of my house afraid to go in, because there was yelling and the crash of things breaking through the kitchen window. Another memory came back to me a couple of years ago – in the middle of the day on a weekend, I remember hiding in a closet while there was yelling going on down the hallway in my parents room. I was in there with a pair of blunt scissors, making small even cuts into the hem of a blue dress I had. I think I remember this because I wore that blue dress for several years, apparently because my mother never noticed the cuts. The most vivid memory of this blue dress being that I was sent home from school in the fifth grade because the dress was too short. They were trying to outlaw miniskirts but I was just a skinny late- bloomer wearing a dress she had outgrown. Somehow the existence of that blue dress connects my memories together – memories of fear, shame and humiliation.
I also remember (almost a pre-verbal memory)of dissociating into a shaft of sunlight coming into a window onto the floor, and I was trying to get “a piece of sun.” I can dissociate with the best of ’em. I do it all the time now because it is useful when my pain gets to be unbearable. I take some meds but all pain meds exacerbate my depression. It is hard to have much of a life when you can’t leave the house for 3 or 4 days at a time.
About 2 years after my father died, my mother remarried. He was just getting out of the air force, tall, handsome, charming, and 10 years younger. She was struggling to work and raise 3 children after being widowed, so she was eager to find someone to help her. He replaced my father, teaching me how to ride a bike, going camping, hiking and sailing with me, and brought a younger crowd of interesting visitors to my house. He bought me my first surfboard, wetsuit, and fancy french racing bike. He taught me how to drive. I did however, resent the way my mother catered to his needs before any of us kids, but I thought as a familiy we were having a pretty good life. My mother had his child, a son, when I was thirteen years old, and he was doted on by all of his sisters.
When I was nineteen and away at college, the truth came out. First, he left my mom high and dry for a coworker who abandoned her infant son for him (he’s probably in jail now from what I have heard). My mother had inherited some money from my grandmother and he (and my mom) managed to spend it all. All she had left was a 28-foot boat to sell. I had to go to the SocSecurity office to have my father’s death benefits put back in my name so I could finish school. No one had told me what was happening, but I managed to borrrow some money to pay for that semester’s books. My mom still had my younger sister, about sixteen, and my younger brother, about seven, to raise. My oldest sister became depressed and suicidal for a time – she now works as a psych nurse.
I remember this moment with such clarity – after the death of my father, this was a turning point in my life. My 17-year old sister sat on the couch with me, and told me that this man had sexually abused my little sister from the time she was THREE YEARS OLD!! This was happening in the family I was living with – six people in a three-bedroom house. What was most devastating to me was that I thought he was a good stepfather, although I had begun to see some flaws on the money-management side. This was in the late 1970’s, before sexual abuse was a household word. I had never heard of such a thing,
or even imagined such a thing.
I have never been so enraged in my life. I had fantasies of getting a gun and shooting him. My youngest sister became an
alcoholic when she grew up, and had a mental breakdown in college, which we all supported her through. However, she was so brilliant that she ended up in med school, and is now a forensic psychiatrist, who idolizes our real father. She is so deeply damaged, but she has a brilliant facade. She manipulated my other sister into cutting me out of the family, because of a chat I had with her on the phone – she sent me the coldest email I have ever received “I cannot allow my family to have anything to do with you because you are an alcoholic, slurring your words when I spoke to you on the phone.” I who never drink more than 2, was in intractable pain when she spoke with me, going through several failed surgeries to get endometriosis under control. It was next to my bowel, outside of my uterus – the pain was agonizing and horrible.
This event sent me back into therapy for three years, and I have recovered to the best of my ability. I used to visit my younger sister when she was pregnant and raising her 2 sons. Then bam,
it was over. I was the doting aunt, never did anything innapropriate on my visits. But my other sister followed her lead, because she thinks my youngest sister is smarter.
“I asked her, when she said I was an alcoholic, you knew better. Why didn’t you stand up for me?” She did not have a good answer. She allowed herself to be manipulated by a sociopath, which my youngest sister clearly is. As a result of this, I have not seen my niece and 4 nephews in five years (both families live in another state.) My youngest sister also wrote my mother out of her life for ten years – partly because of her also sociopathic husband she has now divorced. As soon as she was divorcing him, she wanted to renew contact with my mother. My mother was very ill and in the hospital near death a few years ago, and she never contacted her at all.
My younger brother is an irresponsible narcissist, charming and
full of love when you see him, making promises he doesn’t keep,
entering disastrous relationships on a whim. He never returns my phone calls or email, maybe because he owes me money! He hasn’t told his girlfriend that he is still married and paying support to a woman we thought he divorced years ago. I am not going to perpetuate anyone else’s lie, no matter who it is, because I like this girl.
And yesterday I learned that my older sister’s marriage of 18 years is on the verge of breaking up because her house-husband, who we all liked, is now becoming an untrustworthy
person and drinking alcohol to excess, not coming home, etc. She wanted them to enter counseling but he will not participate, which is the death knell, I expect. This flabbergasts me, because who would expect their husband to become an unstable alcoholic after so many years of marriage?
My first marriage of 8 years was to a deadbeat narcissist, who ruined my initial career and financially ruined me. I married him after the shock of my stepfather’s incest because I did not trust my own judgement any more and was terrified of dating anybody else. I remember looking at him while he was sleeping and thinking, “are you capable of doing something like this too?”
I had absolutely no way to know how to ever trust anyone again.
How could this incest be happening in my own home for 10 years and I did not ever suspect a thing? My mother came home one day when the youngest, at age ten, tried to commit suicide by eating oleander leaves. My mother begged her to tell her what was wrong, but she would not say anything. Who knows what my stepfather threatened her with to keep her from telling?
I am close to my mother despite all of this because she is the only person in my family that I would trust. I would never want any of these people to have any control over my life because they have been so nasty almost without provocation. This scares me because I am very disabled and could use some help, but it won’t be from any of them.
I am now newly burned with a one-month email and real-life relationship to a charming, outwardly respectable man who I felt I had so much in common with. When I went to visit him a couple of weeks ago it became obvious to me. I started to get muscle spasms in my neck after a day and a half, when it became obvious that he was incapable of intimacy or any real feeling for others. He paraded me around his town like a trophy, and it really disgusted me. Anyone who spent any time with him was going to have to live under his rules, and his agenda. I’m not a submissive southern girl, so I bristled at that, then wondered who could spend any quality time with this man?
He spoke of old “girlfriends” like they were a cast of thousands.
I should have seen trouble immediately, and in hindsight I did,
but was too flattered and infatuated to pay attention. It did not last long but it seemed to take everything out of me.
Yes, I am very bitter. I have a difficult time seeing any good people in life. I will never really trust anyone again ever. If I see someone who is doing good things in the community, my first thought is – “but what is the picture of his dark, malevolent underbelly?” i AM IN MENTAL PAIN AND SUFFERING EVERYDAY BECAUSE IF I THINK OF MY FAMILY ALL I CAN SEE ARE THE LIES, THE BETRAYALS, THE MANIPULATIONS. I have tried very hard to heal myself but I am beginning to believe it will never be possible.
Thank you folks for being here. At least I can let go of some of these dark emotions.