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.
Dear 7steps,
You are very articulate about your situation and your life. I’m sorry that you have had so much trouble and drama in your life. I can understand why you would be bitter. However, I don’t think bitterness as a way of life is the way any of us would choose to live if there is an alternative, and I think there is.
I think there is opportunity for healing at any age (I’m 62 and also grew up in a “covey” of Ps) as long as your mental facilties are intact, and yours obviously are, so i would suggest that you stay around here and read the archived articles.
Again, welcome.
Dearest Oxy, Just wanted to say a big “Thank you!” again for all your helpful advice. Im not there yet, but Im on my way!
Yes, I did make list of things to be grateful for and its very long! Im so blessed. yesterday our new “adopted” adult kids came for lunch, and what a wonderful day we all had! David cooked marinated chicken kebabs in plum sauce on the Barbie, and they were YUM! I did a big bowl of fried rice, salad, grilled bell pepprs in olive oil, garlic and basil, with Naan bread, and after we had waffles on our new waffle machine, with strawberries and ice cream, then coffee and mint chocs. Abbas is over 6 feet, witha huge appetite, as he works so hard.Roya does too,she is training to be a hairdresser, and does 3 days at tech and 3 as an unpaid apprentice in a hair salon. She is doing very well. They are so sweet, loving, and appreciative. Abbas always hugs me and says,”Thanks for everything Mum! We love you!” Roya too, hugs and kisses us all the time. And they are such fun, and
we laugh a lot together! David and I are making up for 25 years of no love from my 2 P daughters. Now we have areal loving family who appreciate us, and it feels so GOOD! They are coming over for xmas day, and also new Year, when theye are going to stay overnight.So, I wont be dreading Xmas this year! My lovely son in law is bringing the 3 kids over in the new year, so Ill save their gifts till then. God is good.
Trying hard NOT to think of my P daughters! {you can bet both your asses, they wont be thinking of me![maybe that should be 3 asses, ? fat ass, hairy ass, and your booty! Cheeky!LOL!!} your happy Gem.and {{{HUGS}}}
Dear Gem,
I know I am pounding you your booty, but we have two choices, we can be miserable or we can be happy, and at some point, we have to DECIDE which way we want to go! Just sit down and look at the situation.
We can let the fact (and it is a fact!) that our lovely children are GONE—even my good sons are not “my babies” any more, they are grown men. It is fortunate that they are grown men that I love and like, but they are not those little babies I can take up on my lap any more.
It just so happens that the P-baby is also gone, but the MAN HE BECAME is NOT someone I like or love any more. He is an ALIEN. I WILL NOT LET THAT MAN DESTROY THE REST OF MY LIFE.
It is a fact of life, Gem, that at our age the majority of our lives are already passed. Why should we waste even ONE more prescious day of what we have left LETTING that man and those women contribute to UNhappiness?
In the last couple of weeks (and I am not sure why NOW) but I have come to see Louise Gallagher’s point that I think I have been missing and that is, I think, to just DO IT.
Okay, I’ve had my time to cry and feel all those emotions of loss, grief, sadness, depression, bargaining and so on, to learn WHY they do the things they do, and why I allowed it to ruin my life up to now, but NOW IS THE TIME MTO JUST GET ON WITH IT.
NC is no longer even the least bit difficult. I do NOT even want these people in my life in any way. I do not MISS them any more. My life is better with them out of the mix.
I am glad I have my two sons that are NOT Ps and I am glad that you have your “adopted” adult “kids” but you know, even without them, we are still able to make ourselves happy.
WE DO NOT HAVE TO DEPEND ON OTHERS TO LOVE US TO MAKE US HAPPY. While having people we love to laugh with and so on, is wonderful, we don’t need that to be happy. We are blessed by that, but if push comes to shove, and we have NO ONE BUT OURSELVES, we can still be happy and productive and content.
Moving into the end stage of my life (the last 1/4th if I am fortunate) in itself is a CHANGE that I am having to adjust to. Realizing and accepting that my “future” is not so broad and still out there for me to accomplish some of the things I always thought I might, but in the past I still had some of these options. Now, those options that in the back of my mind I kept there are really so ridicuolous that it is at a point it is almost laughable.
I will never be the first woman commercial airline pilot. I will never be a TV star or a famous model (I did a bit of both when I was very young) I am never going to learn to be fluent in another language, I am never going to paint pictures that will hang in the National Art Gallery. I will never learn to play a musical instrument well.
What I can do though, is to enjoy the things I CAN do now, and to remember fondly the things I used to do, and the accomplishments I did make. To make different plans for the future within the realm of REAL possibilities, not bemoaning the losses of things that are no longer reasonably possible.
I had a vision for my “old age” and that “vision” did NOT come true. I envisioned a couple or three grand kids from each son, sweet and intelligent wives for them. financial and educational success for all my sons in careers that were in engineering and/or aviation or teachhing, maybe one or two of them living close but the other(s) coming to visit frequently and the kids coming to visit in the summer time and riding their ponies on the farm. I envisioned all kinds of fun activities with friends and family and watcvhing the grandkids grow.
Well, none of that “vision”–that dream—happened. Instead there is a different reality. I am not going to let the loss of a “dream” a “vision” ruin the reality that I HAVE.
I firmly believe that God doesn’t give us what we WANT but instead will give us what we NEED. Just like a loving parent may not give in to a child who cries for ice cream or candy, or to play in the street, like any good parent, He gives us what we need, and sometimes we need to learn a lesson from this, just as we sometimes let our children find out for themselves the hard way that what they desired isn’t good for them, I think God lets us find out the “hard way” that what we THINK we need and we so much desire isn’t good for us.
Also some of the things we desire so much are just NOT possible. In working with head and spinal cord injured patients, they must adjust to a new reality after their injuries, and many times they can no longer walk, run, dance, drive a car, etc. but yet, many of them DO adjust to the REALITY of what IS after the accident and go on to live satifying and productive lives. Even at very young ages they have to adjust to the reality of the things they can’t accomplish, but to enjoy the things that ARE POSSIBLE and that they CAN accomplish.
Gem, you and I are so blessed, and I think we especially, need to get over our cranio-rectal inversion (get out heads out of our butts) reversed and COUNT OUR BLESSINGS instead of letting the NOT POSSIBLE accomplishment of a dream that can’t be realized ruin the rest of our lives. (((Hugs)))) and my prayers fo ryou!
Gem, Re Oxy: You can bet your two asses on it…HAHAHAAA. Good one, Gem! Very funny!
Oxy, I too, am at the point of wondering, what now? The old dreams are gone. I have much to be grateful for, don’t get me wrong, but I need something to inspire me; a new goal; an asspiration (no pun intended.)
So, at this point, that is what I seek. My life is nothing like what I had planned. It’s just different.
I wanted a loving husband and a Ph.D. I wanted to publish a book. Instead I have a rescued cat with a crinkled ear, googly eyes, and a big pink nose. I have knitting needles and a skein of yarn. Five grandchildren, and a lot of hand puppets to knit for X-mas. I have become the quentessential
eccentric. But, I’m okay. I’m learning to be okay.
I hope everybodies having a good morning. I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving…..I do cook a hell of a feast!
Dear Kim,
Yep, “WHAT NOW?” “WHAT DREAM?” I asked those same questions of myself and NOTHING seemed as desirable and as grand as those old dreams, but you know…I had those dreams but I didn’t do anything with them….so what is the big deal that I “lost” most of them?
I pondered on that question for a looooong time.
Maybe “knitting hand puppets” isn’t a “GRAND DREAM” but lots of folks’ standards, but you know….I can think of much less interesting dreams—giving joy to your grand kids.
In fact, knkitting is one of the things I enjoyed and did a lot of that gave me a lot of joy, and my hands are so arthritic that I really can’t do it any more, so that is one of the things I gave up trying to do—swollen hands was too much of a price to pay.
I also “rescued” my OWN (outside) cat from my son C’s psychopathic cat that made her run away, and so now I have an inside cat who is loving life again.
We can’t do or aspire to all the things that we could ahve when we were 20, or 30 or 40 or even 50, as life marches on and we do start to age. Our abilities and interests start to change, situations are different, but I look back and I realize that EACH of those decades in my life had something different and something special and this decade of the 60s is also going to have something special.
The decade of the 60s is MY AWAKENING TO ME. Now if that “aint somethin’ spacial,” just what is “spacial?”
I’m trying to learn how to be ok!
Ive read other members post and their loss was way greater than mine, but a lost is a lost no matter how big or how small. I feel so terrible for allowing this to happen to me and my kids. I’m not trying to go back to the (s) I just want to feel better and stop crying all the time I bet a million dollars he havnt shed a tear for me probably thinking this stupid ass girl fell for my okie-doke thats another stupid brode that took care of me
Kim Frederick,
Hi, I was gone for a few days at a show and it is good to be back. I always feel funny when I am away from home. Guess I am most comfortable in my own element.
I was pondering your What Now? question. Because I often ask this question myself. Pardon me for presuming but I am thinking you might be approaching 50 or therabouts?
I made this presumption by the fact that you said you had grand children although you might be much younger if you had your kids at a young age. So forgive me if I am mistaken.
I believe that at this is THE age we ALL are asking What Now? Even those that haven’t had a life altering experience with a personality disorder. Late 40’s early 50’s seems to be a time of reflection……Looking back at what we have or have not accomplished in our lifes. Wondering how those “dreams” that we had back in our younger years never materialized.
If there is one thing we all know for certain at this age is this….Our lives didn’t go exactly as we had planned. And I think this is the “time” in our lives that we are coming to terms with it. For those of us that were “hit” with a relationship with an S/P/N or raised by one or raising one, for that matter……….It is pretty certain that for most of us we had a period of time that our lives totally spun out of control. For most of us encountering an individual with such a disorder robbs us of many years of “living” our lives as we envisioned.
Somehow we loose a part of ourselves in this. It is a struggle then to redefine who we are. Or even who we NOW want to be from here on in.
Most of us are still trying to heal from our encounter, we might be trying to heal our childhood isssues from how we were raised or we might still be tangled up emotionally with the S/P/N.
But for most of us I think we thought that life might be “easier” as we approached this period in our lives (our age) And it isn’t.
I think that because of what we have gone through and are still going through it is hard for us to understand what comes next?
It is hard for me to swallow that I might never have a loving mate to grow old with. I spent the better part of my “good years” raising kids and trying to make ends meet. I didn’t have time to date, nor did it seem a priority at the time.
I had two dreams back in my younger years. Like you I wanted to write and publish books (my FIRST dream as a teenager) and later I wanted to go back to school and be an EMT. At this point in my life I have no desire to go back to school. It is HARD to be inspired now…..That is what I have found. It would take alot to inspire me to do something outside of the “box”.
I spent most of the last decade of my life trying to being “ok” with the road my life took. Never realizing what was ahead of me. (my son at this age) I guess up until the past few years, I was thinking that I was accomplishing what was my most IMPORTANT role in life. Being a good parent.
I might not have ever been where I would have hoped to be financially at this stage of my life. Nor would I have accomplished some of the goals I had hoped to achieve. However I guess I was happy with the fact that I had made some of the choices I had made after my husband died. And one of them was not to go to school full time, but to be more available to my kids “time wise” as a mother during those years. I just knew I couldn’t do it all. Grieve, work, go to school, and be a single mom.
Maybe this is the decade of second guessing ourselves? What do we want to “do” for the rest of our lives? THEN comes the decade of the bucket list? LOL…
Does that make any sense?
Yes Wit, it makes all the sense in the world. I hope there’s more ahead than the bucket list, but I have to say, I am more content now then in the past.
I think you should be very proud of the choices you made regarding your son, and let go of any responsibility for the outcome. Has the counseling progressed at all?
How was your show? I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten what it is you are marketing.
Yes, I am 50, and having to let go of the idea of a good man in my life. I’ve spent most of it seeking this mysterious and elusive good man, only to find myself mired up to my neck in s–t with P/N/S’s. Done, done, done. Stick a fork in me I’m done.
It’s kind of nice to be able to reflect, now, and just decide what I want for me, for the rest of my life….I’m learning who I am, and learning to appreciate the things I brushed aside, in the past.
I noticed you were missing and was wondering about you. I’m glad you’re back……………………………….:)
witsend:
I’m 52 Sign me up for the “what now?” club.
At the moment I”m tring to battle off the feeling that “I’ll never work again.” Which of course leads to the “what now?” The things that interest me, I am too old to pursue, don’t want to incur the student loans, and even if I did, know that there are no jobs out there.
My life (at least until I lost my job) looked, to outside obserers, like I had it made. How little they knew. I sacrificed — or had sacrificed by my N and S parents — everything that would have made me happy. For the first time in my entire life my life is not enmeshed with cluster-Bs and their drama and destruction. I”m in a relationship with a great guy. So, there is a lot about my life that I”m happy about.
But, I don’t have a trust fund. I have to find some way to earn a living. So, every minute of every day is spent tossing around the question “what now?”