A syndrome called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can affect victims of sociopaths. The trauma of losing love, friends, family, possessions and of enduring psychological/physical abuse is the cause of this disorder. To fight the symptoms of PTSD, it is helpful to understand the symptoms and how they relate to loss and trauma.
As I read through the current literature on PTSD, I quickly discovered that there is a fair amount of controversy regarding this disorder. We can actually learn about the disorder by listening to the arguments. The first question on which there is much disagreement is, “What trauma is severe enough to cause PTSD?” There were several editorials by experts disparaging the fact that everything from giving birth to a healthy baby to a boss yelling at an employee is now said to cause PTSD. Most experts are in favor of reserving this diagnosis for people who have suffered truly unusual life experiences, like kidnapping, rape, war, 911, etc.
The problem is that many people do experience severe stress reactions to difficult life circumstances. It remains to be determined what we should call these reactions.
Those of us healing from our relationship with a sociopath often vacillate between accepting the trauma and minimizing it. Thus, the argument about what kinds of trauma are severe enough to cause PTSD has a direct effect on us. The argument can leave us feeling weak, like we should be able to get over this. After all it wasn’t as bad as 911, Iraq or Katrina—or was it?
The second question is “what symptoms constitute PTSD?” The following table shows the most common symptoms seen in a group of 103 British men and women diagnosed by psychiatrists with PTSD (Current Medical Research Opinion, 2003):
| Symptom | Frequency (n=103) |
| Insomnia | 98 (95%) |
| Anxiety at reminder cues | 96 (93%) |
| Intrusive thoughts, images, sounds, sensations | 94 (91%) |
| Irritability | 93 (91%) |
| Poor concentration | 93 (91%) |
| Diminished interest in significant activities | 88 (85%) |
| Recurrent dreams of trauma | 86 (83%) |
| Avoidance of activities or places associated with the trauma | 85 (83%) |
| Foreshortening of expectations about the future | 80 (78%) |
| Detachment from others | 78 (76%) |
| Avoidance of thinking or conversing about the trauma | 75 (73%) |
| Poor appetite | 69 (67%) |
| Hypervigilance | 55 (53%) |
| Startle reactions | 46 (45%) |
| Acting or feeling as if the event was recurring | 37 (31%) |
| Inability to recall parts of trauma (amnesia) | 19 (18%) |
I put up this table because I thought that a number of you would also endorse these symptoms. Notice that “acting or feeling as if the event was recurring” was really not that common. But similar symptoms, like “Intrusive thoughts, images sounds and sensations,” were very common. Amnesia was also uncommon. Startle reactions were only seen in half of the subjects.
A feeling of a foreshortened future is a particularly debilitating symptom because it impairs a person’s ability to plan for the future and leads to a sense of hopelessness. I will expand on this further, but I strongly believe this feeling of a foreshortened future has to do less with our thoughts about our past, and more with our thoughts about our present.
As I look at this list of symptoms, I am struck by the fact that many, many of those writing into Lovefraud complain of these symptoms, particularly nightmares. There is something special about having had emotional involvement with an aggressor that seems to produce nightmares. Since so many have all of the most common symptoms, I think it has to be that the trauma of life with a sociopath is severe enough to cause this disorder in many people.
Here’s where defining exactly what trauma is gets sticky. Rachael Yehuda, Ph.D., said in a recent article published on MedScape, “One of the things that biology has taught us is that PTSD represents a type of a response to trauma, but not the only type of response. It is a response that seems to be about the failure to consolidate a memory in such a way as to be able to be recalled without distress.” Well, this is precisely the definition that is too broad. I personally have a lot of memories that I experience or re-experience with distress. Yet these memories are not accompanied by the list of symptoms in the table above.
For me what made the experience traumatic was the truly life course-changing nature of the trauma. The answer to the question, “Will I ever be the same?” for me defines trauma significant enough to cause PTSD. The trauma that causes this disorder redefines us in a way that is different from other emotionally significant experiences. This trauma strikes at the core of our identity.
The final controversy surrounds the treatment of PTSD. Interestingly, there is no question that medications (SSRIs, particularly Zoloft) are very helpful. The problem is though that when a person goes to a physician and receives a medication, he/she is by definition “sick.” Assumption of a “sick role” or “victim identity” is one of the many factors that slow recovery from PTSD.
Many therapists are of the belief that “debriefing” or retelling the story is necessary for recovery. One group of researchers reviewed the studies on debriefing and concluded that there is no scientific evidence that it prevents PTSD. Instead, the evidence points to post-trauma factors like social support and “additional life stress” being most important.
How can we put this all together? Considering last week’s post, those who experience trauma serious enough to have stress hormone overdose as manifested by dissociation, are likely to also develop PTSD. An examination of the symptoms of PTSD reveals that at the core of the disorder is the fact that the person really doesn’t believe in his/her heart that the trauma has ended. PTSD is about ONGOING, not past, trauma. For those of us whose lives were assaulted by a sociopath, there is ongoing stress. The stress is the social isolation, financial ruin, and threatened further losses long after the relationship has ended. Those who recover from this without PTSD work hard to put the trauma behind them in every way.
Putting the trauma behind you does not mean you can’t take medication to help with the process. It does mean facing those bills, former friends, and other personal issues you want to avoid. Remember AVOIDANCE STRENGTHENS FEAR.
Above all, stop the ongoing trauma by ending contact with the sociopath. Do not assume a sick role, instead, work to stay healthy. Fight to be the person you want to be. Don’t allow this single experience to define you. Make living for today the place you love to be. As Louise Gallagher says in her recent post, “This is, in many ways, the greatest challenge of recovery — to accept the past is simply the route I took to get to where I am today, a place I love to be. The past cannot be changed. It cannot be altered. It cannot be made ‘better.’ It can only be accepted so that it, and I, may rest in peace with what was, eager to accept what is true in my life today.”
Skylar:
Thank you for your post.
That is so very true. This is how he deals with EVERYONE!
He resists and let’s down…….he only does what HE wants to do…..and won’t follow any rules he thinks don’t apply.
And it’s not new behavior for him…..although it DID start after the spath ramped up his mask slipping to Jr.
It seems that whatever society asks of Jr, he goes in a different direction.
Because i’m in a postition to ‘rely’ on Jr….or need help/something from him or at very least ‘teamwork’ a bit……the behaviors really affect me.
Spath was the same way with important dates….or things he knew were important to me…..
He would ‘set me up’, even back when I was a teen…..make plans a month in advance, tout it as special….big plans yadayada…..and the 11th hour…..he’d pick a fight, or just plane old stand me up and later act as if….huh what?
the high low rollercoaster……..(of my life)
In the end, I learned to minimize any importance, that’s when HE kicked in…..like the advice to HOPE…..applies here…..go against the grain, and do the opposite…..never let them see you sweat! But inside…..I was rotting…..
Spath would say about B-days, holidays etc…..”it’s just another day’……and behave in that manner…..just another day.
BUT….if anyone would forget HIS birthday…..he’d push them into the grave.
He never remembered anyones b-day or sent christmas gifts/cards/calls…..but always took note of who didn’t remember him.
JR does show signs of PTSD……and it’s different than my signs/symptoms……..he’s very jumpy…..you can’t enter a room if your not ringing horns well before you enter, he freaks, jumps out of his skin.
He also affects me on such an emotional level, becuase I am so afraid he will ‘turn’ out like his father……there are so many similarities…..and I’m on spath watch with this one……
I guess i’m afraid of losing him to spathyhood…..as I will not have that in my life…..I already know how that turns out. It often kills me to see how he speaks to me, it brings me right back to situations/memories with spath…..BUT this is my son!!! I never dreamt of ‘leaving’ my son…….but I couldn’t live with another spath….
Whether he will or won’t, is or isn’t ….is NOT up to me now……
This isn’t easy…..and somewhere in me…..for what I have dedicated as a mother…..and all we have been through…..can’t I have a bit of ‘easy’ now please!!!! 🙂
Yes Oxy, I really REALLY think Im starting to get it!
The painter, Renoir, after hed painted his very last painting, {and by this time, he was so old and riddled with arthritis in his hands, that the only way he could paint was witha paintbrush strapped to his wrist}He said the same thing,
“AT LAST I FINALLY think Im starting to learn how to paint!
This last book Ive just read and re-read,”The Sociopath next door” –something about that book really woke me up.FINALLY I get it!
When she said, “Emotionally, they are as COLD AS ICE, they are incapable of love. You are just a “thing” to be used and discarded. That was like someone tipped a bucket of ice cold water over my head. All these years and years of denial about my precious girls.All the gaslighting. All of my efforts,{ all one sided,} to love, understand,maybe if I id more loved more understood more, were more patient,to think the unthinkable that your own girls, your own flesh a nd blood not only dont love you but probably hate you?That they care so little for you that you could get really sick and they would not visit you, even if you were dying?That they will torture you by withholding their kids from you? the pain from this last one nearly drove me insane with grief!The lies, the conning of money, the pity ploys, the crocodile tears, this book describes it all!
And the penny FINALLY dropped, THIS IS THE WAY THEY ARE and they NEVER change!Itsa shock, but so necessary to hear the truth, and for it to finally sink in!Yes, it hurts like hell, but denial hurts more!
I didnt cause their sickness, I cant cure it,Im not responsible for it, or for them. I can only change myself.
For my very sanity and mental peace, I cannot see these sickos ever again.Right now, I feel no love for them, up to now I always felt,”Well they are my children, how can I cut them off? How can I stop loving them?THEY HAVE KILLED MY LOVE FOR THEM STONE DEAD and right now I HATE them for the years and years of torment and misery and grief and heart ache theyve put me through.I have to use that anger to jet propel me away from these sickos. I have to get to the place whre I feel only indifference to them.,Right now, my main emotion towards them is DISGUST and CONTEMPT. And thats the Gods truth.I dont even feel sorry for them any more.Love, mama GemXx I cant pretend to an emotion I cant feel.I DONT feel forgiveness, not yet.One day I hope I can, but right now, Im angry at the years of total misery they put me through.
Dear EB (and Gem)
Believe me when I tell you both that I DO know how you feel, each of you are in a different stage, with Gem coming to finally accept what she has known intellectually for some time now, that her daughters are psychopaths and will not change. You, on the other hand EB are still not sure about your son, and worse, you know what a psychopath is and you are SCARED CHITLESS that he will “be just like his father” and you don’t want that, so you are STARTING the bargaining process, starting to open your eyes to the fact that he MIGHT BE going down the same path his father walked(s) and oh, you still want to bargain, maybe there is SOMETHING you can do to change his course—just some small chance that you can divert him, or that he will divert himself from that path because to “divorce” your son, your blood and bone, is UNTHINKABLE…yet, to live with and interact with a psychopath is ALSO UNTHINKABLE.
No, gals, there is no “EASY BUTTON” for live with the results of psychopathy, it is like the skunk smell my dog came in with last night, IT PERMEATES EVERYTHING IN ITS REACH —it travels through the very air and penetrates every molecule of everything around it, clinging to it like the sulfurous odors from hell, the psychopath himself.
Gem, forgiveness does not mean forgetting, it just means we are no longer so bitter about it that we can’t help but get our “dander up” when we think about it. We sort of get to a point we can talk about it like a movie plot we saw once long ago, but there is no longer any drama to the telling of it. I remember how when I first watched the movie “Jaws” how I got so emotional in the theater and my heart pounded and so on, but now, I can retell the story or even watch it again, and there is no longer any “drama” that makes my heart pound, it is just an old story now without any emotion connected. That, to me is “forgiveness” just not feeling bitter about it any more, just accepting that it is what it is and it was what it was.
The anger and bitterness is a STAGE of the grief process going toward that nirvana of indifference, but be aware too that if you DWELL on it all you can RE-ignite the anger and bitterness, so it is a process. I think we can come to the acceptance stage and then regress to the anger, and then back and forth, just like with all the other stages of grief, but eventually if we work at it we can get to the acceptance stage and pretty well stay there without a great deal of effort.
EB do you remember when Witsend came here to this blog? How she was DESPERATE to find a way to “fix” or “help” her son? I’ve been in that desperate state myself, just searching for the magic bullet that would save my son from destroying what was such a promising life, but in a way it was my own selfish FANTASY that I was trying to preserve that somehow I was strong enough, powerful enough to sacrifice enough to redeem this young man from a living death (prison). I had to realize that there were some things that no matter how hard I tried, or how much I loved, or how smart I was, or how self sacrificing I was, that I could NOT change the outcome.
You have overcome some remarkable obstacles EB, you are one moxy lady who can chew railroad ties and spit out toothpicks, who can gnaw on railroad rails and spit out nails, but there is no way you can save junior from himself, he has to do that for himself. Just like going through our own birth, childbirth, and death, we have to do those things FOR OURSELVES. NO ONE can do them for us. That doesn’t mean though, that you are ALONE going through it….there are plenty of us here who are holding your hands and cheering and weeping with you. (((Hugs))) and my prayers for you, my friend.
Thanks Oxy!!Yes, I also feel for EB she is one helluva lady, and I shudder to think that her son MAY be a spath. there again he may just be a teenager “acting out”. Only time will tell. I really hope its just teenage stuff.Yea Im getting there! I DONT want to be a bitter person, and I hope to move on soon to the :Nirvana Of indifference!LOL!!
Sky, -The WIERDEST thing happene to me, after I d sent off that blog to you,{the one in which I quoted Somerset Maughm,”The Razors Edge”?}You know the file I kept Lovefraud in, plus all the emails and blogs Id saved?
It TOTALLY DISAPPEARED!
I checked and re checked, GONE!! How wierd is that?
All the private emails from new Lily,-all gone.
I checked “My Documents,” its not there either.
WTF is going on?
Devilish business! I DID mention the devil, and I think I stirred him up a bit.
Ive opened a new LF file but I still can t explain this.
Love, Mama Gem.XX
Oxy:
I am trying to come to terms with that fact….that I have done all I can do for Jr….and his life is up to him!
No mother would choose what you and Gem and others here have experienced with their children……
I wouldnt have chosen (if told in advance) to have a spath husband…..
But the husband part was fixable…..get rid of him…..poof gone….clean up the mess and move along….(simplified huh!)
But a CHILD…..we bore, nurtured put our hearts into…..SHIT!
This part scares me……but again…..it scares me because it isn’t what I had written in my script.
Are there dreams we can have…..and are they allowed to come true?
I don’t want to lose hope in life…..I know it’s out there…..I see it around me…..
Whatever the outcome of Jr…..it’s certainly HIS choice…..and I’m sick of worrying when I see his father in him…….it will reveal when it does….I can’t rush it, I can’t divert it, I can’t hide from it and I can’t CHANGE IT!
So I must just let time take it’s course and hope he chooses what I have modeled for him……
I want to believe……..but HE has to live his own consequences……in the meantime…..I will remove myself from his circle of games.
I think what sky said was spot on……
I guess….I just want some peace and some happiness and something to show me……EB you’ve done a good job, despite the father!
It’d be so much easier if he was well on his way in life….rising above, and not causeing so much worry……
WOULDN”T THAT BE GRAND?!?!?!
Well…..—slap—- it ain’t like that…..so…..NEXT!
I know I have the support here…..I am ever so grateful for you all!!!!
Dear EB, I know that INTELLECTUALLY you get it all, but I also know that I did too for a long time before I GOT IT emotionally and the PAIN of the LOSS of my “dream” was REAL…I can’t tell you how to handle that, because I am not sure I even KNOW how to except that we are surrounded by FIRE in all 360 degrees around us and the ONLY WAY OUT is to head directly into the fire, the hottest part of it and go THROUGH it to the other side. Sure, and there will be burns getting through that ring of fire, and it will hurt for a while, but we have to do like I did when my son D was physically burned, I had to scrub those scabs off of him on a daily basis for weeks, and dress and redress those burns. I had to hold him while he cried and do what I had to do.
Wound care for a burn is probably as tough on the care giver as it is on the one who is burned. I’ve done a lot of it in my time and I hated every minute of it even when it was some big hairy 6 ft guy with burns the size of coffee cups, but when it is your own child and 1/5th of his body and face and arm is peeling off down to the meat it is horrible, but I did it because it was what I had to do. Peeling the scabs off my own emotional burns was just as tough I think, and just as painful, but if we don’t care for ourselves the wounds will FESTER and rot and we will DIE emotionally or physically. We have to do what we have to do.
I know you have lost a lot, and you have come through the fire and the burns and the wound dressing and everything that goes with it and you are TIRED OF IT and want some peace instead of another freaking RING OF FIRE that you have to jump through.
It seemed like to me that just when I got one set of burns healed up and scarred over that there was another fire in front of me…first my husband’s death and D.’s burns, and the DIL-psychopath and my son C, then the egg donor and the Trojan horse and the P-son acting out—the financial strain and watching my carefully hoarded savings and retirement go down the toilet Because of them, no “good reason” just because they wanted to bankrupt me. NO compassion for the pain they caused, just GLEE at how much it made me hurt, how hot the fire was. Enjoying seeing me on my knees. (lliterally)
You have suffered through a bunch of fires EB but you are still standing my dear! You are one tough cookie, and I know you will survive this fire as well. I didn’t through most of it even have an intellectual grasp of what I was dealing with, but at least you are that far up on where I was at the time.
You and I both have come a long way baby, and we’ve been here for each other’s pity parties and whines and rants and raves and rages, along with a lot of other great lovefraud bloggers! We’ve proven over and over that they may try to kill us but they can’t eat us! We are going to be like mama badgers backed into a hole, we will come out all teeth and claws, fighting with every ounce of our strength and resolve. We may not have much left, EB but we have ADAMANT and RESOLVE. I love ya, sister! (((hugs))))
🙂 🙂
‘AVOIDANCE STRENGTHENS FEAR’ – oh surely it does.
I love that quote at the end there. I think I need to write that down in BIG letter and put it up on my wall somewhere.
This part: “at the core of the disorder is the fact that the person really doesn’t believe in his/her heart that the trauma has ended” This really hits the nail on the head for me. Bingo. That is exactly what I am having the hardest time getting past. I literally check my “corners” when I am out in public, because deep down, I fear that he is watching me from somewhere, even though I am not even in the same country as him.
Hey all,
It’s been a while, several months now that I posted here, but my life is such at the moment that I try to understand in a way so that I can make it better again. My life has gone through the drain the past months.
I was sacked from one of my schools. I was never the best in administration, kindof a franny on that department. But I was always able to function administratively. I was a couple of days later with bringing in the exam sample for my pupils than the supposed deadline (but so was my colleague I taught parallel with, and he had requested for a deadline extension). I also overslept twice in the month of May, after waking up from flashbacks from the past relationship and being unable to fall asleep again for hours after waking up. The principal had other reasons to get rid of me (wanting to get someone else in), but she basically filed a review that destroyed my math teaching career in any of the schools related to hers. I know I can fight part of the review with the union and its conclusion, and I managed to gather some observation reports and sick leave evidence papers to at least start a procedure against the review.
But meanwhile whenever I send an application for any new school I hardly ever get an invitation, even though there is a shortage of teachers. I have had to search for new schools before, because of there being less teaching hours and someone else having statutary precedence, and I always managed to get invited plenty and able to convince principals in 10 mins to hire me over the other applicants. For the first time in 8 years I find zilch.
Worse I should have getten my unemployment coverage straightened out a month ago, and I just haven’t done that, which means I’ll get but a few 100 $ on hte bank (still work 2 hours in one school), and will be in a tight money spot coming month.
I was in Peru for 5 weeks during the holidays. Schools were closed anyway during that time and I could not applicate. 3 of those weeks were as a tourleader. It’s a summer job I’ve done since 2003. Tourlead for a small group of adventurist tourists with a backpack. I’ve been in hurricanes and other life threatening situations with groups at times as well as difficult group dynamic situations. I’ve always been able to lead well in such situations (except my first trip ever like this, where I started out shy). This time it did not turn out well. Aside from 2 double booking problems in hostels there were no true management issues. And my group was a good group without issues amongst each other. But I had an ex-tourleader along who acted covertly suspicious on every proposal of mine, and eventually it wore me down. And instead of appraoching him and verifying with him whether he did not fully trust me and talking it out (as I would have in the past), I at some moment started to give in to his criticism veiled as “suggestions” and gave him power, until he eventually felt basically that he was managing things and I not enough, and that if there was a minor organisational hickup it was my fault, and whatever that turned out well was by the grace of the country, the group or the travel program, but certainly not on account of me. In his review of me he almost blames me for Limas traffic. Not surprisingly other travelers followed his line of thinking more in their reviews, for the simple reason that I allowed him to have control over me. And now the company also finds other trips of my past that were excellent to be problematic, because of one or two sole people who had a detail complaint, and disregard the max positive reviews from other travelers on those trips. I have in the past helped to select applicant tourleaders, and have given workshops on group dynamics… There was never ever any complaint on those. On the contrary. I always got stellar reviews for those. But now I’m not allowed to do either of those things for the company. And we all work as volunteers (just covered by the costs). So, all of a sudden, I’m now not even allowed to volunteer for them anymore, after 8 years.
Can’t find enough teaching hours and can’t even work as a volunteer anymore. I loved both teaching and my volunteer work. My life was built on it. And it’s gone. Sometimes, I feel on the brink of depression because of it.
My ex? I hardly ever think of him anymore. I don’t care about him. It’s fairly easy to keep up with the No Contact rule. I do have mutual friends on facebook with him, and incidentally find out late August that he would be in London for longer than 3 months and will be returning there by November. It seems that he and the new woman (who claimed a couple of months ago to me that she had broken up with him) are either planning to marry soon or are married. I don’t know, and don’t even care to know. Anyway, I did come across these blurbs of info by accident, and it hardly even made me emotional. I fully accept and know what he is inside now. I have no “if only” relapses, and there is no doubt, none whatsoever, I have no moments thinking that I “misunderstood” him. I know she believes she’s happy and is with a man with an inner emotional life comparable to that of us, but I know and accept that this idea is but an illusion. So, I feel no jealousy whatsoever.
I have started this week new university studies, physics, to get an extra master degree in a couple of years time to better my long term job situation. I have taught physics and math on high school level in the past, but my master in industrial design is either not well understood or trusted by principals to give me long term precedence over other applicants. It does give me something to do in my weeks while I don’t have enough work and keeps me from fretting over being partially unemployed in the short term, and will be good for me in the long run, and the courses on physics help me to heal my brain functioning at a higher rate again.
But when I look at myself now, and how my brain functions overall I cannot but conclude that I’m quite dysfunctional for the past months. Where I used to be an administrative franny, I just can hardly function administratively at all. Likewise for the tourleading issue that occurred to me. I was stuck in an observation mode of the suspicious traveler, as if I did not trust my observations, and felt too insecure or powerless to even go talk with the man about it.
It’s obvious this has nothing to do with the break-up with my ex-spath, but that the relation itself has done things to my brain functioning as well as my self confidence in ways I cannot even anticipate anymore. As a consequence I lost the things what made my purpose in everyday life, I lost the great life I had for the past decade.
I feel just plain helpless, and small, bruised on the inside on a level that it prevents me from being who I know I am. I know that I should not rely on the chance for turning things around outside of myself, and yet I just wish that someone out there would give me a break and an extended hand, instead of piling more blame onto me than what is my due or mistrusting me.