Happy Pathological Free Valentines Day

With Valentines day just around the corner it’s always a time of contemplation for anyone who single. They might be feeling lonely and wondering why they haven’t found that perfect someone or perhaps they might be in a relationship which appears to be OK but underneath but isn’t quite what it seems. When people are in loving healthy relationships Valentines day is not really that important because every day is a day worth celebrating. In contrast those who have been in relationships with disordered personality may look to Valentines day in the small hope that their partner might show them some kind of love and affection at least for one day.

When our partners buy us a box of chocolates or take us out for a lavish dinner we might feel like we have won the lottery and yet in reality the chance is they have gone out and bought a half-hearted bunch of flowers from a gas station at the last-minute and put the dinner on their company expenses (assuming they even have a job). Worse still we may even end up paying the bill ourselves. In our addictive blindness to what’s really going on in the relationship thinking we are in “love”, when in fact we are pathologically bonded, we are often so grateful that we have even got anything at all. We totally forget that up until that point we have been investing so much in the relationship like the slot machine syndrome that Dr George Simon talks about when we are too scared to walk away in case we get a small pay-off.

If we are single on Valentines day most psychopaths will have a very wide relationship circle and may try to do their best to persuade us that we should see them again, often because their relationship circle may be in short supply at this time of the year. Perhaps their previous victims have moved on and found someone else to fill their shoes on Valentines day. Disordered personality’s are often very persuasive and may try to woo us by making lots of empty promises and seductive temptation. They will put anything on the menu they can to get you back , these goodies could include, lying, manipulation, presents, and other goodies like chocolates and flowers. Almost certainly there will be a nice side dish of sex on the menu.

In our eagerness to get that illusive payout we totally go into selective amnesia not realizing that in reality what appears to be too good really is “too good to be true”. We ultimately accept any dregs they offer us including the leftover sex, from previous partners they may have been with, and we have opened ourselves up to the pathological bond all over again by exposing ourselves to a nice big dose of Oxytocin which lowers our resistance and builds up trust again.  Each time you have sex Oxytocin is released and the pathological bond is strengthened. Any kind of  intimacy, including conversing, cuddling and so on, will stimulate Oxytocin release. Oxytocin affects everyone differently and for most victims they are likely to be more trusting of their abusers.  Oxytocin can also quell our brains fear hubs. That’s fine if you are in a healthy relationship but if its shared and released whilst having sex with a disordered personality such as a psychopath, you will immediately become vulnerable again not to mention the effect it might have on a psychopath.

If your relationship is based on highly addictive sex, including a one-off quicky on valentine’s day, then by having a side dish of sex with a dose of Oxytocin thrown in as a dressing is just asking for trouble.

Getting off the roller coaster

So there we are back on the old “love roller coaster” ride all over again! We may have a temporary high, albeit for a day, week or month until eventually our pathological lover decides to disregard us, abuse us and then throw us off the ride again.  We selective forget all the times when the relationship left us feeling miserable and unhappy and of course the temporary high doesn’t last very long.

So why get on the ride in the first place, is it  because we “love them” and because we want to “understand them”. Well yes we think we love them but it’s not real love because they the person we are with is pathological. Real relationships are based on mutual trust, companionship, honesty, love, and respect – something you will never get with a disordered personality. Of course if you enjoy being on the roller coaster of “love” then you have to ask yourself why.

Taking yourself off the roller coaster takes guts and a bit of soul-searching. It means looking within, facing your fears and finding the reasons why on earth you would have such low self-esteem as to want to spend your valentine’s day, or any other day for that matter, with someone who would abuse, mistreat you, cheat on you, steal from you, physically or emotionally harm you, fill in the blanks.

Fortunately most victims of psychopaths and any kind of abuse reach a point at which the roller coaster ride doesn’t become fun any more and its time to unstrap your seat belt and get off. You might even have to go around the track a few times with your therapist figuring out how you even got on there in the first place.

For those of you that have taken the plunge and got off the roller coaster you can always decide to get back on again at a later date after you have educated yourself and healed from the abuse. Only this time your eyes will be wide open and you wont need some pathological sidekick to drag you on there with them. You will have faced your fears and be able to go it alone.

Celebrate Valentines day this year by grabbing yourself a lovely bunch of flowers bought from the heart.  If you fancy buy yourself a nice box of chocolates, go out if you wish, and treat yourself to something beautiful that shows you how much you love and care about yourself. And while you’re at it buy yourself a piggy bank or trinket box and every time you look back and think of all the energy you put into “wishfully thinking” or hoping things might get better or wondering what could “I” have done to make it work.  Instead of wishful thinking put some money in your box.

I wish you all a wonderful pathological free Valentines day.  Be kind to yourself and remind yourselves how far you have come.  It may be a bumpy ride whilst your healing but none so bumpy as the ride you were on with your partners and this time next year you will have a wishful thinking box so full of money and positive intentions and you will also be 1 more year longer of NO CONTACT.  You can thank yourself next valentines day for being authentic and making healthy choices not by being sad and looking back but by  celebrating your achievements  either on your own or with a lovely healthy new partner.

Losing is sometimes better than winning

 

This blog has primarily been about psychopathic/narcissistic personalities although recently I have been concerned not so much about the pathology but the way in which people manipulate.

 

Dr George Simon talks about the Aggressive pattern in his new book Character Disturbance. These aggressive types are split into a number of different patterns – The Unbridled Aggressive, The Channelled Aggressive, the Sadistic, the Predatory aggressive, The Mistrusting (Paranoid), and the Covert aggressive.

 

For the purpose of this article I shall be talking about the Covert Aggressive. Dr George Simon describes these types are the archetypal manipulators. They are not open in their aggressive intentions and do their best to keep the behaviour hidden under a mask. He describes their tactics as accomplishing two objectives

 

1. The tactics effectively play on the sensitivities, vulnerabilities and conscientiousness of others (especially neurotic individuals). The other persons then go unconsciously on the defensive (i.e. retreating mode) This quashes all potential resistance.

2. The tactics conceal obvious aggressive intent. The other persons have little objective evidence that the covert-aggressive is intending to take advantage of them. Instead of trusting their “gut” instincts, the other persons question themselves and get hoodwinked.

 

Dr George Simon describes the world according to the aggressive characters as only having four possible outcomes.

 

1. I win, you Lose
2. You win, I lose
3. I win, You win
4. I lose, you lose

 

Since their sole modus operandi is to ensure that they always win choosing option 1 is their first choice, if they do happen to lose they wont go down without a fight. If they see someone else who appears to be “winning” they may try to take you out at the earliest convenience. Alternatively, if by some chance they lose and get taken down they will ensure they take you down with them. It’s also one of the reasons why they see others who wish to win as a threat.

 

As I have mentioned earlier Psychopaths display any or all of the above aggressive patterns, it’s often one of the reasons why psychopaths stalk victims long after the relationship is over as a way of getting one over on their victims. Its their way of saying “You may think you have won but not until I have finished with you”.

 

Aggressive personalities and psychopaths also have a way of being able to spot neurotics weaknesses extremely easily.

 

Often neurotics do not trust our gut instincts and recently I had the misfortune of dealing with what can only be described as a covert-aggressive.

 

Its worth mentioning that just because we have got rid of a psychopath or narcissist in our lives it doesn’t necessarily mean we wont ever bump into another disordered character again either in relationship or in the workplace. Armed with better knowledge in educating ourselves how to spot them before they spot us, we also need to learn how to better deal with them in the future if we are put in a situation where me may possibly get victimized.

 

Prior to the recent run in with the covert aggressive personality which prompted this article, when I first met them my immediate reaction was to put my guard up to protect myself. However as time went on, over a period of months I started to think that maybe I was judged them too harshly and let my guard down a little. It goes back to the old adage that neurotics want to see the good in everyone but occasionally we still get blinded by their façade. As Dr Robert Hare commented in I am Fishhead often it can take months for people’s true character to be exposed and even so-called experts still get find themselves being manipulated.

 

Without going into detail about what happened, I was left in a no win situation and had to choose whether or not it was worth fighting or end up being victimized. Needless to say my gut instincts proved to be spot on or I wouldn’t be writing this article.

 

Dr George Simon talks about different ways of handling these people in the workplace in this article  . Unlike aggressive personalities I tend to be the one that always backs down but this time although I stood my ground and not wanting to be victimized I chose to “Accept the risk, and if necessary, be prepared to leave “

 

I may have “lost” in their eyes but for my own emotional well-being I felt I made exactly the right decision. It might have been a risky decision for me but I was fortunate enough to not have to rely on one particular income. Sometimes we have to realize that no matter what we do others will stop at nothing in order to win. If protecting my emotional wellbeing, and not getting victimized  again makes me a loser then I I’d rather be a loser anyday

 

As Dr Simon says “If you’re prepared to deal with the risks involved, you might just find that seeking a new opportunity is the best move you ever made.”

 

For anyone who has ever been out with a psychopath or narcissist the best thing we can ever do is leave them, and avoid all contact.  The same applies to dealing with those displaying covert aggressive behaviour.  Often what appears to be the hardest choices at the time are sometimes the best. In this case backing down and leaving is almost certainly the best thing I could have done. Not only do I have peace of mind without all the head-games anymore I now have more free time on my hands to start working on my new book, details coming soon.

 

 

 

 

Repairing the Broken Mirror in Ourselves

Looking in the Mirror

One of the things I talk about in Dark Souls is the need for victims to look within themselves at the reasons why they attracted psychopaths or narcissists into their lives. Many books talk about how to spot them but few talk about why psychopaths may target certain types of people more than others.

At the moment there is a big shift in consciousness whereby psychopathic corporations are being exposed all over the world. Conscious, empathic, aware individuals are finally starting to wake up to the reality that a small minority of psychopaths really do run the majority of the planet. One thing is clear though – its through our own collective “enabling” of these psychopathic individuals that we have managed to end up in the position whereby our savings, houses are livelihoods are now in jeopardy.

Any kind of psychopathic organisation is unable to spin their web of lies without a willing group of followers who are able to make it all believable.

When it comes to a one on one relationship with a psychopath it becomes a more personal affair but it is also there to  mirror something deep in our own psyche that we may not wish to look at. Often we will hear of stories where people have been in relationship with these predators and its taken years before anyone if ever believes the victims. The psychopath has managed to con an manipulate so many people around them for so long they convince others that the target is insane or crazy.

Someone once said to me many years ago that when someone doesn’t give us what we want or need in our lives it’s the universes’ way of clearly saying that we no longer need that person in our lives anymore and making way for something better to come along.

We all want to see the good in people and when we spot the red flags we know deep down that the psychopath or sociopath is not all they are cracked up to be. We know that image they are portraying in the mirror is flawed but we want to make it all right. The distorted projected image that they reflect back to us is that of someone who is kind, empathic, loving, hard-working (fill in the blanks). However,  underneath the mask the psychopathic personality inherently flawed without ANY of these characteristics.

So why are our own mirror images of ourselves flawed and  what it is about ourselves that is attracted to them in the first place?

Many (not all) of the people who have contacted me for coaching or read my book Dark Souls come from a background of abuse and neglect of their own emotional needs.  They come with an unconscious feeling that they may not be worthy of being loved by another kind, loving person. The hook between the psychopath and the empathic person is that we see something in them that is inherently flawed in them, but at the same time is inherently flawed in us. I am not necessary talking about victims all suffering from Narcissistic personality disorder since many of the people who have contacted me have grown up with parents who are narcissists but have also spent their lives trying not to be like them but this “flaw” is often inherently wired in our systems as a result of our upbringing and projections from parents or spouses and its one of the hooks that psychopaths love.   An example of this is that we may be inherently bad, worthless, (fill in the blanks) all of which is totally unconscious and none of which is true.

What better way for a psychopath to get someone sucked in that, in their eyes, they see as the same as them.  In the eyes of the psychopaths eye they believe they have met their match. A mirror image of themselves. They see all the other things about us “the good bits” as being things they want in themselves! The irony is that when they meet us they soon start to realise that they have none of our other characteristics, kindness, empathy, ability to work hard, having a conscious and so on because they are just hard-wired to win and abuse people. This is when they start to get angry and want to punish us for being something they can never be.

When they realise that we aren’t evil or “like them” and can’t help them out or have run out of things they can steal off us which is why so many psychopathic corporations thrive based on them working together they see this as a flaw and use this against us to try to exert power and control over us so they can win.  As Dr George Simon puts it.

“You win I win, You lose I win, I win You Lose
and finally I lose, You Lose”

Whis is the main reason they try to hurt us so badly when we stand up to them or walk away.

Why we end up helping each other

When the relationship is over, we as targets, end up realising that these psychopathic predators are not what they seem either, and that their image of themselves is cracked and flawed as our own. We reason that there is no good in there that we so wanted to believe in and realise that all of the other faulty characteristics we believed about ourselves such as not being worthy of having kind loving relationships are all wrong. When we are prepared to look at our own flaws we are able to repair that broken mirror that was flawed in the first place and bring back the shine we once had before we were tainted by these psychopathic characters.

In some ways it’s a bit like a symbiotic relationship the same as it was when it was toxic. The psychopath in our lives is there to help us to be authentic and expose our own vulnerabilities and teach us to be who we really are. We learn how to become our true selves and how to love ourselves properly.  What they give us is a gift of authenticity.

We are then obliged to do give the same gift back to the psychopath. Like the psychopth who studies us, using our weaknesses against us, we educate ourselves, learn about their disorder and we end up dumping or leaving the psychopath/narcissist or Sociopath in our lives. Each one of us reflecting back that part of us in ourselves which no longer serves us.

The psychopath is then left having to be their real authentic selves too i.e. a dark empty shell. They are left with a reflection of themselves they no longer like which is why they will never look in the mirror or change themselves. They will never look at their own flaws and will continue to spend a lifetime searching for more shiny mirrors in the hope that we’ll reflect something back to them that was never there in the first place.

I leave you with a poem I wrote to my ex a few years when he was supposed to have cancer which turned out to just one of his many lies. I realise now I was writing it to myself and that the cancer is an analogy for the Dark Souls in our lives.

“The Mirror“

 

tis another year on and our dreams are all shattered
All that we hoped for and all that had mattered
my eyes are still sore from crying rose-coloured tears
you now face your own demons as i have faced my own fears
that cancers a fu**er it will keep on returning
if you don’t pull out its root that lies in your heart yearning
I’m not talking about me or some lover or wife
I am talking about you, what you want in your life
its much easier to forget to just get on and do
numbs the brain and the senses and our soul too
so i found you a mirror that was special and good
it was tucked in the cellar and carved in oak wood
its hidden for years in a dusty old room
it holds answers to secrets you never dreamed could
when you look in the mirror tell me what do you see
is it you, or you children, your wife, or is it me
I think none of the above because the view isn’t clear
it’s just smeared with anger and guilt and fear
pull the cloth from your pocket and start to erase
all the smears on the mirror and start clearing the haze
as you wipe away layers of dirt built over time
you will fight back the tears as you clean off the grime
Your fingers are hurting your can’t rub anymore
you’ll leave it for now there’s a knock at the door
Oh “I’ll deal with it later” you say to yourself
no one cares about that old mirror put it back on the shelf
but you can’t do that ***** its too special to leave
the woods starting to rot and it needs air to breath
the mirror is tarnished you must do it in time
it takes forever to polish and bring back the shine
then you will look in the mirror it will all become clear
with each rub of the cloth you have faced all your fear
As you look in the mirror you see only YOU
no kids, no lover, no wife – my god what will you do
Say hello to yourself for the first time in years
don’t mess up the mirror again with your tears
it’s a special mirror that needs nurture and care as do you
if you look after it well it will be honest and true
it will reflect all your dreams and hopes and fears
but the maintenance polish is not your own tears
its only small ***** not much bigger than a locket
if you keep it with you always it will fit in your pocket
just remember to look after it as I try to do
and it will always be kind to you and let you be YOU