Paradoxical responses: Why I stayed
I seem to be back to working full-time on sorting out some of the lingering questions in the story.
So the question of the day is why would an apparently sensible woman, smart enough to own her own business, sufficiently comfortable with her own power to manage employees and clients, with enough money to do or buy anything she wants, become obsessively attached to a petulant and abusive man 20 years her junior, who says in so many words that he is strictly there for the money he can extract from the relationship?
What was going on with me?
Why did I behave in exactly the opposite way than I should have? Instead of kicking him out of my life or using my financial power over him to demand different behavior, I not only surrendered to the situation, but proceeded to agree to just about anything he wanted and volunteer anything I could imagine he'd want.
I've been trying to find more information about something my therapist mentioned once. A paradoxical response to abuse.
The way this works is that if someone hurts you, the paradoxical response is to feel love and concern for them. The associated action is do something nice for them, contribute to their wellbeing. (You will note there is no direct or normal response -- not an ouch, not anger, not revenge -- to the pain caused by the abuse. It's all transformed into this other response.)
I don't know if I wrote about it here, but I've already been through researching Stockholm Syndrome, which is an intense attachment, something like an infatuation, to someone who controls a survival-threatening situation. SS is often defined as a brain chemical issue, the way the neurochemicals of terror and hope interplay when the controlling person alternately gives reassuring kindnesses and then withholds reassurances or threatens. The "good" stuff becomes increasingly important to the dependent person, causing a fixation that is experienced as love. And it often goes both ways between the controller and the dependent, both feeling as though they are in love.
I thought my situation might have something to do with that, because the relationship started at a time of huge stress. But some of my recent thinking got me on another round of research. This wasn't quite the set-up for SS. I had too much inherent power. And though he got comfortable sometimes or found it enjoyable, I don't think he ever imagined he was in love. Rather, my situation was more like I was destabilized from the beginning by actions and statements so brutally denigrating and accompanied by absolutely no concern for my feelings that I was stunned. I couldn't understand how one person could treat another person like that.
So why was I so attached to him? What happened to my normal responses to pain? What I was NOT doing was the usual learning process, that the hot stove would burn my hand. I just kept going back over and over to burn my hand on the stove, like I imagined it was going to come out differently. And the result, for me, was a kind of internal failure, a breakdown in my relationship with myself. If I couldn't trust myself to learn to stay away from this guy, I couldn't trust myself to survive. And so, I went on a long emotional nosedive that took years to climb out of.
Looking for more information on this paradoxical response, I found an article today. Here's the URL: http://www.pbsp.com/books&articles/abuse.htm. It's written by a man named Albert Pesso, who along with his wife developed a "psychomotor" therapeutic system, which basically playacts out repressed responses to abuse -- whether physical violence, sexual or psychological. The approach is interesting, I think, but that's not the real value to me of the article. That value is, instead, his descriptions of the different layers of response.
First, here's an extract from his definition of abuse:
" Finally, there is psychological abuse which comes from unwanted reduction of the victim's self esteem and value through imposed degradation, humiliation, ridicule, derision, and/or other psychological blows, demeaning to the self image, and damaging to the identity and functioning of the victim. Another form of psychological abuse results from forced submission to the commands and will of the abuser with no possibility of resistance or escape, where the victim must only show obedience.
"Clearly, abuse is an abnormal use of a person, whereby a person is treated as a thing, an object or a commodity and not as a living soul and ego."
That's close enough to what I was dealing with, in terms of the damage to identity and functioning. And the total hopelessness of trying to convince this guy to stop doing things that were hurting me.
So onto the responses. He lists a series of them, but I'm just going to include a few bits here. The first is just interesting, not necessarily relevant to this whole thread of thought. It describes the "first response" to abuse. (The way he sees the mind is the primitive "soul" which provides life force and core identity at the center, surrounded by the ego which holds all our life knowledge about the world and the identity we've acquired since birth.)
"Most victims tend to become quiet and fearful. The outer world has presented them with great danger. Their own souls have reacted in ways that are beyond their consciousness and comprehension. The first response is to shut down. The ego shrinks and grows rigid - letting little in or out - everything is regarded as suspect, foreign and dangerous."
I like that description, because it matches my sense of astonishment at someone mistreating me. It's the first thing that happens. I go still and withdrawn, while I try to understand what's happening. It's like going into physical shock after a bad injury.
Okay, here's his list of responses.
1. THE EXPERIENCE OF LOSS OF CONTROL.
2. THE EXPERIENCE OF FEAR AND TERROR.
3. THE EXPERIENCE OF PAIN, HURT AND SADNESS
4. THE IMPULSE AND EXPRESSION OF REVENGE.
5. THE EXPRESSION OF EROTICISM AND RECEPTIVITY.
6. THE IMPULSE AND EXPRESSION OF MURDER
7. THE INCREASE OF GUILT, SHAME AND THE DESIRE FOR PUNISHMENT
8. THE DESIRE TO EXPRESS LOVE FOR THE ABUSER.
His explanations of all these states in interesting, but it's number 5, eroticism and receptivity, that seemed like a potential description and explanation for this thing I'm trying to figure out. Here's an extract:
"One of the most unexpected and surprising findings in our work has been that abuse of any kind produces a reflexive increase in vulnerability that includes an erotic element. ... This level of vulnerability feels like a kind of infinite and omnipotent openness. It includes a kind of chaotic excitement and willingness that would appear ready to take in and absorb everything and anything.
"The more regularly one has been a victim ... It is as if the repeated attacks demonstrate to the victim that they "draw" the attacker to them and that the attacker cannot resist attacking them. They may feel that they have become irresistible in their attractiveness as victims. For the attack is attention, even if negative, and is a highly charged form of recognition with much emotional heat attached to it on the side of both the aggressor and the victim."
Whew, how's that for interesting stuff. It totally matches my feeling with this guy that my heart was blown open in some way that was wonderful, but also terrible because I had no control over it. It doesn't just seem to relate to what I was going through, this craziness, but maybe some other things too, like the attraction to S&M or B&D.
Which makes me think I should also drop an excerpt from number 7, the one about shame and guilt.
"The victim, thrown out of balance and out of control by abuse, is ashamed and guilty about how open they are, and, by the law of opposites becomes rigidly closed. Ashamed and guilty about how angry they are, they become rigidly "nice".
"Guilt, operating on the law of opposites, inclines victims to punish themselves for their out of control impulses. The murderous energies directed outward are turned inward as a way to reduce the discomfort.
"The non-interactive solution of self-punishment leads to isolation, and in an odd way, omnipotence. ... when one's receptivity is not reality-tested by an outside force, one can come to the conclusion that one is the most open person in the world and the very model or paradigm for openness in the universe.
"So, while the victim feels awful, shamed, guilty and wishing to destroy him/herself, there is a significant secondary gain of specialness and uniqueness. Even though this is unconscious it isn't given up easily."
So, to me, that part is a little less clear, but it's still interesting. Especially the part about being so special or unique. Because that's exactly the way I have felt in abusive situations. Like there is something special about me and my situation, a strange feeling of being "chosen" for this particular drama.
Both of these two items stand in contrast to the more defensive and angry responses that I would have considered more "normal." But I think that the division between these two kinds of responses might almost be considered a right- and left-brain thing. The left brain, rational side, would also be more geared to the "me," pure self-interest that responds with anger or some equivalent violence (revenge) to a boundary violation. The right brain, the more intuitive and emotional side, would be looking for a perception that was more environmental, what it means about my place in the world. And my place in the world is to have my boundaries shredded and be wide open and be vulnerable/dependent in relation to what is around me.
Though that sounds gender related, one masculine and one feminine, it's more yin and yang. The writer said both genders have these responses.
For me, one of the challenges of researching this stuff is that I have to synthesize a lot of different intellectual paradigms. For example how does this therapist's model of psychological processing match to neuropsychiatric research, and then to recovery-based theories of addiction and codependency, then theories of developmental causes and treatment of personality disorders, etc.
In this case of this article, the model of consciousness -- based on the soul and the ego -- is pretty simple, compared to others. But I like it. It's close to my own topography of inner landscape, which views unresolved psychological damage as big wiry knots -- sort of like Pigpen's aura of flying dust -- that keep the inner self from either seeing objectively or acting effectively on the outside world, because perception is blocked by dominating needs for resolution. So the point of therapy or self-work, to untangle the knots and open that path. So soul acts more directly on the world, through a "clean" and functional ego.
Anyway, I recommend the article. The descriptions of experience in it are really interesting, whether or not you buy into the therapeutic technique.
So the question of the day is why would an apparently sensible woman, smart enough to own her own business, sufficiently comfortable with her own power to manage employees and clients, with enough money to do or buy anything she wants, become obsessively attached to a petulant and abusive man 20 years her junior, who says in so many words that he is strictly there for the money he can extract from the relationship?
What was going on with me?
Why did I behave in exactly the opposite way than I should have? Instead of kicking him out of my life or using my financial power over him to demand different behavior, I not only surrendered to the situation, but proceeded to agree to just about anything he wanted and volunteer anything I could imagine he'd want.
I've been trying to find more information about something my therapist mentioned once. A paradoxical response to abuse.
The way this works is that if someone hurts you, the paradoxical response is to feel love and concern for them. The associated action is do something nice for them, contribute to their wellbeing. (You will note there is no direct or normal response -- not an ouch, not anger, not revenge -- to the pain caused by the abuse. It's all transformed into this other response.)
I don't know if I wrote about it here, but I've already been through researching Stockholm Syndrome, which is an intense attachment, something like an infatuation, to someone who controls a survival-threatening situation. SS is often defined as a brain chemical issue, the way the neurochemicals of terror and hope interplay when the controlling person alternately gives reassuring kindnesses and then withholds reassurances or threatens. The "good" stuff becomes increasingly important to the dependent person, causing a fixation that is experienced as love. And it often goes both ways between the controller and the dependent, both feeling as though they are in love.
I thought my situation might have something to do with that, because the relationship started at a time of huge stress. But some of my recent thinking got me on another round of research. This wasn't quite the set-up for SS. I had too much inherent power. And though he got comfortable sometimes or found it enjoyable, I don't think he ever imagined he was in love. Rather, my situation was more like I was destabilized from the beginning by actions and statements so brutally denigrating and accompanied by absolutely no concern for my feelings that I was stunned. I couldn't understand how one person could treat another person like that.
So why was I so attached to him? What happened to my normal responses to pain? What I was NOT doing was the usual learning process, that the hot stove would burn my hand. I just kept going back over and over to burn my hand on the stove, like I imagined it was going to come out differently. And the result, for me, was a kind of internal failure, a breakdown in my relationship with myself. If I couldn't trust myself to learn to stay away from this guy, I couldn't trust myself to survive. And so, I went on a long emotional nosedive that took years to climb out of.
Looking for more information on this paradoxical response, I found an article today. Here's the URL: http://www.pbsp.com/books&articles/abuse.htm. It's written by a man named Albert Pesso, who along with his wife developed a "psychomotor" therapeutic system, which basically playacts out repressed responses to abuse -- whether physical violence, sexual or psychological. The approach is interesting, I think, but that's not the real value to me of the article. That value is, instead, his descriptions of the different layers of response.
First, here's an extract from his definition of abuse:
" Finally, there is psychological abuse which comes from unwanted reduction of the victim's self esteem and value through imposed degradation, humiliation, ridicule, derision, and/or other psychological blows, demeaning to the self image, and damaging to the identity and functioning of the victim. Another form of psychological abuse results from forced submission to the commands and will of the abuser with no possibility of resistance or escape, where the victim must only show obedience.
"Clearly, abuse is an abnormal use of a person, whereby a person is treated as a thing, an object or a commodity and not as a living soul and ego."
That's close enough to what I was dealing with, in terms of the damage to identity and functioning. And the total hopelessness of trying to convince this guy to stop doing things that were hurting me.
So onto the responses. He lists a series of them, but I'm just going to include a few bits here. The first is just interesting, not necessarily relevant to this whole thread of thought. It describes the "first response" to abuse. (The way he sees the mind is the primitive "soul" which provides life force and core identity at the center, surrounded by the ego which holds all our life knowledge about the world and the identity we've acquired since birth.)
"Most victims tend to become quiet and fearful. The outer world has presented them with great danger. Their own souls have reacted in ways that are beyond their consciousness and comprehension. The first response is to shut down. The ego shrinks and grows rigid - letting little in or out - everything is regarded as suspect, foreign and dangerous."
I like that description, because it matches my sense of astonishment at someone mistreating me. It's the first thing that happens. I go still and withdrawn, while I try to understand what's happening. It's like going into physical shock after a bad injury.
Okay, here's his list of responses.
1. THE EXPERIENCE OF LOSS OF CONTROL.
2. THE EXPERIENCE OF FEAR AND TERROR.
3. THE EXPERIENCE OF PAIN, HURT AND SADNESS
4. THE IMPULSE AND EXPRESSION OF REVENGE.
5. THE EXPRESSION OF EROTICISM AND RECEPTIVITY.
6. THE IMPULSE AND EXPRESSION OF MURDER
7. THE INCREASE OF GUILT, SHAME AND THE DESIRE FOR PUNISHMENT
8. THE DESIRE TO EXPRESS LOVE FOR THE ABUSER.
His explanations of all these states in interesting, but it's number 5, eroticism and receptivity, that seemed like a potential description and explanation for this thing I'm trying to figure out. Here's an extract:
"One of the most unexpected and surprising findings in our work has been that abuse of any kind produces a reflexive increase in vulnerability that includes an erotic element. ... This level of vulnerability feels like a kind of infinite and omnipotent openness. It includes a kind of chaotic excitement and willingness that would appear ready to take in and absorb everything and anything.
"The more regularly one has been a victim ... It is as if the repeated attacks demonstrate to the victim that they "draw" the attacker to them and that the attacker cannot resist attacking them. They may feel that they have become irresistible in their attractiveness as victims. For the attack is attention, even if negative, and is a highly charged form of recognition with much emotional heat attached to it on the side of both the aggressor and the victim."
Whew, how's that for interesting stuff. It totally matches my feeling with this guy that my heart was blown open in some way that was wonderful, but also terrible because I had no control over it. It doesn't just seem to relate to what I was going through, this craziness, but maybe some other things too, like the attraction to S&M or B&D.
Which makes me think I should also drop an excerpt from number 7, the one about shame and guilt.
"The victim, thrown out of balance and out of control by abuse, is ashamed and guilty about how open they are, and, by the law of opposites becomes rigidly closed. Ashamed and guilty about how angry they are, they become rigidly "nice".
"Guilt, operating on the law of opposites, inclines victims to punish themselves for their out of control impulses. The murderous energies directed outward are turned inward as a way to reduce the discomfort.
"The non-interactive solution of self-punishment leads to isolation, and in an odd way, omnipotence. ... when one's receptivity is not reality-tested by an outside force, one can come to the conclusion that one is the most open person in the world and the very model or paradigm for openness in the universe.
"So, while the victim feels awful, shamed, guilty and wishing to destroy him/herself, there is a significant secondary gain of specialness and uniqueness. Even though this is unconscious it isn't given up easily."
So, to me, that part is a little less clear, but it's still interesting. Especially the part about being so special or unique. Because that's exactly the way I have felt in abusive situations. Like there is something special about me and my situation, a strange feeling of being "chosen" for this particular drama.
Both of these two items stand in contrast to the more defensive and angry responses that I would have considered more "normal." But I think that the division between these two kinds of responses might almost be considered a right- and left-brain thing. The left brain, rational side, would also be more geared to the "me," pure self-interest that responds with anger or some equivalent violence (revenge) to a boundary violation. The right brain, the more intuitive and emotional side, would be looking for a perception that was more environmental, what it means about my place in the world. And my place in the world is to have my boundaries shredded and be wide open and be vulnerable/dependent in relation to what is around me.
Though that sounds gender related, one masculine and one feminine, it's more yin and yang. The writer said both genders have these responses.
For me, one of the challenges of researching this stuff is that I have to synthesize a lot of different intellectual paradigms. For example how does this therapist's model of psychological processing match to neuropsychiatric research, and then to recovery-based theories of addiction and codependency, then theories of developmental causes and treatment of personality disorders, etc.
In this case of this article, the model of consciousness -- based on the soul and the ego -- is pretty simple, compared to others. But I like it. It's close to my own topography of inner landscape, which views unresolved psychological damage as big wiry knots -- sort of like Pigpen's aura of flying dust -- that keep the inner self from either seeing objectively or acting effectively on the outside world, because perception is blocked by dominating needs for resolution. So the point of therapy or self-work, to untangle the knots and open that path. So soul acts more directly on the world, through a "clean" and functional ego.
Anyway, I recommend the article. The descriptions of experience in it are really interesting, whether or not you buy into the therapeutic technique.