Mark Scroggins
Hey folks back for another edition of the reclamation transformation. I’m Mark Scroggins with Scroggins Law Group and today we have Cindy Hyde back again. How are you?
Cindy Hyde
I’m good Mark, how are you?
Mark Scroggins
I’m good. So as y’all will recall, this is a continuing guest that we have here with Cindy, because there’s so much to talk about in the world of mental health. But what I wanted to do is start back really where we left off the last time and we were talking about narcissism. What is it really, and I was telling you, you know, in the courts, one of the things that’s like, narcissism or hearing that someone’s a narcissist is, you know, the hot button of the day to where, you know, the courts have actually gotten kind of they’ve soured, I guess, on hearing about it a lot of time, because everybody claims that everybody’s a narcissist, because they’ve got Google and they think they know what the hell it means. So let’s start there. We’re talking about what narcissism really is. And you know, what’s important? I think, from a legal standpoint, what is important for me to know as a practitioner, and how I can go about really educating a court on what the difference is between narcissism and say, someone who’s borderline and all these other things that we get into, right?
Cindy Hyde
Yeah, and you’re exactly right, Mark, you know, it is nowadays difficult for the courts to determine is it narcissism, or is it not? And that is because the term is so widely overused, and it’s ever used a lot by bloggers, and Facebook groups, and all of these different outlets that really have no formal training in a lot of cases. And so what happens is, the general public starts thinking, you know, they have a bad relationship or a toxic relationship while they must be a narcissist, right? Well, and yes, that can actually actually be the case, or there do seem to be a lot. However, a lot of times it’s not just narcissism. And so what I tell clients is, it’s a personality disorder. Let’s start there, because it may not be narcissism, or it might be with two or three other personality disorders also. And so in the world of mental health, there’s narcissism, there’s antisocial, which is also also known as sociopath. There’s psychopathy, which is known as psychopath. And then there’s also narcissism. And then the last one, which kind of falls off to itself is borderline, but someone could potentially have all of those at the same time, right? And so what happens is, if I get clients that come in and say, I feel like I’m going crazy, you probably get those clients too. And that’s why because they haven’t been with just a narcissist, right? They’ve been with someone that has multiple personality disorders.
Mark Scroggins
Let’s talk about what narcissism looks like, in a relationship, because that’s one of the things that I find myself trying to educate my judge about. Judge, I know, everybody thinks they know what this means. But let’s talk about what it really looks like, you know, so let’s talk about someone who really knows what it looks like and what it means, right.
Cindy Hyde
And so what it truly is is grandiosity. So you have somebody that has that big personality, they’re never wrong, they have a huge sense of entitlement. They also can be very exploitive within the relationship. And so that’s where you hear the terms like crazy making or word salad. And so they’ll exploit the relationship itself. They also lack empathy for the harm that they do to someone. And so that’s, that’s one of the biggest ways you can tell if there’s narcissism present when someone has no empathy or remorse for the fact that they’re hurting you. And so that’s one of the larger ways that you can tell, in addition to that, a lot of times you can tell a narcissist because they associate with high status people, or they’re very envious of high status people. And so, you know, you’ve heard you’ve heard people say before, oh, I know, you know, so and so’s brother’s husband was the Secretary to the President, right? And so they attach to that status. And so also they usually show very arrogant and haughty behavior. And so that’s a narcissist by itself. If you wanted to know, like, what other things show up as personality disorders, and if someone were a psychopath, they have the pathological line that goes along with this pain. A lot of times people just think that’s just a narcissist. No, that can actually be a psychopath. When there’s a pathological line or there’s criminality, or there’s that high egocentricity. So it’s all about me.
Mark Scroggins
Is it necessary? When we’re talking about someone who’s a psychopath? Is it necessary that you have that illegal behavior?
Cindy Hyde
No, it’s not. They don’t have to have criminality. Um, a lot of times they don’t, they’ll have everything but the criminality, so they’ll be highly manipulative and deceitful. There’ll be a pathological liar, but they don’t have any criminal behavior. They might like to dabble in some shady stuff, but they don’t necessarily have criminality. And then the antisocial though, is the one that can have the criminality that they’re above the law, that they do everything within the letter of the law. So if, if you had a restraining order that said you can’t be within 500 feet, they would be at 501. And they would say, Oh, I wasn’t at 500 feet, I was 501. Right. So that’s kind of how you can tell a sociopath is always, you know, above the law. And so, they usually also have a high impulsivity. Usually they can, they’ll switch jobs a lot. So you’ll see that as well with a sociopath. And then borderline is the high emotionality. So that’s that explosive behavior, it can look a lot like bipolar, but it can be the high, the high emotionality, the explosiveness, the rage, which also shows up with psychopathy, and it can also be the meltdowns, the, you know, going to victim that, you know, you know, I only hit you because you made me do it, and they’ll go to that victim meltdown stage, when in actuality, you know, a victim can think that they’re dealing only with a narcissist with all of those behaviors, but they’re actually dealing with multiple personality disorders.
Mark Scroggins
Are there certain personality disorders that tend to affect men more than women and women more than men?
Cindy Hyde
Typically more men than women? I don’t really have the research that says why that is. I know that it’s out there. I don’t I don’t know it off the top of my head. But there are women also, that can very much display these personality disorders as well.
Mark Scroggins
Do you see borderline more in women actually than in men?
Cindy Hyde
Yeah, it’s borderline is more in women, most of the time, it can show up in men. Usually, if they have multiple personality disorders, you’ll see borderline as one of those also. But normally the narcissism and the psychopath and sociopath or more typically, with men.
Mark Scroggins
so if you were, you know, so all the things you were talking about are things that I hear from clients all the time. All right. So if you know, one of the things I will tell people is what you and I were having this discussion, offline is, you know, document everything, absolutely. Document everything, absolutely have to document everything. And additionally, if there’s anybody else present, I will tell people that, you know, the more evidence that you have the matter, because when it comes down to what he said, she said that generally turns into a losing proposition, right? It doesn’t mean that you’re going to lose, so to speak, but you’re not going to win on everything, right? Some of some of the stuff is going to be taken with a grain of salt. Right, right. And so it’s trying to make sure that you’ve got the ability to show that, hey, Judge, yeah, he or she is doing this, and this and this, and this, and this, and this, oh, and these two, and then this person was here, when this this, this, this happened, right.
Cindy Hyde
So what you want to show is the enduring patterns of behavior, so meaning over time, right? So a lot of times, I’ll tell clients, you know, or clients will bring me recordings of, you know, somebody exploding on them, or raging, and they have multiple recordings over time. And so that’s an enduring pattern. That’s something a judge could look at and go ” this is a problem, right? Where if it’s just a he said, she said, What Happens a lot of times is the victim actually will look very unstable in court, because, you know, they can be being provoked unknowingly to everyone around them, right. And so they’ll look unstable, while the personality disordered person looks really smooth. And so it can be very difficult if there’s no proof.
Mark Scroggins
Yeah. How do you so how, how would you go about trying to discern whether or not someone is actually a, a, I hate to use the term victim. But someone who is actually a victim in this scenario, as compared to someone who is really more of a provocateur and trying to set someone up because that that’s generally what the dialogue is, you know, it’s you were provoking me know, I’m really the victim, this, that and the other end and so it kind of goes back and forth between these two. So how do you go about discerning for lack of a better way of putting it? What’s true?
Cindy Hyde
Yeah. And you know, what comes to my mind is the recent Johnny Depp, you know, for looking for, but the big court trial with Johnny Depp and and literally both of them were saying the other one did it which is so typical of a pathological love relationship case. And so actually the Institute for relational harm reduction, watched every, you know, inch of that footage, and said, and at the end of the day, they really felt like both of them were personality disordered. And that’s why there was so much chaos in the courtroom overall.
Mark Scroggins
Give the name of the institution again.
Cindy Hyde
It’s called the Institute of relational harm reduction. Their website is safe relationships magazine.com. And they’ve done 30 plus years of research on the subject of pathological love relationships, and they have more research than anyone out there right now.
Mark Scroggins
And so when we talk about pathological love relationships, can you explain to the folks out there what that really means?
Cindy Hyde
Yeah. And that means when you’re in a relationship with someone with a personality disorder, or multiple personality disorders, okay. And so that is a lot of people in our world today. And in all of the blogging and Facebook groups, they call it toxic relationships. Right? Right. It’s actually pathological because they are truly in a relationship with somebody that’s disordered.
Mark Scroggins
And would it be a situation where that person does not have the ability to make a change, even if they are so correct?
Cindy Hyde
Yeah, what the institute says is 97% of that population is born that way. And only 3% had environmental situations that caused them to be that way. But either way, the neuro pathways in the brain are different. So how they relate is that if someone is born on the spectrum or with autism, they’re going to die on the spectrum and with autism, right? Same thing with a personality disorder, if they were born that way, with a personality disorder, at the end of the day, they’re going to die with a personality disorder also. So it will not change. And that’s one of the ways that we work with victims is to help them understand that, even though their brain wants to believe that this person is going to change, because that’s why they go back so many times, right. But the person really is incapable of change, even if it was environmental, even if they were one of the 3% their neural pathways got changed in their trauma, and they’re not able to change back.
Mark Scroggins
Wow. Okay, so that’s even something with undergoing therapy, and, you know, things of that sort that it’s just not,
Cindy Hyde
yeah, most won’t do therapy, because they don’t think they need it. They’re always right, right. And so they think everyone else is the problem, but they’re not the problem. So, you know, even if they do get into a therapeutic situation, they usually won’t stay very long.
Mark Scroggins
Wow. Okay, well, let’s get to one of the other things we were talking about. It seems like abuse generally goes along with these types of relationships. Right, right. And so let’s talk about what is abuse? Actually, well, what is abuse? First of all, and what does that look like in these relationships?
Cindy Hyde
So the first thing I do usually with clients is, we’ll go through the power and control will that the National Domestic Violence centers use, okay, and so what I usually look for is if they’ve had, if they’ve been if the person they’ve been with has used intimidation, so that’s things like they make that the victim feel afraid, by using gestures or smashing things or giving them a certain look. So they’re instilling fear with intimidation. The next thing I look at is if there’s been emotional abuse heavy.
Mark Scroggins
Let me interrupt you for just a second, because one of the things I wanted to mention is one of the places that we have a problem in Texas is that Texas only has salt, okay, doesn’t have a salt and battery, right. So it doesn’t discern between the two except, I guess, the category or level of salt. But a lot of people don’t realize that an assault does not necessarily mean you know, that somebody hits you. It also can be if you were, you know, reasonably in fear of imminent personal injury. So when you talk about someone smashing things, and breaking things like that, you know, the perfect example, I think of if somebody has someone backed up against the wall, and they rear back and they put their you know, put a hole in the wall by punching the wall, right. Okay. That’s an assault in Texas. Okay. And so with that, you can actually still get a protective order. So that’s one of those areas that although it is a little grayer than I would like, it is still an area that I can do something about, I can get some relief, but when we start going into some of these other areas, that gets into a super what I will call a light gray. Right? Yeah, right. Where I’m kind of stuck. I mean, there’s just not really a good legal mechanism that allows me to, to provide some of the relief that I think my clients like so sorry, I wanted to interject there.
Cindy Hyde
That’s where, you know, you know, a lot of clients after it’s been hard a lot of victims after it’s been happening for a while will start recording, or they’ll start, you know, they’ll make sure somebody’s nearby, you know, a lot of these these abusive men will or and or women will will do this behind closed doors where there’s no witnesses. Right. But sometimes, you know, there’s children. Right. And sometimes they can be a witness if they’re old enough, right? So you know, but that’s what I tell my clients that are the ones that come to see me is that you know, as much documentation as you can get, because that will help you in the legal system. But yeah, it’s great to know that they can get, you know, I had, I had one client not long ago that she had video of him smashing furniture and throwing things and just really losing it. And, you know, she was able to get a protective order with that. Yep. So he never physically put a hand on her. But the imminent threat was there, right?
Mark Scroggins
So, you said using emotional abuse. So what does that look like?
Cindy Hyde
So putting her down, calling her names, making her feel bad about herself, calling her crazy playing mind games. So in other words, you know, even though she might have, you know, seen evidence that he was cheating, he wasn’t cheating. So he would gaslight her, you know, to make her feel like she’s the crazy one, even though he’s the one with the bad behavior, humiliating her trying to make her feel guilty for his bet his abuse. So maybe he got violent and in her face, but then he made her feel guilty that it was all her fault that he did what he did.
Mark Scroggins
If she just didn’t get him so worked up and correct, you know, kept poking and prodding and correct. Yeah, it’s like the whole thing that the nagging wife uses Perfect, yeah, stereotype, they’re the nagging wife, who then the husband loses it. And if you didn’t do this, then I wouldn’t act like this.
Cindy Hyde
Right. And so in some, and again, this could be a woman doing this to a man. Yeah, but so many women in our culture, especially in my generation, and a few years younger than me, you know, were raised that you were to be submissive to your husband. And so a lot of them will pick up that guilt and feel like, well, maybe if I just did something different than he wouldn’t. And so there’s a psychological abuse component just to that, right. But it comes from childhood, you know, that they were taught that they shouldn’t, they should tolerate anything, maybe they even saw it with a parent, right? You know, and they, and they felt like, well, my mom, you know, stayed, so then I should stay. And so that happens a lot, too. But another way that they abused is using isolation. So they’ll start telling you that your friends or your family are bad, or they don’t like them, or, you know, they treat them badly. So they therefore shouldn’t, you know, associate with them. So they’ll start trying to get them away from friends and family pretty soon, because they don’t want any base speaking truth to them. Right. So they usually do that pretty quickly.
Mark Scroggins
Yeah, so using isolation. That one’s that one’s interesting, because that’s one of the things that I you know, I have conversations with my client about all the time, it is amazing to me, you know, you can pretty much go down a checklist and say, you know, is is he or she doing this is he or she doing that, you know, and going down and one of them seems like, you know, they want to isolate you away from all of your close friends or family.
Cindy Hyde
Yep. And they’ll do that using jealousy, too. So what they’ll do is, you know, if you go somewhere publicly with them, they’ll accuse you of looking at someone, or they’ll say, they’ll say, I know, you know, if you ask, you know, a waiter where the restroom is, You were flirting with the, the waiter and you saw that you that they must have a thing going on. And so then the fight for the next month becomes about the waiter and the fact that, you know, you must have been talking to him, you’ve been seeing him and so they’ll use those kinds of things. Yeah, and so they’ll even start monitoring what they read, who they talk to everything, a lot of them will make sure that they’re, they’re in charge of the cell phones, so that they can see who they’re talking to and who they’re texting everything. So they’ll literally put them in a prison, where they’re in charge of everything. Then they minimize, then deny and then blame shift. So they minimize that they’re doing any of those things, that they are jealous or that they’re monitoring their phone calls, they minimize all of that, or if they cheat, they deny it, and then they blame the shift. Well, if you were just having more sex with me, then then I wouldn’t have had to cheat. So you know, they’ll use those types of tactics. They’ll even use the children. So they’ll, you know, they’ll, you know, tell the children like you act like your mother or, you know, you know, I know that you see how your mother acts and I don’t want you to act that way. So they’ll do things like that to make the children go against the safe parent, because the safe parents are usually the ones getting abused.
Mark Scroggins
trying to equate bad behavior with that with the parent right?
Cindy Hyde
Correct Yeah. And so, and you know, once they get to, and we’ll talk about that in a second, but once there’s a separation, they’ll start using, they may not, you know, want to give the child back. Or they may, they may try to keep the child longer than they should, in order to torture the parent that they that they that they have separated from. Another thing that they’ll do is what’s called using male privilege. And so they’ll become the God of the house or the king of the castle, right. And so they’ll define the male and the female role. So usually they have the wife or the partner becomes basically the servant. And so, and while you know, they do next to nothing, the spouse is doing everything. And then they criticize the things that the spouse is doing.
Mark Scroggins
So one of the other things I see on here is, and by the way, folks, if anybody wants a copy of this power and control wheel, or any of the other things you hear us referencing, if you will send an email to info at Scroggins Law Group, we’ll be happy to provide those to you. One of the other things that I see is making all big decisions. And so I know or acting, you said, you mentioned acting like the master of the castle, helped me understand how that is different from what I will call traditional gender roles.
Cindy Hyde
Like I said earlier, you know, our generation grew up with traditional gender roles where the man was the head of the household, and the wife usually did most of the house work until women started going back into the workforce, right. And back then it really wasn’t considered abuse. But nowadays, when it’s including isolation, and they’re, they’re making it where that person is truly a servant versus a partner in the house, then that makes it more abuse.
Mark Scroggins
Because the one that I see is making big decisions. And so that’s a scary one to me, just because I can tell you about a recent case that I had, where a husband wife, getting a divorce wife is complaining that, you know, he financially isolated me in this, that and the other. And it turned out that was really pretty much bullshit that he had provided all of the login information like this, that and the other, she just didn’t know how well, no, she knew how she just didn’t take advantage of it. And so it was, you know, well, he never sat there and walked me through everything, it’s like, well, you need to get off your ass. And so there’s a fine line, it seems to carry on doing that. So anytime and obviously being male, that kind of scares me when we start talking about, you know, the use of male privilege. And we start getting into something where people have decided that they’re going to have what I will call traditional gender roles and they’re not going to share in certain things that’s different than you know, we’re going to buy this house, and we’re going to live in this city. And we’re going to raise the kids this way. And we’re going to decide you’re going to homeschool the kids and all this out of bounds.
Cindy Hyde
I think it goes to say if one of the partners does not have any choices, if there’s no choices, right, and they’re just simply told this is what you’re doing. Right, then that’s where it becomes abusive. But if that is the case, if the partner had a choice, then there’s not an abuse factor there.
Mark Scroggins
Would you agree, then, that this is really something that needs to be coupled with other things on this wheel? Would that be correct?
Cindy Hyde
Yes. And you kind of touched on it getting into economic abuse. So you know, there are situations where a spouse is allowed no money whatsoever, unless it’s doled out in very small amounts, right. That is abusive, you know, because in Texas, as you know, 5050.
Mark Scroggins
Its community 5050 is a starting point. So, and very rarely is it actually 5050. So good to know, yeah, unless you get into, you have a really substantial amount of money, and then it doesn’t really matter what kind of fault there is, then it’s going to be 5050. Yeah. So anyway,
Cindy Hyde
Yeah, and I think that’s a whole topic in and of itself, because I know a lot of my clients have those questions when they come in, and when they’re trying to decide, you know, what should I do? Right? You know, it’s good information to have, you know, is it does it start at 5050? Or is it 5050?
Mark Scroggins
Yeah, and it starts, that’s the starting point. So that’s one of the things and I’m glad you mentioned that, because I think that there’s a lot of misinformation about what people think well, and it’s amazing. They come in well, you know, I know that Texas is a community property state. So I know the division is going to be 5050. And it’s like, No, you really don’t. And that’s, that’s not the case. You know, generally it is the starting point, but then you’ve got different things that are going to share, you know, a couple percentage points here and a couple percentage points there. And if there’s a significant disparity in earning capacity, that’s the big one. That’s where you can see things all of a sudden end up with a 6040 split or something like that, depending on just how severe the disparity is.
Cindy Hyde
It’s good to know. Yeah. So, in the terms of abuse, when they use economic abuse, what the National Domestic Violence Center says is this, that they prevent, or they prevent them from getting or keeping a job, I’ve had clients tell me about how their partner got him fired from three or four different jobs, you know, because they would, you know, come up and have a big explosion at their office or something like that, and they would get fired, you know, if they are making them ask for money, so therefore, there is no money that they’re allowed to touch unless they ask for it. They’re given only a little pittance of an allowance, they take the money that that person brings in. So that happens a lot with that, where, you know, they’ll have I know of one that works, two or three jobs and all the money goes to him first. And then he decides how much of that that she gets. And so not letting her know about or have access to the family income, like you were talking about earlier, sometimes that gets misunderstood. So I have to be very clear that the victim had zero choices that it was all taken. And then the last thing is using coercion and threats. So making or carrying out threats, to do something to hurt them, a lot of times what they’ll do is threatened divorce a lot. And then that leaves the victim terrified because they have no financial means. Because all the money’s being held by, you know, the partner. Sometimes they’ll threaten suicide, although I will say most of the time, they don’t carry that out. It’s just, it’s just a threat in order to get control.
Mark Scroggins
Let me mention one thing, because I’m glad you mentioned this with the threat of divorce and people, you know, being abusive, because people don’t really understand what their rights are. So one of the things if you have somebody who is threatening divorce, over and over, go consult with a divorce lawyer so you can learn what your rights are, because what you are being told is not accurate. That is not what your rights are, you absolutely are entitled to the money just as much as let’s say if you’re a stay at home, right? Okay. You are just as entitled to the money the wage earner makes as the wage earner his or herself, you know, so it’s important to understand what, what your rights are there. So that can take some of the fear out of it. And hopefully, then, with removing some of that fear, then you can think clearly and make a determination as to what is good for you and what is not.
Cindy Hyde
Yeah, I’m curious I’ve had that brought up a question. I had one not long ago that, you know, this kind of situation, not not allowed to work, threatened divorce all the time. But there’s also even though he’s the primary breadwinner while the only breadwinner, right, he’s also got business debt. And so her concern is will she be responsible for the debt too?
Mark Scroggins
Yeah. Great question. And that really, it really depends. So typically, no. Okay, so you’ve got questions there? Is it a business she’s involved in at all? Is it a business that was started during the pendency of the marriage? So if it was started during the pendency of the marriage, then it’s going to be community? Okay. And so the question there will really be, what is the, you know, what is the value of the business itself, and then the bigger questions become one really have retained earnings. So that’s where something can be abusive, even if it’s a separate property business, so separate property business, still, all of the income that’s generated is community property. Okay. And so those retained earnings are community in nature. So just because someone hasn’t distributed what they can doesn’t mean that there isn’t money that’s in the business. So that’s one of the things that you always want to look at, but it’s just like, a company can’t be divested of their property. It’s just like, the debt isn’t going to be divested if it’s in the name of the company. Now, if it is debt that is just in his name, you know, could she be held liable? I guess technically she could, but it’s very unlikely. It’s very unlikely. So that’s a pretty hollow threat. A lot of the time we’re Oh, you’re gonna be justice. Hell, justice. I am bullshit. Not gonna happen.
Cindy Hyde
So that’s how we determine abuse in all of the ways that we just talked about, but then there’s a whole other, you know, area to look at too is when there’s children involved. Right? Right, right. And so a lot of times people think as soon as I leave, I’m never going to have to deal with this abuse again, right. And that is actually false. There’s, it’s what’s called post separation abuse, right. And that abuse takes place once the victim has left and typically with the children. And so that’s, that’s usually when there’s an 18 year battle that ensues until the child is old enough. And I don’t know if you caught the recent Pamela Anderson documentary or not, she was talking about, you know, she left Tommy Lee because he was abusive, and, and they had two children together. And so once she left, she was talking about how it was a long, 18 years. And that’s pretty much what happens in these types of situations is, it becomes a very long 18 years of post separation abuse that happens even after they’ve left.
Mark Scroggins
So when you talk about post separation abuse, can you tell me what specifically you are referencing and here we’ve got another wheel.
Cindy Hyde
Yep, we got another wheel. And this wheel can be found in one moms battle. There’s also you can also look for post separation abuse on Google and go to images and find wheels for it too. But you know, a lot of times what the personality disordered parent will do is they try to alienate the child. And they do that by smearing the safe parent. And so they’ll start trying to set the children up to favor the unsafe parent versus the safe parents. So you hear the term Disney dad. So a lot of times the unsafe parent will become Disney dad, and it makes the safe parent look like you know, she’s not doing anything, you know, that supporting the children is fun, right? And so and so anything that is bad that happens or anything that doesn’t go well gets blamed on the safe parent. And so, so you, I’m sure you’ve had lots of cases for parental alienation, a lot of times. That’s what’s happening is one of the parents is trying to alienate the other parents by befriending the child.
Mark Scroggins
You know, that’s another one that’s really hard, because I don’t think a lot of judges really have a clear understanding of what parental alienation is. And there are a lot of people who don’t . Frankly, parental alienation is another one of those buzz terms that is very akin to narcissism, correct? When we start saying, Oh, well, it’s a clear, clear, you know, case of parental alienation. It’s like, you know, just because they see things differently doesn’t mean that that’s parental alienation. Yeah, you’ve got to be showing what is actually doing what is going on to show that they are trying to create a situation where the child just favors that other parent.
Cindy Hyde
Yeah. So again, documentation, but you know, so it could be a case like there could be a sex addict parent, right? Who had years of acting out behavior, and disclosed one of the affairs to the child, right, and then blamed the safe parent for not forgiving them. Even though the safe parent knows there were dating apps, and there were prostitutes. And there were all kinds of very bad behavior for many years in the marriage. But yet, the child is being told that it’s only because the safe parent won’t forgive for the one affair, right? So not only is the unsafe parent lying to the child, which they should, because the child doesn’t need to know all of that. Right, right. But it’s painting the safe parent as the bad parent, right. And so now the child wouldn’t want anything to do with the safe parent because they think it’s their fault that the divorce is happening, even though they know about the one affair. So it’s things like that that can happen that turn a child against a safe parent. And so a lot of times once the separation happens, and the personality disordered person has the child in their possession, even if it’s you know, based on custody arrangements, they start neglecting the child.
Mark Scroggins
Let me let me go back to one thing real quick, because we talked about after the separation actually takes place. And one of the questions that always comes up is why does he or she always go back? Oh, yeah, you know, so that’s one of the things and I think that’s something that in the legal system that judges have a hard time really dealing with, it’s like, well, if it was so bad, they wouldn’t keep going back. Yeah, if he really did all this, or if she really did this, they wouldn’t go back. Yeah.
Cindy Hyde
Yeah. And so and that’s such a good point, because it’s so true like, you know, I can see where a judge would be confused, like, wow, you went back four times why? Why would I? How do I know that was really abusive if you kept going back, right? Well, what happens in the victim is what gets created is called cognitive dissonance, which means, on the one hand, they have the hope and believe, belief that that they’re going to change and be different. And the reason they have that hope, and belief is because of the early love bombing the brain attached to that. And so they keep thinking that, well, that person is going to show up again. And so everything’s going to be different if I go back, and a lot of times, the personality disordered person is telling them that everything’s going to be different, that, you know, they’re going to change, it’s all going to be different. And so, you know, the victim holds on to that belief and goes back. And then as soon as they’re back, usually, it’s right back to the bad behavior, because the good behavior, because truly, they’re in what’s called a dual dual relationship. So you’ve heard of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, right? Yeah. And so it truly is a dual relationship, meaning he’s good, he’s bad. I love him. I love him. I don’t know which to believe. Right? And so her brain wants to go over here and believe that there’s that sliver of good that eventually, if he just goes to anger management, then he’ll be better, right? Well, he can’t because he can’t change because remember, his personality disorder, if he was born that way, or even if he was part of the 3%, that wasn’t his neuro pathways are not wired for that. And so they won’t ever change. So they will, he will always be bad. And so that’s what her brain can’t reconcile that he can’t change, right? Because he’s telling her he can, but yet he can’t sustain it when she goes back. And so she’ll go back in and endure more abuse, and finally get brave enough to leave again. And then he’ll start telling her again, like, I’m going to change, it’s going to get better, you know how much I love you. And she goes back again. And so that’s how that happens. Because her brain is playing tricks on her trying to make her think that the good can be sustained.
Mark Scroggins
So it’s basically just like any other type of addiction pattern.
Cindy Hyde
Oh, absolutely.
Mark Scroggins
Like an alcoholic or drug addict who thinks oh, no, this time, it’s gonna be different. This time, it’s not gonna get me.
Cindy Hyde
Exactly. Yeah, the whiskey and milk story. And for those of you that don’t know what that is, it’s in a big book. And it’s about the power of addiction and how you can keep going back even when you think you can control it. And it’s the same way with a person, the victim becomes somewhat addicted to the personality disordered individual. And so what happens is, when they lose that person, just like if somebody took a bottle away from an alcoholic, right, you know, they almost grieved, they almost grieved the loss of their addiction, their drug, right, so that person now has become their drug. And so what can happen is, it can cause their PTSD symptoms to be stronger. And so what that can show up looking like is emotional overwhelm high irritability, right? So a lot of people don’t even realize that’s part of the trauma and PTSD, but it is. And so, so what happens is, the longing and the craving start within the victim, and so they’re craving their drug, right. And so this is like setting them up to relapse or to go back to that person. And so what then can happen is that they can start like self destructive behavior, maybe the victim starts numbing out with food. Have you ever seen somebody that leaves the relationship and gains a lot of weight? Yeah, well, they’re trying to numb the drug that they’ve lost, which in this case, is a person, right? And so what will happen then is they may start getting into relapse behavior. So maybe they fall prey to the craving or to the longing. So it’d be kinda like an alcoholic just taking a sip. Right? So maybe they’ll just send that text, you know, maybe if I just tell him this one more thing, because her brain is still thinking she can get heard by this abusive person. She can’t. But yet she’s about to fall into a relapse pattern because she’s made contact, right? And so what then happens, it’s kind of like that sip of alcohol, right? So maybe the next thing is, she offers sex and thinks, Well, you know, we always had great sex, I can just have sex with him. And that’s it kind of like I can, I can drink that glass of wine and I will be fine, right? Same thing, right. And so then the acting out behavior gets worse. She’s going back again, she’s leaving, she’s going back. She’s leaving. And they’re what she discovers is just like in the bottle, there’s no change in that person. And so either the relapse cycle continues, or she stops and finally gets away.
Mark Scroggins
So I would imagine that one of the things that would be super important is if you are with someone that is like this, when you make that decision, or before you make that decision to leave, you know, getting counseling is something that is super important. And I would imagine finding someone like yourself that specializes in this area is really, really important.
Cindy Hyde
It is very important to and to make sure that your therapist is trained in personality disorders is one of the things that you want to look for. And especially if they have knowledge of pathological love relationships, that’s very important as well, they can always go to the Institute for relational harm reduction, which is safe relationship magazine.com, safe relationships magazine.com. And they also have a great recovery group there, that’s very affordable. I highly recommend that over Facebook groups or bloggers and also to the one of the ways that I always tell clients right off the bat is be sure not to read things that aren’t written by people that are clinicians. So they either have some letters before or after their name. And there’s research attached to what you’re reading, because they’re, you know, there’s a lot of wounded people out there writing, and so you just don’t want to cause more harm to yourself.
Mark Scroggins
Absolutely. There is a ton of that, you know, somebody has read something, and thinks that their situation fits perfectly into that pattern, correct? Yeah. So well, so I’m glad that we know that. So I’m sorry, I interrupted you on that one.
Cindy Hyde
No, that’s what was needed to cover that.
Mark Scroggins
Let’s go back and Talk about coercive control. Yeah. So can you describe a little bit what that is?
Cindy Hyde
Coercive control is where there’s threats where they threaten, harm, or threaten the behavior. Let me get back to where I was. It’s very threatening and isolating. So they, literally , are taking control of the victim’s life. And so that’s cool, or some control. And there’s actually now the UK has started legislation on coercive control. And if it can be proven that they actually have fines and even jail time for that. Now, that has not made its way to the states yet. But it’s very much about what we’re talking about. But they’re calling it instead of I was in a relationship with a narcissist. They’re calling it a coercive, coercive control bill.
Mark Scroggins
That’s an interesting, interesting subject matter. I mean, that’s, that’s something that we ought to talk about, and how do you legislate that exactly? Effectively, I’d be super interested to learn about what their prosecution numbers are: the number of cases that they’ve actually taken up in the number that they’ve been successfully prosecuted.
Cindy Hyde
That would be interesting. We should look into that for another show. Yeah, absolutely.
Mark Scroggins
So let’s talk about them a little bit . I want to skip forward, because I know we’re up against our time limit. But one of the things that it talks about in post separation, abuse is legal abuse. And so I wanted to talk a little bit about that, and, and get an understanding of what that is, and what I as you know, a lawyer can do to kind of sniff this out a little bit.
Cindy Hyde
one of the first things you’ll see is they’ll go for 5050 custody, or they’ll go for full custody, right, one of the two, instead of standard. Most always, that’s what’s involved. And then if you know, if the safe parent, like for instance, let me give you a case in point. So like if a safe parent is asked to allow the unsafe parent visitation on an off week, right, and the safe parent says no, because they have commitments, like volleyball or swimming lessons or whatever, right? The unsafe parent will claim parental alienation, and they will take them back to court. And so they’re usually doing that to financially drain the safe parent. And so they’ll find all kinds of reasons to drag them back into court. And so like every time they turn around, if they didn’t, you know, the safe parent forgot to let them know that they took them to a doctor’s appointment while they’re not following the court orders. And so they take them back to court. And so they look for any little thing to try to draw the safe parent back into court. And so typically, that’s what legal abuse means.
Mark Scroggins
Gotcha. Okay. And unfortunately, there are plenty of lawyers out there who would be willing to take up those cases that are just little B’S type cases.
Cindy Hyde
Had I had one reach out to me not long ago that was being taken back to court for like the 15th time and all of the papers said this last time it was for cause and she had no idea what she was going to court for. And so the paperwork just said Had she was to appear for cause.
Mark Scroggins
Okay, yeah. Well, I could speculate on that yet. I’m gonna keep that from happening. So I’ll tell you what I want to do next time because as we have talked about, you will be a recurring guest on the reclamation transformation podcast. And so I want to go into the financial abuse a little bit more and then how that leads into counter parenting. Yeah, it’s so there’s a lot more to talk about and a lot more to talk about. Yeah. And then we’ll get into some one of the things that we needed to discuss. So thank you so much. Thank you for being here today. And thank you all for joining us in another episode of the reclamation transformation and remember, change begins with you so make sure to leave your mark.
