Mark Scroggins
Hey folks, Mark Scroggins with another edition of the reclamation transformation. And today, I have Cindy Hyde with me Cindy, how are you? I’m good. How are you?
Cindy Hyde
I am good. Thank you.
Mark Scroggins
So Cindy, is a therapist who I send a number of my clients to that are dealing with all of these hot button issues today of so and so’s a narcissist, or it’s part of the dark triad or any one of a number of things. So all these these not just scary terminology, but really scary situation. Right. So why don’t you describe your practice a little bit for everybody who’s out there? Okay.
Cindy Hyde
Well, I’m Cindy Hyde. I am living strong counseling here in North Dallas. And who I predominantly work with are mostly women, but women who have gone through what they most people call a toxic relationship, or a narcissistically abusive relationship. But in actuality, what they’re called is pathological love relationships. And so that’s my, my core client. But I also work a lot of times because a lot of times in these relationships, there’s infidelity. And so I also work with, with spouses or partners that have been betrayed in their relationships, while also enduring the toxicity that can come with being in a pathological love relationship. So that’s predominantly what I do.
So and that is, as you know, something that is prevalent in my practice as a divorce lawyer and narcissism has been one of those things that that is the you know, the $50 word right now, everybody in their dog thinks that the other person is a narcissist. And I love it when they can, you know, he or she is a textbook narcissist lately, and it’s like, you know, holy shit, can we use the Google aspect of this a little bit and start talking about, you know, what, what we’re really dealing with, because this is something that is super difficult for courts to identify. And even if the courts do identify it, I think a lot of time, they’re not really they’re not really geared to deal with it. Right? You know, so as we’ve talked about, you know, in divorce cases, the more money there is, the closer to a 5050 division, there’s going to be regardless of fault, right? And so when we’re talking about stuff like this, and we get into things like gaslighting, and, you know, other behaviors, someone who one of my favorite terms of crisis junkie, yeah, you know, courts want to, I think, kind of default to he or she is crazy, or he or she is just a major pain in the ass good thing or bad behavior, right? But let’s jump into what you termed as pathological love relationships, and talk about what those are specifically.
Okay. Well, and you’re you’re absolutely correct, Mark, the word narcissist is grossly overused. And it’s in pretty much it applies to everybody today, I can’t tell you how many calls I get that, that the first thing they say is, I think I’ve been involved with a narcissist. And and it’s possible it is possible. However, sometimes it’s worse than that. Sometimes they’re actually with a psychopath or a sociopath, or, or somebody that could have all three, right. And so, you know, the unfortunate part is I can’t diagnose the person they’re telling me about because I’ve never met them. However, I can work with the client to try to figure out, you know, by using some DSM checklists to find out and when you say DSM is the diagnostic manual that I use to diagnose or that most therapists or psychologists psychiatrists use to diagnose, and so I can help them come to their own conclusion of what is possible that they’ve been dealing with. But the probability you know, a lot of times the high manipulation that egocentricity, which is the all about me, the pathological lying all of that isn’t necessarily narcissism, it can be psychopathy, or psychopath, right. The the irrational explosive behavior can actually be borderline personality disorder, or sociopath and not narcissists. So it’s really important. So what the so I follow the Institute of relational harm reduction, which is where I’ve gotten all of my training, and they’ve done 30 years of research, they did studies with Purdue University. And what they termed what most people call a narcissistic abusive relationship is actual is actually a pathological love relationship, which means they have been in a relationship with somebody that has pathology so pathology meaning what’s hermit in the DSM as the dark triad is antisocial or sociopath, psychopath, or narcissistic personality disorder?
Mark Scroggins
How do those differ? And one thing I want to do is I want to talk a little bit about some of the differences between those three. But additionally, borderline personality disorder wanted to talk about that, because in my experience, those have been the hardest ones for me to deal with, whether I’m representing that person, or whether I’ve got that person on the other side of a case, because it seems like they’ve got their own little world, right? And if it doesn’t, I don’t mean that in a, in a funny, funny fashion, really, although it can be. But it’s like if it doesn’t fit into what their perceived reality is, holy shit. I mean, just, you know, watch out because there’s some big coming.
Cindy Hyde
Exactly. Yeah. And so borderlines specifically can be those really high emotions. Right? Right. And so their biggest fear is abandonment or rejection. And so if that gets triggered, you’re gonna see a really high emotion come from that, whether it’s rage or a meltdown. And so sometimes it’s really difficult to get them back to center if they feel that trigger or they feel they’re not being supported by people. But but really the difference between what’s considered the dark triad which is sociopath, psychopath, or narcissistic personality disorder, is I like I often tell them tell my clients like sociopath is that, you know, they’re the ones getting in fight physical fights, they’re the ones that a really explosive also, they also, they’re, they’re really deceitful. So they’re, they kind of fly just under the letter of the law. So like, if you had a restraining order that said, you can’t be within 500 feet of me, they would be at 501. And they would be like, I wasn’t at 500 feet, right? And they’re the ones that might like, you know, set your trashcan on fire or do something, you know, somewhat criminal. a psychopath is kind of a sociopath on steroids. So what they what what they can have criminal versatility, so they’re the ones that they make go to jail and still blame the victim that it’s their fault for whatever bad behavior they had. They’re not always criminal, though, you know, there’s about 25 possibilities that can be checkmarks. On whether they’re a psychopath or not in the DSM only requires that 10 be checked. And so they may or may not be criminal, but they could still have a lot of really bad behavior, like the pathological lying, the manipulative, pneus, all of those things, where the narcissist and the true narcissist, the narcissistic personality disorder is actually the one that’s more grandiose, they’re the ones that are very image conscious. They just like the psychopath and a sociopath, they don’t have the ability to have empathy for the amount of harm they’re doing. And so they’re a little different in that way. They, they’re not always they can be manipulative, and they can definitely lie to you. But are they pathological? And they’re lying? Right? So, you know, you asked me a question once before about, well, how do you know, if they’re not just, you know, a jerk or in a hole or something like that? Right? How do you know, right? Well, the way you know is if there’s enduring patterns over time, so if you know the pathological lying, the cheating, the manipulation, the gaslighting, all of those, if they’re happening over the course of time, then that makes them an enduring pattern. And so that means that they’re lasting. And so that’s how you tell the difference.
Mark Scroggins
So let me ask you this, if you know, let’s say that I thought that I had a case that the other side was, you know, one, one of these folks in the in the dark triad. And so what would, what would you think would be the best way for me as a divorce lawyer to really show the court that this person is not just an asshole with his spouse? Okay, and I’m using traditional gender roles because I think they it falls that way more sure. Isn’t that correct?
Cindy Hyde
Yeah, it is more predominantly men. However, it’s not uncommon at all. Nowadays for it to actually be a female that has pathology. It’s it’s a smaller range, but it does happen.
Mark Scroggins
I’d heard that borderline you see more with women. It’s the other sets that are more male. Yeah, that’s correct. Okay. So if You were if you were assisting me if I brought you in as a consulting expert on a case, and I’m telling you, Okay, help me teach this judge what we’re looking at, and what is really important for this judge to understand, to really identify with just the hell that our collective client has had to deal with and being married to this guy. What would you say that, you know, here’s what we really want to get across to the, to the core,
Cindy Hyde
Well, one would be history, have there been patterns over time?
Mark Scroggins
This could be through multiple relationships?
Cindy Hyde
Correct.
Mark Scroggins
Okay.
Cindy Hyde
In addition to that, hopefully, you know, your client would have had very good documentation and kept factual information recorded. I know, they can’t always recordings aren’t always admissible in court. But at least you know, you as the attorney wouldn’t be able to hear the abuse for yourself so that you would know how to present it to the judge. But it is all about enduring patterns. It’s have they been presenting this way over a period of time, you could you could court order, you know, a psychological eval to, but the problem with that is, is they they lie. So you don’t know if you’re getting accurate information. And it’s not uncommon for them to be incredibly smart, right. And so because of that, they can, you know, manipulate the test, because they are master manipulators. And so it really, it really comes down to what documentation does the client have? Or can she prove that happens? So you know, if it is, yeah, so if there’s an explosive rage, don’t be afraid to call the authorities and have it documented that way, you know, if they, if they’ve been abusive to your child, don’t be afraid to you know, I mean, it’s hard, it’s hard to say don’t be afraid, because they’re terrified and inside the relationship, but But you know, if they’re looking at an exit plan, you know, to have any kind of documentation they can have would be, you know, the way to go. And also to be seeing their own therapist. So the therapist can be documenting their trauma from from being in a cycle in a pathological love relationship.
Mark Scroggins
Is that something that if you were treating someone who had been subjected to all this, is it a situation where you might invite the other person into the therapy at all?
No and that’s because you would be putting the abuser in the same room with the victim, okay. And so my, the first order of business for me when I work with someone like that is to assess the level of trauma that I’m dealing with, because it shows up, they can, it absolutely affects their executive functioning. So a lot of times you’ll hear it in a lot of times, the interesting part is they’re very successful women, right? You know, but yet they’ve gotten they found themselves in these relationships, these PLR relationships, and all of a sudden, their executive functioning isn’t working anymore, they can’t, there aren’t going to work like they were, you know, they can’t think straight. And so there’s all these little indicators from a trauma standpoint, that will show that these women have been traumatized. And so and it shows up too with PTSD.
So let’s talk about that in a little bit more detail, because one of the things I’m so here’s where my thought process is going, if I’ve got to kind of educate the judiciary on this, because I think that is something that I don’t think they have been educated on it and but helping them to understand how it actually shows up and what behavior of the victim would, would tend to show that they are going through all of this, you know, and then when you couple it with testimony or documentary evidence, or as you said, recordings and stuff, which you know, luckily Texas is a one recorder state, right? So I couldn’t sit here and put something under the table and walk out and record you and that would be a no, no, that’d be a wiretapping violation. But if I wanted to sit here and record it, whether you know about it or not, I’m in the clear of doing that. So, so document document document. So make sure you are writing stuff down. One other thing that I wanted to mention is people forget. So a lot of everybody’s heard this on TV or in movies of assault and battery. Okay, Texas didn’t have battery. Texas has a salt. All right. And so it’s got a salt has two different pieces. Assault is one where somebody gets their ass whipped. All right, that’s an assault, right? But if I tell her over you for a second and I’m yelling and screaming and you are in reasonable fear of imminent bodily injury, that’s an assault. And people forget that. Oh, well. He never did that to me. He did. Well, did you feel like you were about to get hit? Yeah, well, yes, that’s an assault, okay. And those are game changers. When you get down to child custody matters. When you get down to division of the marital state, it even gets into opening up the door for getting spousal maintenance, which is, you know, it’s presumed you shouldn’t get it in Texas, right. So, but being able, I think, to explain this to a judge of look, here’s how she is presenting. And then here is this documented history, not just through, not just through the spouse right now, but additionally, these these previous relationships. And this judge is why this is important. Because I mean, frankly, you know, I think we were we were just hearing before the UK has got some stuff with coercive control. And Hawaii just put something in place. And I think New York is trying to put something in place, correct? Yeah, hopefully we can. We can get some other states put something in place, although I see a lot of pushback coming from that, because it’s kind of a slippery slope, you know, how do you tell what is real and what is not.
Cindy Hyde
Well, I always use, I like to use the power and control wheel, which is what a lot of domestic violence centers use. And by using that you’re not just looking at whether or not there was physical or sexual assault, you’re also looking at the emotional and psychological abuse as well. And so a lot of times what happens to these victims is their eye. And where the word course of control comes in, is they’re isolated away from friends and family very early in the love bombing stage in the grooming stage.
Mark Scroggins
So what I want to try to do, because there’s so much great information here is if we can kind of try to create a verbal checklist for people. So we’ve talked about document, document, document, don’t be afraid to document anything, whether it’s in, you know, your own personal diary, whether it’s calling the police reporting stuff, and then what you were just what you were just saying here, right, and so if you can go through that again.
Cindy Hyde
Yeah. And so a lot of times, what a pathological person will do is they operate very much like a cult leader does. And so though, they’ll do an early grooming, and they almost test their victim to see if the victim will be agreeable to some bad behavior. And that’s one of the things they look for is agreeableness. And so they’ll look, they’ll do something a little shady or bad. And they’ll see if the victim actually agrees to it, or gives them a pass for that bad behavior. And then they’re just like, Oh, check, got them. And so then, like, the fun to be bad, it’s fun to be bad, right? And so yeah, so that’s kind of what they do as they do an early grooming that and they start isolating them away from friends and family. So they may start telling you, they don’t like how your mother treats you or they don’t like how your friend’s husband behaves, or they don’t like certain things about the people that you’re associating with. And they’re looking again, to see if you’ll be agreeable enough to start alienating yourself away from those people. And so what they’re trying to do is get you where you’re, you’re only dependent on them. And so and so they look for people with very high empathy. So no matter how successful you are, if you have high empathy, you’re a target. And so and so they look for that very early to see if you’ll, you know, basically by their reality that your friends and family are bad, and then you become totally dependent on them. So want that’s one of the red flags to look for. And I tell a lot of my single clients, if they’re trying to isolate you, you need to run Yeah, don’t fail me now. Exactly. Exactly. And so, but that’s how but they very much use tactics like a cult leader would. Yeah,
Mark Scroggins
That’s so incredibly scary. It is. So now now the question that that I have, I mean, so trying to think of all of this empirical evidence that we can put out there so that a court can connect the dots how do we get past the supposition if I’m on the other side of that, okay, I’m gonna say look, you know, my clients an asshole, right? Just because he’s an asshole doesn’t mean that he’s actually doing X, Y or Z. He’s not really gaslighting look, Judge, you can tell she’s crazy. Right? You know, or this, that or the other. So how do we overcome that?
Cindy Hyde
Yeah, because a lot of times the victims do look crazy in court because, you know, there’s little things that can be said that the victim knows what’s being said to her but nobody else in the courtroom does. Since and so he’s actually provoking her right there in the courtroom causing her to melt down or get get enraged. And so she looks like the crazy one, when in actuality he and he’s standing there looking smooth as silk. Right, right. And so that becomes a problem because then the judge looks at her and goes, well, maybe you are the one right? And it comes out. He Said, She Said, right, and who’s telling the truth here. So it really does, again, come down to enduring patterns, what has happened over time, that can be documented and proved. And so you know, I always tell my clients, make sure it’s factual, don’t ad lib or add assumptions. Just be sure it’s factual and keep really good notes of what’s happening. But most of the time, you know, the goal is to get them out of those relationships. And one way to also, you know, to tell if PTSD is present, is if if the partner keeps going back, because oftentimes, like, and I was telling you what you and I were talking about this at one point that in typical PTSD, like if you had gone to war mark, and you came back all of your trauma, your flashbacks, you know, your rumination, all of it would be on the negative event that happened with with a partner that’s been in a pathological love relationship. Her trauma is a typical PTSD, meaning that not only does she have negative memories and flashbacks, she has positive ones. And so her brain goes into cognitive dissonance and wants to believe the good like, maybe this time, maybe the love bombing is true. And maybe this time, he’s telling the truth, and he’s gonna really change. But her brain forgets that litany of bad behavior that’s been present. And so it’s actually a PTSD response, where a lot of therapists over the course of history have been labeled at codependency, when in actuality, it’s not it’s it’s PTSD.
Mark Scroggins
You know, codependency is another one of those taglines right now. Which is, it’s incredible it’s much farther reaching than I really understood. You know, before, I’d been coached up quite quite, quite a bit on it. But it’s interesting. So how do we, how do we discern between it being codependency and being someone who’s actually suffering from PTSD because, you know, this, this particular pathological love relationship that they’re involved in, right.
Cindy Hyde
And so, so it’s really a difference between codependency and a trauma bond, right, which is another buzzword nowadays, right. And so codependency usually get started in an adverse childhood. And so they learn to become dependent on other people. And so people are kind of their obsession like the they, they want to either overhand up or over control, or all just all just people plays in that way, they’ll do what it is I’m wanting, or I won’t get that reaction, where a trauma Bond gets created because of a high intensity relationship. Right. But the, you know, we’re codependency kind of gets overused even in the therapeutic world, is because if they’ve been in a pathological relationship, the research shows about 60% of the victims in a pathological relationship have what’s called Super traits, and not codependency super traits, meaning being highly agreeable, meaning over trusting over loyal right? It could mean that they’re very successful and driven called conscientiousness, but they don’t have boundaries with that conscientiousness. And so they can get targeted, meaning they they’re, if they have conscientiousness, they’re not going to give up easily, right? Where if they’re codependent they had an adverse childhood, a lot of the population that become victims didn’t necessarily have an adverse childhood, right. And so that’s new research that’s out there now. And so that’s kind of where a lot of therapists that have been trained now, in these pathological relation, love relationships are learning that not all clients are going to come in codependent. They may come in with just super traits that got them targeted.
Mark Scroggins
Let me ask you some questions about a trauma bond because that that’s really interesting. me just kind of provokes some thought on my head. As you know, I’ve been sober for quite a while. But there was some time when, when I was not that let’s say my behavior was not quite as good as it is today. And so, I mean, but would that be a situation where you can see a trauma bond created in a situation like that, but it doesn’t necessarily give rise to what we’re talking about with the pathological love relationship, but it’s somebody that suffering from, you know, drug or Alcohol abuse, and they’re trying, or maybe they’re not trying. But because of that they find themselves in I’m talking about the couple, the couple finds themselves in these bad situation, it’s just you and me against the world, we’re gonna get through this yatta yatta yatta. And so you’ve got a trauma bond that actually can be created.
Cindy Hyde
The relationship can be somewhat addictive, right. So like, in your case, you could have been addicted to alcohol and your spouse could have been addicted to you. Right. Right. And so had you split up, then she may have been trauma bonded to you because of the intensity that was created in that relationship. And so she could have either had codependency meaning she was she became dependent on you. And or if you had been, you know, a pathological person, and thank God, you’re not But had you been? She could have had, if she didn’t have an adverse childhood, she could have just had the super traits that you saw early on. But a trauma bond is created from the high intensity in a relationship, the the constant push pull, you know, are you in this? Or are you not in this, and so it creates in the victim almost an addiction to longing for that person.
Mark Scroggins
And that’s not specific to it, it happened to be a sexual relationship.
Cindy Hyde
So not necessarily.
Mark Scroggins
So I had a case not long ago, where there were sisters that had a trauma bond from I mean, their childhood was just abhorrent, right. And, you know, we’ve represented some, some other family members, but you look at that, and I was just amazed, because it’s something that doesn’t logically make sense. It’s like, why would you be putting that person ahead of your own child? And yeah, so just very interesting to me.
Cindy Hyde
Yeah. Which shows the addictive quality of it, right? And it’s not uncommon, like in an actual marital relationship, or partnership, if there’s infidelity, there can be trauma bonds created because there’s so much intensity around the affairs or affair or affairs. Yeah.
Mark Scroggins
So that’s interesting. So something else I want to talk about here, where we talked a little bit about or I brought up the term, a crisis junkie, and you told me about, you know, it’s somebody who’s always, you know, stirring the pot, there’s always some shit happening. Yeah. So let’s, let’s talk about a little bit what that looks like. Because I want to continue this, this idea of a verbal checklist, ladies, if you’re running into these, you know, Feet Don’t Fail Me Now. You want to hurry up and haul ass.
Cindy Hyde
Sure, yeah. So what the institute or relational harm reduction says is this, that a normal person like you and I, we see a problem, we assess a problem, we solve the problem, right? Yep, somebody that has pathology. So either psychopath, antisocial sociopath, or narcissistic personality disorder, which is considered the dark triad. In the DSM, it used to be called the erratic and dramatic personality disorders or character disorder. And so what a personality disordered person will do is they will create the problem, they’ll stir in some erotic and dramatic, and then when that starts to fizzle out, they’ll create a new problem. So there’s always a new problem. And when I explain this to clients, they’re just like, yeah, there’s always a new problem. And so that’s another thing to to, you know, if you’re dating someone, and there’s always a new problem, that should be a red flag for you, you know, to move on, because that’s not going to change that it’s very likely going to stay the same. And so and so too, you know, a lot of clients asked me, will it ever get better? Do they have the ability to change? And the truth is, is that the chances are so tiny, because 97% of the people that are on the dark triad, so the pathological people on the dark triad, 97% of that population were born that way, they don’t have the ability to change 3% of that population. They, they’re the reason they became that was environmental. So maybe they really did have a horrific childhood, right. But what happens is, is the neuro pathways change, and when the neuro pathways change, their brain is changed, right? And so the way that the the Institute of relational harm reduction talks about it is to look at it like this. If if someone was born with autism, right, at the end of the day, they’re going to die and still have autism, right? Yeah. It’s the same with the dark triad. And so many so much of the research now points to that and but so many people don’t know know that, that if they’re born on the dark, dark triad, they’re going to die on the dark triad, which means there is no though no hope for change.
Mark Scroggins
Let me ask this as when you’re saying no hope for change, because there’s been so much that has gone on recently with my use of psychedelics in treatment, because specifically because of the rewiring of the brain that goes on, have there been any studies, with with anybody that is suffering from the dark triad and the use of psychedelics. In any type of treatment protocol.
Cindy Hyde
psychedelics are used predominantly for trauma and PTSD. So that would probably be more something geared towards the victim versus the person with pathology. Although I think I might reach out to more Mati and ask him to do that study. But But anyway, no, not that I’m aware of. But I think it would be an excellent study to do it. The problem is, is if you can get somebody that identifies as being pathological, because a lot of times they don’t think anything’s wrong with them. Well, in fact, the majority of the time, it’s, it’s everybody else that has the problem. It’s not them. And so a lot of times they won’t go to therapy, they won’t even you know, they won’t even admit there is a problem.
Mark Scroggins
What do their personal relationships look like?
Cindy Hyde
Sometimes they can be married a very long time, but most of the time, they’re not there. They’re not in a monogamous situation. Most of the time there is infidelity, infidelity involved, especially if they fall in psychopathy, because they have that high sexual impulsivity, right? But, but normally, there’s a string of relationships along the way.
Mark Scroggins
And with that, that would carry over to non sexual relationships as well. You’ve got somebody that they immediately bond with, it’s their, their best friend ever. And they just are so alike. And then, right, you know, somebody pisses them off, and they’re just discarded, out of hand.
Cindy Hyde
Yeah. And I have a friend that was actually stalked by a female, what she thought was a best friend. When she started realizing how crazy it was becoming, and she tried to in the, the friendship, the other person actually stopped her. And that can happen too, because, you know, they don’t like to lose. If they’re, if they have pathology, they don’t like to lose. So they can, they’re, you know, they’re the ones that will stalk someone. And so Yeah, that happens all the time.
Mark Scroggins
So a couple of other areas. I want to I want to hit on a little bit. And, and folks, we’re going to have Cindy coming back as a recurring guest, because there’s so much to talk about on all of this. But you’ve got the power and control wheel. And I wanted to talk a little bit more about that. And I also wanted to talk about this list the survivor tool that you have partner related traits of Pathak metry. Checklist. Yep. And so that we can start looking at if someone, I guess my first thing would, would be to say, trust yourself. And so if you’re feeling a certain way, it probably makes sense to talk to someone like you, or somebody else to say, you know, holy shit, I’m feeling a little crazy here, you know, is this really happening, but to understand kind of how these people present?
Cindy Hyde
Yep. And so what happens a lot of times, like I was telling you earlier, a lot of times, they’ll they’ll groom just like a cult leader does. And so their goal is to learn everything they can about you. And so a lot of people don’t know, and especially in the single world today, they’ll go out and vomit their story to somebody they don’t know at all. And that person sitting there going, Oh, good, I’m gonna use that, you know. And so you don’t want to tell people you don’t know personal details about yourself. Because it could get used against you later. And so you know, trust is earned. It’s not one of those things that you just blanketly hand out. And that happens a lot. And so what somebody with pathology will do, like if they if they find out that your father abandoned you or something like that, then later on down the road, they may say, Well, I can see why your father left you, right? And so and so that can be very harmful to a victim, because it’s taking their deepest wound and it’s being turned into a knife and they’re being stabbed with it, right? And so that’s called devaluing. And they start devaluing usually about mid relationship. And so they’ll start finding ways to break them down. And so they’re hitting on points that the victim already feels while already feel like I was the reason my father left me. And so maybe he’s right. And so that’s how they get leverage is because the victim starts believing the things that they’re being told that from a devaluing standpoint. And so, the Institute or relational harm reduction, developed what’s called the pet biometry checklist that I use with clients because I can’t diagnose a pathological partner because I don’t know them, right. And then a lot of times too, like I said before, even if they’re they were given some sort of evaluation, there’s no way to know if it’s truthful or not. But the path on metry checklist, what it does is it allows the traumatized person, the victim, or ultimately, they become a survivor, actually, but, but it allows the survivor to look for themselves and based on what the DSM says, are pathological characteristics. So so it breaks down what exactly a sociopath or an antisocial personality disorder person does. It breaks out what a psychopath does, it breaks out what a borderline person does, and it breaks out what a narcissistic personality disordered person does. And it’s really validating for the clients to see that, that this was not them. This was they were in a pathological love relationship with somebody that was personality disorder very plausibly.
Mark Scroggins
Well, and so this is the list that we are talking about here. And it’s fantastic. And so if anybody out there wants a copy on it, reach out to us, you can always send something to info at Scroggins Law Group, and we’ll, we’ll get that to you. But one other thing I wanted to talk about real briefly is if we can identify a little bit of the differences between the antisocial or sociopath, a psychopath and the narcissist narcissistic personality disorder.
Cindy Hyde
Yeah, and so a lot of times a sociopath, the rules don’t apply to them. Right? And so that they have a failure to conform to social lawful norms. Right. So for I always tell clients, like, you know, if if your city has a no fireworks code, they’ll shoot off fireworks anyway, because the rules don’t apply to them. Right, right. And so there’s a high deceitfulness there. They also have, they’re usually the ones that are in fistfights in the local bar. They have and they oftentimes have an inconsistent work behavior. So you’ll hear victims say, yeah, he kept changing jobs, or he hasn’t worked in however long and they don’t necessarily honor their financial obligations. So that’s kind of one way that you can also tell if it’s a somebody that’s a sociopath,
Mark Scroggins
is it fair to say that they’re, they’re the ones generally that are the more physically dangerous.
They can be? Yeah, between them and psychopaths. Psychopaths can be very physically dangerous too. But they also just like the rest of them, they lack remorse if they hurt you, they they don’t feel they they’re they don’t have the ability to feel your pain because they don’t have empathy or compassion. That’s not emotions, they can feel a psychopath is more manipulative. They’re they’re very insecure, they pathologically lie. They also have grandiosity like the narcissist. So you know, I always say it’s narcissist, plus, plus, plus, plus, plus, right when you’re looking at a psychopath, but they have a constant need for stimulation, they’re the ones that usually have the very high sexual impulsivity and can also be into sex addiction as well. They have no remorse whatsoever. So you know, they could murder you and somehow that was your fault, right? And so they’re the ones that can have the criminal versatility, but not always. I mean, they, they can have everything but the criminal versatility and still be considered a psychopath. And so they can also have that parasitic lifestyle on a lot of clients who say, what does that mean? And I’ll say, Well, did they suck the life out of you? Right? And so, but they can suck the life out of you financially, too. So it’s not just emotionally and sometimes to a way to tell us if they had early behavioral problems. So for instance, if if they had been in juvie, you know, or their mom told you, like, you know, they were always in trouble. They used to throw these big fits all the time. So, there was early behavioral history there. Sometimes the animals Yeah, yeah. Things like that. Yeah. And so, now borderline is we’ve kind of talked about that already. That’s that high emotionality. But narcissism this is where people get really confused and where it gets overused because really, a lot of times the things that they’re describing are actually psychopathy, and not necessarily narcissism, although they can all overlap. So narcissism is that grandiose sense of importance. A lot of times they’ll attach to high status people, because that makes them look more important. They’re all about image. They believe that they’re special and unique. Can they require excessive admiration, they have a very big sense of entitlement. And so they usually expect like favorable treatment, when they haven’t really done anything to earn that. They can be very inner exploitive in relationships, so they don’t mind exploiting their lawyer girlfriend, to help them in court with their most recent ex, right. So, you know, they’ll do things like that. So they’ll exploit the person they’re with. So if they see a person that maybe makes a lot of money, they’ll attach to them, you know, and try to drain them dry and exploit that person. And it’ll always be a sob story of how they need help financially or, or whatever, but they lack empathy. And they’re incredibly arrogant.
It’s so interesting, because, you know, everybody knows about the people, I refer to him as soul suckers. Yeah, you know, we’re just like, Oh, my God, give me a break for just a little bit. Yeah, I’ve got absolutely nothing left. Well, let’s talk a little bit about the power and control before we get finished up today, because those are really, really interesting to me. And I think it’s important to, to understand these of using coercion and threats and intimidation and emotional abuse and isolation. And then just how, so how does all of this work together? And what do you use this for, in your treatment of others.
Cindy Hyde
So normally, this is one of the first things I do, and I’ll read through this with the client to see if she’s experienced any of these things. So, you know, just for people that don’t know, it’s what domestic violence centers use to determine abuse, whether it has physical elements or sexual elements to it or not, it determines abuse, and said, the majority of it is psychological or emotional. So it’s like, you know, you’ve had, they’ve used intimidation with you to intimidate you into doing what you want them to do, or that they want you to do. They use emotional abuse, calling you names or devaluing you, they use isolation getting you away from friends and family. They minimize, deny and blame and blame shift their behavior back on to you. So if you have an issue, the issue never gets solved, and they minimize it, they’ll use their, your children against you, well, your mother’s not letting me do whatever it is. And when in actuality, they’re the ones that have created the problem, they created that problem we talked about, they also use what’s called male privilege, which is becoming the God of the house, they’re the only one that has a say, so in the house. And then using economic abuse, oftentimes, they won’t let their partners have any access to money. Or they’ll use all of their money, they’ll they’ll have them the partner working when they’re not working, and they’ll be taking their money and not letting the partner have any of the money. So and then of course, course of threats. You know, they’ll use fear and threats to you know, I’m going to hurt your family, right? Or I’m going to tell your mother that you had an abortion, you know, or they’ll do things to keep the partner in fear.
Mark Scroggins
So one other thing that I wanted to ask along those lines, is it well, you know, what, dammit, I think I just forgot what I was gonna ask you there. But now, I do know what it was. So you know, we hear we hear these questions about why did it take her so long delay, you know, why did she keep going back? When in all actuality, it should be, you know, why is this guy doing what he’s doing or whoever the abuser is, because it can be on the other side, as well. But I’d like for you to explain kind of what happens when a person is subjected to this type of behavior. And so why you keep seeing the repetitiveness of someone going back 567 times before they can get the hell out of the relationship. Finally,
Cindy Hyde
Well, because in the early grooming stage, what’s happening is what is cognitive dissonance is getting set. And so that’s also where a typical trauma PTSD comes in. So the victims brain attaches to the good memories, and they hope and believe that it’s going to change or be different when they get loved bombed yet again, and they’re being told that there’s going to be change and that they’re going to get help. And so typically, though, what happens the second the victim goes back there right back to bad behavior. They only use the love bombing, but they play on the cognitive dissonance that’s been set from the very beginning when the fantasy got created that this person was the soulmate, right? And so it’s So that happens and then the PTSD has set in by this time. And so the victim has those positive memories that she goes back to and thinks, Well, you know, he was good that time. So maybe he really will change. And so it’s all about the hope that things will be different and things will change. But that’s where the enduring patterns come in. Because oftentimes, I’ll have them recount back like 5-10 years ago, of what was different than Well, nothing was different. He was exactly the same, right. And that’s because those enduring patterns don’t ever change. And they last over time. And so but their brain is trying to recall the good memories. And so it’s very much what’s called cognitive dissonance, and it keeps them going back.
Mark Scroggins
Oh, my gosh. Well, thank you for joining me today. And I will look forward to continuing our discussion because one, there’s one other wheel talking about, you know, the abuse that you can see happening, you know, after they’ve actually separated so, there’s a lot more for us to discuss here. So folks, please come back. Thank you very much for joining us today for the reclamation transformation and don’t forget change begins with you. So leave your mark.
