Our brains like balance. Even if the balance doesn’t produce positive results in our life, the brain fights to keep the balance.
Being in a relationship with a sociopath resulted in a brain balance that causes us to think and function in a non-desirabe way. We can attribute this non-desirable brain balance to any number of factors: trauma, cognitive dissonance, emotional, spiritual, sexual and physical abuse.
Once outside of the pathological love relationship, we find ourselves flailing and desperate to change and change quickly.
In our desperation, we fail to realize that it’s not our will to change that we’re battling; it’s our chemistry. Our bodies got comfortable and balanced even in our suffering and despair. Just because we want to change that, doesn’t mean our bodies will cooperate freely and instantly. On the contrary, our bodies desire to maintain whatever balance has been established.
Asking our minds to change is the same as asking our minds to be okay with being thrust into a period of imbalance. Our mind doesn’t like that idea and fights against that imbalance.
With lots of patience in our ability to fight this internal resistance, we can create a new and improved balance, one that allows us to feel peace and a renewed sense of self-love and hope.
*I edit and write for Elephant Journal Literary Magazine. I was tasked with reviewing and posting the following story yesterday, which inspired this post.
Neuroscience & Why Changing Our Habits is Hard
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2013/05/neuroscience-why-changing-our-habits-is-hard-stephen-light/
The article provides some insight into why our desire to change and move beyond the pathological love relationship isn’t instant and requires time, dedication and persistent motivation.
It was like an addiction after all…
Namaste! Happy Monday! ~Paula
Your Healing Frequency 
4 responses to “Changing Our Brains After the Toxic Relationship with the Sociopath @ElephantJournal”
I know a lady who was abused by a man who used to have sex with her in a rough way.Being the man who took her virginity,he took advantage of her ignorance having not seen any naked man coz he had enlarged himself and made her to pass thru pain telling her that she will get used coz it was her first time.He had to make her have sex with him daily apart from when she is having her menstrual circles.upon making her loose and big,he stared seeing another lady.he abused her for 5 months continuosly.In Africa,there is a way to enlarge men,make them never weaken and make them longer.able to have sex for hours but keeping the erection.able to enjaculate many times but remaining strong.I took her for check up at the hospital,she has been damaged in many ways.It has taken her over 4 years without meeting a man coz of how failng to trust any man.any help for such a lady? Coz when she shared to other females about his size,length & hours and number of enjaculations,she condemns herself of enduring all that in the name of promissing to marry her.
LikeLike
great posting and article. I really liked the picture as well. For myself, I have always felt that ‘recovering” from abuse is like sailing with my rudder stuck in the wrong position. I have to constantly “self-correct” in order to sail straight.
LikeLike
Paula, I happened across your blog today while Googling “sociopaths and relationships.” Yours was the first link I clicked on, and have since been poring over your blog for more than two hours! I am currently in the process of disentangling myself from a sociopath, whom I have been entangled with for the past two years. Having a one-year-old daughter with him makes this process extremely difficult, and all the more emotional. Yesterday something in me just clicked or snapped, and I just refuse to try with him any more (I have been living in my own place for two months, but still seeing him & communicating with him). It has only been recently that I realized that he is a sociopath, and just have this constant need to explore & read as much as I can about this. Your blog is great, and actually makes me feel even more empowered & determined to keep him out of my life, simply because you share your story of getting out, and also share things that I find very helpful & insightful. So, thank you, very much! That’s all I really wanted to say 🙂
LikeLike
Thank you, Tracy. I hope the best for you in your discovery of the truth behind the lies you have been living. You and your daughter deserve so much more and I have a pretty good feeling you will ultimately be fine. Being able to accept what ‘him’ for what he is, is usually the toughest hurdle to scale. It seems you’ve done that already. 🙂
LikeLike