Last week I posted two articles related to the Vienna Presbyterian Church in Vienna, Virginia. Between 2001 and 2005, as many as a dozen teenage girls may have suffered sexual, emotional and spiritual abuse from a church youth director. This year, the youth director was long gone, but church leaders felt that the wounds had not be properly addressed and healed. So a few months ago, the pastor and church issued a public apology.
Lawyers for the church’s insurance company warned the church not to accept responsibility for the failings of the youth director. Doing so, the insurance company said, would jeopardize the church’s coverage in case a lawsuit was filed.
The Vienna Presbyterian Church ignored the demands of its insurance company. On March 27, Pastor Peter James preached a sermon that acknowledged the church’s failings.
“Let me speak for a moment to our survivors,” he said. “We, as church leaders, were part of the harm in failing to extend the compassion and mercy that you needed. Some of you felt uncared for, neglected and even blamed in this church. I am truly sorry ”¦ I regret the harm this neglect has caused you.”
Guess what—so far, none of the young women has filed a lawsuit.
Why not? The case would be a slam-dunk. The youth director pleaded guilty to contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The church accepted responsibility. Several of the now young women have trouble in relationships, because they are still seeking the fantasy that the youth director promised. If they filed suit, they’d win.
My guess is that the women don’t want money. They want to be heard. They want to be validated. And they want to be healed.
Invisible damage
The problem with sociopathic entanglements is that so much of the damage is invisible. Even in cases where we lose money, jobs, homes, and are subject to physical violence, the big wounds are not readily apparent. Before all those obvious injuries occurred, the sociopaths softened us up with emotional manipulation, psychological control and spiritual abuse. These internal wounds not only eat at us, but they make it difficult for us to respond to, and recover from, the obvious physical damage.
After the sociopath, we need to purge our emotional and mental pain. We need internal stability. But when we reach out for help on this level, many of the people around us simply don’t get it.
They don’t understand why we need to talk so much about what happened. They don’t understand how, when we suspected that we were being used, we allowed it to continue. They don’t understand why we are still confused in our thoughts and emotions about the sociopath.
Get over it, they tell us.
These are the people, of course, who are lucky enough to have avoided a direct assault from a sociopath in their own lives. We often understand why they don’t really understand what happened—after all, we were once as clueless as they are. Still, their ignorance of the depth of our pain seems to increase our pain. We feel like we are not being heard, and our suffering is being invalidated.
Debriefing
Karin Huffer, in her book, the Legal Abuse Syndrome, describes this situation in detail in her chapter on “Debriefing.”
Debriefing, she says, is the first step in recovery. In the debriefing process, we tell someone exactly what happened to us, in all the painful detail. Unfortunately, it’s hard to find what Huffer describes as “quality listeners.” These are people who have the ability to hear what we have to say, overriding their own protective filters. She writes:
Protective filters are always at work. If an individual begins to share with another and the data threatens the listener’s feelings of safety, they may try to divert the data or simply not hear it at all ”¦
The function of this protective filter is to maintain the equilibrium of the listener. Victims’ stories shake the foundations that we lean upon in order to feel safe. When it is impossible for friends or family to hear, due to their protective psychological filters shielding them from vicarious pain, the victim feels rejected and alone.
Huffer goes on to describe a formal debriefing process. It’s best done with a quality listener or support group, but an individual can do it alone if necessary.
Support at Lovefraud
I believe that we have many, many quality listeners on Lovefraud. I am always amazed at the thoughtful, comforting and patient comments posted in response to readers who are spilling their traumatized guts.
The reason Lovefraud readers can do this, of course, is because we’ve all been there. We know what it’s like to be deceived, betrayed and assaulted. We know what it’s like to sit amidst the wreckage of what was once our lives. We’re all on the path to recovery, and those of us who are further along help those of us who are just beginning.
Healing, in the end, is an individual journey. To fully recover, we must consciously excavate and examine our pain, and find a way to let it go. But the process is helped immensely when we are heard and validated. I am so glad that Lovefraud offers this to so many people.
Yes AdamsRib, Truth can be a club. I was trying to draw a distinction between abuse and truth. (I’ve been told I need an editor!) And that sometimes we do need the truth in order to heal. But that truth must be spoken with compassion, not with cruelty.
Sometimes though b/c people are hurting, remarks are interpreted to have a meaning that was not intended. That’s not the same as abuse, or even as acting without compassion. That’s just normal response to pain. For myself, to say I hurt was an open invitation to invalidate. Not here. Not this site. People here know that
adamsrib: it’s problematic to use ‘tough love’ via the internet. additionally, one person’s ‘truth’ isn’t always the same as another person’s ‘truth.’ our lives are way too mult–faceted…very hard to know what is objectively true anyway, and humbling to realize how complex we all are. i agree we need to be mindful of our own and others’ sensitivities amongst the raw and wounded here.
🙂 me too. I desperately need an editor! I’m American but from an ethnic community and I express myself in ways that sometimes is misunderstood but I am trying to better that.
I agree 100% -truth is needed for healing! Presenting the truth in a gentle compassionate way is an art that I have not yet attained.
I have enjoyed conversing with you.
Take Care!
Thank you all for your kind words. And thank you for being part of the community. This is truly a healing community – it evolved in a way that I never imagined. I am truly gratified that so many people are willing to help so many others.
Hello Joannie,
I’m sure your post was well-intended. But I hope you can appreciate that, for those of us who have been spathed by females and not by males, your comment was itself very invalidating.
I think it’s important to consider that it appears that the percentages are so ‘off’ because even on sites which are validating to survivors of sociopaths there is still a good deal of unconscious (and sometimes conscious) invalidating and slandering of men, and minimizing of the consideration of female sociopaths (as in Oxy’s post about the book “Cold-blooded Kindness”).
I know that there are times when the over-exuberant “all sociopaths are men” theme gets going I certainly stop coming here. I can only imagine how reluctant most men would be to expose their inner turmoil and post here. And how angry at women in general they might feel when they don’t see anyone stepping up to stop it. Which is a shame. Although Donna’s personal experience was as a woman victimized by a man, all of her writing and research is open and balanced. Same thing applies to Dr. Leedom, btw. I would hope that more of us here would follow their lead.
Last I checked, a path is a path. That has everything to do with their behaviour, and nothing to do with their gender. We are sooo careful these days not to offend so many groups. I just don’t understand why, on a site about human exploitation, we can’t extend the same courtesy and consideration to men.
So I would personally appreciate it if the LF posters here could tread a little more softly when it comes to gender-stereotyping. And for those who do (which is the majority) you have my gratitude and thanks.
Edit: I didn’t mean to infer that Oxy minimizes the consideration of female sociopaths – far from it. What I meant to say was that the book she reviewed explained why that is dangerous, and far too common for society’s good.
Thanks for starting and maintaining this community Donna. This place is truly priceless; I genuinely appreciate the supportive atmosphere and the wonderful people here. It definitely is a healing place. Blessings to all.
Annie,
I have experienced both female and male sociopaths ( the first was female, actually ). I don’t think the proportion of people who have been targeted by female sociopaths is any less. I hope you do not feel invalidated in any way. Kathy Krajco has been a great help in putting to rest the misinformation regarding gender stereotyping and sociopathy out there I believe. She makes some excellent points in this article : NPD? A Male Disease? An Adult Disease?
So if you feel invalidated in any way I would urge you to check that link out. I think the reasons as to why female sociopaths may fly below the radar more easily is because of preconceptions of women in society ( amongst other things, as Krajco pointed out in her post. )
I know a lot of articles may use masculine/male pronouns in describing S/N/Ps perhaps for convenience’s sake, but I know and acknowledge intrinsically that these monsters come in many forms, and is not even remotely exclusive to males. Nor is the damage inflicted any less.
An excerpt from the linked article :
This is so true. I’ve tried on many occasions to explain to people just how devastating it was and however well intentioned they are they just don’t ‘Get It’
Thank you, Annie and Kathy — you’ve expressed my feelings, as well. This is the only place I have to go to where I could feel validated, but sometimes when I would like to participate, comments made about men turn me away. My wife did not rape me or physically abuse me (though she did drug me the night she left so she could steal my things), but the emotional and spiritual abuse was considerable, and I fear the damage done to my psyche may be permanent.
Any general bitterness towards men expressed here has a different effect on me and, I surmise, on other male victims who are just as hurt and vulnerable. I don’t express misogynist feelings because I know they are misplaced emotions and hurtful to women who’ve been traumatized by their men; I just wish the reverse were adhered to a little more often. As Annie writes, “A path is a path.”
I don’t often comment, but I felt I had to respond with a “thank you” this time. I am, as far as the world is concerned, well over my (luckily) short brush with a sociopath. I mostly think I am over it (nearly 2 years ago). Then something triggers a memory, or someone says something that sets the warning bells going again. For everyone else, it was an amusing period as they watched the penny drop for me – they were all taken in as well, but you’d never think so from their 20-20 hindsight! But the scars remain.
For example : I recently went out on a date with someone and he (innocently?) handed me his business card, saying “that’s to prove I am who I say I am”. I nearly fled in panic! I had been there, fallen for that …
My radar is now working overtime and I realise I am reducing my circle of “friends” as I become less tolerant of any misuse of the friendship. I don’t like the person I have become – wary and untrusting – but I was far too much of a doormat and too eager to please – in fact, the textbook “victim”.
One sad result is that I have lost a very good friend who has a new boyfriend I just don’t trust. I was involved with him when he did some work on my house and I discovered he was lazy, cut corners, refused to take responsibility for anything, fiddled his bills – an all-round not-very-nice person … I made the mistake of saying to her daughter that I hoped she never saw the side of him I had seen (I probably wouldn’t have done that before my experience). This has deeply upset my friend (I wonder if she knows deep down I am telling the truth?) and she now refuses to talk to me. A big case of shooting the messenger! I can only wait and pick up the inevitable pieces …
So, thank you again for being there x