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.
thing is, he is schizophrenic there is no way to tell what will trigger him. no way could i fight this guy and win. he is big, and crazy. so avoidance, quick phone to the cops, and mace are where i am at. that mace is illegal is moot. (and i am not going to walk around with a can of oven cleaner in my pocket.)
Avoiding this guy sounds like the BEST idea when possible. I too, would use the mace if necessary. When it comes to protecting yourself from the crazy, illegal just don’t matter.
I could see carrying a can of that wasp spray that Oxy talks about. Hey, if the stuff shoots 20 ft that’s a pretty darn good distance! A person would have to keep it in a fanny-pack or something to make it convenient tho.
hope to heal – talked to the neighbor, and the crazy boy’s mother came by and she said she was going to talk to the police about what she can do. she knows what he is like. she moved him back into the building. guess she didn’t want crazy in HER house. she’s not so un-crazy herself.
I am going for a walk now to take care of myself and find some balance.
Yea, One, I keep my FANNY PACK with all my “essentials” —my epi-pen for my wasp sting allergy in case I get stung—-my car keys (thanks Aussie girl for that suggestion) my cell phone and my “peace-maker”) when I am out and about on the farm.
Wow, I would be freaked out if I lived near someone like that, too!!! I wish I could get you out of there!!!
This site has helped me so much, I can’t even put it in words. It validated my feelings, my analysis, my fears, my pain/hurt, and my NC.
I was doing all this alone. I went for cousneling, asking her, help me, I am still trying to figure out what has happened here, I still didn’t understand, exspath can do such low thing to me, how can a profrssional, polished person can do this to his wife.
I was totally lost, I thought I came to conclusion that whatever is gone is gone, what do I need to do in the future, what do I need to watch out.
She smiled after 3 minute of my explainign what has happened, and said dear you were conned by a sociopath. Beleive me this was the first time I heard the word.
And my life took a different route. I read about control freak, N, everything in last many years to understand him, but never thought about sociopath, Boom he fit there.
My freinds and family can’t understand that. They heard me so many time last many years, that repeating same thing with new label doesn’t interest them. They all say you are strong and have job, children, you have so much going on for you, just forget the past and MOVE ON.
After few sessions with therapist, didn’t know what to tell her. Same stories didn’t mean anything. I thought I need to just process all this myself and hopefully will heal in the process.
This site has become my savior. I see myself repeating things here, some times people ignore what I wirte, sometimes I get some feeback,which is good, at least it lets to get thingsout of my system.
What I think we all need something positive going on for us to look forward to life. Many days I concentrate finding positive things inmy life.
For example:
If spath would have been with me today, I would not do this, which I enjoy most, I can go anywhere I want without making him upset, I can enjoy my time with children, without him putting his nose in evertyhing, I can cook whatever I want and don’t cook if I DON”T WANT. I can get sick heapily and lie in bed for many hours, without having paninc attack, I need to cook, I should not be getting sick. I can talk to my parents, whenever I want, I can have my sister over.
In short, “I HAVE FREEDOM TO LIVE”.
I smile, intentionally, children notice that, say mom you never smiled before but you do now. I do go through set back daily, but according to my cousnelor, engineers are impatinet people and they want things to get fix right away, have patience, and I am learning to have patience in my recovery. I am allowing myself to feel sad about the loss of dream, to feel irritated for no reason, feel good, feel bad.
Just one last thing, one big validation came to me was, I put No Contact with him, not because I read somewhere or somebody told me to do that, I did it on my own, because I felt this is the only way I can survive. I have one rule in life, I would not go where I am not wanted.
one-I guess if mace is illegal than so is a loaded glock. I never heard of mace being illegal. Keep your eyes and ears and open. I am so sorry that you have to go through that. I almost wish we could go back to the days of institutionalizing those people-just make better regulations about how they are treated. Mentally ill in that form is dangerous unpredictability and they are the kind of people that make the cops nervous too. They put them in the hospital and get them on meds and then they get released-either can’t afford the meds, or hate the side effects, or just decide they feel better and don’t take them. Then before long they are psychotic again and the whole cycle repeats itself. If someone does commit a crime and they have a diagnosable condition like that then they should be locked up. Their families are afraid of them too and don’t want them around. The one in my old building was like that-except she never went off like this guy you’re dealing with. She did start screaming at the guy downstairs though once for no reason.
2bcop ~ Mace is illegal for the average person to carry in my state. Law enforcement are the only ones that can legally have it in their possession. Pepper spray, on the other hand, is perfectly fine.
I find it rather strange that it IS legal to carry a handgun, but not mace. Seems to me one is deadly and the other is not. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against carrying a handgun either. I just think that self defense, period should be legal.
H2H-pepper spray is as good as mace. Cops in my city carry pepper spray and they have to get sprayed with it in the academy to be able to carry it-one of the things I have to look forward to. That stuff is nothin nice in the eyes. I would much rather get hit by the taser I think. Our cops carry tasers too. I am permitted to carry a handgun and it does make me feel safer, although I don’t carry it all the time.
2bcop~ Yeah, I had a pepper spray tested by a friend on the sheriff’s dept & he said I would be more than safe with that. It is some WICKED stuff! I don’t really know anything about tasers, with the exception of what I’ve seen on TV, they don’t look like much fun either. I don’t carry my handgun along with me, but I do have it easily accessible at home. I live in a rural area, and self-defense is pretty much my ONLY defense. 9-1-1 works out here, but it generally takes awhile before anyone shows up to help.