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.
Oxy and LL,
just gotta get my two cents in on this..
I read the book, People of the Lie, when I first met my spath. I HAD to find some way to understand his obvious over the top lies. But it made no sense to me.
It was like a color-blind person, reading a book about the color red. I found it very interesting. One vignette that stuck was the story about the couple whose son committed suicide with his .22 rifle, and then the younger son got depressed the next year. They took him to see Dr. Peck, who soon discovered that this well-to-do, respectable couple had given the younger son, the exact same rifle that his brother had killed himself with, for Christmas. That story rocked my world, a bit, and I threw it in the WTF? bucket. Still, it did nothing to help me understand the spath. THEN, fast forward 25 years, my spath was pulling his most evil plot to destroy me and I met a guy in a sushi bar. I told him everything. His reply, “oh that’s a malignant narcissist. There’s a book you have to read.” I said, “I know the book, People of the Lie. Right?” He was shocked, “how did you know?”
By that time, I was no longer color-blind. With experience, the spath can be understood. Without it, all the education in the world is for not because our culture HIDES this stuff from us. That’s why you and Dr. Leedom were taken by spaths. And that’s why I, as a 17 year old, couldn’t get it either. The two together must go hand in hand.
LOL LL.
Bella…..
While I understand that you’re very upset by what was written to you via email, I think the advice was correct. the phone stuff they offer is not labeled counseling but COACHING, much different. I also understand that you have to be out of the relationship for a period of time, as well as not suffering from PTSD of the severity that you have.
You really HAVE been through much and I see it in your posts. Far more than what a retreat would do for you. Up close and personal therapy and perhaps support groups, in person and here on LF are the best way to help combat your symptoms. Nothing beats a good therapist if you can find one close to you. The books are good, but merely a help mate in understanding a spath and what happened to you, but up close and personal therapy helps you deal with your aftermath and your particular situation. I think a lot of consistent support from many entities close to you is going to be super important and it’s good your making those efforts and doing what you can for yourself, which is far more than a five day retreat could do for you anyway. don’t waste your anger on something that just simply isn’t worth it
LL
LF family, i have to call to arms!
I didn’t copy and paste the interaction between adamsrib and i think Eden. When the hints started, and later the little fight. Somebody by any chance has that conversation complete?
I wanted it for a conversational written analysis i have to submit!! I know i’m insanely (without the morally, please) idiot.
I should have kept it!! It was perfect, full of misundertandings, pragmatic implications, irony. Oh my !
Eva,
Given whatever you thought it was, the thread is closed now. Some things were deleted, I think.
LL
LL,
That’s the problem, now it has no sense the interaction.
I should have kept it!! I didn’t take into account everything a potential spath writes is deleted. I saw it once; i should have remember it.
BellaAngel,
You experience affirmed that Sandra Brown is not equiped to deal with victims of true sociopathy. Her book, How to Spot a Dangerous Man, dealth with lots of toxic jerks, but only a little bit with spaths.
But at least they were honest, admitted they were NOT up to that task, and didn’t take your money.
Oxy’s advice on where to seek help is much more valid, and perhaps if you contacted Dr Leedom? I liked Steve Becker as well, also listed.
There is a range of victims here on LF, as well as a range of perpetrators. ALL perpetrators are toxic and terrible (loveFRAUDS) but only Some exhibited the full range of behaviors of a full spath, someone with NO inhibition to kill other than the one they CHOSE.
Mine was one of those fully developed spaths. Mine avoids prison b/c he doesn’t want anyone to have control over him (b/c the BEST man -a WINNER!- is not controlled by others!) but, he has killed when he knew he could get away with it, and I was nearly killed and only saved by luck. Yet in that community, he is seen as fun and sexy and handsome and successful… just accidentally married to “that demanding wife” (me) or as his father and his father’s friend calls me, “the fn bith”. If my husband did not live in a small town that protects him, he would be in prison.
Therefore I understand. That pastor is enjoying being protected and will continue to until she crosses someone too powerful that will out her.
IN the meanwhile, we need to find more than survival, we need to reconnect to LIFE.
Hoping we can help each other. Katy
Katy,
You didn’t read Women who Love psychopaths? that dealt completely with spaths.
Bella, Katy is right about reconnecting to life. but doing that requires doing it where you’re at now. Up close and personal, building a new life around you.
Therapy is apart of that. I hope you find someone near you that you feel can help or understand your horrible experience and where you are now in process…. 🙂
LL
Yes LL, I read women who love psychopaths.
Maybe b/c I bought it years after lots of other books and working things through that I saw it’s disconnect and that bothered me. I read the 2nd ed, so perhaps Leedoms material was removed.
I think for those most deepest affected, the recovery is greater than just building a life. I do all the normal things but at the end of the day, it’s shallow. So much self absorbed meisms out there. No depth. I find pockets of connection but mostly I find people are shallow. That’s MY opinion about what I experience.
Sometimes I have an opportunity to ask people what matters most in this world. You’d be amazed at how shallow the answers are. That shallowness explains to me how sociopaths get to run under the radar, b/c people don’t question. They don’t question b/c they don’t want to know. B/c if they know, then they’d be expected to act. Taking action might upset their image. Few people have the courage to stand up and say THIS IS WRONG. THIS IS IMMORAL. WE CAN BE BETTER THAN THIS. I’ve heard people defend pedophiles as “Misunderstood” or even certain priests that if we’d let them marry, that would eliminate that problem. Where I’m from, our entire diocese paid multimillion dollar settlement b/c of a priest. THAT’s our tithes going b/c of a pedophile b/c people refused to stand up and denounce him so he got to continue, kinda with people’s blessing. Why can’t the public see that as messed UP? IT tainted ALL priests including the one who converted me, a man as sainted as I’ll ever meet…. just ONE example of shallow people who ENABLE ABUSE.
thanks…. I guess it just took alot to reach out to them, and then they said No. I thought support groups with someone qualified was what they were offering, I guess you see anger, and I feel it. I feel after the shock and overwhelming grief, and trying to beg for people to believe you comes anger. That is where I am at, as I am not generally an angry person but I find myself driving or something and calling people under my breath “B’s” etc. That is not me. Sorry. I am praying to find the counselor I can trust and who can help me, not me try to tell them about Spaths….and that they really do exist. Thank you, and thank you for welcoming me in. I also welcome you
you speak what you see, you do not need to sugar-coat it. I just want to be whole. …and I take it there are the Psychos who are on here to try to traumatize people on this site looking for healing. I will take that advice and file it.
AS far as the reconnecting with life….I go through the motions which is more than I ever thought I could. The life is just not in the motions….don’t get me wrong, a sunset will catch me,a smile from seeing a baby bird will come across my face, I can put the face on and take my son for ice cream etc. It’s in the inner places that feel dead, that need to be resurrected, and nightime is hell on earth. Thanks again.