Reviewed by Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired)
Cold-Blooded Kindness: Neuroquirks of a Codependent Killer, or Just Give Me a Shot at Loving You, Dear, and Other Reflections on Helping That Hurts is the tongue-in-cheek title of this book by Barbara Oakley, with a foreword by David Sloan Wilson. It belies the serious research and investigation done by this remarkable, highly educated and acclaimed woman.
Oakley is associate professor of engineering at Oakland University in Michigan, and her work focuses mainly on the complex relationship between neurocircuitry and social behavior. The list of her varied experiences reads like fiction ”¦ she worked for several years as a Russian language translator on Soviet fishing trawlers in the Bearing Sea during the height of the Cold War. She met her husband while working as a radio operator at the South Pole station in Antarctica. She went from private to Regular Army captain in the U.S. military, and is also a fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering.
In Cold-Blooded Kindness, along with a project called Pathological Altruism (forthcoming book by the same name this year), Oakley was investigating if altruism could be taken to the extreme and become pathological and harmful.
Some “researchers” have, for what they thought was the “greater good,” slanted their research to show what they believed was an altruistic motive. For example, many people have heard about the “battered woman syndrome,” and how it is now incorporated into laws in many states as a mitigating factor in cases where women wound or kill the men who have battered (or supposedly battered) them. What isn’t known, though, is that the “research” into this “syndrome” was badly flawed. The researcher was a woman who was so intent on doing the “greater good” of protecting abused women, that her altruism caused her to slant her studies, and anyone who pointed out that her research was suspect, was in fact, “blaming the victim,” and therefore, evil.
Oakley points out that she started to seek out a person who appeared to be altruistic to the point that it became harmful, but her own research led her to see the situation differently than she had planned.
She started investigating a Utah woman and artist named Carole Alden, who had “been abused” and had killed that abusive husband, Marty Sessions. But the book really isn’t so much about Alden murdering Sessions, for which she ended up in prison, but about how Carole Alden, though presenting herself as the ultimate altruist (rescuing animals and people), was instead, the ultimate abuser.
The examination of the human brain, and the social interactions of children, and the development of empathy and altruism in children, are explored. Both the social and the genetic aspects of these are gone into in depth.
Oakley explores “co-dependency” and “enabling” behaviors and calls for more actual research into these areas, especially concerning possible sex hormone links and to genetics. She also points out while little, if any, real research has been done on “battered women syndrome,” and it is not accepted in the DSM-IV, it is accepted in many state statutes.
Oakley never comes out and actually says Carole Alden is a psychopath (though the word is used and described in the book itself), but Oakley’s book describes Carole Alden’s behavior relative to the Psychopathic Check List-Revised. It shows that while Carole presented herself to others as a victim of circumstances, and as altruistic to the nth degree, she was, in fact, a controlling, manipulative, using, abusing, pathological liar, who took in dozens, if not hundreds, of stray animals. She cared for them poorly in most cases, but better than she cared for her own children.
It is also possible that Carole is a serial killer, as there are two other deaths of men she was involved with that were “suspicious” in their very nature.
When Oakley was corresponding with Carole Alden, she was convinced by the letters that Carole Alden was the personality she was seeking for her thesis of “altruism gone too far,” and that Carole was indeed the victim of this. Upon meeting Carole though, in prison, Oakley began to see the real situation. When she investigated the family, the crime, the real history of Carole Alden, not just the self-serving tales of how everyone abused her, Oakley began to see the malignancy. Carole changed her story, came to believe her own lies, and slanted all aspects of “truth,” even in the face of evidence to the contrary.
Not only is this a history of one pathological woman who murdered one man and possibly more, and who abused and neglected her children, it is about the personality disordered in general who present themselves as victims, when in fact, they are at best—co-victims/co-abusers with their partners.
Oakley is not “blaming” legitimate victim, but seeking to find the common thread in some partners (women and men) who participate to one degree or another with the abuse they endure. She is seeking a way to educate and warn these people so that the abuse can be prevented.
While Carole Alden took in a series of ex-convict men, who were addicts, to “cure” and “fix” them, which appeared to be altruistic in nature, in fact, it was anything but altruistic. It supplied Carole with her “professional victim” and “professional altruistic” persona that she was seeking to establish. What caused this in Carole, when her parents and other siblings were apparently normal and highly functioning members of society?
I tend to underline and highlight important passages in my books as I read, and I finally gave up trying with this book, as the first 100 pages are almost all day-glow yellow.
This is a highly readable book, and I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of one of Oakley’s previous books. I will also be one of the first in line to buy her upcoming one Pathological Altruism. I highly recommend that anyone who is seriously trying to figure out how we (former victims) are alike, and how the fake altruism of some psychopaths works, read this book.
Cold-Blooded Kindness on Amazon.com
That’s a good point Sky, it is EASY to accept when people compliment us but not so easy then to reject their insults….
I don’t know if you heard this when you were a kid, but when someone would say something snotty or snarky to you, rather than getting upset you would say to yourself (or someone else which ever was appropriate) “Well, just consider the SOURCE.”
That is true too….we must consider the validity of the source of either compliments or insults. And the same way when we take advice from someone….do they have any real idea what they are talking about? For example, I would be more inclined to take medical advice from a physician than I would from some guy on the street, but at the same time, I am not going to BLINDLY take even the advice of a physician on my medical conditions. But at the same time, I am not going to ignore out of hand my doctor’s advice either. I always enjoy my visits with her because she is so smart and cheeky, and doesn’t mince words with me….and I am TAKING her advice about my health, doing the things she suggests and when she tells me how well I am doing I appreciate that compliment because I know it is sincere and also based on her medical knowledge.
When she “boinked” me a few months ago about my sodium intake being my worst problem I KNEW SHE WAS RIGHT, and I quit arguing with her about it and CHANGED THE WAY I WAS EATING….but it has been successful in improving my health and well being and how I feel as well. I’m proud of me! She’s surprised at me (because most health care professionals are NOT good patients!) but also pleased as well. I see her religiously every 3 months unless there is a problem in between, just to make sure I am doing okay. But I respect her opinion because she does know what she is talking about AND she doesn’t pull any punches with me.
Sometimes we have difficulty in our OWN lives “seeing the trees for the forest” and it takes someone from the “outside” who can better visualize what is going on with us. That’s why therapy helps, an outside observer who can get a better over view than we can from “inside” looking out. (because we rationalize our own thinking and actions) So using my doctor as an example, she wasn’t rationalizing my sodium intake, she called me on it and I QUIT the rationalizing and started doing the better plan of a low sodium diet and losing weight. The weight loss and low sodium diet solved my increasing medical problems. WOW! TOWANDA!!!! But without my doctor to “call my hand” on what was going on, I would not have changed my behavior and my health would have continued to deteriorate. Without me being WILLING to accept her assessment and to make those changes, My health would have continued to deteriorate. So it takes insight (from where ever it comes) plus the willingness to DO something and ACT on that insight.
Same thing in psychopathic relationships…..the person involved in one feels the pain (just like I felt pain in my swollen feet and legs) but they can’t see what is causing the pain, so when someone else points out that the P is what is causing the pain and the FIX is a LOW P-DIET (NC) the patient is addicted to the HIGH DRAMA and doesn’t want to give it up….wants to hang on to the drama-rama and the P so they break NC just like I would break the diet by eating some sausage or cheese….but then the next day they are in PAIN AGAIN, just as I would have swollen legs the next day. So as I have stayed LOW SODIUM my taste buds have changed and no longer CRAVE that salty taste in everything, and I am re-learning to cook different foods and also my old favorites just without the SALT….and even son D who is pretty much on my same diet as far as salt is concerned (though he does add a bit of salt to his plate after he takes it out of the pot) says that the quality and the taste have vastly improved since I started out re-learning to make food.
It has actually become FUN now to find ways to have the foods I loved before the low sodium became NECESSARY…and I’ve found NO sodium taco shells and I made up my own recipe of no sodium mexican salsa and it was really great so this week D and I had taco and mexican food week….all with very low sodium! I even made a pretty dog-gone good bean dip without salt. He did add cheese to his burritos though and his tacos and I didn’t but that was about the only difference…but mine were still good.
So I think the compliments and insults can be like the advice from others…we need to consider the source whether either is valid. And as far as taking advice, we again need to consider the source, validate it ourselves (maybe a second opinion if we aren’t qualified to validate it medically for example) and then TAKE ACTION to fix the problem, whatever it is. NC is the FIX for psychopaths and we have to stick to it, even when we don’t want to. Just like I have to stick to the low sodium diet, even when I would really like to have the cheese on my burrito….in the end, what is the BEST FOR ME. That’s what I need to choose to do. TAKE CARE OF ME!!!!! (((hugs))))
Here’s more on Johnny boy Edwards…. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1390644/Now-shamed-presidential-candidate-John-Edwards-faces-prosecution-campaign-violations.html
Dear Oxy ~ In reference to your post at 10:46 AM on May 21.
I am the opposite. I find it hard to accept compliments but pretty easy to accept insults. I guess that comes from “never being quite good enough” in my mother’s eyes.
It’s still hard to accept compliments, but easier to reject insults. Getting better all the time. 🙂
H2H
Dear H2H,
Yea, I have the same thing with accepting compliments….and I read a book once about a thing called the “Impostor Syndrome” where we even as adults feel we are not really “a doctor or a lawyer” or (competent) but that we “have them fooled”—-I remember the FIRST TIME I was aware of this feeling was in 7th or 8th grade. I had made 100% on a difficult spelling test and I was the only one in the class who did. The teacher came by my desk, laid her hand on my shoulder and complimented me.
My FIRST THOUGHT WAS “boy, did I FOOL YOU!” and The strangeness of the thought struck me, and I remember that short little memory to this day very vividly. Later when I read about the impostor syndrome it was like a LIGHT BULB WENT ON IN MY HEAD. THAT’S WHAT I FELT THAT DAY.
And even now, sometimes that impostor feeling will come over me but at least I know what the feeling is and I can counter it.
Dear Oxy ~ Hmm, I think I will google that “imposter syndrome” and do some reading on it. Thanks!!
Ox Drover:
So you were feeling that way because you thought you weren’t really good enough so when you were complimented, you thought did I fool you, because you were really thinking how incompetent you were??
Interesting. I am pretty sure I have felt this way before also. Sad really.
eb92044,
EXACTLY, I did not feel competent….so if I “succeeded” at something it was a “fluke” not really REAL….I was just “fooling people” into thinking I was competent.
Of course you can’t “fool” a spelling test, either you have the right word or you don’t….but even though I made 100%, I still felt like it was really a fluke and I didn’t actually accomplish it, I just fooled the teacher into thinking I did.
Of course this is an EMOTION and emotions are not always logical. Emotions and feelings just ARE. Logic many (most?) times doesn’t go along with it. LOL
Ox Drover:
I think I have also felt this way many times…seriously!! Goodness, what is wrong with us?
eb, I think it is part of the way we were parented, and partly genetics just like with the psychopath is part parenting/environment and part genetics. My egg donor criticized me if I was not perfect 100% of the time…so I never felt “good enough” and even an A was never “enough”—“You could have done better if you’d really tried.”
There’s an old joke from the Army is that “a good job gets you minimal punishment.”
The other one is “the beatings will continue until morale improves.”
Just becoming AWARE of these feelings helps to deal with them. Helps to process them. That is why “Knowledge is power’–the more we know, observe and feel about what our experience is the better we can work through the feelings that are NOT BASED ON FACT, that are based on faulty thinking or beliefs.
It is a time consuming process and takes time energy and effort. I think it is worth it in the end though.
Ox Drover:
Thank you! One more thing I need to work on 🙂