This week events in my life have and people I encountered got me thinking about the blaming of victims. Coincidentally, I discovered this quote from Attorney Wendy Murphy. She wrote this in a comment answering others who commented on her blog:
It doesn’t matter if Sandra Boss was a ‘gold-digger’ anymore than it matters that the mother of Michael Jackson’s latest victim ‘consented’ to her child being allowed to sleep at Jackson’s home. It’s equally wrong to rape a child – even if the victim makes it easier on the criminal to commit the crime because she’s ill, or dumb, or uneducated, etc. There’s no such thing as a criminal being ‘partly guilty’. There’s only guilty – or not guilty.
Victims can make bad decisions that we might think of as increasing their risk of being victimized – but the CRIMINAL law sees these things as vulnerabilities – not liabilities – because we don’t want criminals taking advantage of certain ‘types’ of people (even selfish ones). Civil tort cases are treated differently – where responsibility can be distributed among the parties. A crime victim is not a ‘party’ to the criminal case. So, the fact that a person might not protect him or herself well is never an excuse for ANOTHER PERSON’S crime – or a reason to give a harm-doer a discount. If it were – the law would effectively be indulging the idea that certain ‘types’ of people deserve to be victimized (or – put another way – certain ‘types’ deserve better protection from violence). Victims and perpetrators do not stand on equal moral footing.
Perpetrators are charged with crime while victims are presumed by the charge to have suffered harm. Because victims have not even been accused of criminal harm, they are not parties to the criminal case, and are not being judged on issues of guilt and responsibility. This reflects the principle that whether you’re a nun or a homeless prostitute – you are seen as equal in the eyes of the criminal law when you are injured by crime. For all these reasons, it is irrelevant whether Sandra Boss was marrying the name rather than the man – etc – and it is irrelevant whether Stephen Fagan’s wife had ‘issues’. No person ‘deserves’ to be victimized by violence – and unless we fiercely refuse to weigh the moral behavior of the victim in determining the guilt of the accused, we cannot possibly respect this core principle.
I agree with what Attny. Murphy says here. But I want to add that it is important for those who have had encounters with psychopaths to take stock of the experience and to question “Why me?” Asking then answering that question promotes healing, allows for personal growth and gives a person the opportunity to forgive him/herself for any mistakes that contributed to the psychopathic life disaster. Taking responsibility is empowering because it acknowledges the real control we have over the choices we make.
Today one of my friends wrote this to me, ”I fully accept that MY CHOICES which I made were the choices that hurt me, hurt others, etc. Actually, some of those choices I knew at the time were probably not “ideal” or “right” but I did them anyway, and of course they blew up in my face.”
I’ll say publicly to this friend, “I understand and believe you can make better choices/decisions in the future.” Because I believe it for you, I can also believe it for myself.
The degree to which we are able to extend our understanding to another’s mistakes determines how we accept our own. We don’t need to deny or excuse our own or another victim’s mistakes. We should instead hold each other accountable to do the real soul searching and to make better choices in the future.
As I think this thread illustrates, the comment “I understand and believe you can make better choices/decisions in the future” is something that comes from a particular perspective. That is the perspective of someone who has done a great deal of work to understand what happened in these relationships — going through the whole process of facing the fact that he or she was victimized by a predator and then moving on to discover if he or she participated in some way.
These words are not particularly helpful to someone who is in early-stage healing, and is taking responsibility for what happened for the wrong reasons. Still thinking that we should have been able to recognize and protect ourselves. Still confused about why he or she accepted the abuse for so long. Still thinking that we are too stupid to live. Still going through all the warped thinking related to the concept that we’re supposed to be perfect, and that any bad results in our lives are our own fault.
In no part of this healing process is self-blame helpful. At some stage, after we get clear about the fact that we were dealing with a predator and we are fully entitled to get angry and blame that person for their bad impact on our lives, and we construct better personal boundaries to protect ourselves, then it’s time to look at our own involvement. It’s actually part of the business of improving our defenses and our awareness of potential danger out there.
If we’re improving our life skills, it’s equivalent to admitting that they need improvement. But that is NOT equivalent to saying that it was our fault. Or that we were failures because we didn’t have the right life skills at the time to protect ourselves.
Sometimes we have to be aware of the state of the person we’re talking to. People who are digging themselves out of the confusion and pain of early stage trauma recovery don’t need to hear that they made the wrong choices. It’s not helpful and it equates to blaming the victim.
Later, when we’ve already gone to work on getting stronger and smarter in the wake of this disaster, we can begin to imagine that there might be some truth in these words. But we really don’t get it until we’ve fully grasped that we are entitled to take care of ourselves and begun to make the changes in our behaviors and beliefs to reflect that sense of entitlement.
Until then, I agree with justabouthealed, that the most compassionate and helpful thing is to help the victim discover this internal empowerment, rather than discussing flawed choices as though they were moral mistakes. We who are farther down the road understand that the “moral” nature of these mistakes was that we internalized other people’s abuse of us. We accepted mistreatment, because we had forgotten that we had a right and responsibility to reject it.
In a very abstract way, that might have been a choice. But the emotional truth was that it wasn’t. It was a reaction to a situation that felt like we accept abuse or fall off the edge of the world.
What we can do later is take back our choice. To say that it was abuse, that it was not acceptable, that we only endured it because we were coerced, and we are taking back our power. We are admitting that we were once victimized by things out of our control, but we are refusing to accept that it means anything about us, except that we endured and survived.
And from that perspective of compassion for ourselves, we can reconsider other events in our lives, when we may have reproduced that seminal trauma in ways that reflected our unresolved pain. We can see and understand choices we made that were not really life-affirming for us. Or that may have created damage for us and other people.
But we see it from a position of understanding, not blame. We are aware of why we did what we did, rather than focusing solely on bad results and telling ourselves that we were inadequate or bad. We knew that we did the best we could, given the circumstances and what we knew then.
It’s not what we would do today, because we used the opportunity to learn something about ourselves and the world. And we are different because of it. And from this perspective we can talk about bad choices, because now we know better.
In some ways I think we are like people who make a decision to get in our cars and drive to the store…and on the way, we are hit by a drunk driver who totals our car, and gravely injures us.
We are NOT to blame because the drunk driver hit our car, or responsible because he was drunk.
We DID, however, make the CHOICE to get in the car and go to the store at THAT TIME which ended up putting us in the path of the drunk driver.
Maybe part of our injury was caused because we did not have our seat belt fastened. Or taking this analogy further, maybe our child was in the car and was injured too or killed.
I can only IMAGINE how I would feel if I had gotten into the car, put my kid in the car and then got hit by a drunk driver and my child injured or killed.
Sure, my injury, my kid’s injury were not mty FAULT, I was not to BLAME, but MY CHOICE to go to the store RESULTED in the fateful meeting with the drunk.
What can my response to this CHOICE be? I can BLAME myself, I can FEEL GUILTY, I can beat myself over the head for making the choice and decision to go to the store and take my child along, or I can ACCEPT (obviously not immediately accept) that my choice had consequences that i did not foresee and that I did not intend, but my body is still injured and my child is still injured or dead.
I think too many times we focus (as a society) on BLAME and FAULT rather than being accountable and responsible for our decisions and choices.
To me, ACCEPTING the consequences of my choices are REAL, and would have been different consequences if I had made different choices is part and parcel of the healing.
My 6th grade science teacher, Mrs. Austin, made a comment to me that has stuck with me the rest of my life. It was that “everything we do, every choice we make, effects our lives, even if only the TIMING of things.”
If you have another cup of coffee one morning and leave the house 2 minutes later and are involved in a car wreck, that cup of coffee, that 2 minute delay, resulted in you being at the PRECISE spot the accident happened and if you had left even a minute prior to when you did, THAT PARTICULAR ACCIDENT WOULD NOT have happened—however, there is no way for you to know that a worse one might not have happened.
We make choices and decisions every day, once they are made, they are IN THE PAST….we cannot change them, and/or the consequences of those choices.
Accepting those choices, and realizing the reasons we made those choices, forgiving ourselves, in my opinion leads to healing.
There is NO BLAME associated with JAH’s decision at age 12 decision to not call the cops—who in their right mind would BLAME her for what she did under the circumstances? NO ONE! The “BLAME” goes to the man who protected his nephew at the expense of a child. The BLAME goes to the nephew who raped a 12 year old. The CONSEQUENCE, however, goes to HER because of the choice she made to baby sit, the choice she made to give in to the man’s plea for her not to call the cops….but no one would in any way say that she should or could have predicted that her innocent choice to baby sit would result in her rape.
My point is that we make choices daily that we have NO WAY of knowing what will be the end result….but we must ACCEPT that those choices are PAST, the CONSEQUENCEs (if any) are REAL, and that we should NOT BEAT OURSELVES UP for these choices, but if there is a lesson to be learned in these choices, (and there may not be a lesson in all choices) to not make the same choices again.
I think back sometimes to the kidnapping of Patty Hearst. I followed her story in the news for months, and then her trial and her incarcertation. I KNOW WHY she made the choice to put the gun in her hand and to participate in the bank robbery, she had a horrible case of STOCKHOLM SYNDROME. I do NOT blame her for what she CHOSE to do. I imagine I would have done the same thing in her shoes….but because of her CHOICE she got the consequence of prison. (No, I do not think she should have gone to prison, I do not think it was right or fair or that she was to blame!) But, her CHOICE lead to the consequence. Just like Patty, I have made many choices that led to my own consequences—thank God none of them were incarceration—and my consequences were just as REAL, just as painful to me, and sometimes to others. I can’t go back and UN-make those choices, but continuing to feel guilty and blaming myself for them for the rest of my life is not beneficial to me or anyone else.
Just like Patty Hearst might have felt the ONLY viable choice she had to preserve her life was to pick up the gun and participate in the bank robbery, I have felt “trapped” into choices I made that I knew at the time were not “right” or even in my own best interest. Just as Patty served her time in prison as a consequence of her choice (freely made or not) to appear to participate in the robbery, I have “served my time” in guilt—but now I am FREE. I accept it happened. I accept I can’t change it. I am accountable for those choices, but I am not “to blame.”
Forgiving MYSELF and putting aside the guilt for me was the turning point in healing.
Great post Oxy, from my perspective. Just a clarification, the cop/home owner was worse than that. He didn’t plea with me…that would have put me in a position of choice. He just made it perfectly clear that it would be wrong to tell anyone. Who was I to question a cop at age 12?
Did anyone blame Elizabeth Smart? Tell her she had to be accountable for her “cooperation”?!! Remember, she denied who she was to a cop at first. I think I am remembering that.
Learning how to protect yourself from future betrayal bonds, future emotional rapes is gut wrenching work. I hope no one here makes it any harder by thinking they were to blame.
as one of the books says, you know now that you have the ABILITY TO RESPOND. That is what RESPONSIBILITY is about. Before, you didn’t have the tools and knowledge to respond to protect yourself. No responsiblity there!
I think the biggest key both to healing and to protecting yourself is to know yourself, love yourself. Fall in love with yourself. It won’t make you a narc. We just need to take all that love we showered on the Bad Guy, all that forgiveness, all those second chances, all that understanding, all that belief in the inner goodness and give it to someone who deserves it….US!!!
PS I was agreeing with you OXY about Patty Hearst. There but for the grace of ….
And I was not bringing up Elizabeth Smart to defend myself at 12, but to agree with you, there is another example of a public betrayal bond.
As the betrayal bond book says, it can happen to the strongest of us. Any age. Any intellect. Any gender.
I also want to underscore that if the world were filled with men like my husband, your past traumas, all that you work so hard to overcome now WOULD NOT MATTER. He has known of my vulnerabilities for 38 years and never ONCE took advantage of them. He knew all along what he could do or say to have me reduced to a fetal puddle on the floor. If he saw me heading that way, he backed off. He’d rather lose the fight than hurt me through my vulnerabilities.
No bad guy= minor problems from past traumas, even if still buried.
Bad guy= Nuclear devastation from past traumas. But never forget the bad guy is the one who pushed the button, not you.
Brilliant, profound and right on the money, Kathleen.
Just one excellent statement…”And from this perspective we can talk about bad choices, because now we know better”…
I believe when you are much further down the road of healing, no longer burdened by intense or even minimal emotional strain, you are most certainly able to make conscious decisions/choices to protect and perserve yourself. And to ruminate over the former “bad choices” seeking clarity, comprehension without the stigma of self blaming.
And these choices will come from a place of equanimity, serenity. I say to myself…”uh, no, that just won’t work for me. gotta go!”…and I leave. No harm done to me because I split before a person could predate upon me. I’ve intuitively felt this could have been the situation a few times while mingling with the peeps, with males.
I maintained my newly appreciated stellar acceptance, love and confidence of myself and simply walked away without a backward glance. This will eventually be possible for all of you. Don’t doubt it.
If a once terminally shy, scared little rabbit like me can be empowered, strong and determined to protect herself at all times, yet being calm and peaceful and happy while doing this, so can you.
Lovely Kathleen—I will never be able to say it/write it as eloquent and literate as you, but thank goodness I don’t need to!
🙂
Yep, JAH, there are examples in the media every day….the whore that gets raped and beaten has no empathy or sympathy from the police or the public….yet, if she had not made the choices to be walking the streets at 2 a.m. looking for tricks, she would not have been in the place that the event happened. Is it her FAULT? Is she to BLAME? NO! But she is accountable for the CHOICES she made. WHY did she make those choices? Maybe because her husband was pimping her out and she felt she had no other choice than to do what she was doing.
Accepting the results of our choices (whatever the reasons we made those choices) I think is the pivotal part of our healing, I sure know it was for me at least. Many times I felt I had no other viable choice than the one I made. In two cases, a death was the END RESULT of my choices.
After my P-sperm donor beat and raped me, one of his employees helped me escape from my P-sperm donor, as a result of my sperm donor finding out about this, that man “disappeared” on a trip to Africa, and my P-sperm donor told me later by telephone that he had killed him. I believe the man was murdered. My choice to ask this caring man for help I think eventually led to his death. I could not have foreseen that.
After my P-son was arrested the first time for a felony in Texas, and got out of prison, I spent $500 to get a lawyer in Florida to keep him from being extradited to Florida for parole violation from his previous crimes in Florida. Five months later, still living in Texas because he had not gone back to prison in Florida, he killed a girl. My “helping” him, eventually resulted in a girl’s death when he murdered her. If he had been in prison in Florida (because I had not hired the attorney) he would not have been in a position to even meet this girl, much less kill her.
Was I to ‘blame” in either case? No, I was not to blame because I had NO way of knowing what the results would have been from my choices—however, the consequences to others is still REAL. For many years I felt such tremendous grief for what I felt I had caused. Now, I have forgiven myself for those choices, and accepted that the conseuences are very REAL. I have also learned that any interaction with a psychopath or their enablers has the potential to be fatal.
Oh, one more thing I would like to mention to ya’ll…
You might be amused or you might not. I was. VERY amused and gleeful.
I took that Meyers-Brigs personality test for the first time 5 years ago, and considering I’m somewhat of a skeptic with those types of tests, I took it 3 times in a row, back to back.
The results were the same: IFSJ…introverted, feeling, sensing and judging. huh.
I took the test again a week ago, 3 times in a row and the results were EFSP…extroverted, feeling, sensing and perceiving.
Ain’t that quirky? It says I am an enthusiastic lover of life, which includes all the diverse, wonderful forms of life on our gorgeous planet. How bout that?! I’m a biophile! I knew this!
See? Even a gal like me can learn to change her conscience, to adapt and evolve her innate nature into something better, much more benefical for herself and others.
Heh, guess I’m an introverted extrovert or an extroverted introvert…haha. Who knew?
But I sincerely believe we all, the norms of the world, need serious downtime with ourselves, revelling in our peaceful solitude, replenishing our batteries after mucho daily social interaction, and collecting ourselves for the next day. Right?
**huggs for Oxypooh and JAH**
HI!!
Hugs back to you and everyone! Okay, like Kathleen, I may be facing an all-nighter to get some crucial projects done. So bye for a bit, back after I come up for air. And I AM working on exploiting myself like this for work. There is no way I would work an employee like this! Turning over a new leaf by Sept. 1st.