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.
Dear janie,
I agree with you about the MMPI Myers Briggs thingie..I have never taken it back to back, but I have taken it several times and always score differently, so quite frankly, I think the test is blotto for any kind of validity in the results. (Though I do know professional folks who “swear by it.”) I think it is more like your TEMPERATURE at a specific moment in time.
BTW, have you heard from Beverly lately? If you have please send her my best regards! I think about her so much and miss her wisdom here on the blog.
Oxy,
No, I haven’t heard from her. We were emailing each other for awhile and I guess we both just grew weary of chatting by email and not being able to actually meet each other. At least, that’s how I felt. I still think about and care for her very much.
She’s a beautiful woman with that trademark UK peaches and cream skin those ladies are renowned for. I DO sincerely wish her the best that life has to offer. She truly deserves it as we all do.
Maybe she’ll pop back in here some day like others on here who have posted for awhile, shared their awesomeness with us then went on with their lives. I wish them the best also.
Temperature…haha. So true! I think that’s the case with any of those types of tests/quizzes IF you’re an emotionally, psychologically, intellectually, and spiritually complex person.
I wonder if any Ns/Ps/Ss ever take those personality tests? And if they do, how in the world will they even give them accurate, somewhat reliable, truthful results if these freakos LIE like cheap rugs every second of their existences?
Hah, they probably have taken these tests before and in their deluded, warped minds they dismiss that which could be construed as constructive criticism and expounded on that which could be construed as positive affirmations.
Hypothetical, highly fictional example of N/P/S thought process…”Ok, it says that I’m generous, kind and supportive to others. Yeah, I am. I will give the last dollar my gf/bf gave me to a homeless person.
Not that I give a rat’s booty about that pathetic, less than superior homeless person but I must retain my illusory image of a good guy/gal or my gf/bf won’t give me that hard earned money I want! All the time! Boo-hoo, nobody cares about me and my instatiable needs.”
BooHoo Jane Smithers – I care about your insatiable personality. And yes Oxy Pooh, I miss Beverly as well. but I think when cyber angels disapear they have turned a page and no longer need our support or the memorys this subject conjures up..but they are out there living life, with the knowledge they found here and hopefully Beverly is building sand castles on the beach with some wonderful special person.
When i was young and people used to say to me all the time, “I wish I knew what I know now.. when I was young.. and do it all over again”, well, I would think to myself, “I am so glad that I am not like them! I already know everything I need to know and I have my whole life ahead of me.”
I used to think that, ” I know everything I need to know already”. I thought this because i was brought up by two psychopaths and I did it really very tough.
Now i am 54 and I realize i have only JUST found out what i need to know, (through love fraud), that is, to be the person i want to be and to change my life once and for all.
When the barristers used to say in court, “this girl has “learned helplessness”, I was seething with anger! “How dare they say i am helpless!” I thought…of course this is not what they meant at all.
I am up to the part where my path in life is at its worst, the darkness before the dawn.
But i have been through this type of thing before and i know a sunny day awaits me down the track. I have been through much worse than this with Ps before. But now when they react so viciously (with their lies and setups), I know that means i am winning. And to keep on keeping on, no matter what.
In the meantime, my whole life makes sense to me now, I can see what happened, what will happen and why. I used to have to wait for years to see Gods plan (always in retrospect). Now i know that every step of the way has led to this unraveling. It was all for a very important reason. And I know what i have to do.
All because I finally stumbled onto LF. xoxoxo
Dear Tilly,
Yes, isn’t it interesting how “smart” we thought we were THEN and then as we get older, we realize that now we not only don’t know all the answers, we don’t even know all the QUESTIONS!!!! LOL ROTFLMAO But the differences between now and then is that in the past, because we already “knew” everything we weren’t open to NEW information or ways to look at things, now we are open to new questions, new answers and new ways of looking at things and thinking about things.
I was “enrolled” in the “University of Life’s Hard Knocks” by my upbringing and my relaltives, and tended to flunk some of the classes and have to repeat them. Unlike most Universities, Hard Knocks, doesn’t kick you out if you fail a class, they make you repeat it until you “get it”—–and Tilly, I think you and I both stayed on for “post doctoral studies” in PSYCHOPATHY, but I am sure glad that we found our LOVEFRAUD STUDY GROUP so we can get out of this freaking “degree program” and get on with our lives!!!
Funny, too, as I grew up my egg donor’s father was my mentor and taught me that I could “do anything I set my head to do” that I could “climb any mountain I was determined to climb” and to “accomplish anything I wanted to.” While that reassurance and self-esteem building might in some situations be a great thing to teach a kid, unfortunately it a situation where you are tackling IMPOSSIBLE TASKS, you don’t have sense enough to give up, you just keep on trying and trying when there is no way to accomplish it.
Some things ARE impossible, and learning to GIVE UP and WHEN TO GIVE UP is also a gift that we need to teach our children, and if we were not taught this lesson we are doomed in to wasting our energies on the impossible tasks of “getting along” with the psychopaths in our lives.
I can look back and laugh NOW at mty younger self…there wasn’t a spooky horse in the world I wouldn’t get on and try to ride—and usually I did it successfully, but there were times I failed and suffered the consequences of a solid thud on the ground or a swift kick to the back side, or even a broken leg.
These consequences, however, didn’t deter me from climbing back on that horse or the next wild one. I remember at age 40 lyin gup with a broken leg from a dangerous horse I had been thrown from, and I was talking on the phone to my husband who was out of town. I was telling him how I was going to break that SOB from bucking suddenly (this particular horse only did it once in a while and only with women) and my husband, ever the patient man, listened to my diatribe and then said, “Oxy, that is YOUR horse and you can do whatever you think you want to do with him, but if you don’t decide to get rid of him, I am going to KILL HIM.”
I knew my husband didn’t speak lightly on this, but it dawned on me at that time that HE WAS RIGHT…why on earth was I risking my life and limb for an animal perfectly capable of landing me in a wheel chair if I failed, or a casket?
I started looking more at the RISK VS BENEFIT RATIO. What did I get if I “won”? What where the possible losses? That was the start of the “Bigger AND Meaner Rule” here on the farm. Any animal that is bigger AND meaner (intending to try to hurt someone) GOES BYE BYE. The risk of keeping an animal around that will even once in a while actually TRY to hurt you is just not GOOD SENSE.
Now, that “rule” has been applied to people as well. People who try to hurt me in any way (small children excepted) go bye bye out of my life. Whatever it takes to get these peopl eout of my life and keep them out of my life is what I do.
I was reading a reserarch study on the victims of psychopaths and their recollections of the various things that the Ps in their lives did. 100% of the sample of victims who were studied said that their psychopaths were LIARS. Now I realize that not all liars are psychopaths….but, I also realize that if you eliminate ALL liars from your close associates, you can be sure that you ALSO get anyone who is a potential P out of your life.
Yea, Tilly, I think we are all “too soon old and too late smart” but I think all of us are WISING UP PRETTY FAST here at LF.
OXDROVER,
It couldn’t be better said. I now believe that if the P’s lips were moving there was a lie coming out of them. One of his favorite deceptions was to be evasive – another form of lying. There was always this “mysticism” surrounding him. It must be difficult to lead such a double life and need to keep your ducks in a row. As I look back, it seemed there was an emptiness in the presentation of his emotions – that he wasn’t feeling, and was hollow inside. I remember him giving me a new ring for one of our anniversaries while he was having yet another affair. The day before, one of our friends had taken a picture of us cuddled up together, and if you saw how emotionally involved he presented to be with me in the picture, and then found out how purportedly invested he was in this other woman, who, by the way, was 8 years older than he, you would have thought there was no way that could have been. He used to bring me home gifts she had given him, and he told me they were from him to me. At the time, I remember thinking that those things he gave me weren’t even his taste. DUH!!! He got her involved in the cult we were in, and she even joined the choir I sang in, asnd I hadn’t a clue of the affair. I just thought she was a new member. He had her do our taxes, he brought her home because her blood sugar dumped and she needed protein, he sang a Roger Whiticker song with her and had me come in and listen as he practiced with her. I was still totally clueless. This went on for 2 years on the heels of another affair with a high school cheerleader. As I look back, I wonder how I could have begun to think that all of this was ok. The only explanation is that I was brainwashed. It just HAS to be. I look upon all of this as another person today. It pisses me off, and makes me feel crazy. However, today I DO qualify for the PSYCHOPATH 101 class with flying colors. I love your analogy, OxDrover, of weeding ’em all out by weeding out the liars. You can’t miss any of them that way. Today I don’t apologize for my hypervigilance regarding abuse. It is my teacher. If you hadn’t have been through all of this, God couldn’t have used you to assist so many others – kinda like the paraplegic who visits hospital wards to encourage other victims who have been paralyzed. I so much appreciate your dedication and hands on assistance to so many of us. I still don’t get the frying pan thing, but I appreciate your humor. It’s nice to laugh again. God Bless Your Day.
Dear Housie,
The frying pan thing started with Henry as kind of a joke, he was ALWAYS pounding on himself an dputting himself down. I just got tired of hearing him beat up on himself so I did one of those old things of “If you kids don’t stop fighting, I am going to spank you both” kind of things and told him I was going to “boink” him on the head with my cast iron skillet if he didn’t stop beating up on himself.
So every time he jwould beat up on himself I would “boink” him (get his attention) and it sort of became a joke with us, then other people started ‘boinking” others by “borrowing Oxy’s skillet” when they got to beating up on themselves, or even “boinking” themselves when they broke NC or some other “dumb” thing. Heck, I have “boinked” myself online! LOL
It just kind of became a thing we used to let people know that what they were doing to themselves (being hard on themselves) was not a good thing to do—hey! Stop it! Then we got off on a silly streak and decided we would have a LF convention here at my place and we would do a stage show, and wear hip wader boots, yellow and black tu-tus and do a chorus line with me swinging the skillet, etc. etc. just talking trash and laughing. LOL
Sometimes we do take ourselves “too seriously” and need to lighten up on ourselves….being too hard on ourselves is a “stage” we go through I think…we have trouble forgiving ourselves (and there are several articles and threads about that) and I know it was very difficult for me to forgive myself and the choices I made which caused some bad results not only for myself but for others. some of those things I knew at the time I shouldn’t have done, and others I didn’t see any other choice.
It is difficult to “forgive” yourself for me, because I ahve been taught to feel guilty GUILTY for myself, but to let others SKATE and pretend that they are not the monsters they are. NO MORE. I will hold myself accountable, but I will also hold THEM accountable—and the consequence of being caught in ANY LIE to me is BANISHMENT from my circle of trust. Banishment FOREVER. Maybe the person telling the lie isn’t a psychopath, but I do know if I banish ALL LIARS, that I will also banish ALL psychopaths. That may be a bit of an over reaction, but I have never ever given a liar a “second chance” that DID NOT BITE ME IN THE BUTT. So I am sticking by my rule.
OXDROVER,
Thanks for sharing that bit of humor. I kinda thought it was something along those lines.
Some of the choices I made were because they FELT SO Da** GOOD. I was immature and so much wanting to be loved and accepted, and to belong somewhere. There was something about leaving my family (as dysfunctional as it was), and venturing out on my own at 19 to face the world alone. Then came the trip to “Hawaii as a nanny, and meeting the man that was too good to be true (RED FLAG). The rest is history – 42 years of history!!! If I weren’t so weary from all of this, I would write a book.
Hey, all of you lovely people. Do any of you experience the frustration I feel when I read a group of posts at the same time and then go to post about the encouraging, praise-worthy comments that struck me so poignantly and don’t know where to start?!!! Sometimes I can’t even remember who said what to give proper acknowledgement!!
There were so many on this thread of the last few days, I truly feel frustrated for sure.
I think it was Jane Smith who brought up the MMPI. Yes, I found your story amusing, too. It also brought back an interesting memory that I interpret differently today.
I think it was about 20 years ago when I learned of the MMPI and bought the book with the tests and explanations. It was one of my MANY attempts to find out what was “wrong” with me and why I couldn’t get my spouse to quit abusing me. I’ve always believed that the only person I can change is myself. Knowledge is power and this was one of those times.
My spouse was surprisingly eager to take the tests — and so were all of our adult children and their new spouses! My spouse’s score was INTP and mine was ENFJ. The major things I remember were 1) how thrilled my spouse seemed to be that his score had such a low percentage of others in it. (Struck a red flag but it didn’t compute) and that my personality score was the ONLY one who could “tolerate” (my current word for it) living with an INTP! Somehow the latter made it more tolerable for me to keep enduring the abuse.
I do wonder if I took the test again if it would come out differently. But, I do know (have learned) that personalities of NORMAL people can change with positive effort.
My assessment of my now known NPS spouse’s result if he took it again would NOT change. Don’t they say that sociopaths don’t/can’t change? I KNOW he would never take it again, though. He is too much in “love” with his INTP as it was!! LOL!
Henry,
I may not always respond to your posts but I read all of them. How can I not? They are overflowing with sweetness, compassion, wisdom and love. You are a sterling example of what it truly means to be a man. Amen!!
And…”but I think when cyber angels disapear they have turned a page and no longer need our support or the memorys this subject conjures up”
I do believe you are correct. I was visiting Anna’s blog “Narcissists Suck” for about a year. She finally said that she was done with the subject matter and she wanted to move on to other topics of interest. I miss her but I completely understand the direction she is going.
She offered plenty of logical, rational, fervent, no nonsense stellar advise, education and wisdom and I will never forget how much she has helped me.