Editor’s note: The following article was submitted by the Lovefraud reader who comments as “Pearl.”
By Pearl
Someone on this blog once mentioned a book by Alice Miller and Andrew Jenkins, and it caught my attention. So now I’m reading The Truth Will Set You Free—Overcoming Emotional Blindness and Finding Your True Adult Self.
Even though I’m only about halfway through the book, I wanted to share parts of it because it is so important to what a lot of us are working on—forgiving ourselves and trying to understand why this (fraud) happened to us. I know this won’t apply or appeal to everyone, but it might help some of you as it has me. Miller’s ideas help me understand why I was susceptible and forgive myself for my blindness—my inability to spot a “bad guy.”
Miller focuses on childhood—on how corporal punishment (spanking/whipping) and humiliation—cause a type of blindness in adulthood that can lead to being manipulated and UNABLE TO SEE THROUGH LIES. She emphasizes that the kind of parenting and education aimed at breaking a child’s will and making that child into an obedient subject by means of overt or covert coercion, manipulation and emotional blackmail leaves long-lasting imprints on the way we think and relate to one another as adults.
Here is the cycle as she sees it:
- Traditional methods of upbringing, which have included corporal punishment, lead a child to DENY suffering and humiliation. (Can anyone related to having a high pain threshold? Where did I get that bruise or cut—I don’t remember getting it? Ever feel humiliated at being spanked, paddled or whipped as a child? Ever experience a parent being insensitive to suffering?)
- This denial, although essential if the child is to SURVIVE, will later cause emotional blindness.
- Emotional blindness produces “barriers in the mind” erected to guard against dangers. This means that early denied traumas become encoded in the brain, and even though they no longer pose a threat, they continue to have a subtle, destructive impact. (The memory of how to respond to such crappy behavior from our parents and authority figures is still there.)
- Barriers in the mind keep us from learning new information, putting it to good use, and shedding old, outdated behaviors.
- Our bodies retain a complete memory of the humiliations we suffered, driving us to inflict unconsciously on the next generation what we endured in childhood, unless we become aware of the cause of our behavior, which is embedded in the history of our own childhoods.
As children, some of us learned to suppress and deny natural feelings. Some of us lived in a world where our feelings were ignored and denied.
All the beaten child remembers is FEAR and the face of the ANGRY parent, not why the beating was taking place. The child may even assume he had been naughty and deserved the punishment. Miller writes that in the absence of a witness who can empathize with us in childhood and genuinely listen to us, we have no other way of protecting ourselves from the pain but to close our minds to it.
In a bid to blot the fear and pain of our abused younger self, we erase what we know can help us, we can fall prey to the seductiveness of sects and cults, and FAIL TO SEE THROUGH ALL KINDS OF LIES.
Having this information helps me understand why I was “ripe for the picking.” It also goes a long way toward helping me forgive myself and move on in the healing process.
ask oxy about him erin. i only know what i have read here.
Dear ERin72,
Sam Vaknin is indeed I think a psychopath (he calls himself a Narcissist though) His “work” and writings are nothing but things he has ripped off from others and slightly reworded. He has “invented”different terms than the accepted ones we use.
There is a movie “I, Psychopath” made about him, where he was tested and so on. It will show you what a REAL JERK and ARSEHOLE and phony he is. He did a stint in prison for financial fraud, he admits he tortures his wife, withholding love, sex, a child etc., he makes my skin crawl and he makes a living with various blogs and sites about “malignant narcissists” and so on.
His PhD is a trumped up “Internet” bought piece of paper that means NOTHING. He had trouble admitting this on camera for the film though….you could see his ego come out and his rage at being exposed as a fake….
DON’T WASTE your money or time on this jerk….. The only thing good I will say about him is that sometimes the first thing people find when they do a google search are the many links to him that he has up to promote himself and his book (his way of making a living) and ANYthing that gets people to thinking about psychopaths is good, but believe me, he is TOXIC and MALIGNANT HIMSELF.
Oxy-wow. Thanks for sharing that with me. I certainly will NOT buy his book. I do have to say though, what he says on malignant narcissism indeed describes my ex so much that it’s totally scary. I am CONVINCED that malignant is the diagnosis that A*** is missing. I don’t know if you read my posts from this afternoon but I am just so glad that he’s gone from me. A*** discarded my because I started to pull his mask down and expose him. I know that his fantasy about having a cop girlfriend was all about him wanting to be kinky. He talked about wanting me to handcuff him to the bed and have my way with him. He had this whole fantasy built up about it. Then once he also talked about a fantasy involving being tied down with silk scarves. Now that I look back on it, it seems a little “basic instinct” for me. I think he really lost that cop fantasy when he realized that as an officer I would be more likely to see through him. He really f’d with my mind. He acted so freaked out when he thought that his 25th anniversary vacation with HER was going to coincide with my police academy graduation. He brought it up one day when we were in bed and now I think it was just to torture me. I ended up in tears because he had promised that he would be there for me to pin my badge on me for the first time.
Oh well-if I get to have someone pin it on me other than an instructor, I am going to have my stepmom do it. She is my biggest supporter.
Geez-I just feel so incredibly free now that he’s gone. I can talk about what he is to people but he is not residing in my head or heart anymore. I don’t fret about him. I know that if I see him I will ignore him.
Dear Erin72,
Sam Vaknin is all about promoting Sam Vaknin. He is the owner of several moderated web blogs that are “support” for victims of Ps and Ns, but the moderators are quite abusive themselves…the purpose of all these of course is to establish HIM AS AN EXPERT, which he is not, and to make MONEY FOR HIM. I will say this though, that the first “support blog” I found was Sam’s and I was there for a while until the moderators started abusing not only me but others–there was more flaming going on there than at a big BBQ! That was when I found LF and real support and caring.
Erin, I want you to do something for me—start enjoying the NOW instead of the “I’ll be happy when I have/do………x, y or z.” I’ve lived too much of my life WAITING for happiness,, fulfillment, etc. “tomorrow when…..” and I wasted that time waiting to be happy when something happened or I got whatever.
BE HAPPY NOW, enjoy NOW. Look at the GOOD things you have NOW.
You may not like your job, BUT…you HAVE A JOB. YOU HAVE A SALARY. There are plenty of people without jobs at all.
You may not be at the weight you want to be, but YOU ARE HEALTHY, (except for boinking yourself in the head!!! LOL) So be HAPPY THAT YOU HAVE HEALTH, FOOD, ETC. Don’t wait to be happy til you lose the weight. Don’t wait to be happy till you get the job you want….be happy NOW. (((Hugs)))))
Oxy-that is really disgusting that Sam Vaknin does that. It is just like a malignant narcissist. Mine is pure EVIL. A good example of how over-the-top he is: I just looked at his page on the medical school website. He changed his CV sometime after the discard. It used to have a personal section talking about his wife and daughter. He REMOVED that part. It’s very cold and has no personality to it. I read an article from a med student asking how to write a good CV. It’s is supposed to have a personality to it. They want to know hobbies and achievements outside of medicine. A*** has none on his. It is as empty as he is. AND, the article states that a good CV should NEVER exceed 10 pages in length. His is 32 pages. He lists every paper that he helped with in his career, even if he had only a minimal role in it. WOW—the narcissism is truly astounding! I am just SO glad that I now have no more questions about what he is and why. I have him so figured out. I definitely want to do domestic violence/sex crimes when I’m a cop. I will be so good at that!
Unless a person is “famous” for something really outstanding, to post his own CV (and especially one 32 pages long!) on the Internet is I think pretty narcissistic…few people I think outside of Alexander G. Bell, Salk, and a few people like Bob Hare, and others who have made SIGNIFICANT contributions to science and humanity deserve any CV or longer biography. LOL
BTW Erin, you don’t have to WAIT until you are a cop to work for DV —you can call and volunteer for your local DV shelter, or raise funds for them—that’s what I meant by the above post–be happy NOW, do good NOW! Enjoy NOW! (((Hugs))))
Perfect example of my narcissists behavior towards his wife when she tried to leave: I got this from an article–it made my laugh because it was him–
Their behavior is more than a lack of self-esteem. It goes to the core of the individual’s personality and is a pervasive aspect of their lifestyle. THis character flaw prevents them from keeping marriage vows and in the vast majority of cases, narcissists will forever cheat on their spouse. It is interesting to note that narcissists rarely divorce and will fight tooth and nail to remain married. This is believed to go along with the “need to be accepted by all” mentality that narcissists possess. As strong as their need is to conquer outside of their marriage, they turn into weeping idiots if/when their spouses even suggest divorce! ROTFLMAO!!!!!!
I think the most difficult thing for me to wrap my head around with all of the experiences that I’ve had in the past 2 years is how insidious and RESIDUAL the spath damage is.
I’m not even talking about my personal experiences, now. Those issues will have to be muddled through. But, the collateral damage is mind-boggling. SO many people are left in the wake of a spath as either truly damaged, or simply the flotsam of their activities.
When it is all told, there are literally hundreds of people who are affected by the activities and choices of a single sociopath. Ranging from immediate family members, to business associates, to “friends,” to service providers, to victims of violence, to financial institutions, and taxpayers who support “disability” claims. People who have never met the spath are indirectly affected, and it’s just beyond my ability to comprehend.
Has anyone heard the status of the development of Spath Island??? Sheeeeeeesh.
Buttons,
I’ll volunteer to help ship them all out to spath island, and to continue with poo week, we should use the island as the worlds newest poo processing spot. Happy days!!!
Karma will get ’em in the end.
Hang in there Buttons, you have offered me so much support, I want you to know that we support you here on LF.
Many blessings and warm hugs!
Dear Buttons,
The collateral damage that the psychopaths do effects everyone from their parents, teachers, siblings, people they date, people they marry, their children, their coworkers if they have jobs, their neighbors, etc. So we are talking MANY people here, not just a few.
The damage they do is like a viral illness, it spreads outwardly like a wave of evil, touching lives they have never directly met. You are right about that. Even their DNA taints children they may never meet or know.
The financial cost of the damage they do in terms of social services doesn’t even approach the emotional cost to those closest to them. Yes, they make society suffer as well.