Those of us who have been psychologically abused by sociopaths—whether we’re male or female, and whether the abuser is male or female—know that the abuse should be criminal. It appears that in France, it just may happen.
A Lovefraud reader sent me a link to an interesting story in Time Magazine. Legislators from France’s ruling party are expected to introduce a bill that would outlaw “conjugal abuse of a psychological nature” in both married and unmarried relationships.
According to Time,
The legislation seeks to target the verbal and mental denigration, humiliation and manipulation that typically lead to physical abuse. The hope is that the bill will help prevent the emotional wounds that words often cause before a punch is ever thrown.
I hope the law gets passed. I hope it works. We’ll have to see what happens.
Read the article on Time.com:
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Oxy –
Thank you for mentioning the TV show about the autistic woman Temple Grandlin. The article I attached here about the program actually lists the wrong time. It came on at 8pm to 10pm – – I didnt realize it until 9:10ish…so I only caught the tail end of it.
What an inspirational moving touching story. I want to watch it again in its entirety. Claire Danes was outstanding in her representation of Temple.
What will stand out for me are Temples words….
“I dont want all my thoughts to die with me. I want my life to have had meaning while Im here”
What an AMAZING human being. What a story. What a talent and a gift to this world to be able to see the world through her eyes..
Thank you for mentioning it Oxy. -LTL
CAmom: Querida,
Si, si somos hermanas de sangre y hueso, lodo y polvo”
Esto es una imagen linda y fuerte.
I would not use the word evil. I did not let that word, so associated with religion, and consequently so disassociated from my life, cross my lips. But now, it has and it will never be suppressed again.
And you ideas speak loudly to me: ’I still find evil horrible, horrifying, despicable, but I’ve accepted the reality of evil in the same sense I accept the reality of goodness and beauty. ”That duality, as simplistic as it is, light and dark, day and night, helps me understand life and what people are capable of doing to one another, and for one another.’
And this tells me, I have gained in my experience with the spath ”“ there is a richness in the duality, and without evil the richness would not exist. The light would not shine so brightly. My gratitude for the small beauties of life, is all the more poignant for having endured evil. I know life is not long ”“ and we may not get much in the way of love and joy, peace and ease”.but there are things like dancing and the sun, the wind and kindness. y la lingua española.
Besitos y abrazos fuerte,
One step
One Step,
Yes, totally relate to not wanting to use the word evil.
CAmom, where in california are you and will you be willing to travel? i know some contacts that can help you have your daughter reasssessed and properly diagnosed and then can be used for SSI and other community services, like autism coaches, and Personal care assistants and companions and so on, that can help both her and you.
we have a number of numerous adults who have even ended up homeless with schizophrenic, or mentally retarded labels that are receiving real help for the first time for their true issues.
my wife herself was labeled as mentally retarded until the age of 12 because of the lack of awareness in those years. she tested from below 70 to about over 120 in another type of testing. depending upon the tests she took she was somewhere between 85 to 120. which indicated she was not retarded but had some very strange issues back then. it took an out of town specialist to recognize autism and then she was diagnosed.
she needs full time care and has her routines where she does derail easily. She can not work. She is unable to be fully independant.
Mental retardation isn’t always part of autism although it nearly always looks like it. There is a social and emotional ‘retardation’ though. i am 35 but i am told that i am emotionally and socially 16, 17. My wife can be somewhere around 10 or 12 but sometimes she is nearly like a 135 year old. I had no speech until age 4 and my wife until age 9. So we emerged as children sort of like babies or toddlers. An autistic’s social and emotional development is a off, enough to impact our intellectual capacities at times, or just a little and sometimes not at all. so it is mot uncommon for an autistic child to manage some complex things but simpler, more basic issues becomes a huge struggle.
Sometimes they test(autistics) too high to recieve that (mental retarded) label and lose or not receive vital services. That is why having a diagnosis was so important. My wife was removed as a child from her friends who all had down syndrome or some other form of mental retardation because she tested high enough not to be within the MR range, higher than any of them and 90 is considered slow but not retarded. The problem was over half of them were more functional than she was. and then it wasn’t known what to do with her.
my email is autisticsouls@gmail.com and you can email me off list and i’ll conpile some contacts in your area to assist you and your daughter as to where you need to go.
Mike
Nicolaid,
I’m glad you are back. The work situation was an issue that seems to have been there before me and every new teacher adjusts to or rail against after some time. mostly we spend time with our children for some years before we see what is happening. There are people fighting it and just now all school districts are under federal investigation.
they were just too bold and took so many arrogant unneccassry risks. it’s absolutely stunning. they had everything and in taking more impulsive bold risks they are now met with so many parents and teachers to just finally take a stand against them. The recent Steve Becker article hit us home on this one.
I am unfamiliar with Marie France Hirigoyen but just purchased her book on Amazon. Thank you.
It took some time when we recognized what we were dealing with.
I can shut off my emotions or put them somewhere else as they get too overwhelming at times. I like things orderly and my emotions fill me with shame at times as they are not so easy to control or understand or organize. they can contaminate my thinking. I love order and hate messiness. emotions are so disorderly and chaotic at times, and messy. So I feel such shame when my emotions get the best of me. So I restrain them whenever I can. Here not so much though. In this arena everyone is getting in touch with their emotions so it’s fitting that i allow myself ‘to feel’ here as well. if i shut that part of me off i would appear to be some unfeeling robotic monster. everyone is opening themselves up here so i allow that part of me to have full access. i just have to tap on the gas little by little because i blew up here recently and i am so embarrassed and ashamed of myself to have had such an emotional outburst.
My interest in psychopathy is in line to my other interests. my main interest is to work towards more harmonious society. A more harmonious society means a more moral and ethical one. To get there education and understanding of human natures is crucial.
Interest in different personality types is due to recognizing all their different gifts to humanity as well as figuring out how to stabilize and stregthen their weaknesses. All personality types have stregths and weknesses and their own special gifts to share with the world.
The psychopath is the only one that seems void of anything good and true or to hold any positive elements that can ultimately serve society and humanity. Any contributions they make seem only superficial or short term. It is also the one personality that seems to keep our social evolution from getting to a better place. Stunting us all and holding us all back. All personality types may clash at times, but still can strive for a common goal and have good things to contribute to one another, all can be very complementry if nurtured and supported enough. But the psychpath, holds us all back, keeps us all prisoners. affects our ability to trust, keeps us defensive and wary, affects every area of society in a negative hold. It is a disease and cancer upon us all.
They also procreate often, so early intervention of all children is crucial to get to at risk children and break the cycle and socialize them properly in nurturing and love so that they reach their full potential and not fall into that abyss.
So all my interests correlate are pretty involved with one another.
I”m off to take my girls out to the beach, I will be back later.
May eveyone have a wonderful blessed day.
Mike
Oxy Pooh,
Hello there, lovely woman. I’ve been reading all that you write and of course, always deeply caring with all that transpires in your life, whether negative or positive.
Although I wish your days and nights to be calm, tranquil, full of love and peace rather than filled with sadness and turmoil.
I wish that for all the folks on LF. But, you know, we’re human, REAL humans: we have good days and bad days. We have days where the joy flows through every cell of our bodies and then there are days when the tears run like rain. Our hearts and minds are sometimes light and bouyant and at other times heavy and burdened.
Not to be flippant, but it is life. Life in all it’s hazards, trials and tribulations, pain and sorrow and life in all it’s joys, triumphs, victories, wonders, and simple pleasures.
I think you and I will both agree that life is good. It IS good. And folks in general are good people. You know, I’m a strange cat. I’m an introvert who thrives, flourishes in extended periods of solitude but when I’m out and about, mingling with the peeps, I’m a flittering social butterfly, smiling and chatting and being goofy with anyone and everyone who will allow me. It’s fun and also proof that there are many good, decent people inhabiting this planet along side me.
I think you’re fully aware of how I feel and think of you. Truly, this is who you are: super strong, fiercely independent, resourceful as all get out, determined, loyal, immensely loving and caring, a sterling example of womanhood in all aspects, facets.
You are that person. That rare human being with loads of stamina and vibrancy, a huge capacity for warmth, compassion and love.
Please don’t forget who you are. Well now, I guess you can’t as I am now reminding you, right here on LF, as I write my little “love letter” to you, sweetness.
xxooxx
🙂
PS…I’m always sending you good vibrations whether I’m commenting on LF or not.
The force is strong in you, fellow Jedi Knight!!
Hi all – I did not read every post – as this thread is very long and I do not have time to now – but will come back to it…
What I did do was skim it as when I read about the proposed law in France it gave me shivers. You see I believe that that law will in fact be used more by S/N/P’s to further torture their victims rather than as protection. I think Nicolaid is correct. This is not the best use of legal services. To me – the thing I most desire to do – is to create a program like DARE or MADD to bring into schools and teach 10/11/12/13/14 year olds about this. They already know kids in their classes like this. They see it around them but have no tools – no way to know what to do. I believe shunning the S/N/P’s is the best course of action. Safest for the rest of us and most devastating to them as they hate not having an audience – at least the S and N’s – the P’s probably don’t care.
To me the victims – often suffering Stockholm Syndrome – may behave in ways that destroy their credibility – I say this as someone who experienced that very thing.
In hindsight I would say that I was vulnerable (immediately post divorce relationship was when I came together with my ex – an S/N)… and he did indeed groom me – he used to joke about training me – now I know it was not a joke – he used to say Nicole Brown Simpson deserved what she got – I now know he was meant it and was not saying it for shock value. He would say this openly to me and others and we all would razz him. He insisted – and it all seemed so outlandish I could not mentally grasp that anyone would believe such things and so I rationalized his behavior to my own detriment.
I believe – as my sister had married an S and he is creating an ongoing hell for her and damaging his two sons – one since childhood I can see will follow in his fathers footsteps and I do not allow my daughters to be with him alone. My sister’s ex has dragged her into court repeatedly – he has money she does not. He is trying to destroy her financially and emotionally. A law like that he would turn and use to try and paint her as the abuser. The pressure of psychological abuse can cause the abused to act in abusive ways as well – in trying to fight back and while stressed the abused is not thinking of how to collect evidence or protect oneself – they simply want to survive – BUT the abuser is all along collecting evidence that could paint the abused very badly in a court case. I think this is a dangerous law.
I am not a trained anything by the way – in terms of psychology – but I have a lot of personal experience and have spent several years coming to terms with and understanding disordered personalities. These are just my thoughts on reading of the proposed law.
Autisticsouls,
Mike, thank you for your heartwarming response to me. I believe that your mission in life is a very important one.
Working with children at a young age is the way to go. Awareness is the answer. You are doing so much for your child. If only the rest of the world could grasp this. The world is very slowly trying to learn about autism. But to little to late…
I wish the world would begin to learn about sociopathic disorders. But i really don’t see that happeneing. Even in small doses. I don’t even think the experts can agree on sociopathic tendancys, let alone the mainstreem world.
In my case my son had a tramatic experience early in his childhood. His father suicided, and my small son was in the house with him alone until I returned home from work.
And so although I knew that he might be “at risk” for something, enduring what he endured, I wasn’t aware of what the REAL risk was. I knew nothing about personality disorders, even though I strongly suspect his father was one,(now) I didn’t have enough knowledge at the time to put my finger on it. My son initially went to see a “specialist” but he wasn’t even 4 yrs old at the time. So the specialist gave his opinion, that my son didn’t “see” it (suicide) “happen” and that was the end of that. The specialist NEVER mentioned to me anything about my sons development possibly being “arrested” or anything else to alarm me. I was already alarmed from my own perspective of what I thought. However I was still nieve to the possibilities that lay ahead.
I thought that love would be enough. I thought that if I raised him to the best of my ability, certainly I would see the EARLY signs if something were wrong, if I was paying attention. Everything seemed fine with him until puberty. And then it was like waking up in a nightmare. Because overnight he was not the same child. It was truly a frightening experience, early on. And I looked for intervention, but there was none. I really thought that he was still young enough to get help. And I needed help from the medical profession. But it isn’t out there. The question that I was asked over and over again : “Has he broken the law?”
You are right Mike, this is not something anyone can deal with alone. Even if a parent does recognize that there is a problem with their child and they are showing the signs….Of a sociopathic disorder. No one wants to believe you. It would take a team to intervine. I couldn’t even find a good therapist for him. He went to counseling and managed to lie to the counselor.
Being that my son might have both the genetic factor and also a tramatic experience young in his life, I will never know which component had more to do with the outcome. I am not sure that knowing would even be helpful at this point. But I certainly do wish that I had an awareness of personality disorders and that my child was at risk. Because when I thought I was raising an “at risk” child after the tramatic event he suffered, I thought the “risk” was something totally different than what it was.
I didn’t educate myself to any of this until I came face to face with something that I couldn’t define w/o further knowledge.
I am glad that your wife found Lf Mike, and glad that you are here.
Breckgirl:
“To me the victims ”“ often suffering Stockholm Syndrome ”“ may behave in ways that destroy their credibility ”“ I say this as someone who experienced that very thing. ”
This is when ‘they’ capitalize on “She’s crazy’ ……look at her!
And unfortunatley…..THAT behavior is all others see!
We are justified in ‘cracking’,given what we have endured…..
BUT….it is VITAL….the ‘cracks’ DO NOT show in public!!!
I cracked once……in front of my mother…..
I was just released from my life threatening gig and hospitalization, kids came home that night….S showed back up….I was very very sick….and on blood thinners and heart meds…etc….
The S slammed our son up against the wall and hit him….I was so pissed, frusterated ….the police were called by the kids….there was NOTHING i could do to protect them at that moment….the S capitalized on this moment….and realed in my mother…sitting in the living room gossiping very loudley about this child….after the policeleft.
From my bedroom, after stewing for hours about how he had abused teh kids and I couldn’t do anything…..I threw all my pills at the wall….like 10 bottles….pills went flying everywhere….I got the strength to get out of bed and crawl to the door and his shoes were by the door…..I opened the door and told them both to shut the fuc up and they looked at me as if I was a martian…..so I started hucking the shoes at him from about 30 feet away…..yelling I hate you, your doing exactly what we discussed you wouldn’t do…..and your talking shit about the kids in earshot of them with their grandmother…. I certainly looked likethe crazy woman….and at that moment….he sucked my mother right in with….she’s mentally ill…..he slept downstairs in the room next to my mothers and removed all the knives out of the kitchen telling my mother he was afraid I would kill him in the night!
NOW…..how’d he turn that situation around an onto me….HE was the abusive one that night….and I flipped out (rightfully so) and now HE is the one scared…..mother bought right into it….
He provoked….I played right into it!
Things would have been so different if I had of found the control that night….in front of my mother….but he played that card for the next 2 years….saying Ido that all the time….NOT!!! I’ve never lost it like that….ever….but this is what they want….and to do it in front of others….he was able to sever my relationship and discount me to my mother…. and exploit me from there…I was the ‘unstable’ one….
SO…..at ALL costs…..we must remain INCONTROL!!!!!!!