Those abused by family members and romantic partners seek information on this site trying to understand the personality of their abuser. They wonder is he/she a sociopath? Does a personality disorder explain why this happened to me?
The answers to these questions are often hard to come by. Experts require “proof” of a set of personality traits before diagnosing someone with a disorder. Yet in my opinion, we have an obligation to the victims of abuse to explain to them that abusers are not “normal” people who are simply misguided in their attempts to “help” others. Abuse is often perpetrated by sociopaths under the guise of “helping.”
This week a young lady 23-year-old Hillary Adams, posted a video on Youtube of her abuser perpetrating violence against her. When you watch the video keep in mind that the abuser is also a judge. The video is very difficult to watch but it is a gift because it allows us to see firsthand the abuser’s pathos.
Please watch the video and then continue reading.
Consider whether you also see what I see here:
1. A perpetrator that enjoyed hurting another with a victim that had been in this roll before.
2. Motivated by the orgasm of power, perpetrator actually used the word submission.
3. There were many sexual overtones, the word f*** was repeated over and over; “get on the bed”; “bend over the bed”; “roll over”; “I never got my licking on her”; “I’m going to wear your F****** a** off with this belt”.
4. Perpetrator wanted to give her a “glass of water” so he could continue to perpetrate. When the BTK killer described this behavior, I coined it the glass of water phenomenon. Shows the appearance of empathy, but its goal is to get the victim to recover enough to be abused further.
5. “You don’t deserve to be in this house” no she doesn’t this much is true.
Do you agree with me that this should be prosecuted as a sex offense? Isn’t that justified by the words the body part and the setting?
What more do we need to see or know to understand this man’s disorder?
Mother has since divorced him, both mother and daughter spoke exclusively with Matt Lauer on TODAY Thursday about the furor the video has caused and the reasons for posting it seven years after it was taken.
Watch the Today Show Interview
MiLo
Sky ~ Oh, thanks, I thought it was YouTube. I guess I am also a little intimidated by computers and technology. I do know that younger people that know EVERYTHING about computers and techno seem oblivious to the fact that whatever they put in can be found by even stupid old grannies like me. LOL
Ox Drover
Sky, defiant teenagers do lots of things….it doesn’t make “sense” of course in terms of logic, but when you are pushed to the brink, when you are frustrated and feel like you have no control, you rear up and show the abuser that they can’t “make” you cry. It was defiance.
Laurens van der Post when he was in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, was whipped almost to death and then told that HE had to pick the next victim to be whipped and instead of doing that, HE VOLUNTEERED TO BE WHIPPED AGAIN….knowing that there was little likelyhood he would survive the second whipping. The Japanese officer was so FRUSTRATED that he couldn’t make Laurens pick the next victim that he broke his bamboo cane over his own knee and stomped off.
Under duress, people do a lot of things that don’t make “sense” so you can’t say that “NO one would….do….X” because people do all kinds of things that “don’t MAKE SENSE” LOGICALLY. That’s like that STUPID social worker guy saying “NO parent would do that to their child” about the parents raping the infant child and video taping it with their camera during a “supervised” visit. DUH???? NO parent? WTF????
The Germans during WWII put women and their infants in metal boxes and turned up the heat until he was oven-temperature, and 100% of the mothers eventually stood on their infants rather than stand on the HOT metal in their bare feet. Would I have stood on my infant, or would I have stood there holding my baby up? I WISH I could say I would have stood on the hot metal and held my baby off the floor, but I can’t say that because I can’t even imagine that kind of pain or what kind of insanity it would have driven me to.
So I am loath to say that “No person would do X” or that “ALL people would do Y” Always and never are BIG words.
KatyDid
Skylar
I’m with Oxy about the mom being a particpant in the abuse. I got a creepy sex vibe watching it, as if it was an S&M thing. Mom was excited, seemed turned on even. “Take it like a woman?” EWWWwwww.
And I agree with daughter is SO way NOT emotionally healthy.
I took my mom’s control from her by not crying, and by doing what I wanted even though I knew it would result in a beating. She wasn’t going to dictate to me.
That daughter stays for the goodies, car and money esp as old as she is, that tells me she is WARPED. Whether she has a long term problem (spawn of spaths?) or whether she just needs to find her feet remains to be seen. But it’s not a good sign that she did not leave as soon as she was of age.
skylar
Oxy and Katy,
In my family, my brother and I fought back. We met violence with violence. I can’t even imagine sitting there and taking it. I knew they had power over me, but this is where I learned to play “chicken” with the psychopaths. I learned to care LESS than they did. They very soon realized that every time they upped the ante, I would raise it.
Yes, I did provoke them too by not allowing them to dictate to me. I thought I was winning the game of chicken when they decided to allow me to do whatever I pleased. Unbeknownst to me, they were hoping that I would meet violence in the big bad world. But it never happened that way. Everyone was very nice to me, even the green river murderer!!!
It drove them crazy with envy that everything good just landed in my lap. When I got my insurance settlement at age 20, the envy must’ve just about killed them. Nothing bad ever seemed to happen to me. So when the spath came along, they knew what he was and they saw it as me finally getting my just desserts, I guess. That’s one of the reasons they didn’t tell me. They were finally going to be vindicated.
In a way they were like my spath. The spath was envious that I could stay innocent for so long. I was completely clueless to how evil the world really was. He used to say, “you live the life of Reilly” and “Living is easy with eyes closed.” and “I’m tired of your God-like ways.” The difference is that my parents never understood how naive I was. They thought I was worldly smart and evil like them. They are now realizing the difference and it just makes them envious all over again.
ErinBrock
The last time my mother came in to my room….yielding the wooden spoon…..I had padding in my pants (just in case it didn’t go well)……and she waved the spoon in my face……I grabbed it from her, broke it in half over my knee and offered her ‘one half’. I said….now we are ‘even’. I have half and you have half…..carry on! 🙂
I was so done with being smacked with a friggen slotted wooden spoon.
Just the sound of her riffeling through the drawer to find it was un nerving as shit.
She never ‘spanked’ me again.
What struck me in the video was the daughters wiggling away from the father as he grabbed her arm……that’s what I did. Wiggled. I didn’t ‘fight’ back…..but resisted with some submission, because I was afraid of it ‘getting’ worse.
ErinBrock
I had an interesting evening the other night with the Jr’s.
We got a new tv…..and Jr subscribed to Netflix. He wanted to watch his ‘favorite’ movie.
He couldn’t tell me exactly why it was his favorite……it just was…..and he wanted us to watch it.
It was a Disney movie called “TANGLED”. (it’s the rapunzal story).
Okay folks……have any of you seen this movie?
This is a PERFECT movie to teach people about spaths…..
It is FULL of lessons.
It’s a GREAT tool to show youngsters about all of the RED FLAGS.
Projection, gas lighting, smoke screening, lovebombing etc……
Has anyone seen this movie?
We had a great discussion on how my kids could relate to the ‘wicked’ mother…..and all her disguises…and cons. along with how she appeared to the outside world as kind and pretty. How she ‘offered’ things appearing nice to other cons…..and how she knew it would ‘come back to her’….with what she really wanted.
IE…..she offered the bad guys the crown……(normal people would think….why would she give up something so valuable)…..but she wanted rapunzal and her hair powers…..
How the ‘mother’ told her I love you ‘most’…..and I am your mother and I have your best interest at heart (lie)….but a child would naturally believe this. We talked about my kids spath father and I….how we both said the same things….yet I modeled it, spathdad spoke just the words….and modeled wicked selfish behaviors.
And the lesson on how rapunzal was always authentic to herself……the whole way….and didn’t have ulterior motives of selfish things……she was open, honest and followed through. And how she ‘won’ because of her authenticity to herself! (even though she was blind to all the cons going on around her). (just like US!).
And in the end…………the ones who could be ‘changed’ did change by her modeling kind behaviors……and the ones who couldn’t (the spath) died a ‘tragic’ death!
I HIGHLY RECOMEND watching this movie……..and watching it with someone you can educate along with you! 🙂
My kids soooooo got it! Sooooo got it!!!! It’s pretty cool that they can see their own lives in a disney movie…..of which was made for entertainment purposes and proly NOT the lesson it was meant to give!
There are lessons everywhere……
callmeathena
Erin,
Thank you. I’m putting it on my netflix list.
My son’s father is a N, not a SPATH, but I’m going to guess that all the lessons still apply!
Athena
callmeathena
KATYDID
You said this ”
I took my mom’s control from her by not crying, and by doing what I wanted even though I knew it would result in a beating. She wasn’t going to dictate to me.”
Ha! GOOD FOR YOU! I have to tell you, my mom regularly beat the shit out of me. Pulled my hair, kicked me, threw me against the wall, whatever, called me names.
I didn’t fight back. I didn’t cry. I didn’t say anything. She got so pissed off, “WHY ARE YOU SO GOD DAMNED STOIC!” she would scream at me.
She wanted the reaction. I gave her none.
Today is the day, thanks to you, that I realize why she said this to me, and why it pissed her off.
I won.
Athena
callmeathena
This morning on CNN there were two “experts” commenting on the video of the Judge whipping his daughter.
One expert was an abuse expert. She was a lay person who, I think, helped victims of abuse.
The second person was a psychologist. A PHD.
During the entire conversation, which took a while, the professional, the PHD, never said anything about the real issue the Judge had was being in “control” – what WE know on this site to be true.
The lay person pointed out that the Judge was trying to blame the victim, and THATS WHAT ABUSERS DO.
KatyDid
Athena,
AM SO glad that SOMEONE inserted common sense. So many IGNORE what’s in front of their face b/c they don’t want to offend, esp a judge.
and SO many call the GIRL a manipulator, but NOT call the dad on HIS behavior? Even with HIS KNOWN PUBLIC RECORD??
I will tell you that while I raised my daughter, I finally understood how angry someone could be at the person they LOVE the MOST in the world. I’ve been angry enough to wanna smack the shit out of her! BUT, no way would I ever lay hands on another person in that way. YES, I’ve FELT Angry enough….but also at the same time, knowing and thinking I would never BE THAT PERSON. I could no more cross that line than I could cross the line to rape or rob another.
BUT I also know, there are circumstances that I could kill, not for vengence, but for defense b/c I also know in my soul, that I will NOT allow someone to lay their hands on me EVER again if I have the opportunity to stop them.
As Shakespeare said, To Thine own self, be true. In other words, KNOW THYSELF. and I do.