(This article is copyrighted © 2012 by Steve Becker, LCSW. My use of male gender pronouns is for convenience’s sake and not to suggest that females aren’t capable of the behaviors and attitudes discussed.)
It can be hard to hate or despise even the most terrible human being so long as he’s inflicted his cruelty on others, but spared you. Take a sociopathic relative, even a close one.
If somehow he compartmentalized his life, lived a “double life—”in any case, if you learned that he treated you (retrospectively even) with an exceptional, aberrant mercy that he denied his victims, you might very possibly remain “loyal” to him. You might still even “love” him.
Various defenses are pertinent—such as denial, dissociative and other self-deluding mechanisms. Gratitude may also be present, expressive of a different defense mechanism: the “monster,” after all, spared you, but not others. He exempted you from the cruel fate he inficted on them, who were helpless to protect themselves, as you were too, only he spared you. So it may seem as if he were somehow “protecting” you from the “demons” he unleashed on others.
This kind of analysis can engender, as I say, a form of “gratitude” and “loyalty” towards the victimizing individual; it is a variant of “identifying with the aggressor.”
Now it’s true that many, discovering the unseemly truth about someone close to them, even if they were spared the individual’s predations, will modify their view of the individual, bringing it into conformity with reality.
But not always.
I stress: sometimes the monster will retain his “backer.” And the chief point I stress is that his “backer” will probably be under the sway of twin, interrelated and twisted forces of logic—if he didn’t do this to me, then how could he have done this to them? And if he did it to them and not me, then he must have somehow “loved” me?
In either case, “I exculpate him.” In this way, I can remain “loyal” to him,without feeling I’ve transgressed my value system.
Thus disbelief (enabled by denial), mixed and confused with the fantasy of having been a special, exceptional object of his “love” (thanks to which he “amnestied” you from the cruel fate to which he subjected others) supports the rationalization to “stand by” him.
We are strange in the sense of this contradiction: on one hand, we are highly prone to judging others; on the other, we have the capacity to utilize defense mechanisms in the service of “withholding judgment” whenever the need arises.
We do both regularly—that is, regularly we relent to the tendency to judge, while often simultaneously exercising the detachment necessary to “not judge” sometimes disturbing individuals and their alarming stories of transgression.
Many professions, like that of psychotherapy, require the capacity to “suspend personal judgment” just so its practioners can work effectively with a wide range of stimulating, and sometimes disturbing, information.
Families have been torn apart by this psychological dynamic in a sometimes brutal clash of dichotomous positions. I’ve seen this more than a few times. A violator in the family has wrought it shame, perhaps public shame. The violator has perpetrated terrible things now known to the family.
Some family members revise their view of the individual and come to despise him, want nothing more to do with him, have sworn the individual out of their lives.
Other family (especially those who weren’t personally victimized by the individual) may “stand by” the individual, “retain” their faith and belief in him; and thus a rift between the “factions” occurs, adding another layer of nightmare to the trauma precipitated by the violating relative.
This is a preliminary examination of this very complicated subject, to be explored in further depth ahead.
I have several thoughts about this.
First, I’ve never seen it personally in my life. I have never experienced that, i.e., made excuses for someone or supported somebody known to have hurt others. There is a key word there, “others.”
My double standard kicks in when the person who was hurt has been me.
Because I don’t see the abuser hurting anyone than me, my brain assumed the cause of the abuse lay with me, something that I did or didn’t do, something that I said or didn’t say. Then I could rationalize the abuser’s bad behavior. It was my denial.
I also believed back then that everybody was born good. It was totally out of my realm of possibilities that somebody would harm another without cause or just for the fun of it. I was very naive.
It was also my shame. Not until I started talking about what was going on did other people begin to share that they believed me, that they had seen it, too, or that they knew of instances where…
Talking broadened my perspective. It made things a whole lot easier to accept that they were capable of doing these things and were doing them. What was much more difficult was accepting that I didn’t need to be abused by anybody and that my thoughts and feelings were just as valid as the next person’s. That took a lot of work.
I guess I was dealing with something very different there because once I heard that so-and-so did whatever and I got over the shock that I wasn’t the only one, it didn’t take long for my anger to kick on that they did that to somebody else. I’m not sure why I could be protective of somebody else, but didn’t feel the same compassion or injustice for myself. Maybe it doesn’t matter. I seem to be pretty over that at this point.
However, Steve, what you’re talking about, I’ve seen it in two places.
I watched a program on the Green River Killer a couple of weeks ago. His wife and neighbors talked about how normal and what a regular guy he was at home. What was that about? A facade? The P being able to keep his dark side out of sight from the people he needed to maintain his facade that he was a decent person so the police wouldn’t come knocking on his door? It was interesting to watch these three explain how normal the GRK came across.
On the other hand, there is Jerry Sandusky’s wife. I cannot begin to imagine what is in that woman’s head that she continues to defend this man, especially when she has lived with him and what the other children living in the house have reported. So, there is it; nothing that I can explain or defend, but I have to accept that it’s possible because there it is.
I’ll be interested in reading the other thoughts regarding this article.
My thoughts are that if a person remains loyal to someone who has done evil to an innocent, then the loyal person is also evil and has no empathy.
Perhaps they are not AS evil as the perpetrator, (Joe Paterno comes to mind), but they are narcissistic enough to think that double standards apply. They believe that it is ok to victimize someone who is different from them (a woman, a child, a different race or nationality).
Yes GS1, the Green River Murderer did seem normal and even nice. In fact, he let me go. How nice was that? He picked me up hitchhiking and propositioned me when I was 15. I bitched him out for making that assumption and he apologized. So he is a perfect example of someone who is evil but not to everybody and not all the time. To be honest, he seemed like a cowering little worm. He said, “I’m sorry, I’m just a horny toad.” Just a worm filled with recursive shame.
I later saw a video of him explaining how he felt entitled to kill prostitutes because they were human garbage. Being the worm that he is, he probably was looking to make compost.
But anyway, that is a red flag. Men who go on and on about how they hate prostitutes…they are full of wormy shame of their own.
G1S:
No one would believe me if I told them my husband had a terrible temper. They never saw it. What I saw was a man who would come home and be so angry that a cow would annoy him and he would beat the holy crap out of it. Sometimes it lamed the cow and would have to be put down. In later years, he learned that if he hit the back heel on a cow just the right way, it would snap the leg right above the hoof. That snap sound of the break made my husband feel SO superior, so VICTORIOUS. He’d finish up with the obligatory bullet to end it’s misery, and let his dad know there was a cow to be buried. His dad would dig a hole in the river bar and drag the dead cow by a chain, push it into the hole, and move the dirt over. Cow gone. Husband in GOOOOOD mood. Wife terrified.
My husband’s father also had an incredible temper. Again, people of the town thought him the salt of the earth, but out on our ranch, outside of town, on a dead end road, I watched that man vent full force and made sure he didn’t see me.
Once their anger was purged, they were perfectly capable of being – as my husband would boast – Cool, Calm and CO-llected!
Sky, sorry. I forgot about you and the GRM. Didn’t mean to trigger.
Narcissism. Yes, maybe that’s what is going on. That’s why bystanders are sometimes charged for standing by and doing nothing.
What I meant by saying that I have never seen it my life is that people can find it hard to hate or despise an abuser because they are not hurting you. I don’t think a person would love such a person knowing that. The loyalty thing, e.g., standing by the person, may be because you’re clinging onto a hope that it isn’t true, you’re blindsided, or you simply don’t know what to do.
Oh, wait. I just remembered another program that I saw a few years back. The wife/mother was horribly abused by the super-controlling husband/father. Two of the kids clearly emotionally identified with the father. They were equally controlling and nasty. They loved the guy and felt the mother was such a failure and deserved everything that she got. They said that she lied about everything. Things weren’t that bad. Dad just needed to correct her now and then.
There was one son who emotionally identified with the mother. Supported her on everything. Clearly was in fear of his father.
Really sick dynamics in that family. I don’t think they fit the model that Steve was describing. What was happening that family was something else all together. They didn’t find it difficult at all to “love” the father because they clearly identified with him. They were mini-hims.
Sandusky’s wife, she was being abused. Perhaps not directly, but to have to live with that and know, whether she wanted to admit it or not, what was going on was abuse. She’s putting on too much of a brave face and playing the loving wife. We’re just seeing her insides. God only knows what is going on inside her head.
Steve,
This subject is one that NEEDS to be explored in GREAT depth because it is the very thing that splits families, even nations, apart and causes so much collateral pain and drama to the people around the psychopath.
My family is a perfect example of this, with my egg donor standing staunchly beside my psychopathic son with her greatest desire being to live long enough to see him get out of prison and come to live with her here at the farm.
Then there are those family members who ‘DON’T KNOW WHO TO BELIEVE” in the situation….and just want to wash their hands of the whole ugly situation and get away from it and NOT HAVE TO DECIDE who is right and who is wrong, or which side to take….let’s just pretend none of this happened.
It’s a bit off subject but one of my favorite cartoons shows a woman squatted down talking to a 4-5 year old girl. In the back ground is the still smoldering ruins of a home that has been burned to the ground, and the caption says (woman speaking to child) “Mommy and daddy are not mad at YOU, Marilyn, we are upset about the naughty THING YOU DID.”
Sometimes family members/friends seem to take that attitude with family members who “burn down” someone else’s house, but not theirs….
My X BF NO DOUBT burned down the house of his previous GF, though there is not enough evidence to convict him, but some of the folks in our living history group that KNOW HIM and KNOW THE EX GF and I think TRULY BELIEVE he did burn her house, still associate with him in a very friendly way….DUH????
When JP, the man in our living history group got out of prison after serving his time for kiddie porn came back and rejoined our group (working with kids) and got a paid job at the state museum WORKING WITH KIDS….some of the guys on our group’s Board of directors didn’t see any need to “kick him out” of our group—-needless to say I raised all kinds of old billy hair and got him fired from his job (they did not know he was on parole) and out of our group, and he went immediately and got a job with 4-H working with KIDS. Eventually when his public records seemed to be following him EVERYWHERE he went to get a job working with kids and he kept getting fired because of his criminal record…he blew his brains out. I really feel sorry for his wife.
There are several “kids” I knew back when my kids were kids and not men, who are in and out of prison, and splitting their families asunder. I know others who are out of prison and have never been to prison (yet) that are doing the same.
I have finally learned in “my old age” that if someone will screw person A they will screw person B (eventually) and me next. So if a person is dishonest with one person they will be dishonest with others as well. So I avoid dishonest people, liars, irresponsible and callous people. It helps but some still slip by me for a while.
Seems to me that sociopaths maintain their masks in whatever way works for them, but also, there are also BENEFITS that go to the minions to Love them.
My husband vented his rage when thwarted and blocked from “winning”, and could keep people fooled b/c they didn’t see his behavior 24/7. People believed in him b/c they didn’t see any reason not to. Only myself and my daughter regularly saw the real person he was when no one was watching. And he had lots of investors, they sure didn’t want the truth b/c it would mean financial loss (the house of cards is falling now but it took YEARS for it to happen.)
Sandusky’s wife has a vested interest in refusing to acknowledge his true nature. There were many benefits being married to him, including not being accountable for her own behavior. As long as she can keep the blinders on, she doesn’t have to take responsibility for what she did/didn’t do. Once she acknowledges, then she has to do something.
G1S,
no worries, as I said, the encounter ended in my favor and I have no emotional trauma related to it –unless I’m suppressing it. What I do have some issues with is when I remember the day I realized who had given me a ride. I was watching a TV show about GR and I was sitting with the spath. I told the spath, “oh, that guy gave me a ride…” to think that I was sitting next to someone worse than GR was.
He is an equal opportunity murderer and he still wants me dead.
GR, afaik, worked alone. The exspath recruits minions. I think that makes him more dangerous. Having a patsy makes him more ballsy.
Steve, I second OxD’s enthusiasm about this specific topic.
Today, I don’t tolerate bad behaviors whether I’m the target, or someone else is. I may not become vociferous about it, but I’ll shut the door tight on someone who deliberately harms another person.
What I find to be a particular challenge is to speak truthfully with other people about this topic. There’s this pervasive mythos that “everyone deserves a second chance” and “benefit of the doubt.” Well, maybe they do, but just not from me – if that makes any sense.
Thanks for this discussion. I’m sure that it’s going to become a very lively one.
Brightest blessings
Living in the charmed circle enthralls those in it. There are loads of perks and perception is skewed. There is barely the language to describe the subtlety of what a good psychopath can do. The slide in and out of being angels one minute and behind the scenes enjoying getting one over on anyone and everyone. Always the topdog.
This is not the territory of black and white and NO ONE is exempt from their extraordinary skills in manipulation. People are generally genuinely clueless until the piano falls on them.
Years and years later I realize things about the psychopath I married. For instance, he did not go to prison but many of his “friends” did. Why was that???? It dawned on me that he may have set them up or made a deal with the law to escape prosecution. Then I think Nooooooooo How could that be. Well, it could be. This guy’s friends loved him so passionately saying things like” he is the most Christlike person I have ever met”. We are talking about a dope dealer here for pete’s sake.
Sure the one’s in his circle are in denial. He is the master of disguise and double dealing. This is so elaborate and ingrained in the psychopath and people are just not equipped to pick up on the maneuvers. Some people are even blind to tone’s of voice and body language. Some people just like to have a good time. Some people are very psychologically inept and disinterested. Even people who are very saavy and intuitive miss it in a really adept psychopath. They are not goons. Those ones we are safe with after having been mauled and discarded. The red flags are clear and defined.
I am taking a long time to say that I can’t control that most of my family still thinks he was heroic and brilliant. His family knows how he makes his money but minimize his modus operandi by likening him to a generous pirate.
It is a deeply personal thing to escape from under the influence of a psychopath. I no longer expect any of them to get it. I grieved that for years. But I had to get away. It was a case of all the sirens going off in my brain. It was not a nice, healthy intellectual decision. His revenge is never ending. It often catches me from the rear or sideways. He has some brain powers or genetics that allow him to be very quick and lethal.
Maybe those people who stay know that at some level. They don’t know it though.
Yeah, mine was always somewhere in the loop, too, and mine was never arrested either, Everybody else was, always.