(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.
Just watched the movie, “The Girl” about the trauma bonded relationship between Alfred Hitchcock, and his leading lady, Tippy Hedron. She starred in both, “The Birds”, and “Marnie”. Incredable study of the trauma bond, and psychopathic “tells” and cog-dis and power plays and seduction, and why we get trapped, and what we tell ourselves. It’s interesting that Hitchcocks films had the themes and content they did….kind of an abysal structure of the story within the story. If you get the chance, “WATCH THIS MOVIE.
Hi Well this post reminded me of a very recent event with my father. He was the nicest man in town. He knew everyone & they just luv luv luved him. He was the biggest horses ass at home. My mother & my sister & I ran the whole household based on what would keep my father from going insane & start yelling at all of us in a blind drunken rage about imaginary issues. Then he’d force us all to watch the program he wanted as he fell asleep snoring & when we changed it he’d wake up & make us change it back before going back to sleep. His favorite mantras were that we were good for nothing kids & was quick to take his belt & spank us for the slightest childhood infraction.
My whole life my mother shook. She struggled with agoraphobia, high blood pressure, smoked & still does. I was her best friend. Great. She’s 40 & I’m 10. Let’s see my duties were to ride around in the car at night looking for my dad’s car at bars. Sometimes my brothers who were 13 & 15 would come & they’d go in & get him. Otherwise she’d leave me in the car alone & go in. I went shopping with her & worried about money every saturday. Sometimes we’d leave the house get in the car & back out of the driveway & drive right back in. Or make it to the store walk in the door & turn around & walk back out & go home. She never drove on freeways or in the snow. My dad would have to pick us up after school in the winter & he’d forget & I’d stand there until dark with my bare legs (pants weren’t allowed yet) freezing until someone realized I wasn’t home. He forgot to pick me up at the dentist after school when I was six. I was terrified he left me there by myself to begin with.
We were a God fearing family & went to church every weekend. The priests would confuse me with their do unto others, & their honor your father, good Samaritan, & the Lion & the Mouse stories. The proceed to slap my father on the back & shake his hand. Before we got home from church he was usually already in a snit at one of us kids or all of us. My mother had to sit right in the very back by the door so she could escape. The part of that I took with me is that when I fly I have to sit up in the front nearest the door as possible so I & get this” I know I can get out. Couldn’t possibly open the door at 30K feet & would have absolutely no where to go but none the less it is what it is. Insanity isn’t always genetic, it can be environmental & learned when we have such great teachers.
To wrap up the background here he did quit drinking & it’s probably good for me that he did because I was trying to figure out how to kill him. My older siblings had all left home & never came back leaving me to fend for myself with him. By this time he was always drunk I suspect. He never made any sense & I be punished because he screwed up information or messages. It is over 30 years he’s been sober & he’s still a mean ornery cuss. When I was at the height of my career he told me I should stay at home with my kids. Now that I’m unemployed he only asks me did you get a job & then if not he gets off the phone. If yes he says some asinine thing like yeah, well how long ya think they’ll keep you. Comments like you’re getting older so they don’t want to hire you at this age. Most recently he told me I should give up my kids to my ex-husband since i don’t have an income or money.
Well, my girlfriend convinced me a couple years ago to ask to borrow some money from them. Keeping in mind my father had never given or loaned me so much as a nickel my entire life. During my 25 years of employment I traveled. A lot. Maybe 4 or 5 flights a week. Anytime anyone wanted to go anywhere I provided the tickets, My mom wanted a particularly nice winter coat I bought it. When my company went public I just gave them $60K worth of stock that I could have kept for myself. Well they loaned me money. I continue to struggle for employment so I periodically have to stop payments on paying him back. He also thinks that the spath was my fault I’m just an idiot & deserved it, yada yada yada. They tell me I’m in over my head, duh. Every time I talk with them they just beat on me a little more. & about a month ago he called me because my mom was out so she could’t stop him & started beating up on me & I decided I wasn’t going to take it any more. I am 50 years old & this mess is not my own doing. I had impeccable credit, no debt, a career, houses, cars, etc etc Of course my ex-husband in his mind did that for me. NOT. I told him & my mother they had to stop it to stop it. I know I’m in trouble or I wouldn’t be asking for help.
My father got it in his head that I would probably not have him paid back by the time he dies. WTF? Really? What does it matter exactly? He’s 84 & had three heart attacks last year. 35 Years ago both of his parents died at different times at the age of 99.5. His heart has been weakened by his alcohol abuse I suppose but he is too ornery to die soon. The mean ones never die it seems. Anyway, I told him I would not talk to them anymore & that I had to pick myself up & their beating me down like I’m 12 years old had to stop. It felt terribly disrespectful for me to do that. It’s not how my mother brought us up.
If that wasn’t enough I wrote him a letter. It outlined everything I felt I had been through under his watch. For the first time I told him how much I made. i never did that because I didn’t want him to feel badly. I probably made more in one year than he’d made his entire life. I wanted him to know that how I had been living was built by me not my ex-husband. &, that the way I was living was not even close to being over the top based on my financial position up until the moment I was robbed. He sent me a note back saying, well no one has ever called me an asshole before! I resounded, Really? First I didn’t say asshole, he did, not me & that perhaps thats how it feels when you verbally abuse someone their whole life. Then I said maybe someone should have a long time ago.
End of story, no birthday card or call for the first time ever in my life this year. Can you believe this?
On a legal note. I lost my kids in court last week. The judge doesn’t want them to have to “live” like that. I can visit them though. Well how nice. I refuse. I have done nothing wrong & don’t deserve that. My daughter will be leaving for college in two years. I told my ex that when they start living with me again I’ll interact & he can wrestle with it on his death bed because he is so wrong. I can “visit” my own children. I don’t think so. I am not a criminal. The judge further went on to imply that it was my fault I wasn’t being paid child support. Really. Ok. I had to work very hard to not hit bottom & think suicidal things again. I managed but had a few very very hard hours & slept for three days. So it’s true. I’ve lost everything I’ve ever done, built, created. So there’s nothing else left to take at least. & I guess it’s time for me to just concentrate on me. & I close with my latest mantra, Place Oxygen Mask on Self Before Helping Others. Love to all Lil .
My ex spath goes out of his way not to directly injure his family. They know he takes advantage of others, but chose to look the other way since he is family. Like wise the masonic organization we belong to has heard complaint after complaint about his abuse of some of its female members but because his broken vow of not victumizing others comes into a GREY area that does not INVOLVE the group directly they tell woman after woman, “thats between you and him,” and refuse to kick him out. Rather they put him into positions of honor and authority were it is sure he will be able to SET UP the next victim easily! Because of their refusal to kick him out I refuse to have anything to do with them any more. He use to say, you don’t shi+ where you eat. These preditors know who they have to please in order to have a hassle free hunting zone. It has nothing to do with liking or loving those they choose not to hurt, they are simply still watching out for number one!
I have struggled with understanding sociopathic behavior. We were going to couple’s counselling and the counsellor diagnosed my ex as a sociopath. However she couldn’t telll me that – I have to come to the conclusion on my own. I always knew something wasn’t right but I ignored the signals because of all the attention he was giving me. Little did I know I was in the most toxic relationship of my life. He lived a double life. He was, at a minimum, in contact with mutliple women. He preys on women though the internet. Facebook. Blogs. If you want to read the words of a sociopath, check out his blog domesticstud.blogspot.com Chilling stuff. He sounds so normal? Well he isn’t. He is a textbook sociopath. When you read the definition of a sociopath, the only thing missing is his picture. He uses his children to prey on unsuspecting women too. He would put the chair under the bedroom door so he could have sex while his children are banging on the door saying they are hungry – they are ages 10, 7 and 3. I read his blog to my counsellor and said “how can someone who has no feelings write these words?” Her reply? “those aren’t feelings – they are thoughts. He doesn’t have true feelings. He only knows what he observes in other people and how they feel about things. He mimics them.” And to think they walk among us trusting souls. They suck us in and bleed us dry and then discard us like yesterday’s garbage. SAD!
Interesting how they can copy other people’s thoughts and values.
Hmm now I kinda get how they live on with the “identity” of their victims. They carry their victims “illusions” after destroying their victims core, leaving them to rebuild new values, id. and beliefs, but they just can’t quite process it inwards and make it their own. It’s just a copy.
o my
o my
This whole topic is so where I am in my life right now that I had to re-read it all three times. I am validated. I am not insane. Someone else out there in the world understands what I am going through. I have never in my life seen everything come together so clearly as in this story and in every response.
At the expense of repeating myself, I will expound. I was stunned on Saturday to find out from one sister that there was a family secret. My other sister had my ex-spath prepare her will. This was done a few months ago unbeknownst to me and before she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She knows what he did to me and has heard about all of the details about the rapes, being called a slut and a whore, the mind twisting, blaming, degrading, minimizing, alienating my children, etc. But she called him anyway because he is a lawyer and my daughter’s father. She designated my daughter to be executor, POA and is leaving everything to her. My daughter is competent, a nurse and a loving niece. I think it is all great except for using my abuser and keeping it secret from me.
The sister informing me called it a test to see if I could be brought back into the family loop. I did not know I was out of the loop or that it was a conspiracy. My daughter is NC with me but not my sisters. I was not aware that any sides were being taken against me or that secrets were being kept or conspiracies formed.
My sisters and I were raised with the “all people are good” concept mixed with a bit of no one is good enough for us and females are worthless. Talk about mind bending concepts! The belief that all people are basically good was was the rock I based my life on and unfortunately it was also the reason I was able to be spathed.
This spath raped his room mate’s girlfriend while she was sleeping and was thrown out and disowned by all of his friends. He was a Senior from in college from the city and I was a freshman, small town country girl”pure spath bait. My mother had cancer and was given six months to live before I was forced to go away to college against my will. I tried to get kicked out and sent home but my sister intervened and I had to stay.
I felt sorry for him, he love bombed me and made me feel secure and I reluctantly married him a few months after my mother died. There was no honeymoon; he violently raped me on our wedding night. It went downhill from there. We soon had a son and I was devoted to making his life my number one priority. I was trained to be a second class citizen to my husband and yet I did finish college while he went to law school. There is a whole other complete story in how spaths are attracted to law school like flies to a cow patty.
Ten years and a beautiful daughter later I divorced him. By then he was abusing my son and love bombing the baby girl. With his sexual history and deviancy I was afraid for both of my children and did for them what I would not do for myself. I got out! I wanted no alimony I took minimal child support to assure that I got custody and when private school became necessary for my son and he would not even pay half, I moved far, far away where we lived a good life. I blossomed spiritually, mentally, socially and with my career; my son quit having temper tantrums and banging his head on the floor but my sweet baby girl was broken hearted.
Taking away my faith in humanity was probably the worst thing the spath did to me. Finding out that evil exists and that these inhuman creatures walk amongst us taking their sustenance and pleasure in creating misery and death for innocents changes a person forever. Maybe that is why no one wants to believe it. Maybe that is where the stories of vampires began; they are like vampires and worse!
My current husband of 30 years says he has not seen much but he has seen enough of the spath aka sperm donor and read enough on psychopathy to discern that it is true. My son’s wife knew from the first time she met the spath and as a result my son is leaning to my side of the fence. My daughter is NC with all three parents (except for doing the will I guess).
After the spath’s third divorce he sucked her into his web. She moved away, went to him in secrecy and took away our grandchildren while my brother was dying of cancer. She eventually moved back but was and is still being used unwittingly by him to drive me out of my mind. He won and I was re-victimized through my daughter until I broke and helped alienate her with my insanity and anger until she went total NC and declared me an unfit grandmother. Although my heart is broken it is probably better for her to not have to interact with either of us. Than to be his source of energy and the tool for his abuse of me.
I agree with Sunflower: “”but they just can’t quite process it inwards and make it their own. It’s just a copy.” They copy the survivors’ honesty, virtue and loyalty and use it to take or destroy entire families while the survivor is demonized and re-victimized for trying to expose the lies and fraud.
So here we are. A family torn to shreds by a slithering snake of a spath with a juris doctorate. Almost fifty years since he pledged the fraternity next door to where my sister pledged her sorority. He took away or alienated most of my own family against me. And now I know why and how he did it. I thank God for my husband, my son and my daughter-in- law who he could not bamboozle and I pray that someday my daughter will awaken from the spell of the spath and I will be able to see her and my grandchildren again and heal. There is healing but only AFTER the spath. There can be no true healing except AFTER the spath. I did it once and I can do it again.
They are living VAMPIRES!!!!
Thank you for a great topic and for every single response.
DLD1965:
Wow, I read your ex’s blog! Was that who you were in a relationship with??? Oh, yeah…he sounds so normal and loving! He talks all about how much he believes in love, etc. WOW!!!! And claims that his kids are his life. SMH.
Are you the crazy woman he talks about who he says hates all women and exercises constantly and eats only organic food?…haha!
DLD1965,
your ex’s blog sounds a bit like Sandusky’s letters to one of his victims. All that talk about trust and forgiveness is manipulative. He wants to make sure that your guilt trip is started before you ever get off the ground.