Might does not make right

By Ox Drover

Sometimes former victims of psychopaths have voiced to me that they just want others to know that the psychopath was not the victim, but the abuser. Former victims are frustrated that others don’t recognize someone is an abuser. Many times the actual victim has instead been painted by the real abuser as the “bad guy.”

I remember reading a letter from my psychopathic son from his prison cell who told me in the letter he knew that I had to be the one who was “wrong” because he got along with everyone in the family circle and I got along with no one, so therefore I had to be the one “in the wrong.”

Well, democratically voting on something does not make something “right,” it only means that something is “popular—”but not necessarily right. Back in the days when everyone thought the world was flat, and Columbus was about the only one that thought it was “round,” popular opinion did not change the shape of the earth! While in this country we are proud of our democratic system of government, voting on something is not always the most “fair” way to pick a choice. Sometimes “democracy” is like two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner tonight! The bad guys gang up on the weaker ones and take advantage, but that doesn’t make it “fair” or right.

One of the most frequent ploys of the psychopathic abuser is to initiate what is frequently referred to as “the smear campaign.” This may actually start behind the victim’s back while there is active victimization going on between the abuser and the victim, or it may start after the victim has either escaped or been discarded by the psychopath. The psychopath starts to talk badly about the victim to others in their circle, to destroy the credibility of the victim so that if and when the victim starts to talk about him/her to others, they are viewed as the scorned lover or business partner spreading hateful rumors, when in fact, just the opposite is true.

Unfortunately, many times by the time the actual victim realizes that the lies have been spread about them, the damage is done and there is no effective way to counter the damage done by the abuser and their duped accomplices. Many times these accomplices of the abuser are actually unaware that they are accomplices, and are acting in good faith to “protect” what they perceive as a “victim” from the person they now consider an abuser.

The abuser/psychopath recruits as many of these unsuspecting accomplices as possible so that the “consensus” of opinion is that “all these people can’t be wrong.” The sheer numbers of supporters that a psychopath can sometimes recruit is unbelievable. The “gang mentality” takes over sometimes, and the poor legitimate victim is victimized again by having their reputation besmirched. Sometimes they lose their livelihoods, as well as their self-esteem and self-confidence.

Our reputation is important to most of us, and our self-confidence is also important to us, and the strength of an attack from not only the psychopathic adversary, but their dupes and accomplices as well, can destroy that reputation and self-confidence. Sometimes it destroys lives.

In order to survive this attack, we must first understand that “might (and numbers) does not make right.” We must also understand that we can validate the truth, and that our own validation of that truth may be the only validation that we can obtain. We may not be able to convince “others” that we were not the abuser; we may not be able to publicly verify that we were the one who suffered unjustly. We may not be able to prove in a court of law that we were the victims of a psychopath. We may have to raise our heads and to walk away from the situation, emotionally wounded and bleeding, while we see our abuser “skip off merrily into the sunset,” apparently none the worse for wear.

Life isn’t always “fair” and many times those who most deserve justice seem to get the least of it, but we can achieve closure within ourselves. We can find validation of our own personal truths, and no matter what the “vote” is, it doesn’t change that truth. It can be enough to sustain us.