Jimmy Savile was one of the most well-know stars of British television. Everyone knew he was eccentric and many people apparently knew he was also a sexual predator who targeted young girls for decades.
Jimmy Savile scandal on BBC.co.uk.
‘If we blabbed on Jimmy, the family would have been left with nothing’: Savile’s abused great niece tells how paedophile DJ bought his relatives’ silence, on DailyMail.co.uk.
Britain’s Jimmy Savile abuse scandal: how could his crimes have gone unnoticed for so long? on WashingtonPost.com.
Links supplied by a Lovefraud reader.
[youtube_sc url=http://youtu.be/6nHDZfSl36g]
Star, I think Sky means the initial moment of the start of attraction. Spaths will cross a boundary: incessant staring, coming in your physical boundary even though there is plenty of room in a non-dating setting… it’s completely normal for our body to feel somewhat heightened anxiety at that instant. But then nothing bad happens, there’s no bad follow up. This is confusing to the target. So right after anxiety comes the feeling of relief. The victim will feel somewhat silly and even wonder “why the hell did I feel anxious?” And because the boundary crossing seems so benign and subtle, the target ends up thinking “Maybe I felt anxious because I’m attracted to them?”
So it’s the initial, first interaction moment Sky is talking about, and it lasts but a few secs.
Also a trauma bond always involves 2 emotions: first – the moment of anxiety, anxiousness, fear, momentarily instinctive threat, and then second – relief and safety. The problem is that the target will blame themselves for the moment of anxiety, wave it off as silliness; but will ascribe the safety feeling to the spath. So, something like “I’m a silly goose. He makes me feel so safe!”
Last year in the summer in Peru: the trekking guide used this trick to me by suddenly stepping in my physical boundary out of the blue, for no possible excuse. I ended up thinking I must be attracted to him. Oh and I felt safe the whole four days with him on the trail. Then he let me and my whole group down by breaking his promise. I did a short background check: he was married and had a daughter. And yet he had lied about that to people in my group while I was within earshot.
The ex-spath before I was romantically involved with him: second and third night I was in his company: he knew I was angry over him going off with our money and not returning for hours. The night he met me again, he led me outside of the bar (and hadn’t informed me that was his intent, just wrapped his arm around me, led me downstairs, then outside, and then around the corner). The moment he unexpectedly led me around the corner, at night, and still hadn’t explicitly explained to me what he was up to, into an empty street, I realized suddenly this could become an unsafe situation. But then he just tried his card on the ATM and told me he couldn’t draw any money right then (which of course he knew), and led me back inside. That was a trauma bond moment: for a moment I felt a spike of anxiety, but then I felt silly and safe again by him. More, that same night was the night he ended up giving me the predator stare. Again a small sec moment of uncomfortableness, but since it all seemed benign after all it made me feel safe again. And towards the end of the night he took it upon himself to tell me towards closing time: “Perhaps you should go home now,” and as I left he made sure I knew he was watching over me from afar from the bar.
The night afterwards: he picked me up from the bar again where I was with my friends telling me he wanted to introduce his latest swiss friends to me, who were having a party in their room. Same scenario, just arrived, put his arm around me (and that felt as safe as could be), led me downstairs and outside of the bar, without me barely even knowing what was going on. Nor was this meeting planned for me. Then he was driving a car, asked me to get in, and took an unnecessary detour to the dodgy side of town. The moment he stopped there, again I felt a sec of anxiety about his intentions and plans. It was there he gave me the money back, before turning around and going to these tourists.
Again, that’s a trauma bond moment. But what did I remember? That he made me feel safe, that he took care of me, etc…
Trauma bonding doesn’t mean being frightened and anxious all the time: but having a hurtful, fearful or anxious moment for but a fraction of a time and then the abuser being generous, kind, forgiving, caring.
Hmmm….I never had that moment of anxiety. As I mentioned, the fear and anxiety came after I found out what he was. I was probably a little “put off” by the initial invasive closeness, but once I spoke up about it, it stopped. And then it felt very good and natural. But looking back, I remember the exact moment I met him and the entire first day spent with him. There was not the least bit of anxiety. Perhaps mine was just a minor spath. lol
Star,
Darwinsmom explained it pretty well. The first instant was frightening, then the single flower, then he walked away with his dog. When he came back the next day to ask me out, I was frightened again and said no, but when he offered to fix my car, I said “what the heck” and handed him my keys without even asking his name. He uses a really kindly tone of voice. I feared him before he spoke but not after.
Then, there were moments when I felt fear throughout the relationship, but I didn’t acknowledge it as fear. I can see now that the reason why I didn’t react to so many WTF? moments is because I knew it wasn’t safe to do so. It’s why I tore up my diary and threw it into a dumpster (not my own garbage can). It’s why I hid the book, “the people of the lie” while reading it. It’s why I didn’t react when we saw an APB out for a truck matching his truck’s description. Now, in the aftermath, many people have said to me, “I always knew he was someone you wouldn’t want to cross.”
With other spaths, I get moments of fear, intermixed with moments of feeling safe, too. The fear feels unreasonable, but that’s because it’s coming from the gut.
Funny, I never got that fear.
I have been in a few situations where I just felt something was wrong and the people were dangerous. It was a gut feeling, and I just got out. But I did not get that with the spath.
I can’t really say I felt anything I’d describe as fear. As I said, I barely have a panic zone. In those instances it was more of a sudden realization that this possible was not a safe situation and I felt cautious. A short spike of adrenaline followed, which was often instantly releaved again.
I have felt more anxious around men who aren’t spaths at all, anxious about rejection or them breaking my heart. But that wasn’t a trauma bond. I never felt that type of anxiety with the spath in the initial period, and certainly not until the last months of the relationshit (when it became fear of loss).
The trauma bonding anxiety with the spath had mostly to do with my physical safety. And yes, the first time I ever noticed him (a week before he ever noticed me) I had a gut feeling he was dangerous and decided to stay clear of him. But I ended up in his company anyway, and my explorative, studying nature got the better of me. He became aware of this and ended up putting a mark on my forehead because of it.
OMG Darwinsmom… You’ve just explained that nagging feeling I had during the beginning of my relationshit. I described it as feeling paralyzed. I had this nagging feeling that was eating me up inside day and night, something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t put my finger on what. (Feeling of fear was not present before the relationshit ended- then it all came.) When he was attentive and sweet, the relief as you said came rushing over me, it felt familiar ergo safe. My friends said it was the feeling of being in love, but I’ve been in love several times before and it did not feel like that at all. I brushed it of as me being silly. I accepted the fact that I just might be in love after all, even if it didn’t feel like it. I was charmed yes, but for me to be in love after such short time, is not usually like me.
I had several times difficulties figuring out if I really loved him, something which enmeshed it all even more and I felt so guilty. He said “I love you” after knowing eachother only for two weeks and he really pushed me into saying it back. I wanted to slow things down and let it come naturally, but he pity played it and nagged me about it every single available moment. He even gave me tears… (can you believe it?) It tore me apart. I felt forced into something that didn’t feel natural or real to me. He could send me 40-50 text a day with only “I love you” texts and when I didn’t say it back he texted even more. It became easier for me to just say it so he would slow down a bit and give me space to breathe. The danger was, when I said it my self 40-50 times a day, I started to believe it. Still to this day I wonder if I really did love him, if it was the trauma bond or brainwashing.
After I’ve finally said what he wanted to hear, he moved on to the moving in together. After only ap. 4-6 weeks in I had a cohabitant. And so did the drama continue. For each time I gave in, a new topic came up. Non which felt natural to me. It all went way too fast, but when he started to talk about the future I felt relief. It felt so nice to have somebody to share my life with, a someone who wanted the same things as me and I let the anxiety go. That was until the stress had gotten to me and my world span so fast around til it finally came tumbling down. Then I also got that fear of loss…which confused me even more.
Wow, unbelievable… aha moment striking hard and confusing.
Sunflower – danger and attraction often go hand in hand, but for different reasons… We even have an expression that links the two “the danger of falling in love”. The easier you are prone to fall in love early (I am such a person) the more you’re used to linking a spike of anxiety with attraction and falling in love. But that’s the fear of falling too hard too quickly, the fear of being overwhelmed by your own feelings for someone.
With spaths initially it’s not as much your own feelings that are overwhelming, but them actively overwhelming you: lovebomb and boundary crossing. Both those things can render a spike of anxiousness, which they then releave as well. And in her or his mind the target ends up confusing the cause of being overwhelmed, and link it to attraction and falling in love.
Hmm, this is hard to take in. This is a new line of thought for me.
That was a fear I was unaware of, until today… Wow… Yes you are right, come to think of it, I was terrified of falling in love because of what happened with spath #1. I wanted to take it slowly and at the same time, I’d been single for so long that the loneliness was getting to me.
And then the overwhelming from spath #2.
Oh my… suddenly I got the answers to the complexity that tormented me for months…
THANK YOU!
Me, too. Lightbulb momentssssssss!!!! Thanks!!!!
I know now why I bonded to him the way I did. For 2 1/2 years I searched for this answer. This has been a God send.
In the Boy Scouts, Charles “Jackie” Walls III preyed on boys for over 20 years, they think the total number exceeded over 1500 individual boys, as well as got one boy who had “told” to then kill his family. Which the young boy did and that crime which was solved eventually led to “Jackie” being charged and convicted.
Pedophiles are the most determined criminals that I think the psychopathic world contains, and I do believe that all pedophiles are psychopaths.
Recently with the Jerry Sandusky thing and reminding my living history group that even though we had had a former member who went to prison for child pornography and then got out and rejoined our group, that we might want to look at some CHILD SAFETY POLICIES for our group. Even something as simple as on the application form a box to check that said “I have never been convicted of child abuse or a crime of a sexual nature.”
Or a policy similar to the BSA policy of there always being two adults with a child not just one.
From the responses I got on the blog You would have thought I that I had suggested that every member MOLEST A CHILD. I have never in my life seen such a negative response from people that I thought would WELCOME such a suggestion not totally revolt against even the thought.
We’ve had some pretty unpleasant members and at times some who behaved in totally inappropriate ways. One man was very homophobic and would try to run men out of a public park where we presented programs if they were walking in the park. This same man pointed an antique gun at me (but none the less a REAL gun) as a joke, and I prosecuted him criminally for terroristic threatening. I did not take it lightly. He was eventually found with his mother’s body—she had been dead two or more weeks—and he was still living in the house with her. None of our group has seen him since that arrest.
We also had the man who was arrested for child pornography and sent to federal prison. He came back to join our group and work at the historical museum in Little Rock. He was hired there without a back ground check of any kind. AFter I informed the director that he was on parole and for what, he was fired.
There was a big fight in our group about “kicking him out” as the president of the board said “well, he’s paid his debt to society”—welllll, noooooooo, he has NOT paid his debt to society where kids are concerned, and nooooo he had NOT been convicted of TOUCHING a kid but he had been convicted of illegal pictures and to me that means he should NOT be a volunteer in a group that works with kids.
True, we generally work with kids in group settings, but…..we also work iin parks where it would be easy for someone to lead a kid off into the woods alone.
So if nothing else, the policy would make people THINK more if they see Joe Blow taking kids off into the woods. We have also had other “creepy” guys who were always trying to get what many of us felt was “too friendly” with the 13 and 14 year old girls who are children of members and participated in activities.
(head shaking here) I just don’t understand people sometimes.