By Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired)
I recently read this article in the New York Times about Lance Armstrong. Armstrong is a world famous cyclist and well known “do-gooder” with his “Live Strong” website, which purports to tell others how to “Live Well and Live Strong.” Armstrong is a survivor of cancer. Testicular cancer is a “young man’s” disease and one that I sought to teach my college-aged patients about when I worked as a director of student health. I also have a close friend who is now a middle-aged man who is also a survivor of testicular cancer. It is a horrible disease.
Details of doping scheme paint Armstrong as leader
It has been rumored for years that Armstrong was “doping—”using stored blood for reinfusion before races and/or taking drugs. Only now is the vast amount of evidence coming out about just how prevalent this was for not only Armstrong, but for his teammates as well.
One of the things that stuck out in the article to me was the following quote:
But the evidence put forth by the antidoping agency drew a picture of Armstrong as an infamous cheat, a defiant liar and a bully who pushed others to cheat with him so he could succeed, or be vanquished.
I can’t say from what I know about Armstrong’s vigorous narcissistic self-promotion as a “philanthropist” and a “do-gooder,” or from the above quote, that Armstong is a psychopath. But I can say that if the above quote accurately describes him as a cheat, a defiant liar and a bully, that Armstrong is displaying some of the traits that we know are found in a psychopath’s behavior.
People who lie, cheat and bully are not the kind of people that we want in our lives. It is unfortunate when people who hold themselves up as role models for others, and for our young people, actually lie, cheat and bully those around them. Yet they are seen as “successful role models” for our young people.
Jerry Sandusky
Jerry Sandusky also held himself up as a role model and philanthropist, as well as a person of high morality. He was still a defiant liar as he was sentenced this week after being convicted of sexual abuse of multiple young children.
Sandusky gets 30 to 60 years for sexual abuse
“His statement today was a masterpiece in banal self-delusion, completely untethered from reality and without any acceptance of responsibility,” said Joseph E. McGettigan III, the lead prosecutor. “It was entirely self-focused, as if he, him, were the victim. It was, in short, ridiculous.”
Judge Cleland deemed Mr. Sandusky’s statement “unbelievable.”
Of course Armstrong’s “crimes” were not probably as damaging to our youth as Sandusky’s were to his victims. The point is that people who are high in disordered traits lie in the face of evidence against them. Dr. Robert Hare says psychopaths will “lie when the truth would fit better.” The lie when the evidence of their behavior is unequivocal.
Covering up
I could go on and name hundreds of media heroes who have been brought down from the heights of fame and fortune by having their bad acts and their highly psychopathic behavior exposed. The shame I think, though, is that there are way too many people who are in the limelight whose behavior is known among those close to them, just like Armstrong’s and Sandusky’s behaviors were known. Yet those people kept silent about it.
Why are people who know about such horrific behavior as the rape of young boys (such as Paterno knew) willing to sacrifice honor (at the very least) to protect a football program, or a racing team, or a priest who is abusing children? I wish I knew the answer to that, but I don’t.
What I do know, though, is that there are too many times that I have kept my mouth shut ”¦ kept the family secrets, or even lied to cover them up. So I, too, am guilty of covering up for those that have done evil. But I have made the decision to never again do so.
Speaking up….when my sperm donor P died, he made sure that it was in his will that I didn’t get diddly and two of my three half sibs were also left out BY NAME from the will….and he was an EXTREMELY rich man (made the forbes 400 one year before the dot com billionaires) but anyway, he left it all to his mini-me clone P son, the youngest who thinks he was wonderful…but I realized that if he had left me $100 million dollars, I would have GIVEN IT ALL AWAY to some charity that he would have HATED. I didn’t want his blood money…his 7th wife died before he did, and 2 of the other 6 made out like bandits (good for them) and the first 4 were SOL…the mother of his other 3 kids, he hit her on the BACK of the head hard enough to black both her eyes…her brain bounced off the front of her skull from the blow on the back is why the eyes blackened. She left the country the next day, leaving her children behind. She never saw them again as far as I know. He wouldn’t let her on fear of her life.
As far as your sibs getting all of mommy’s bling…let them choke on it, you did what you thought was RIGHT and that is all that matters.
I have made the decision to remain NC with my egg donor, but she is not without resources to hire people to care for her so she isn’t lying in a gutter somewhere. I will not be at her memorial service and neither will be my sons C or D…I have already grieved the loss of our relationship while she was alive, and funerals are for the living not those who are dead and I have no more need to grieve the loss of the woman I thought was my mother, that woman is gone. I grieved for her for several years, but have come to acceptance. Just like I grieved for the loss of my son Patrick, and the loss of the relationship I wanted with son C, I’ve come to acceptance of what IS, not grieving over what I WISH WAS.
hens,
I saw him on HLN talking about his hobbys, fast cars and cycling. I only caught part of it but he seemed very pleased Lance Armstrong is no longer involved in one of his favorite sports. Made me wonder.
The whole Armstrong debacle can be boiled down to one thing: celebrity. Our culture places so much value on “celebrity” rather than integrity – win at all costs, right? Football, baseball, gymnastics, etc…..it’s all about the “WIN” and not about integrity.
Speaking_Up, I can identify with your sadness at being a feeling, caring person and having those qualities ground into the dirt. I’m also hyper-sensitive to others and this was one of the myriad “lessons” that I’m beginning to learn as a result of my experiences. There really IS such a thing as “caring too much.”
When I type that, I’m recollecting both spath marriages and the platonic spaths that I’ve encountered over my lifetime. I cared. I made no secret that I cared, either. My willingness to “feel” so deeply for other people’s pain and triumphs was one of the qualities that spaths were able to exploit because I “cared” and “felt” about other people, FIRST, before I cared about myself.
An example of this was my observations of how emotionally abusive and cold the second exspath’s mother was to the victim father. I’ve never seen anyone so cold and hateful to their partner, in public, and I “felt” horrible for this man. He was not validated, on any leve, and even his own medical conditions were minimized and treated as if they were this enormous inconvenience. I “felt” so badly for him and translated that feeling to the exspath – what kind of childhood must HE have endured? Etc., ad nauseum.
This “caring” and “feeling” was manipulated into a very effective weapon that the expath employed to coerce me into agreeing to a host of stupid decisions.
SO, having typed that, it’s a wonderful quality to maintain empathy and understanding for others, it really is. But, for me, it came to a point where I placed OTHERS ahead of my own concern for myself, and these predators capitalize on this. I can still maintain empathy, feeling, and caring for others, but I have to really, REALLY ramp it down and put myself – my own recovery and needs – ahead of caring for others. This is something that I’m just now learning to recognize and managing the “hypersensitivities” and empathy is a new exercise for me. I don’t much like it, because it’s out of character for me, but it’s necessary to do this to form boundaries for myself and for others.
Then, too….I can see that the hypersensitivity was developed by the wounded “inner child.” If I was, at all, selfish (on any level), it was not acceptable or approved of. Therefore, I was not accepted and approved of. So, to meet someone else’s approval and acceptance, this sensitivity and caring was spun into overdrive.
Speaking_Up, thank you for sharing your painful recollections. I can imagine how sad and “jilted” you must feel, especially because Wills and bequeathments seem to hold so much value. Like OxD said, it’s “blood money” in the cases of spaths and ppaths. They hold MONEY over people’s heads like a smelt being offered to a sea lion. If you’re GOOD and enabling and a constant supply source, you will be “rewarded” with money. Well, it’s bullshit.
Brightest comforting blessings
Well here is one of the latest articles on the BIG BOY SCOUT COVER UP in LA.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ushome/index.html
I listened to a story about this on NPR yesterday and the people who called in, both adult leaders of today and of longer ago and talked about how things had changed. Since my son D works for BSA I am somewhat familiar with their policies and how things actually work in PRACTICE…one of the reasons I am such a hard nosed arse about people who abuse children was the all time “world champion” BSA abuser was Charles “jackie” Walls III who was the son of a close friend of our family’s and whose wife and kids and sister went to a small church with us….he raped over 1500 kids over a 20 year period. He is now in prison where he will remain until he takes his last breath with not a soul to visit him or send him a dime to buy a thing in commissary to make his incarceration a bit more bearable.
I knew Jackie was an arse but I never for one second realized what he REALLY was…and I’ve known a couple of others who went to prison, were arrested, or should have been hung….and that’s the thing, it is hard for the rest of us to even IMAGINE what they are, even if they don’t have such a wonderful mask that we like them, it just never dawns on us that they would molest children.
Actually I am glad to see MORE reports of molestation and teachers, ministers, etc. being arrested not because I think it is happening more often, but because I THINK THERE IS MORE REPORTING GOING ON. I think the cover ups are decreasing. At least I hope so.
Ever heard of Jan Fabre?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Fabre
He got into the news yesterday which displays a shocking callousness on the wellfare for animals (not that surprising though). The end of the wiki article names the event.
At the city hall of Antwerp a film crew was busy with shooting scenes for a Jan Fabre movie. City council people started to hear howling of cats that went on and on, so they went out to find out what the hell was going on: they were throwing cats in the air. Yup those cats landed on their feet again, hard though. None was actualy physically harmed. But they obviously didn’t appreciate it, and it would have been a traumatic repeated and purposeful manhandling of the cats.
The politicians of the city council were shocked and tried to find out what to do about it (they wouldn’t have been filming there without getting a permit for it), but it were part of the crew themselves that stopped the event in disgust, by shutting down the lights.
City council is now looking into legal repercussions of this, because there are special regulations in getting a permit to film animals (including getting an ok from wellfare organisations). And they obviously had not made such a special request, nor informed the city hall of the use of animals.
Jan Fabre was present during the filming: he was dancing in a Fred Astaire costume a level higher, something he did already in the 80s, based on a Salvaor Dali performance (the movie is about all the stuff he’s done since the 70s). What does he have to say: “Well they’re all unharmed. After I saw the rushes I called immediately, and the cats are all fine and happy” and he thinks that the city council is exaggerating if they want to make a case out of this, and btw he claims his work is a homage to animals.
This “artist” is hailed all over the world for his modern daring art… meanwhile this guy’s narcissism make me puke, and his callous responses about the cats reveals his total lack of empathy.
Darwinsmom, callous, indeed. And, another screaming example of a “GLIB” response.
GLIB….it took me a long, long, long time to understand what this meant and how it related to toxic people.
I was just thinking over he said/she said. What’s the issue with that? Somebody has to be making the statements.
The other two choices are he said/he said or she said/she said.
Would we quibble over them?
My guess is sexism would prevail. A he said/he said situation would be taken seriously. A she said/she said scenario would be dismissed as trivial.
Darwin’s mom—to answer your question…NOPE never heard of him. And after your article I don’t care to hear much of anyhting about him.
Jan Fabre? never heard of him, wonder if he would land on his feet if somebody threw him up in the air?