Where we find psychopaths, we may find accomplices. There are no shortages of individuals who are ready and waiting to champion psychopaths’ causes or support their agendas. This happens in a variety of circumstances and for a variety of reasons. However, if our brushes with psychopathy came by way of romantic involvement, we may have lived through the experience of having been “replaced.” This is common because relationships with psychopaths do not endure. This doesn’t reflect on us, as we probably once thought. Rather, it is merely a phenomenon that comes with the territory.
Initially, we may have been upset or experience sadness and confusion. However, in time, those feelings tend to subside, especially, as we gain information regarding what we were dealing with and just how psychopaths operate.
We may come to feel bad or concerned for our “replacements” because oftentimes, they are much like us. In spite of the fact that we may feel they played a role in some of the breakdown, over time, we come to understand that they were probably placed under the same “spells” we were. Their beginnings probably looked similar to ours, rich with lies and pity plays. We can often predict what their futures hold and may come to see these individuals as the psychopaths’ pawns or new victims, rather than home-wreckers, as we once thought.
However, there are also times when this is simply not the case. The next person may not have been chosen for the same reasons we were. The new person may not be the victim we suspected, but rather, the accomplice. We may have been busy thinking, “Poor Bonnie,” when we should have been thinking “Bonnie and Clyde.”
What lies ahead for us when Clyde meets Bonnie?
If this happens, we should cut our losses, run quickly, and never look back. However, there are some circumstances which prohibit clean breaks. These situations are slightly more challenging, but we can and must learn how to effectively handle them. When psychopaths enlist other individuals to do their dirty work, and this happens consistently, we must brace for a bit of a wild ride. Why? Ask what normal, decent person would want to be an accomplice. A reasonable and healthy person would probably pass on this type of involvement. As a result, dealing with both Bonnie and Clyde can be somewhat exhausting. Wrangling this dysfunctional duo can take practice and patience.
Try to maintain perspective on both of them. This helps immensely as we muddle through completely false accusations, rampant projection, name calling, set up’s, lies, possible police involvement, and potentially even frivolous law suits. Frankly, these examples may only be the tip of the iceberg and we may have to consider our physical safety, as well.
When they launch attacks against us and/or our friends and family members, it will feel wrong and perverse because it is, but we must not lower ourselves in their battles. There may be times when we react in various, less than perfect ways, as we work to grasp what is occurring, but rest assured, time and experience are the best teachers.
How do they choose their accomplices?
Psychopaths look for what they can use in people. Their accomplices fill a need. At the same time, the psychopaths may be filling one or more of their needs too. We must also consider the possibility that they may have personality disorders themselves. Regardless, they tend to feel that they are special or have been chosen for legitimate reasons. In reality, they simply possess usable traits or qualities, just like anyone else psychopaths target.
What does set typical accomplices apart, however, is their propensity for seeing their roles as fun, exciting, or even entertaining, where others would refuse to engage in such behaviors. They may feel that they are helping the psychopaths attain twisted forms of justice. Their roles become obvious, especially in cases where the psychopaths or individuals with psychopathic traits, are legitimately incapable of some of the “work” the accomplices do. If and when we dare question what seems as plain as day, we should be prepared to watch the accusations fly. We must be ready for anything and let nothing surprise us.
What do we do when an accomplice is involved?
We must re-train out brains to think differently than they would in normal situations where we were not repeatedly being manipulated, framed, or harassed. We must accept that the interactions will not be pleasant and realize that “nice” is out of the question. It’s not part of their plan, even if it is what we desire. We must also learn to stop seeking approval from people who do not matter and they do not matter.
They do not like us and that will not change. They are not looking to improve any part of these particular situations at hand, as they may claim, either. Any of our attempts to encourage reasonable communication will fail. The only genuine portion of their agendas is their pursuit of our demise. Therefore, we must examine exactly who we are dealing with and realize the lack of value attached to what they “think.” It’s jumbled and bizarre. Let it go.
Additionally, we must acknowledge that their exchanges are intended to make us look wrong or unstable. Accepting this fact allows us to function without the burden of wondering what’s going on or searching for answers as to why they are doing what they are doing. It’s the disorder speaking. Look no further.
They will likely inform us that we are “sick,” “disturbed,” or “in need of mental help.” We must take it with a grain of salt. They want us to become upset by their behaviors. If we do, they can blame us for our “instability” or “erratic behavior.” Don’t reinforce their false accusations and assertions. Refuse to engage in any form of “back and forth.” It accomplishes nothing productive.
Next, stop, breathe, and steer clear of lengthy defenses. That’s where they want us. We must not allow that. Exercise extreme self control. Over time, as we learn and they no longer matter, this becomes easier. While still feeling emotional or hurt, this may take great effort, but that’s ok. It’s worth it.
Understand that in these situations, we are often faced with two dysfunctional people whose common bond is their hatred for us. Their relationship may have been formed on that hatred or continue to be fueled by it. It’s unfortunate when “settling the score” is the glue, but it happens and it’s a recipe for disaster unless we come understand and act accordingly.
Recognize our strength and give ourselves credit
Though things may seem ridiculous and endless while in the heat of the moment with these folks, we should remind ourselves not to internalize their words or actions. Think about how they look to everyone who is not them or those immediately involved with them. Guaranteed, it’s not “normal.” We must take comfort in who we are. We must believe that even if this enters our world, it need not define us. We should take a moment to recognize our strengths and another to give ourselves credit. We may even get to the point, when we can shake our heads in dismay at their actions and truly pity them (if we care to even spend our time or thoughts on the matter.) It really is sad that anyone would choose to conduct their lives in such fashions.
We should treat ourselves well and keep ourselves healthy, emotionally and otherwise. It is easy for us to get wrapped up in someone else’s “crazy.” However, we should try to get in touch with and then stay in touch with ourselves. We should do the things that make us feel “normal,” like the people we were prior to these experiences. When we do, we are better able to visualize ourselves being more than fine, if we are not already.
Truthspeak,
I don’t envy your position at all. It’s so sickening to imagine “meeting to discuss” anything with them. It reminds me of the deposition day in the small room with all of us closed in around the conference table. Then the “therapeutic interventionist” disregard of the law that there will be no counseling or meetings with a couple when domestic violence is part of the case. Yet I was told I had better comply with the TI’s suggestion/s or risk losing custody of the child. I was on his ‘no contact’ list as a condition of his parole as a verified and validated victim but not one person in the case acknowledged this except his parole officer who’s hands were tied. I learned how irrelevent the victim notification list was. I learned how irrelevent more of my rights were along with learning the child really had no rights.
Fark NO is what I would say.
Linda,
This is such a great article, and another very important subject. Thank you.
I think it’s yet another aspect in the ‘beware the enablers and minions’ theory several people have been writing about. Writers like Hare and Stout describe psychopaths as being solitary, but in my experience they are just as likely to form self-beneficial cliques as anyone else – perhaps more so. If we view someone as a fellow victim and look to them for help when they are in fact a fellow predator, we are in even worse trouble than we know.
Bonnie (of Bonnie and Clyde) is generally considered to have had “hybristophilia”:
suite101.com/article/hybristophilia-a111168
It’s actually referred to as “Bonnie & Clyde Syndrome”. It’s divided into two categories: 1) passive hibristophilia and 2) active hybristophilia.
I think that the latter category is just another example of female psychopathy, which is again all too frequently misdiagnosed. Of course, this can also apply to men. I think how various groups of people display their psychopathy is influenced by culture. OTOH, as women have gained more overt (as opposed to covert) power in our society their violence has likewise been coming out of the closet and becoming more overt, and they have less need to do this these days. Statistics re: growing rates of violent crime by women seem to back this up.
G1S made some references to Karla Homolka on another thread, which the above article also mentions. Karla was first viewed as a battered wife and victim of her serial killer husband (there is a famous picture of her with a ‘contra-coup’ injury (racoon-eyes)) and she got a ridiculously inappropriate plea deal that disgusts Canadians and makes endless headlines (and sells newspapers) to this day 20 years later. When the media blackout about her plea deal was taken off and the details started coming out the story changed and some experts started viewing her as a hybristophiliac.
It’s worth noting that in the forensic pictures taken of Karla in the hospital room, she was wearing a Mickey Mouse watch that she had taken from their last victim (allegedly). In the hospital afterward, where her lawyer was attempting to come up a psychiatric defence for her participation in the crimes, she cheerily introduced her stuffed bear “Bunky” to Sister Josephine, the Carmelite Nun with depression who shared her hospital room. Bunky was the bear she’d given to their second-last victim (who they later dismembered) to ‘comfort’ her as they tortured her.
In both of these situations she was still being viewed as ‘the next victim’, or a fellow victim, when she was in fact (at minimum) the accomplice, and both of the kidnapped victims had appealed to her for help.
You can find much of this information, btw, in the first chapter of the book “Invisible Darkness” by Stephen Williams – available free online at his website. (Just remove the spaces from the address below)
stephenwilliamsbooks.com/html/first_chapter.html
Most of her huband’s former girlfriends had either stopped dating him &/or reported him to the police (he was a budding serial rapist when he first met Karla). But Karla, by all initial accounts his ‘next victim’ actually encouraged him. He was reported to police by many friends and acquaintences, and visited several times by the police, but the existence of his blonde pretty wife always threw them off the track. At the same time, there were several accounts by rape victims of a blonde woman videotaping the rape or distracting &/or waving at rape victims just before they were ambushed – also always discounted by police as being unbelievable. Their last murder victim was kidnapped because it was Karla who made the initial contact by stopping her (in a church parking lot no less) to ask for directions.
One of my favourite (as in, wtf) quotes about Karla is actually from a book by Peter Vronsky “Female Serial Killers”: “”Bernardo ordered Homolka to destroy the pillowcases and blanket stained with Leslie’s blood. Homolka argued that they were her favourite set of bedding. She would carefully wash them instead.”
Karla is now out of jail (she received a 12 year sentence for the rape, murder, sexual torture and dismemberment of three young girls, including her younger sister). She now has three children, has an internet based company selling infant diapers and clothing, spends a huge amount of time on parenting forums (where she’s caused quite a stir amongst the mothers there), and evidence is now coming out that she also teaches young children in a school in Guadeloupe (again, allegedly). And yet she still gets all kinds of support (less so these days, but still significant) by people who still want to view her as yet another victim.
However, people are starting to ask questions about her current husband, who is the father of her three young children. Even casual newspaper readers who support that she MIGHT have been a victim, are asking WHO ON EARTH would knowingly marry, let alone have children with, a convicted sexual serial killer? It’s not as if he wouldn’t know who he was getting involved with; he is her lawyer’s brother. So questions are being asked: is he her next victim, or yet another potential accomplice? Is he now the one with hybristophilia?
This reminds me of how the producer conspired with the pschopath to destroy me. I had to withdraw from the TV show once I realized that he was a psychopath and when the c amera team came to my house with him to film the second part of the show, I was not home, I drove away. They couldn’t film us together and they filmed him alone. Later the producer contacted me and asked me to talk with her in a private skype chat. She promised it was not for the TV. I agreed and I explained that the guy was a psychopath who had damaged me emotionally, psychologically and financially. When I denied her permission to broadcast our conversation she took revenge. She told hiim everything and thet lashed out at me, they tried to sue me for defamation, and take 150000 euros from me and put me in prison for 2 years.
Annie,
when you write about Karla, it throws me for a loop. I wonder if people will ever wake up to this or if the reality is that there are so many spaths in the world, covering each others’ butts, that it doesn’t make any difference any more.
How can anyone see anything but evil in that creature?
The media black out is what enabled her in the first place. How did she manage to get that done?
Without the media and the internet exposing them, they can get away with murder.
Wow. So much here.
Annie, I have never heard of hybristophilia as a term, but I have heard it described so I recognize the condition.
Your links didn’t work for me. Wikipedia had this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybristophilia
I knew that Karla was bad, but I didn’t know she was that bad. I, too, have wondered why some guy would marry her and why she would be permitted to have children.
Eralyn, no I have never heard of Bill Eddy. I checked out him out and his website for the High Conflict Institute. They’re describing Ps! Look at their quote, “High Conflict People aren’t just difficult people – they’re the MOST difficult people.” Donna should add them as a resource to LF.
Linda, I know that you’re not an attorney. It was a DCYF representative who went to family court daily who came forward to tell me that my rights and my son’s had been violated when my P sister attacked us.
Your experience in the court room is very valuable as an observer. You know more of what is going on and why than we could ever hope, and with your repeated exposure to the court dealings alone, you know more than us.
Regarding my son’s P father, my case is assigned an attorney. The attorney represents the state on behalf of our state. We’re involved and matter, of course, but we’re not the lawyer’s main responsibility. They don’t pursue things or look up things on their own. I do all the footwork and supply the documents and information. Most times, I hear no more than necessary from these attorneys. I was very lucky last time to have an attorney who did more than most with these cases. She also communicated with me regularly and answered all my questions.
In the P’s state, the state assigned attorneys have done very little and one time treated the whole matter as a joke. They were insulting the state where we were living at the time. It’s absolutely outrageous what they did, not only to the us, but by wasting the taxpayers’s money.
On the other side of that coin, the attorneys representing the state where we were living communicated with me often and wrote a lot of letters (thank you!) It’s their words that describe what the P has done and is capable of doing, not mine. They wrote things like, “She has very good reason to be concerned that the P will do X, and we are warning you to on alert for this from him.” They were a godsend.
I cannot go and observe a judge. Geographically, we are several states apart. I cannot simply drop in for a day or two. It would be physically impossible. Also, they rotate the judges. Eventually we know who has been assigned to hear the case, but usually the hearing happens soon after. We have never been assigned the same judge twice.
The court order from the hearing the other week arrived today. I’m so tired tonight that I put it to the side. I’ll open and read it tomorrow.
Annie, there is always the “Stockholm Syndrome” situation, for example, Patty Hearst, who was kidnapped, yet after a while she went with them to rob a bank. Participated “willingly” in robbing the bank, as she had Stockholm syndrome, yet she was convicted and sent to prison. (she was later pardoned)
Was she a WILLING accomplice? I doubt that she would have ever robbed a bank if she had not been kidnapped.
What about the women married to the men who kidnapped Jaycee Dugard and Elizabeth Smart? They PARTICIPATED in the kidnap and holding hostage and the rape of these two young women. Are they also victims or are they accomplices?
I can’t remember the name right now but years ago in NYC a lawyer and his wife starved their daughter to death, they both went to prison but eventually the wife was released and given a pardon I think (can’t remember the details but the wife got out in any case) on a Stockholm Syndrome Diagnosis.
I wish I knew how to separate the Stockhlom Syndrome Victims who become accomplices from those that WANT to be accomplices in crime. I think the wisdom of Solomon would be necessary to do so.
You’re thinking of Hedda Nussbaum and Lisa Steinberg, Oxy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedda_Nussbaum
I thought that the Stockholm Syndrome needs to include some kind of physical imprisonment or actually being held physically hostage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_Syndrome
The situation with Nussbaum is that she went to work. She wasn’t held physically hostage. There were people around her who could have helped and she had the freedom to reach out for help. In a Stockholm Syndrome, physical escape is not possible.
Whatever.
If you read the Hedda Nussbaum situation, there were a lot of other sick dynamics going on.
I am sure that there are many types of victims.
Leopold and Loeb is an excellent example of an attorney, Clarence Darrow, presenting the perps as victims (of their eduction and their crime.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_and_Loeb
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/leoploeb/accountoftrial.html
I think that the “Stockholm Syndrome” or the “trauma bond” does *NOT* HAVE TO INCLUDE physical imprisonment, although it was first seen in the hostages of bank robbers in Stockholm…it took place over only a day or so, and one of the hostages even waited til the robber got out of prison to marry him 10 yrs or so later. Odd bonding.
Dr. Carnes’ book “The Betrayal Bond” covers all aspects of the trauma bond which I think also accounts for why most slaves didn’t try to escape from bondage, or revolt when they outnumbered the owners by 3 to 1 or more.
It also accounts for why a child who is abused will defend that parent, or why a woman who is being beaten by a man, when the cops show up and try to arrest him, she will turn and attack the cops.
I was just reading an article about women whose husbands are in prison and how they are encouraged to stay the course, and be “supportive” of their mates in prison….of course this is for the benefit of the STATE, not the benefit of the individual women….all under the name of “family reunification” and this **high minded principle** that the “family” should be together. (Excuse me while I puke!) Of course there is no consideration that a full 25% of these men are card-carrying psychopaths who are many also bi-polar and ADHD as well as addicts….but yea, they need to be reunited with their women and kids….and those that are NOT fully psychopathic are on average a score of 22 on the PCL-R so yea, we REALLY want them to be involved in “family reunification” when they get out of prison, for the sakes of the children of course, who really need the love and guidance of a “father” in their lives. (excuse me, got to go puke again!)
So the women and kiddies on the outside spend their time going to visit daddy in the joint, and sending money to him for commissary, and living in fear that if they talk to some other man on the outside that one of his buddies on the outside will find out and either hurt the woman or hurt the man.
There are about 2 million men and women in prison in the US right now, and about another 5 million on parole or probation so there are a great many women (mostly) and parent and sibs who are trapped and trauma bonded to these convict/criminals. To say nothing of the children.
Sounds like the incarceration “support” is like the military spousal support system, meaning the powers-that-be won’t or can’t spring for certain expenses so they’ll let the families provide them regardless of what it does to the family members.
I bet that arose the same way that the military system did-the authorities didn’t have the support systems (money and means) to provide so either the family did or the individual was in trouble. We need to remember that these attitudes go back to Greek and Roman times.
Sounds like we need to modernize a lot of things.
I don’t think trauma bond and the Stockholm Syndrome are one and the same. Maybe the Stockhold Syndrome is a subset of trama bonding?
Anyway, it was interesting when I was reading about Leopold and Loeb that they wanted to get Sigmund Freud to testify at the trial, but he was too ill to travel.
Silly me! I just looked up the The Betrayal Bond. I have a copy of it. I bought it used from Amazon, and when I got it, somebody had marked it up a lot inside.
I didn’t read read it because I felt like I was violating somebody’s privacy. That’s was whenever I got the book. Don’t feel that way now so I know what I will be doing tonight. Thanks. 🙂
OK, here’s a little that I just read in it.
“Trauma bonding thrives when the system reverses its victim, victimizer, and rescuer roles.”…”Remember the fundamental premise: Attachment deepens with terror.”
Boy, does that sound ripe for Ps creating legions of supporters or what?
….Yes, and also on intensity, secrecy, and deception. The seduction, the promise, the story. The higher calling, (for instance, the duty to defend our country), the betrayal, anre-framing of the story, (the re-seduction), and then, another betrayal.
Skylar, G1S’s quote from, “The Betrayal bond, above, brings to mind Girards theory of “reciprical violence”, and fits right in with the idea that dysfunctional family members play musical chairs, with one chair marked “victim”, one marked “perpetrator”, and one marked, “rescuer”…..except, that, to Girard, the three chairs exist within each and every member in the system…inside them….not outside, and not as chair.
Remember, that to Girard, the scape-goat, or victim, is both the toxin, and the cure. He is both foul, and sacrid.
Anyway, just tying disimilar school’s of thought together. I find it all preatty fascinating.