By Joyce Alexander, RNP (Retired)
I was reading an article about Steve Jobs’ new biography that came out this past week, and some of the stories about his life. There is no doubt in my mind that Steve Jobs was one of the smartest and most savvy guys in the Twentieth Century. The inventions that he fostered or personally thought of have changed our society and our culture, and remarkably changed the communication field. An amazing man!
You may have read the title of this article and are already wondering how Steve Jobs was killed by a “psychopath.” Jobs died of the terminal stages of pancreatic cancer. He was diagnosed with this very serious form of cancer. Apparently, according to what I read, it was a slower growing kind of this cancer, and if he had had surgery right then, there is a good chance that he might have actually effected a cure and be alive even today.
That wasn’t what Steve chose to do, though ”¦ he chose to deny the seriousness and the urgency to take drastic action immediately to exorcise the tumor out of his system. He did not essentially “go NO CONTACT” with the toxic, malignant entity that had silently invaded his body. As smart as Jobs was, and even though he had access to the best and most knowledgeable physicians in the world, he did not take the “appropriate action” to have the surgery. Jobs told his biographer that he did “not want to be cut open like that.” He later regretted that decision and even realized that it may have cost him his life.
His biographer says that he ultimately saw that the colon cleansing and other “new age” treatments did nothing for him, and nine months after he turned down after recommended surgery, Jobs finally decided to have it—what is called a “Whipple procedure” to remove the tumor. It was too late; he had missed that narrow “window of opportunity” in which he could have saved his life. He “got a divorce” from the tumor too late, the damage had been done. Though Steve Jobs fought valiantly for the next decade, the ultimate “win” by the psychopathic cancer was a foregone conclusion. He had failed to excise the cancer from his life while it was small.
Psychopaths as cancers
Too many times, I see psychopathic relationships with “malignant” individuals, and like cancers, they may grow inside us without being detectable as toxic until one day, even before we know they are toxic, the fatal damage has been done. Or, we may get a chance recognize them and to excise them when they are “small” in relationship to the rest of our lives. We can remove them without leaving large scars or holes in our lives. If we get this chance to remove the “malignant” people from our lives and we, like Steve Jobs, decide on a “want and see” plan, we allow them to grow and infiltrate our lives more fully, so that if and when we do decide to “surgically” remove them from our lives, the hole and the scars that they leave is much larger and more debilitating than if we had “done the surgery” when the situation wasn’t quite so ingrown.
Jesus talked about “if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, if thy hand offend thee, cut it off,” and went on to analogize that it is better to live a life with one eye or one hand than to live in “hell” with two eyes or two hands. Sometimes I think the “surgery” necessary to remove the psychopathic personality from our lives is very much like “plucking out your own eye” or “cutting off your own hand” with a rusty butcher knife. But the point of the situation is that in order to live a good life, or in some cases to live at all, we must make the hard decision to excise the toxic person, or the malignant tumor, from our lives as soon as we know what they are. Waiting around, treating this toxic, malignant issue with “kindness and love,” isn’t going to remove it from our lives or our bodies, or change it into something benign. We must take drastic and surgical action to remove this malignant person from our lives completely.
Removing those around the psychopath
That may also mean taking out the “lymph nodes” of the people around the cancerous person, just like the doctor will remove lymph nodes from around a breast containing cancer where that malignancy has spread into those nodes so that they, in turn, don’t spread the toxin to the rest of the body. It is unfortunate but true that a toxic psychopath will frequently have spread their lies and toxins to other people around us that we may also love ”¦ their families, our mutual friends, etc. A “cure” from the toxic psychopath may require us to be NC with those people too, and excise them from our lives as well. The longer the psychopath has been in our lives and the more deeply involved, the more likely this will be necessary. Failing to “bite the bullet” and do this as well may result in a recurrence of the malignancy this person leaves in our lives.
Steve Jobs was a significant personality in our culture. Of course there is no guarantee that if he had elected to have the surgery sooner rather than later, that he would have lived longer or better, but I can guarantee that living with a psychopathic person longer, or trying every “alternative” cure, except total surgical removal, isn’t going to improve your life in any way.
I think even in his death, Steve Jobs left us one more important thing ”¦ a lesson for anyone involved with a toxic relationship of any kind.
SKY – i look for wisdom. not sure how i would define ‘maturity’, but here is how i define wisdom in therapists/ counselors:
the ability to work with the client to reach the CLIENT’S goals (client centred and directed therapy);
no active addiction;
the ability to listen deeply and hear the echoes of words and sentiments;
the ability to see the lines between the points;
the ability to be deeply present and responsive to a client in fear or rage and/ or extreme states;
the ability to understand that validation of the client’s experience is part of the process that will bring about growth in the client;
being ‘real’ – compassion, groundedness;
eye contact, empathy;
intelligence;
warmth.
think that’s about it. and the MSW i saw fit a whole lot of this. just now sure what her skills are.
the psychologist, asked me questions i wouldn’t tell anyone the answer to on first meeting. Therapy is a different paradigm, but my boundaries with counselors includes the earning of trust before some things are shared.
nope, don’t think this one will work out.
I just cannot believe seeing this article here, and wonder why you would publish it. I thought it was going to report that Jobs was under the influence of a psychopathic natural healer or doctor — but no, cancer itself is supposedly the “psychopath” and Jobs didn’t go “no contact” on it fast enough.
Well, I’m a survivor of cancer, by natural means. I have stared down a person in a white lab coat, Upper Manhattan, Mount Sinai Hospital, smarter-than-you with the degrees to prove it, screaming at me at close range that I was “so irresponsible!” for getting a second opinion on a procedure she wanted done, and deciding to wait. (I actually decided to get that procedure done, in a safer way, and waiting was not a problem.) I was even “fired” by the oncologist she sent me to, for even asking questions about it.
Hm. I’m guessing you don’t think these people are sociopaths, and I don’t, either — just jerks — but I think they’re part of a sociopathic system called cancer treatment and research. This is a field full of fraud and professional socipaths that is reported almost weekly by now, and every person has a right to make decisions based on the best information they can get.
As a person of some wealth and intelligence, Jobs had a lot of access to that. Whether he used this access wisely, or made all the right decisions, is a matter of debate. We can’t possibly know all the variables that went into it. And he reportedly had regrets. Obviously. He died.
To be honest, I cannot even tell you what worked for me. It could have been any number of things, or just one thing. But taking charge of my own health, making my own choices, was, I believe, central to my healing.
This article reduces all the possible approaches Jobs might have tried to “New Age” “colon cleanses.” It cheaply exploits the fear of anything anal or poopy, without the need to cite any data at all. And it distorts the breadth and depth of new approaches to cancer out there. Basically, a person is a nut job if they refuse mainstream treatments.
Also, I’d like the writer to reveal her career history related to cancer treatment, pharmaceutical companies, and mainstream hospitals, doctors, and research. How does she make her living? Does this livelihood depend on how well mainstream and surgical approaches to cancer are perceived?
And by the way, I last read that the success rate of that new kind of surgery for pancreatic cancer is 9.5 years. That’s how long Jobs lived after his diagnosis — part of that time running one of the most successful companies in American history.
And by the way also, I am losing my childhood best friend to just those mainstream approaches this article recommends. She indeed went “no contact” on her cancer — and in the process, abandoned common sense and what her body truly needed. For example, her one lament when she went on chemo was that she would have to give up Diet Coke.
Who was giving her all this false hope that she could live like that and get better through pharmaceuticals? My grief is so deep I can barely sob. I watch “Breaking Bad” — about a cancer patient going totally badass — just to vent the anger and helplessness I feel. My beloved Ginny, that impish little girl who teased the boys at age six . . . pretty darned submissive these days, I’d say. Pretty much had the stuffing kicked out of her. By the nicest people, I’m sure.
You’ve reported elsewhere on this site that magical thinking, religious thinking, is fertile ground for sociopaths. Consider the magical thinking of believing that chemicals, tested through clinical studies routinely exposed as fraudulent these days — chemicals previously unknown to the human body will rid a body of cancer. Magic potions. What’s in that stuff?
Sociopaths are not cancers. Sociopaths are people. I come here to share the difficult personal transformation I have had to go through to escape such monsters. I have come to believe, whether you agree or not, that cancers also respond to personal transformations. It’s been my experience, that’s all. Part of that transformation has been to question the trust I put in certain institutions, like doctors. I can’t say I have all the answers, but I know I have a right to continue exploring. And Steve Jobs had that same right, the most un-sociopathic right I can imagine asserting.
I advise anyone within earshot to explore different approaches to cancer, because the Internet is right here and you have a brain. You CAN sort through the flaky theories to get to what works, and ask for the evidence of that success. Just like with a sociopath, actions — results — speak louder than words.
In response to a remark about “cancerous” relationships, above: Now you’re hitting pay dirt. Now you’re talking. And I didn’t see any discussion in that article of Jobs’ penchant for angry outbursts, his absence from the company for a while because of his inability to play with others, his failure to connect with his biological father who tragically had to allow him to be given up for adoption because he was non-white (Jordanian), his own denial of his own love child, and on and on. The guy had issues, a tough journey to fight his way through, and that’s part of holistic cancer treatment, especially as regards pancreatic cancer. You don’t just take a couple of herbs and do a few cleanses and wake up healed.
Sistersister,
I think you are reading more into the article than what I intended, and I’m sorry if you are offended. As far as Steve Jobs being a dysfunctional arsehole, I don’t think there is much doubt about that being the case….but the point of the article was not about Jobs being a psychopath or not, but AN ANALOGY about cutting toxic and malignant people out of our lives.
I am “main stream medicine” trained, but I of all people also know that “mainstream medicine” does not have the answer to everything.
I have a cousin (actually had as she finally died) who went for cancer surgery and when they opened her up, they didn’t even bother, they closed her back up and sent her home to die in what they thought would be a day or two, being fed through the veins….a year and a half later, she called the doctor and asked if he would hook her intestines back up so she could eat. When she went back for colonoschopy reattachment surgery they could find NO CANCER…. not even any sign of it. She healed entirely by SELF, “miracle,” or whatever you want to call it. She even went back to work and lived another 5 or 6 years before finally having a recurrence of cancer and dying.
I’m glad that you had successful cancer treatment, whatever that treatment was, but I was in NO way trying to make light of anything anyone chooses to do. Each of us owns our own bodies and make our own choices about how we treat our bodies, what we do about our health. Steve Jobs had a RIGHT to make the choice he did, I think it probably cost him his life because he delayed, but he had that RIGHT. I think that NO CONTACT WITH A PSYCHOPATHIC PERSON IS THE RIGHT CHOICE TOO, but each of us has to make our own decision on that, we also have to live with the consequences of our decisions.
One/Joy,
I do NOT appreciate you putting thoughts into my head or words into my mouth, you do NOT have the power to read my mind or always predict my behavior:
QUOTE: you will probably once again say, ’oh one joy was raw and blah blah’ as a way to not actually engage about this in any meaningful way. then you will avoid me for a while. thinking and saying here that you don’t take offense because you know it isn’t ’you.’
So I am engaging with you in a way that is meaningful to me, I am telling you that your above quote is VERY OFFENSIVE TO ME.
OK peeps, settle down, please. I personally think that Steve’s cancer was caused by his narcissism and his rage. Bottled up emotions are extremely detrimental.
I’m BIG on alternative medicine because I was abused by doctors for years when I was looking for a way out of my pain from being poisoned and I did better by myself than with doctors of ANY KIND. But the article wasn’t about that. It was a comparison of cancer with spaths. and it was a good comparison. There are many MORE comparisons that could be done which would also work.
For example, if I wanted to write one on how holistic medicine cures cancer and compare it to using holistic methods for eliminating the spaths in your life, I would mention that gray rock is like holistic medicine. By changing the way your body works, we can sometimes make the body inhospitable to cancer. By becoming more healthy in our ways of thinking and by processing our emotions, we can unblock energies which contribute to stress and cancer. In that same way, gray rock makes our lives inhospitable to a spath. They can’t stand to be bored so they leave. And learning healthier boundaries with others and with ourselves also make our lives inhospitable to a spath.
But there are times when a spath enters our lives and won’t leave because he is determined to kill us – literally. That’s when the scalpel or the bullet (whichever works) becomes necessary. These are cases where it is a fight to the death and it’s either us or them, radical actions become necessary.
Now please… we are all in this together… remember that. It’s us against the spaths. We have much better ways of communicating than they do, so lets use those skills.
(((group hug)))
HEY! One/Joy. You’ve been on here long enough to know your post went beyond appropriate and into verbal abuse.
Oxy was not making a commentary on Steve Jobs choice of medical care. It was an Analogy. You owe an apology to Oxy and to LoveFraud members who might think that writing an opinion is an open invitation to verbal abuse.
Hey EB where are ya, we need some comic relief ~!
Donna felt my post was a personal attack on oxy and removed it.
katy – your read and mine are different, i accept that. there will be no apology forthcoming.
oxy – you might find it offensive, but you have done it many times ( i don’t have time to run through the posts and count). past behaviour being a good indicator of future behaviour. After almost 2 years of this behaviour I am fed up. takes a lot less time now to get to that point – it took 26 years with my sib.
love me, hate me, be angry with me, think i should act another way – it doesn’t really make any difference. it doesn’t change a thing for me – i have felt this way for a long time, now it’s just outside of my insides.
i am off to work.
best,
one joy
Sistersister – my post in support of yours was removed. I don’t have time to repost it right now, but I feel very much as you have stated, and support your ideas and position. I will try to repost when i have time. best, one joy.