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.
I think the analogy is a good one of a cancer – taking FAST ACTION is so important. I saw the lies right away. They were blatant, in my face, ridiculous lies. I saw the lies, and I couldn’t understand it. It was a total WTF. I said “you’re lying to me”. I asked him “what’s wrong with you”. And, the kicker is, I brushed it aside, even with the red lights blinking.
I had no idea what it was.
I wanted the fantasy.
I spent 3 years wounding myself.
It would have been better to have only hurt myself for 3 days, or 3 weeks, or 3 months.
I hope it doesn’t take 3 years to recover.
HURTNOMORE
CONGRATULATIONS! WHOO HEE!
Athena,
“recovery” is a LIFE-LONG LEARNING PROCESS….that of course doesn’t mean you don’t “get to where you feel well” sooner than the end of your life, LOL, but we will become DIFFERENT people than we were before the P-attack. Different can be STRONGER, BETTER, WISER, etc. or it can be a permanent victim status….we have to choose.
I heard on a program “The Doctors” the other day about a woman who was burned over 80% of her body and still she kept a positive attitude. I worked for several years in spinal cord and head-injury rehab and I have seen people with HORRIBLE PHYSICAL INJURIES who in spite of these limitations on their movements or abilities afterward still kept a POSITIVE ATTITUDE and lived good and fulfilling lives. I have also seen people with the “injury equivalent” of a “paper cut” whine and live in a “pity me” mode for the rest of their lives….it is OUR CHOICE….so WE CHOOSE how we REACT to what has happened to us.
Here is a link I found to be fascinating. It goes along the same article that was posted on LF, “The Corporate Sociopath”.
http://www.maccoby.com/Articles/NarLeaders.shtml
I really don’t know what a sociopath is if Steve Jobs isn’t one. I would like to read his biography to see if I misinterpreted him in some way.
I do know that some of the greatest contributors to the world were, in fact, plagued by personality disorders. Picasso, Dali and Einstein come to mind. They were horrible to those closest to them. Can we ever know if they were sadistic in their intentions? I just know that I wouldn’t want to be connected to anyone with these toxic characteristics.
Maybe I just never understood the extreme love and infatuation with Steve Jobs. I don’t know. It should be an interesting read, to say the least.
Sisterhood,
GREAT LINK, thank you!!!!
I think many if not most “great leaders” in industry, politics, and the military etc are VERY NARCISSISTIC….or psychopathic, and one of the reasons they get to the high levels that they achieve is that they are WILLING to walk over other people’s backs to get where they want to be.
In some people their psychopathy is funneled into “ordinary criminal” behavior but others like Elliot Sprintzer, John Edwards, etc. (and a few other politicians I could name) get to where they are and just sort of get brought down by exposure of some of their vile behaviors, but others are exposed and get by even then (Bill Clinton for one example). Even John Kennedy’s behavior which was known by those closest to him, but protected by the press from exposure, was “worshiped” by the public as some sort of “hero” when in fact, he exhibited many many psychopathic behaviors. Look at Teddy Kennedy his brother, who was exposed as a cheating spouse and even left a woman to die who might have been saved if he had focused on saving her instead of forming an ALIBI— and he was RE-elected for decades AFTER THAT….it astounds me how the public some how doesn’t care it seems if their “leaders” are moral or empathetic or caring people. Then, some guy will be “brought down” by some “minor” thing he gets caught doing. Doesn’t make sense to me at all.
I have finally decided I don’t know how or why people think like they do. I guess at how and why, but I really don’t know. I just know that we can only judge how a person by their PATTERN OF behavior, and then control how WE react to them.
I wouldn’t doubt that as “successful” as he was in business and what LITTLE I know about his personal/business practices and acts, that Jobs was HIGH in narcissistic thinking and/or traits and behaviors…but I haven’t given him much thought one way or the other really.
Good Points Oxy!
In regards to Stars post above…..It’s true….we never know how we will deal with some things unless we are facing them.
When I was diagnosed….I had just booted spath…and was alone with the kids, running the business and ‘figuring’ out life. When I got the C news, I ddn’t think any other option…..but to seek treatments and resume life.
None of my ‘illness’ progression made sense to the dr’s. How can a woman of 39 have 2 strokes a dissected carotid artery……THEN CANCER? WTF? Not what I expected…in my fairytale.
(STRESS!)
During my treatments was when life hit the shit fan….all around. And it got bad! I momentarily lost hope, but I knew I couldn’t….i wrestled with ALL of it.
Divorce, kids kidnapped, alienation from support, my family suppporting spath and alienating me……not being able to work….racking up the credit card debt to live….researching spath, researching my conditions, finding the best care to treat, travelling to treatments in another state, being stalked…..IT was a bit much.
I was alone (processing ALL of the emotional baggage)…..and I did it!
I did it all……looking back, I have no idea HOW I did it…..I guess, I just did!
I knew if I gave up….the kids would not have protection. I knew if I gave up…..spath would have gotten what he wanted….the right to gloat about “see, I told you all she was crazy”, as he continued to abuse my kids and with me dead…..nothing I could do!
I drove myself to airports, flew to unknown cities for my treatment, met unfamiliar dr’s and absorbed information……went back to unfamiliar hotels by myself….scared as hell……Will I survive?!?!! Flew home to an empty house, (ransacked each time I left for treatments)…..The fear became familiar.
You learn to ask for help…..from strangers. Ask for help at the airport, in hotels, rental car places, grocery stores, pumping gas, you take the liberty of parking in red zones and just ‘knowing’ your car won’t get towed, you don’t pay your bills as your’ accustomed and they don’t go to collections, you dont’ open mail for months and are surprised at how life doesn’t end due to not addressing things……..Generally, strangers are very willing to help a puking woman pump her gas. Strangers are more than willing to get you to the gate at the airport, carry your luggage and push your wheelchair and overlook parking in a red zone, you are amazed at the thought of needing groceries and calling the large grocery store and ‘placing an order’ and them having it ready and waiting outside the door for you…..paid for on the cc over the phone. You just ask. You become creative.
You crawl up stairs, taking 1/2 hour to get a bag of groceries up. You leave it outside the fridge for 2 hours because you don’t have the strength to stand up and put them away. You sleep on bathroom floors, you lay in the shower with the water running just to get a ‘bit’ clean. You definately forgo the makeup and the brush, none of that matters, you sleep in parking lots because your too tired to drive home, you find drive through pharmacies, you take/make calls when you have the energy, you figure out how to file a TPO over the phone because you just can’t get to the courts to file or testify for your own protection, you make every step count, because you know you won’t have the energy to take another step later. You pee in jam jars next to your bed, you keep water available, you keep your drapes open for the emotional value of sunshine, you don’t worry about the lawn dying due to lack of water and out of nowhere someone comes over and waters and mows it…….and if someone offers help….you learn to take it….it’s needed, whatever they offer!
I thought, IF I SURVIVE all this……and regain my life…..WILL I SURVIVE the abuse of spath?
I FOUGHT……and never gave up.
It can be done……and be done ALONE!
It wasn’t optimal……but it can be done!
I puked alone, I crawled to the kitchen alone, I drove myself sick over the mountain 1 hour each way to Dr’s alone……I layed in bed and cried….alone.
Strangers dropped off cases of water……an unknown neighbor did my mountain of laundry……my freezer was stocked with soups from strangers…….But, each step…..I had to take….ALONE.
We are capable of more than we think….it’s hard to imagine sitting in our good times…..it’s impossible to imagine actually…….we just go into action. We just “DO’.
We learn to taper our lives, expectations and willingness to ask for help to what we need at the time.
Anything we choose in life takes effort. If SJ chose surgery, that woulda taken effort. Homeopathics takes effort. I’m not sure he had a deathwish, and i’m not sure he chose the route he did because of ‘ego’…..I think, faced with this news, he chose what he believed in. Once we choose a route, you must proceed down that path.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work for him. I ‘get’ his choice.
Even if he chose to do ‘nothing’…..that is his choice.
I also ‘get’ that. It’s personal and very individual…..and it’s true….we can’t backseat drive someones choices.
We all have our reasons for each choice we make in life…..
Dying takes effort, doing nothing takes effort, ignoring it takes effort, fighting takes effort. There IS no easy escape or treatment.
We seem to think there is.
I chose conventional…..with a homeopathic kick. One of my biggest supporters was my homeopath, but he told me upfront….my ‘combinations’ were over his head. He was a big, renowned cancer researcher, a pathologist turned homeopath from what he’d seen and learned as a pathologist…….I beat it…..he passed away from Cancer 5 months later. Go figure? In the end, my Homeopath chose to go conventional treatment…..Go figure.!>!?!?! If his ‘ego’ was involved he woulda treated himself…..and with ‘what’ results…we won’t ever know….He died. He didn’t have a death wish…..but just like me….he chose a path….and the results were not as he’d wished.
I had another friend who walked my path with me…..he also had cancer…..fought like hell….researched the best treatments, had greuling surgerys and treatments…..GREULING……went to the ‘best’, had all the experimentals….they said they’d take him to the brink of death…..then bring him back….recovery was horrid for him….each time. He knew it…… The ‘easiest’ treatment was the one which ended up taking it ‘all’ out of him. It was a gamma brain surgery. But he never recovered and passed 2 months later. He called me from the airport…..he was laughing, said they want to do the brain surgery tomorrow….he told them NO….he was going Heliskiing in Canada. He could report for surgery the next week. He was checking off his bucket list. He’d never been Heliskiing and WAS going. The dr’s were AMAZED. He had a fabulous blu-bird trip. Came home Tues,…..had the ‘easy’ surgery on that Wed…..and went downhill quick from there. He fought…..without ego…..he passed too.
Pick a path…..and walk.
The point is…..NEVER GIVE UP! NO MATTER WHAT!
Just because we may choose to die or do nothing….doesn’t mean we’re gonna get our wish…..odder things have happened! 🙂
Just as….we choose to fight like hell to live…doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen.
We just never know what lays ahead for any of us……..
Oxy-I didn’t mean to get away from your original point. I think that it is so important to take care of “the cancer” as soon as we detect it. Lord knows I was very fortunate that I only let my Spath cancer fester for a couple of years. It could have been so much worse for me and I know that. The scars are still there and I am putting “ointment” on them every day.
Thanks, again, for the great article
The lesson I take from this post is probably not the intended message of the post. I just buried a friend today. Not literally – I just went to her funeral. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to go because her death had not hit me, and it never would have. So now I’m thinking about what would happen to me if I had a life or death choice, and it came down to getting major surgery to save my life. With no family or close companions to care for me, would I do it? Would it matter? Do I value life that much? I have been giving this a lot of thought today.
This is exactly what I needed to read today… great post.
ErinBrock,
GREAT POINTS! We all DO have to make our own choices…..and doing nothing about a cancer is a choice. The same with our psychopaths–I think we have all probably known someone who does NOTHING about his/her psychopathic partner. They STAY and endure the pain, the humiliation, the abuse–day after day, year after year, decade after decade.
Yesterday I watched TV in the day time which I normally do not do any and I saw a show where a woman’s 15 year old MASSIVELY OBESE daughter wanted to lose weight, and they brought the mother and father on TV and the mom was HUGE and she kept on saying she was on a “budget” and she couldn’t afford to buy healthy food for her daughter ONLY FAST FOOD….and so on, she gave every EXCUSE in the world why she couldn’t help her daughter eat healthy and well. Then she said (which I wanted to biatch slap her for) “No matter how my daughter looks on the outside, she’s a good person on the inside.” DUH!!!! The daughter actually though she was massively obese was very pretty and had a beautiful smile, and I thought the mother was INSULTING HER. Anyway, the DAUGHTER has even at 15 decided to make CHANGES and the mother may or may not go along with it but the daughter is going to change how she eats I think and I hope she sticks with it. Her aunt came on the show and was supportive.
That mother, though, KNOWS she is not eating well, or teaching her daughter or supporting her child, but she makes EXCUSES. I did the same thing….I made excuses for this or that behavior or for tolerating other people’s bad behavior but NOW I AM MAKING CHANGES IN MY LIFE. My choice.
Steve Jobs had a CHOICE, and he made it….then he changed his mind and made another choice….but the WAITING the 9 months most likely cost him his life. He stated in the book that he REGRETTED the first choice and wished he had had the surgery when he FIRST had the chance.
Sure,, he had a CHOICE and he made a choice that he LATER WISHED HE HAD NOT MADE….and I made choices that I wished later I had NOT made the one I did, but sometimes we can’t go back and get a DO OVER…the choice is a final one. A fatal one.
EB you CHOSE to fight even when that fight was ALONE and HARD….and I admire you so much for accomplishing what you have done.