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.
Ox Drover
MILO!!!!! That is so funny!!!! I belly laughed! How awful!!! LOL ROTFLMAO Thanks for the laugh, that’s a great joke! Sounds like some of the jokes my kids liked at about age 10 or so. (that’s the best kind!)
darwinsmom
LOLOL
MiLo
I know Oxy – I spend way too much time with a 10 year old.
When Grand was about 7 or 8, he was back in the pastures working with the some of the young Amish guys. They were catching the goats and giving them medication for runny bowels. The next day, I had to give the medication and asked Grand to help catch and hold the young goats.
I saw one that obviously needed it and said to Grand “Grab that one, he has “poopies” all over his butt.” Grand replied, “GRAN – us GUYS call it the shits.” I thought I was going to die laughing. Boy, did I chew out some red faced Amish guys.
Stargazer
Milo, I LOL’d on that one. And now you’re ready to go see The Human Centipede. It involves lots of diarrhea.
Stargazer
Louise, I only have a very few friends who enjoy THC. So I always goof around with them. I tell them that if they piss me off, they’re going in the middle. (you have to see the first movie to understand that one). LOL
missyj
This metaphor is quite a stretch, isn’t it?
Jobs himself had many sides and was not a nice person. I have wondered if he had the brain of a psychopath, in the same way that James Fallon does.
slimone
Athena,
Hey, I know your last post was directed at EB, but I wanted to respond as you sound so sad and disappointed.
It is TOTALLY normal to have repeated thoughts of our abusers. My bit of wisdom is to be gentle with yourself and keep giving yourself some slack for these thoughts. When you can, gently lead yourself away from them, if they are upsetting. If they lead you to an insight, well that’s good, right?
Having thoughts about someone who caused you so much humiliation, shock, and grief seems to me to be kind of like keeping track of a giant saber-tooth tiger that tried to kill you. It’s the brains way of protecting us. I don’t know if this is right, but it eventually has come to feel that way for me.
I am almost 5 years out from an experience with a spath. I still think of him every single day. I don’t feel bad because of it (generally). I don’t miss him, want him, or think he is something special that got away. When I think of him it is a pretty neutral experience. BUT just the fact of my thinking of him, after all this time, gives me the sense that what happened with him, and my understanding of what a psychopath is, is VERY important for my growth and my survival.
Otherwise my mind would not have assigned him this place in my mental inventory.
Your experience will become neutralized too, someday. So just go easy on yourself and process your ideas and thoughts. Don’t get too caught up in how you should be. Just survive the pain, keep loving yourself however you can, and let the healing continue.
Slim one
slimone
Oxy,
Another great medical analogy. I was a lucky one. I got the diagnosis and I cut out the disease after 10 months. And even so, my most recent brush with ‘soul’ death, and awakening to the ‘habits’ that lead to my ‘disease’ have taken A LOT of time to come to terms with.
As with cancer, sometimes we just get it. No smoking, no drugs, no toxic foods. But we get cancer anyway. Same with running into a spath. But sometimes it is our health habits that contribute. For me that was the case, and I had run-ins multiple times, with cancerpaths!
It took time to sort through my false beliefs, and self-destructive behaviors. But certainly cutting out the tumor, going NO contact, was critical to starting the healing process.
I have been away do to computer issues. Nice to be back and reading and learning.
xo, Slim
Louise
Stargazer:
“They’re going in the middle”…I can only imagine what that means…haha!
Near
Ox Drover: Hey!! There is nothing wrong with college age kids still having mom cook the meals! That doesn’t make me a baby! I mean those kids! It doesn’t make them babies! 😛
I think most kids are afraid to fail. Nobody in my college cooks because they know it will be horrible. They don’t even try because of this. They are afraid to experiment and fail, so they don’t even try. The same with their school work. They’d rather take a zero on a hard assignments than try and fail at it. It’s like most kids only try something when they know they will succeed on their first attempt. Sad stuff. My mom made it a point to teach me how to cook.
You guys also better stop talking bad about fast food! *shakes fists* Fast food is a sign of a fantastic life, wealth and soul. I’d marry fast food if it was a lady. We’d have little chicken nugget babies named Gergory and Melinda. The house would be filled with grease, but we’d get by, as all couples do. Wait a second, this post doesn’t make any sense at all. Sorry! ^_^