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.
Ana
Oxy,
It’s like that mule or donkey in the book “Run With the Horseman” The mule/donkey learned how to manipulate people and how to make their day a misery!! LOL Amazing how they can do that!
one/joy_step_at_a_time
Hi Ana!
Ana
Hi One Joy!
How have you been doing? I saw you had pnuemonia (sp). I had that once and I felt like crap. I hope you are doing well 🙂
one/joy_step_at_a_time
Hi Ana – a bit better, but it’s really slow. was in bed for a couple of days. had those damn chills the other night; they left my muscles aching from the shaking.
i went to breakfast today with someone i met a while ago at a gender studies lecture. we talked for a couple of hours. and i laughed. genuinely. i felt pretty much myself during the lunch (not my old self – but a bit of ‘new’ self that i was actually comfortable in and liked).
i came away feeling like the interaction cost me nothing, and am working to keep my hopes of a new friend in check.
my contract was extended (yay!) and i am going to work to get healthier this week. it will mean working less. but i will do another conference in the spring and i have to get myself healthy so that i can cope with the work load that is about to come.
am also keeping a jouranl of the neighbour’s dog’s barking… when i have a month’s worth i am going to report it to bylaw.
and i only thought ‘@$#^%’ people once or twice today.
making a bit of headway. 😉
Ana
One Joy,
You sound like your doing great! You may have a budding friendship YaY! So happy you have work in the future 🙂
I learned a lesson myself recently. I worked on 30 people in one week. I only went to the gym once that week cause I had NO more energy. Well, the next week was total hell…like a massage hangover that lasted one solid week! I made mistakes in handling the money, I couldn’t stand working on anyone, and I had 1 1/2 massage and it was pure torture. I guess when your 52 you can’t do 30 massages in one week. Boy, I learned my lesson NEVER AGAIN!!! I need to find a pt job where I sit on my rear end!
It’s good to “see” you. Good things coming your way 🙂
one/joy_step_at_a_time
oh ana, oh girl that’s nasty! i am amazed that your hands could handle it. i get like that too – an overwork hangover.
Ana
One Joy,
I used to be like that when I worked in the office too. Work way too many hours (50) in one week. I hate the office AND massage hangovers..they both stink! I will not be doing that again…
Tell me about your new friend! That is so nice that you could come away and not feel like you had to give everything of yourself! Good boundaries on your part!
one/joy_step_at_a_time
hey ana, when i find out if i have a new friend, i’ll let you know. 😉
the sisterhood
Oxy,
Thanks for posting that last link. It has me thinking about what I discussed in therapy this week. My therapist was trying to get me to see that there is no black and white in my experience or any experience for that matter. She said that in the beginning of my sessions, I had to look at my spath as all evil to begin the healing process. But now I can start to see that there is gray in all of it. She said, in a kind way, that I cannot say that my ex-spath is all bad because who am I to judge. That is for God to do. She reminded me that I wasn’t the same person back then during my time with my ex spath and that I have grown and bettered myself. Maybe, just maybe, my ex is a better person now, too. And like Steve Jobs, maybe with maturity and some sort of growth he has found how to really love. I’m still not sure.
It is so hard for me to look at these people as actual human beings. I have found that I cannot trust the motives of people like Steve Jobs and my ex because of the way they were in their past. Like Maya Angelou says, “When a person tells you who they are, believe them.” Can these people be redeemable after being so horrible to others. I guess that really is for God to decide.
My therapist did qualify her remarks after I expressed that I wasn’t sure if I could say my ex wasn’t bad or had evil in him because he had date raped me among other perverted instances during sex and sadistic behavior towards me in public. She said that she would never want a victim of date rape to think of her abuser as “good”.
It is all so very confusing to me. On one hand, maybe my ex is a good man now and was just acting out perversions he had witnesses in his youth. Maybe he saw the light. Maybe my experience is unique unto me.
I somehow feel like I am back a square one. Funny, I thought I was reaching the acceptance stage.
one/joy_step_at_a_time
the sisterhood – here’s an alternative: YOUR THERAPIST IS A PUTZ!
YESSSSS, THERE IS BLACK AND WHITE IN SOME CIRCUMSTANCES;
NOOOOOO, THERE AREN’T TWO SIDES TO EVERY STORY;
NOOOOOO, RAPISTS CANNOT BE GOOD PEOPLE; AND WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE???? YOU ARE THE PERSON HE ABUSED, THAT’S WHO YOU ARE!
I SWEAR, I COULD THROTTLE YOUR THERAPIST!