By Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired)
Psychopaths do a great deal of damage to their victims. The fact that there are people who are aware of what they are doing and choose to “look the other way” or to “sit on the fence and do nothing” enables the psychopaths to continue to abuse their victims. If the bystanders would stand up and assist the victims, even acknowledge that they are being victimized, the psychopaths might not be quite so successful.
One of the most famous of these enablers who chose to look the other way was a man named Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect in Jerusalem in AD 33. When Jesus was brought before him by the Jewish leaders, Pilate stated that he found “no fault” in Jesus, yet he gave Jesus over to the mob to be crucified.
To signify that he had no responsibility for the death of Jesus, Pilate had water and a basin brought and he literally “washed his hands” of what the mob intended to do. Yet, he did nothing to stop it.
The dictionary defines the word “minion” as “a servile follower or subordinate of a person in power.” These people also enable the psychopath to continue to victimize their prey by either helping the psychopath, or by simply “looking the other way” as Pilate did. Minions can also be very active participants with the psychopath in the victimization of the prey.
Examples of doing nothing
A famous case of people knowing a horrible crime was being committed and doing nothing was the murder of Kitty Genovese outside her Queens, NY, home in March, 1964. There were 38 witnesses who did nothing—not even call the cops when they heard her scream for nearly a half hour as she was repeatedly stabbed on that fateful night.
A more recent example of people doing nothing is the Penn State case of Jerry Sandusky’s pedophilia. The head coach and the president of the university knew what Sandusky was doing and chose to do nothing, which allowed Sandusky to continue to abuse young boys sexually for more several years.
Of course not all “enabling” of psychopaths are as “serious” as the crucifixion of Christ, the molestation of dozens of young boys, or the brutal murder of a young woman. But the help and support offered by others does enable psychopaths to “get away with” much more than they would otherwise.
Tattling and telling
We teach our kids not to be “tattle tales” and kids learn not to “snitch” on each other. When my kids were little, I tried to teach them the difference between “tattling” and “telling.” “Tattling” was saying “Johnny called me a doo doo,” but that “telling” was saying, “Johnny is playing with matches and setting fire to the curtains.”
I don’t support gossip or tattling in any way, but we must be aware that when we keep our mouths shut and allow evil to flourish, we are contributing to that evil.
My guess is that most of the people reading this on Lovefraud have experienced people being enablers (either actively or passively) to the psychopath that abused them. People either knew the truth and turned their backs, or actively participated in helping the psychopath accomplish their abuse.
Blame the victim
Psychopaths are also usually very good at the “smear campaign.” When the victim is finally trying to break free, they smear the name, sanity and reputation of the victim to everyone who will listen. Unfortunately, too many times the victim is blamed for their own victimization, or labeled crazy or vindictive for trying to protect themselves. “Yeah he hit her, but she was so mouthy, what can you expect?” Or “well if she’d been a better wife, he wouldn’t have needed to cheat.”
The hurt for the victim becomes double or treble when the enabler or fence sitter is someone the victim counted on for support, such as friend, neighbor, co-worker, relative or even the police and the courts. When someone you have counted on to believe you and validate you, instead turns their back on you, in addition to the trauma from the psychopath, the pain may be simply overwhelming, leaving the victim feeling totally abandoned.
No help
I can’t even imagine the horror that Kitty Genovese must have felt that night as she cried out in terror for someone to save her. Yet, I know that many victims of psychopaths have cried out to people that they expected would help them, would support them, only to find a total lack of concern.
The news reports today are filled with stories of people who “knew” and yet did nothing, or worse, helped the abusers. Whistle blowers are still persecuted relentlessly. Those are facts of life.
For what it is worth, though, even if no one else believes us, it doesn’t change the truth or the facts. While we would appreciate support and validation from others, we don’t always get it, even from those we hold most dear. Learning to validate our own knowledge of the truth may be the closest we come to receiving support.
In my own situation, essentially my entire family, immediate and extended, have either actively assisted my psychopathic son Patrick, stood by silently while he tried to harm me, or washed their hands and didn’t even bother to listen. It hurts when those we have depended on fail us, but it is not the end of the world. In most cases, and we can move on. We can learn to validate ourselves and what we know is the truth.
Fortunately, there is Lovefraud, and the many bloggers here who do support and validate us in our healing journey. I hope that each person here will feel free to reach out to others for support when you need it, and that you will reach out to extend validation and support to others who need your support. That’s what it is all about.
God bless.
TRUTHSPEAK, This is quote is amazing, far fetched as it may seem, this is exactly what I did!!!!
“Really? REALLY?!?! “Until he does something to the rest of us— REALLLLLLLY?! Her response is not only outrageous, but screams of “fence-sitting” and enabling. The “friend’s” response is tantamount to saying, “Yeah, so he raped you in your sleep, but until he rapes someone else while THEY’RE sleeping, he’s a great guy.” Utter and ultra bullshitspeak!”
He raped his roommate’s sleeping girlfriend, got thrown out of the apartment by his best buddies and I felt sorry for him. I even got pregnant and married him soon after. Now my 40 year old daughter is riding the fence…she was taking his side so I finally told her everything. Now she is NC with both of us. He is convincing her I am the crazy one…and I admit he drove me to a breakdown about 5 years ago. Maybe the NC with her is the best thing but she took away our grandchildren too. Sometimes it seems there is no escape.
Thanks Truthspeak and Eralyn! I appreciate your most VALUABLE input, and words of wisdom. Although it was NOT the hostess of the event that I had told I will forego the event, if he is in fact, planning to go, I can assure you that I would not be going to an event that is full of enablers. She responded with authority, however, she has nothing to do with the event, other than she has been asked to attend, as well. Period.
Totally mindblowing, all this.
I had an exgf, perhaps BPD, or something. I’m free of her for these past 8 years now. But… at times it’s a horror recalling the 7 years with her. I loved her kids, but… not her, no, no, she’s unbearable.
I recall the same bad behaviours with my friends… one, in particular. I never understood it. Not for years. I thought it was just some kind of sick delight in trickery, as I always ended up in trouble, so I took my punishments… seems he caused it all. But I laughs, now, he’s fully out in public, living with his boyfriend and I know he’s a bitch, the way he’s vomiting out gossips and such. Last time I saw him, I went, to see what he’s like… totally off the wall. Never changed, never grew up, never improved. Still the same as when I met him in high school. Same scumbag who played mind games and tricks.
My ex, I met when I was 27 and we became “together”, I thought from love, but she calls it “partnership”.
I knew her, though, since I was 15, that same high school “friend” get her to drive him around, and they came to my place. I never knew why. Maybe to rub my nose in that he got a five year older woman to do his driving for him? I don’t know. She was witless too, I guess.
We’re all deafs, I’m deafs, my exgf was deaf, and my friend was deaf. I have not seen her since six years ago when she came back asking me to help her get away from her boyfriend who she left me two years previously. I was in shock then. Well. I helped her with ideas, that’s all, and that worked, her sister helped her get a place, then she moved her stuff out when he’s not there. Then she came over three more times. Wants me back. I refused. She broked my heart and trust. How can I trust her again? I withstood her indiscretions, her betrayals, her gossips, for seven years. I thought for her kids sake. I felt such a deep instinct, to protect them… unfortunately her teenage daughter, I think, inherits her problems… whatever it is… but the toddlers, the boy and girl, they looks okay, but I think with PTSD, it looks like. I tried to provide stability, and I learned to parent the kids, much less her. God, my ex was like a malicious ten year old child, using sex to play games on me, and then witholding it as a punishment if I don’t do things her way and all that crap.
For me, I thought, LOVE means LOVE, not games, not mind games, etc.. etc… etc… LOVE means protecting each other, not prodding each other to get what we want without communicating it, without speaking and so on. She expexted me to “read” her mind without her saying it. It’s torture.
I lost half of my stuff, my rare comic book collections that I found and saved since I was a kid. Lost my tools, too. Many other stuff that now and then I’d recall and try to find here, but then realised I lost it over there at her place. Totally frustrating.
But, I think, all that hell, was good, it helps me grow, but at times, it hurts, oh, it hurts.
I think it is also a blessing that she aborted my babies. Sometimes I’d think, no, I so much wants to see them growing up, but then I’d think, “Yeah, now you’re single, and not with them anymore, the babies, if she had not aborted themm, would still be with her, and learning her behaviours, narcissism and all. So many this is good.”
For the past five years I tried to find love online. I met plenty of scammers, liars and stuff.
Now, I have long since given up. I rather be single and happy, than be miserable with the wrong person.
Sometimes, it aches, my heart does. Feeling the loneliness of my life, wanting so much to meet the right woman who are not of a psychopathic/sociopathic/Cluster Bs types. What I would call the Biblical woman, the perfect woman, who understands and knows what love really means, to feel it intensely, not “know” it intellectually, like the P/S/C Bs does. To these P/S/Cbs, they “play acts” the emotions, they don’t FEEL it, the way we DO.
I reads on the other page, about the OXYTOCIN, it’s a BONDING process and I have that intensely. My exgf barely have that. But her kids does have that. I bonded with them reading them stories, playing with them, and helping them with their homework, those are strange school work, made no sense to me. Different than what I learned at my school. Oh well. The kids was great. I dont’ know why my exgf was such a mess.
My exgf, by the time I met her, I was 27, and she was 32, a drug addict, too much prescription pills given her by her three doctors, smoking marijuana every day, constantly and smokes tobacco, and spending my money as well. She got three payments, and I only have one payment every fortnight. I loves to save up and up and up… to me, never being in debt is heaven. But to her, debts ain’t bad. TO me, she’s NUTS.
Well, I didn’t know all this, not for a long time, but it took me years to pieces together her and figure out her. And right now I’m still uncertain, but I’m firm when I say I WILL NEVER GO BACK TO HER. I have not seen her since then, since six years ago. It was scary, seeing her, saying she regretted all the things she did to me, and saying sorry and all that.
I had told her, once we’re done, we’re DONE. FINIS. I will never go back. I can’t go back. I forgave her few indiscretions… which made me sick, those few times, and I knew my body will not betray me, it’s like a barometer, knows when she had sex with someone… so when I gets sick I tell her, “You been with someone.” And she would acts sorry, blah blah blah. But going back to her…? NO WAY.
Not for her kids sake would I go back. Sure, I wished the kids was mine, but… no, I have no claim over the kids. Only the aborted ones and I’m not sure if I’m the father, but… I am certain, yes. During that three months, she was in pain, her tube was splitted… we didnt’ know, that snapped feeling when we was making love, “making sex” she says, and I went wrong way while she went the other way, and snapped… I stopped, asks her if she’s okay, but she says, no, it’s okay, so we kept going. Well, a few days later she gradually became in pain… so I kept insisting she go see doctors to check it out, but she refused, instead she ate pills, smoke dope, and hoped that would be okay. It went on like that for MONTHS… by the third month I told her GO NOW! So she went. Turns out the tube cracked open, and two eggs came through in those two months, that night I “snapped” her tube, I also impregnated her, and the embryo’s about two months’ old. The other one, an egg yolk, that’s from when she begged me to have sex with er even when I can see she’s in pain, but she kept me at it. So I did it… she thought the sex would rubs out the pain. Well, that yolk was dead, her doctor claimed, she said. Her life’s in danger, poison from the yolk. I was sad. So they aborted the babies. Stitched up the tube, and she got better.
I thought, maybe this is the time to get her to wean off drugs, booze, etc… be healthy, clean, and we could try again. Nope. I stood it for five more years and realised she will never give me what I craves most, my own babies. I gave up. I gave up loving her, gave up trying. I made plans. I asks her, “I will support you as long as you figure out how to fix up your own problems in your own way.” Like that, I’m out, thrown away like a dirty rag.
Luckily, I had a long term plan for this, even though I was in shock. I had a secret “job”, working and saving up. Well, she took most of the money, but I was lucky to salt away secret amounts every week, and by then I had a thousand bucks saved up… when I was thrown out. I had to wait weeks before I could get my friend to drive me to her place, to get my stuff, which i found that I lost a few stuff.
Never again. I will never suffer like all that crap ever again.
Either I find a good woman, or stay single for the rest of my life, being happy, taking care of mykself, being independent, and never being hurt by such women ever again.
I am always wary, careful, of who I speaks with, who I sees, out there.
I don’t like feminists, I feel sure that feminsm have made women, more narcissistic than ever, more like the Princess syndrome, that baby talking stuff… where the women expects to be taken care of without them ever working for it.
They makes me sick.
I also can’t stand narcissists, men, too. Like my friend.
I suspect my brother of being one, but it’s hard to be sure.
All I wanted was a normal life, to be true and faithful and to be treat faithfully and true, but… I met the wrong people.
So I wont make the same mistake twice.
No contact is a good rule.
It’s also overwhelming, too, to weed out crazies, unfaithful, mind games people, etc.. etc..
It’s so tiring.
What I meant by biblical woman, I meant a woman who are fully aware of her self, as a real woman, no playing games… faithfulness means total FAITHFULNESS, and that means putting God FIRST in her hearts, and also putting each other FIRST, as well. Being a TEAM against the world that would try to break them up, or even try to break them up and makes the woman be like a man, as feminisms would wants her to be, and make the man a woman, messing up God’s roles for men and women.
For me, after digging up stuff and reading and reading and reading… tryigng to trace where the problems came from and where the right path is, the tried and true path that works, a happy family is a happy man who is faithful to his wife, and is devoted to her, because of her love for him, and she’s devoted to him and faithful to him because all his energies is spent on providing for her and her welbeing, as well as his, and her energies is spent in keepign their homes clean and happy and safe, and so on. And they both resists the outside world’s encroagements, blandishments, and so on.
Well, I thought my exgf KNOW THIS.. .but nope, she do not!
She lets foolish men out there beguile her and leads her away like a silly captive idiot and she go and do all that.
While I was trying to WORK and trying to make money, to provide for my family… fall my years of faithfulness and trust counts for NOTHING.
I’m in a rage now.
Never again I will let a woman fool me or play games on me. EVER.
(sighs). Fortunately I found God, I found Jesus and I am very happy now. If a potential woman do not put Jesus FIRST, then I want nothing to do with her. Simple. Now it’s easy for me to WEEDS out women who do not fits this criteria. For it is easy to OBSERVE her behaviours, and day to day daily tasks and I can see, if she’s with Jesus or with men.
So far I have not met the right woman yet. Oh well. I don’t mind. If necessary I’ll wait the rest of my life. I WILL NEVER RUSH into a relationship like I did with my first woman, my exgf.
I also thanks her for helping me get over my shyness, and so on, and I’m a bit more assertive and I won’t let no one ever lead me around. I’m a MAN and it is my decision to decide for myself, with Jesus’ guidance in my trusty King James Bible. No worries!
I ain’t EASY!
I will never be EASY for anyone.
I trusts myself and my bible, that’s it. I don’t trust anyone. My trust have to be EARNED!
I hopes I’ll find the gem that God wrote about. The gem, the good woman, the one in Proverbs 31:10-31.
I do not want anything to do with a diehard feminist fanatic type! No thanks.
What I want is a feminine woman. Feminist are all ugly and hates femininity, that’s what I discovered, and that’s what my ex was like, hard, ugly, crazy. Feminine, however, is gentle, loving, a REAL woman. God, that’s what I want, for my own WIFE, the future MOTHER of my children, that we’ll make one day. That’s my HOPE, DREAM.
I find it so sad, so many grils growing up believing in the lies of feminism. And accepting them as true at face value. When feminism is nothing more than a family-hating, homosexual-affirming lifestyle. Feminism came from communism, and that came from the satanists, and it’s why their deadly poisons are everywhere, poisoning EVERYTHING… making men into cold hearted scumbags and making women into cold hearted scumbags too.
The only ones who resisted are the REAL one, who FEELS, who LOVES… who I think puts Jesus FIRST, and puts their wives/husband/each other FIRST. True LOVE.
Ah well. No worries.
Betsybugs, sometimes, the only answer to a situation is to let it go – walk away without a backward glance, even if it is our own children that we’re walking away from. I’ve had to do that, myself, and it’s no easy task. It’s painful and requires intense grief, as OxD can far better describe than I can.
When we know what we know, we then have choices EVEN if the options are all painful to consider. There’s no “easy” way to extract one’s Self from spath entanglements – there simply isn’t. It cannot be compared with any other human experience.
I will say that I have detested my choices over the past year. None of the options available were comfortable or pleasant. Some of them were beyond description, but the other option was to sink further into the abyss.
Brightest blessings
Defman, welcome to LoveFraud, and I’m sorry that your experiences have brought you here – but, you’ve found a very good place to be.
I would strongly suggest that you consider getting involved in some counseling therapy with someone that “gets it” about sociopathy.
I would also like to say that feeling angry is a “normal” emotional response. But, anger can quickly morph into obsessive hatred that can never be satisfied if we let it get out of hand. Anger towards the person who has damaged you is reasonable, but anger towards ALL women is unhealthy and thoroughly unreasonable. Do you honestly believe that ALL women have it in for you, personally? Do you honestly believe that ALL women have an agenda to damage? This is why counseling therapy would be helpful to you, and every other survivor of spath entanglements.
A good, strong counselor can help me to recognize emotions and feelings for what they are, and to separate them from facts. A counselor can teach me how to take my fears apart and manage them. I can learn how my own core issues and beliefs left me vulnerable to spath entanglements, and how constructing strong boundaries that apply to everyone will not only protect me, but give me the self-esteem that I need to take control of my own decisions and choices that are based upon MY needs, not someone else’s approval or acceptance.
Brightest blessings
Feminism. What is “feminism” really defined as?
I am learning to develop and maintain a firm strength in myself – that I already have whatever I need to heal and recover from my experiences and become independent and protect myself from other “bad people.” I don’t need a man (or, woman) to take care of me or to approve of me OR to accept me. I can do all of these things FOR myself, and BY myself.
Does this make me a “feminist?” I sure hope so. LOL!!!
In Hens’ words: “Oh my!”
Darsmom…..and Hens, you took the words right outta my mouth!!
o my
please don’t turn my blabber button on…
LOL