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.
darwinsmom,
Thank you so much, you just gave peace to my heart. Thank you for using your time and energy to write your long and detailed answer. I’ll use my day to work with my self and truly listen to what you are saying. I have no words for how thankful I feel right now.
When it comes to my family member, it is taken out of context because I haven’t told the entire story. I know this person is backing me up and defending me to others. I am not excusing this person, I’m just saying put togheter as I wrote it makes it sound much more worse than the person ment it to be, there are detailes left out here. I know right now I have alot of emotions going on and I perceive it hurtfully or twisted/distorted. Yes to some degree this person don’t understand what its like, but the person is trying real hard to back me up as best as the person can based upon the resources and knowledge this person has. The things that was said was not said in a hurtful or judmental tone of voice, the person was really trying to understand my point of view, but when triggered my feelings exploded. When I’m triggered I can somewhat twist it because its my negative emotions responding, not logic. You know the saying you only hear what you want to hear? It is kinda like that in this particular scene. I went into a victim mode… Luckally I’ve sorted this out with this person and it is ok. We’ve had a long conversation about it and I understand it better now. It’s important to me to say this because I don’t want to badmouth a person who doesn’t deserve it and make my self look like a bigger victim than I am. This victim mode is something I need to adress as the dream suggest.
Thank you.
Darwinsmom & Dupey, spot-on.
I LOVE this truth: “Do NOT exonerate people for “not meaning it in that way”. Family and friends who blame you for having been raped, who tell others that you are “easy”, and men treating you as some candy are not friends to you. Please avoid them and go no contact with them.”
Precisely how I was made a victim by the exspath: he doesn’t really MEAN it THAT way….oh, bullshit! He said it precisely how he meant it, and I don’t give “benefit of the doubt,” anymore, where people’s choices and behaviors are concerned.
SPOT-ON
Sunflower, here’s the crux: you aren’t OBLIGATED to tell the “whole story.” Either your family supports you, or they don’t, and “your side of the story” should have nothing to do with it. You aren’t required to defend yourself or explain yourself to anyone, and this includes family members, friends, coworkers, siblings, aunts, uncles, or the local fry cook.
Brightest blessings
As for having someone backing you up…..disallow it. You don’t need anyone to “defend” you if they are ignorant of the facts and experiences. By “ignorant,” I do NOT mean to say that they’re idiots – they just haven’t experienced what you have, and unless (or, until) they do, they will never, ever, EVER be able to watch your back for you.
Yeah, it’s nice to believe that we have support in someone, but I learned a very ugly truth about people who have never experienced what we have. They may act and say that they want to support us, but they don’t understand that keeping their mouths shut instead of “explaining” our situations to other fence-sitters is the best approach. They don’t have the experience to speak knowledgeably about our situations. And, any time that we (or, someone on our behalf) engages in defense and explanation, it only validates whatever the spath is claiming about us.
Oh, thank you truthy and Back f.t.e for the other advices. I’m in therapy, but well… I think my therapist gets it, it’s just that my theraphist is not with me 24/7 so I have no one around when the triggers come. Right now it feels like the triggers are getting stronger and stronger each time so I stress alot to deal with them right then and there. I think my cup is so full that I can’t take another drop before my system is in for a spin.
Back to the topic of splitting, I read a a little about this book you are talking about. Sound very interesting so I ordered it. I read a few pages on line, and all I saw all over that book was my mother:S
Ok, Truth, I got ya. Will do.
Sunflower, triggers – yeah. I remember my counselor once telling me to acknowledge the feeling, and then to put the feeling away. I didn’t know what she meant by that until she gave me an amazing mantra: “Feelings are NOT facts.”
Triggering is a “normal” part of our experiences, and it’s very important that we accept this. It doesn’t mean that we’re nuts, but that we’ve endured experiences that caused severe damages. I’m getting better at recognizing when I’m feeling triggered, but not by much. I address the anxiety by forcing myself into “the now.” I thought that my counselor just wanted me to shut up and get out of her office when she told me about this technique, but it really worked after I practiced it for a while.
You know, I find it almost morbidly amazing that the spaths never seem to need “coping mechanisms” to deal with personal traumas and their former victims spend the rest of their lives in recovery. Odd, that.
Brightest blessings
Sunflower,
About your dream: Anytime we are dreaming about them or interacting about them (overtly or in symbols) it is our subconscious mind trying to work out some problem we had/have wit them. Which specific problem varies with the dream but it is working out problems.
About this statement in your post above:
“I am one of those children and honestly it’s becoming such a curse” I can somewhat relate to the black and white thinking, all or nothing. I don’t know how many times I’ve been accused of black and white thinking. I think the difference is that I still love people, I don’t discard them. I will get upset, but I never stop loving them. I do have a fear of abandonment I’ll admit to that (especially now) , but I always keep in mind that I can’t make someone else love me, so if they don’t I’ll have to let them go. I never leave, I’ll threaten with it, but I do not have that “enough-button”.”
Your statement above is in reality I believe talking about BOUNDARIES. “I do not have that “enough button.”
Boundaries ARE the “enough button” they are the POINT at which we will NOT TAKE ANY MORE. Boundaries are the LIMITS over which we will not go. Boundaries are the RULES of how I will allow you to treat me.
For example when a person says NO to sex (that’s a boundary) and the other person does not respect their boundary and makes them have sex it is called RAPE.
Essentially it is the same with any boundary that we set….but we have to SET boundaries of “I will not allow you to XXXXXXX Me”
Okay, I set the boundary of “I will not allow you to XXXX me” or ZZZ will happen.”
I put up with a lot of carp from people I loved….I allowed them to lie to me, steal from me, etc and THERE WOULD BE NO CONSEQUENCES essentially. But I had ONE boundary that was solid…I would not allow a man to cheat on me and stay with him. That ONE boundary was set in stone…and when my x BF was cheating on me even before we were married, I tossed him to the curb. It hurt but I did.
Now, I have learned to have OTHER BOUNDARIES….about people being DISHONEST, IRRESPONSIBLE, LIARS, etc. because I do not want these people iin my life Not every irresponsible person is a psychopath but do I want people who are irresponsible in my life? No! Liars? No! dishonest? No! I am not going to tolerate people in my circle of intimacy who are not GOOD up-lifting people. I don’t need anyone else to cause problems or drag me down.
You will be amazed at how much your life improves when you find your “enough is enough” button!
Hi Sky,
You’re right that splitting is at the root of all those things. And I think that the term splitting is used (as in that wiki article) to represent quite a number of things, which makes it worse.
When I was a teenager, until I was in my late 20’s, I still believed that I came from a normal family, and that my mother was a good mother. Mainly because that’s what everyone else pretended was happening. And yet, I knew that she absolutely wasn’t, but it wasn’t at all safe for me to ‘see’ that, so I had to deny it, and I lived the pretense as if it were true. That’s one form of (sort-of) splitting, although not what most of the writers in the wiki article were referring to.
And all of those views of splitting, btw, sometimes get horribly confused with psychopathic manipulation; the Jekyl/Hyde effect could be splitting, but it could just as easily be someone choosing their mood as a way to control and manipulate. From the outside its sometimes difficult to tell the difference. Just to confuse things, I don’t think it’s always an either/or situation either. I think sometimes disordered people fluctuate between doing it unconsciously, and realizing what their doing and using those same behaviour intentionally.
I think splitting is a form of dissociation, but at the emotional level instead of the explicit memory level. Not sure if it would come before or after traumatic amnesia – could be that each is a response to something different.
Hens described it very well – it’s a kind of proactive defense move to minimize the possibility of experiencing pain. The negative splitting is kind of the psychological equivalent to “a good offence is the best defence” kind of thing (for the sports-minded).
I think it’s a function of how your brain gets wired in infancy (nothing to substantiate that on – just my own thinking here) – if you observe your parents behaviour flipping back and forth – sometimes the “good” parent, at others the “bad parent”- the mimicry tendancies in all of us try to mirror that for safety. If you ever get removed enough from that ‘flipping’ parent to safely learn the truth (by that I mean learning in a safe enough environment and for long enough for those neural structures get a chance to grow in your brain), then your brain can grow to accomodate the larger truth that someone you depend on can ‘appear’ to be nice to you, but actually be dangerous. It’s only my suspicion, but I believe for most borderlines they never had enough time away from that environment, and never got the chance to develop that ‘a-ha!’ wiring. Of course, some people are more pre-disposed to have their brains wired that way.
This doesn’t apply to all splitting situations, but I also think that small children get ‘rewarded’ into adopting negative splitting behaviour for getting away with (or being rewarded for having) temper tantrums. That’s never a good thing for children. After a while, they start to believe that this is normal behaviour, and OK to pull these drama scenes and denigrate people, and they eventually actually believe what their temper-fuelled tantrums are saying about someone else. It’s my belief that some children are rewarded into becoming monsters – sometimes one carrot at a time. It’s never a loving parent that does this type of stuff, so the child is still looking for loving relationships, but with no skills to have one. They’re still stuck in the infant stage where a loving relationship is still parent/child (disordered parent child, mind you), and never get the proper modelling to move into either healthy parent/child or health adult/adult relationships (let alone relationships with their own children). But they still feel dependant on their bad parent, so do the positive splitting with them (my parent loves me), but on some level they know they’ve been abuse and those feelings need to be assigned somewhere. If it’s not safe to direct those feelings back at the bad parent, they find a likely target – often it’s a target the parent chooses for them, btw – but in many cases it’s a substitute for the parent that they feel safe to project those bad feelings onto.
I’ve always said that, in many ways, I was very lucky that my mother was (for the most part) clearly and unambiguously dangerous and hateful, because I didn’t need to ‘flip’. I had to dissociate to survive, but I’ve never really had to struggle to figure out whether the statements “she loved me” or “she didn’t love me” were true. And, thus I never had to project those bad feelings on others – I always knew they belonged to her. I think kids who struggle to figure that out have a tough time – that’s the stuff that really messes with your head.
Now I’m sure I’ve confused things even more… Oh well, it’s helping me to talk this out, even if I’m confusing everyone else. Sorry! 🙁
Morning Oxy!
Yes, strange isn’t it. I used to watch my spath on that one. He had only one coping mechanism. He only did this if I adressed his hurtful behaviour (like lying, cheating etc). He went to bed, closed his eyes for 15 minutes. Came back and acted like nothing ever happened. I didn’t recognize the guy at all. It was like seeing two different persons. I once asked him what he was doing when he did that. He said he took all his emotions and put them completely away so he wouldn’t have to feel anything about his own actions. It was necessary so he could continue on what he was doing. Again I looked like this: ????????
From what you are saying I need to adress my defence mechanisms as well. You are so right, I really don’t need to defend or say anything. What a liberation…