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.
Dear Sunflower,
It isn’t easy to let go of the hurt of the betrayal of those people that you thought were friends.
The truth is though that YOU were their friend, but they were not YOUR friend, because a FRIEND does not treat others the way they treated you “Sorry about your rape, now can you come help me move apartments” LOL ROTFLMAO That is NOT friendship, that is not caring. That is USING.
Not all my “friends” and “family” that turned their backs on me, or didn’t believe me were or are psychopaths themselves, but it is just easier for people to think that “I don’t want to get in the middle of that” or to put themselves out and take a stand.
I also realized that other friendships were not “healthy” friendships. Even my Best friend of 30 years wasn’t a healthy friendship and she had been there for me many times, and vice versa, but you know, I realized that our relationship had changed and it was NO LONGER HEALTHY. So I ended it about 2 years ago. I still have fond memories of those previous 30 years, and I have no “hard feelings” toward her, it is just that it is time that I move on and since she is unable to respect my new boundaries, then it’s time for the relationship to be put to rest.
She isn’t a mean person, just that things have changed. Sometimes I miss what used to be, but I must accept what IS NOW.
Then there are others, like my son C. I love him very much. Always will I guess, but he let me down during the “summer of chaos” and actively sided with the psychopaths who he knew were trying to drive me out of my home (and the one he didn’t know who was trying to kill me, and eventually tried to kill him)
I gave C “another chance” but the BOUNDARY (the rule if you will) was NO lies of ANY kind about any thing So, for a while I thought he had changed and I could trust him, and I was starting to trust him again, and danged if he didn’t break his agreement about living here and then lie about it.
It broke my heart to tell him that he had to leave here (I gave him 30 days to do so) and he even lied about that, told his boss and co workers that I had thrown him out in the middle of the night. LOL So I am NC with son C except we work together to keep son Patrick in prison.
Other “friends” and family that I saw did not do anything to help me when they KNEW I was in danger, those people I just pass on by, say high if I meet them in the store in town, or wave if we pass each other on the road, but they are not IN my life, not IN my “circle of trust and intimacy.”
My “circle of trust and intimacy” is very small, and contains only my adopted son and a few very close friends that I know I can count on, who DO believe what I say…and would be here if I called during the middle of the night and said “COME NOW” and hung up!)
Lots of people seem to think that “most everyone esle” has tons of friends, hundreds of friends, but the reality is that most people have only in their life times 2 or 3 GOOD friends and the rest are just “people we know” but not TRUE FRIENDS.
So if you have one or two TRUE friends that would come when you called, mortgage their house for you, spend the night at the hospital, or arrange for your burial, then you are fortunate indeed.
Oxy, great topic for an article. Thanks for writing it. You know how I feel about fence sitters. They are just spaths without balls. Sitting on the fence gives them a great view of the drama and a quick exit when the shit hits the fan.
Not all people who SAY they believe there is good deep down in everyone, actually believe it. Some are spaths and that is a mask. I just met one not long ago. He was a 19 year old kid, I was talkiing to on the phone and he said, “People who hurt other people usually are unaware that what they are doing is hurtful.” I told him he was naive if he believed that and that he would learn differently one day. At the time, I had no reason to believe he was anything other than a confused kid. Later, I found out he is a full-blown spath and he was practicing his mask when he said that.
Another reason I despise fence sitters is because most spaths will not attack by themselves. They always set up an audience of supporters to back them up and also to share the blame. It makes them appear less evil if “everybody is doing it too.” This is because it’s hard for normal people to believe that we are surrounded by spaths, so instead we change the definition of “normal” to include envy and malice and schadenfraude.
Sky, your discussions with me about “fence sitters” and enablers was what actually brought about this article.
Thhe two kinds of people who allow the psychopaths to get by with their game.
Those who KNOW and do nothing, like Pilate. He didn’t ACTIVELY help the Jews, he just KNEW Jesus was innocent, but he ALLOWED the mob to rule when he COULD have stopped them.
Then there are the ACTIVE enablers who participate with the psychopath in the abuse of the victim. The MINIONS who ware the co-conspiritors with the psychopaths, who give the psychopath aid and help in accomplishing the Evil. They are the ones who “hold the door open” for the psychopath, or who “drive the get away car” or “fence the loot” or Lie on the witness stand.
Sometimes these active enablers (the minions) are also psychopaths themselves and sometimes they are actually people who have just been conned by the psychopath with a pity ploy into thinking that the victim is in need of punishment.
Whatever the reason the minion or the fence sitter participates, it is necessary for the psychopath to have these in order to succeed in many cases.
Oxy,
yes there are some minions who are duped. I call those “The true believers”. Some of the true believers are good-hearted dupes, others are evil spaths who just aren’t very smart.
When the ex-spath was trying to convince everyone that homeland security was after him, he had his friend H believing it was true. He told H to hold the tracking device and not to give it to anyone no matter what. Then if Spath called him, he was to bring only part of it so that Spath would not lose the evidence. Of course he knew H has no balls and H would bring the entire device if homeland security requested it. H is the true believer who would then testify to the veracity of Spath’s story that homeland security REALLY WAS AFTER HIM. H is also a spath but he isn’t good at lying so he has to be made into a duped minion. H is fed information because Spath knows he can’t keep anything to himself. Then H goes around gossiping and telling the stories that Spath wants told. H paints the Spath as larger than life and that is how the other minions see him.
For myself, I used to be a duped minion. But I was not just a duped minion to my own spath but also to any spath, because I didn’t know that people with black holes for hearts existed. So whenever I saw people doing evil, I just thought they were confused or misguided. Even the worst of them, I believed that they had some good in them. And I forgave over and over again.
It is so good to have open eyes, even if there is so much ugliness to see.
I think some fencesitters are very gullible and ignorant. Most people say: ” It will never happen to ME so I don’t worry about it.” Truth is, it can happen to anybody and/or it IS happening to them, they just don’t know it yet.
Sunflower,
I am sorry you were raped and feeling alone. It’s good that you are reeavaluating and asking here what people think about it? Were you expecting too much from a friend or family member? NO. Is it something you would do for another? Yes. I imagine. My mother did a real number on me with her constant exasperated “you expect too much from people”. A total set up to forgive every single person who does something unacceptable. The list of things I could name that occurred in the future is awful! No true friend or family member worth having would be guilty of this behavior. Unfortunately it was a very painful lesson. I was much like Skyler calls the duped minion and it took a long time to get through my thick head what the reality was. I had a broken picker. In all areas of my life. For many reasons. So you have to clean house. Or pull the weeds or however you can envision it to make room for the new. I have recently let go of many friends due to the drama in my life and the attitudes and inability to even get it. People are all different. Skyler and OxDrover go into the spaths and their co”hurts” above.
The first thing is boundaries. What is a dealbreaker to you? Won’t be tollerated period. Then you should probably do some red flag assessments and just know that in the big scheme of things people will be different and react differently on day to day stuff and those are things I roll with. I don’t mind disagreeing with a friend about an opinion or something they do that I would not do or like but if they hurt other people doing it, we will have problems.
These are all lessons and they are no fun when you get a big one but when you look back on it, you’ll probably be thankful you learned and won’t have to do that again. I just read what you wrote about your mom and her drunken lucky to be alive hubby. Those are the type of things that confuse people. (your moms reaction/words) That’s why you are learning. She didn’t teach you properly there. The message you’d let your drunken hubby freeze to death AND share it with your daughter is disturbing. You will be better for this lesson. You are worth loving, you are worth being treated right. I tell my daughter this all the time, “Nobody on this earth deserves to be happier than you” and that goes for you too! It’s true! Unfortunately some of us didn’t get that memo. My daughter knows what I mean as I have ellaborated on it. Generally we are worthy and definitely as worthy as the next person.
Talk about the smear campaign, since Den didn’t want his friends to know about me and I was never included he had started the “smear campaign” when he started seeing me again 2 years prior. Since we lived in different towns it was pretty easy for him to accomplish. I was already discredited long before I ever approached any of them (trying to get the truth). They are all like a bunch of lemmings. He likes to target vet techs and animal lovers (of which I am). I assume it is because he knows we are very caring. Then he portrayed me as cruel to animals. They all believe him and none of them has ever met me.
I am convinced there is some kind of requirement in the family courts system where all members on all levels must have fence riding mastered or it is a field/industry that calls these people to it………….They enable. It is “civil” court not criminal and it seems to be a large part of the problem. Different rules of law and evidence.
Eralyn, thank you so much, means alot to me. In a strange way, I’m thankfull I met my last spath. Not that I would want to go thru it again, I’d even avoid all of it if I could turn back time, but it really was rock bottom for me. I would not have opened my eyes at all if I didn’t crash last year. At least I feel lucky I got a new opportunity to live life as I want it. Freedom to choose, freedom to live and all that comes with it. Healing is a journey, as well as life, but at least I’m lucky enough to be a part of it. Do you know what I did yesterday? A bumblebee landed on my doorstep, exhausted, ready to die. I went inside, found a spoon and some honey, and I fed it. Just sat there, watching it eat. And you know what? It was the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen. It survived and flew away, Just so beautiful this heavenly creature. I feel lucky I could see its beauty. To me that is life. Lol, maybe I’m a bit strange, go figure…. 😉
Kmillercats,
They target anything or anyone you care about. It makes sense to me animal lovers could be targetted. Churches, children, sick or dying relatives, anything you FEEL FOR as they CAN’T.
I am sorry to hear you are the target of a smear campaign. It’s hard to deal with.