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.
Thank you all for helping me out with this concept of splitting. It is starting to come into focus.
I think it is not the root of cog/dis, but a strategy that attempts to deal with cog/dis.
In the case of a spath, there may be degrees to which he believes his own lies. He is able to do this by splitting. So, for example, he plans to pick a fight to get you upset and acting crazy. Once you do, he sees you as “bad” for attacking him. Now you “deserve” to be punished. This is how they justify their attitude of “she deserved it” or “he had it coming”.
The degree of consciousness about believing their own lies will always be a question for us, but I think it is even a question for them. It reminds me of a line in the TV show, Seinfeld where George says, “Jerry, it’s not really a lie if you believe your lie.”
It also reminds me of my spath sister saying, “Sky, it’s ok to be evil.”
I think that spath splitting is what causes our WTF? moments.
It seems like there are different definitions of splitting because there are so many different ways a person can do it. Sour grapes is one example.
Now I’m thinking that the key is not so much the black and white thinking but the oscillation between black and white thinking. First a person wants the grapes really badly, but then decides that they were sour and doesn’t want them.
It is a mistake, however, to allow oneself to believe that a predator EVER perceived us as anything other than prey. Just because he came on with a love bomb, doesn’t mean he ever had any intent other than evil. That cognitive dissonance, in the prey, comes from the spath’s ability to believe his own lies. It creates a very convincing performance and we look back thinking that in the beginning they found us attractive.
I was fortunate to learn exactly how my spath percieved me in the beginning because of an overheard conversation. Furthermore, in retrospect, his MO is mechanical sabotage, so I also know that he had sabotaged my car BEFORE he ever met me. That clears any cog/diss from my mind.
Regardless of how much splitting the abuser does, his abuse is still abusive. Just because he can split while abusing and then split again when he is lovebombing, doesn’t make him not an abuser. Well, I guess it does, if the abused also splits.
I think that this conversation has propelled me leaps and bounds in my understanding of abuse. Thanks everyone and especially Annie, for your patience and help.
well, they don’t know what real love is. They only know they feel wonderful….for a minute, and never having experienced a true intimacy, and healthy attachment, they have no reference point. They think, it must be love.
Kim, Transactional Analysis gives us a BASE to work from and to see where the other person is coming from and Where WE are coming from, whether we are in our “parent” “adult” or “Chhild” and anytime we feel ourselves hurting, crying etc We can KNOW WE ARE IN OUR CHILD….and then we can by making a conscious effort to move into our adult, where we do not have that pain and those emotions say to ourselves “Why is my parent beating my child?”
Just by asking a rational question then we automatically move into the adult, rational portion of our psyche and the pain stops as we figure out what is going on.
I read about TA 40 years ago, but I just did not PUT IT INTO PRACTICE and believe me I am doing my best to do so now.
The “games” your SIL is playing with both your daughter and with you are going to continue until either she and/or you QUIT PLAYING them.
Refuse to accept the role of victim, rescuer or persecutor. You cannot rescue her and should not rescue her, or him for that matter, because any time you do so you are SUCKED BACK INTO THE GAME.
Dr. Eric Berne knew what he was talking about in “games people play” and if we look at the situations, the “transactions” we have with people we can see where we are playing games and opt OUT. Games prevent real intimacy between two people.
Psychopaths can do nothing BUT play games. Games are NOT “fun and games” though….sometimes there is, as a therapist I know once said, “Tissue damage” (beatings or worse!)
Back in the 1970s there was a “band” called the Sex Pistols and a guy named Sid Viscious was in it and he had a girlfriend named Nancy that he killed, then when he got out on bail hhe OD’d and died himself. Nancy’s mother wrote a book I found at a used book store yesterday called “I don’t want to live like this anymore” where she told about her life with Nancy as a “difficult” child from birth, unlike her other children, and a drug addict by age 14, etc. and basically how the family enabled Nancy by not requiring her to behave in a reasonable manner.
The parents were at a loss on how to handle her, and the mother think Nancy had brain damage at birth due to a blood disorder and the cord being around her neck. Maybe so, but Nancy’s family enabled her, felt guilt that they could not control her. The family survived intact, but with wounds and they never did fully “get it” about dealing with personality disordered individuals and I think both Sid and Nancy were PDs of one sort or another iin ADDITION to being IV drug addicts.
When we allow disordered individuals to continue to play their games with us, then we are allowing our own pain. We must stay in our “adults” and use rational good sense to opt out of dealing with this kind of person who is NOT going to change. Even with my son C, he is not a psychopath like his brother, but he is a game player, a liar if it suits him, and irresponsible with his money. He has other good character traits, but so did Ted Bundy when he wasn’t killing women. I’m not saying C is a murderer just using the example that even VERY bad people may have some “good traits.” We can’t let the “good traits” be the basis for over looking the bad ones though.
No one is perfect, but at the same time, we can and SHOULD expect BASIC HONESTY AND BASIC KINDNESS AND BASIC RESPONSIBILITY out of the people we deal with. Those people who don’t have ALL of those characteristics—we need them WHY?
I think that splitting can occur both inside of us and outside of us. I can split you into two persons, the good one and the bad one, then I have to chose one or the other, thus the ocellating, and ruminating…or I can split you into two halves and disgard one half…or disgard both halves….when I disgard one half, I am dissociating….I am denying the bad or the good in you because I must, to survive on a psychic level.
Then, there is the internal kind of splitting which happens when I split myself into all bad and all good. Neither is an accurate truth about me.
There are times when I feel all bad, and I am usually afraid that I’ve offended someone with having too strong of an opinion, and will be abandoned, or shun by them….this is internalized shame…
Yes Oxy. This situation is really interesting. As you know, my daughter’s bio Dad just died. A week prior to that, someone broke into her car and stole a very expensive lap-top, which had her whole life in it, including pictures of all her neices and nephews, her son, and dasterdly SIL. She’s grieving that loss, as well.
The last exchange between SIL and myself was my saying, “I’m done with you”, and him saying, “good. Leave us alone.”
My daughter has now slipped into child mode, asking me to soothe and comfort her….inviting me for tea, to sit on the porch, etc.
I know she knows the dynamic, and It’s interesting to see this play out, in an unemotional way. Of course I feel for my daughter, and am not opting out of a relationship with her…just not gonna get sucked into the game, anymore.
Sunflower,
Thruth is right. You don’t need to explain or defend anything to anyone. Explanations and defenses often give the impression to people who are unknowing that you feel you need to explain or defend yourself, and so that there’s smoke… and where there’s smoke, there must be fire. It’s one of the things I learned: to be silent to people about it, or give short assured statements (not accusing, but what are facts for me).
If you feel triggered, come here, please. There might be people in your surroundings you can talk to and confide in what you experienced, who will try to understand, but know they can never truly understand. And they certainly will not grasp it during a trigger. There own worry and anxiety for you, prevents them from responding in a way that eases your mind. Here, people will understand and can help you through.
🙂
Kim, there is nothing wrong in having a relationship with your daughter but it needs to be an ADULT to ADULT relationship rather than Parent-Child, because if it becomes parent-Child, she will resent it and strike back thus engaging in game playing.
She may also want to play a game of “Oh, ain’t it awful” about how her husband treats her….which if you agree to play that and shit-talk about him then it becomes a triangle again.
I would suggest that in your conversations if she brings him up, you say something along the line of “Sue, your relationship with Shithole is YOUR relationship with him, and I don’t think it is a good idea for me to get in the middle of it. How about those Cubbies? or what do you think about my new hair cut?” LOL
When the holidays come up there will also I suspect be some game playing too….and you may need to make some arrangements to ahve Xmas dinner somewhere besides with her and Shithole…and you can have “christmas” gift exchange with her and the kids at your house on another day around Christmas with cookies and punch….but not with shithole there.
Just stay in your ADULT and not get sucked into the CRITICAL PARENT role….Nurturing parent okay, but not the critical parent. She is choosing to stay with him in what you KNOW is an unhealthy relationship but you have to STAY OUT of the games and the middle of it. It is HER choice to stay…if she ever decided to leave him, then you can advise her as an ADULT to an ADULT or help her, but NOT enable her or play the games.
Also keep in mind when people have played games most or all of their lives, they RESIST you not playing a rousing game with them. So don’t fall and get sucked back in. (((Hugs)))
BTW Kimmie, I just want to tell you how much growth I have seen in you over the years and how proud of you I am that you managed to become independent of SIL and stand on your own two feet.
Speaking of which I get my cast off Monday so I can again stand on TWO feet…in a walking boot but still standing on my TWO feet.
darwinsmom:
Ok, thank you. How can I defend my self then without the smoke and fire scenario? I’m being accused of being the “bad” person, how can I stick up for my self? By doing or saying nothing? Now I just leave and go NC, but if I keep going NC on everbody I’ll have nothing left.
Sunflower, you seem to think of NC as having a purpose as a message to these people or some way to teach them. You seem to think of boundaries in a similar manner.
Boundaries and NC are not about teaching other people anything. It is about making sure that people who don’t want to learn, grow and hurt you for whatever reason cannot do so anymore.
I used to think similary as you do while I was with the spath and with pupils. If I voiced my boundaries well enough I thought they would honor that, and it upset me when they didn’t. And I blamed myself for not being clear enough. In a way you hope to control the actions of others in that way.
BUT you cannot control what people believe, don’t believe, think, don’t think, say, don’t say, do or don’t do. The sole control you ever have is whether it can get to you. If kids keep on talking while I’m teaching, and my requests to be silent do not help, I’ll set them apart and that until the rest of the year. Problem solved as far as I am concerned. I’m not doing it to punish them, but because I can’t teach otherwise. If they don’t do their homework for me, I have them do an hour of mandatory evening study at school to do the homework then. If they skip classes, I do a simple class test and give them an F on it. I don’t feel upset about it. It’s their life. But I just make sure I can teach and can actually grade them on work they have done. Some kids will never do their homework, and some realize that if they work hard in the classroom, they will have already done the housework in the classroom and so don’t have to do it at home anymore, let alone at a mandatory end-of-the-day study hour. It’s not my responsibility to make them understand that. Some will, some won’t.
So when you go NC, some people will be shocked and some won’t care one jot about it. Those who will be shocked will perhaps in time come to understand why and grow. Those who don’t care one jot about it: good riddance. It only proves they never cared about you and would never have respected your boundaries in the first place.
You defend yourself by believing you don’t have to defend yourself about anything. You haven’t done any wrong and you expect people who are your friends to know this without you having to tell them and explain to them. It is the believing you have to defend yourself that is the smoke.
Do not be afraid to shed ALL who treat you badly. Yes, it seems like you will empty your social life. But these people were empty anyway, and instead just occupied space and prevented others, more worthwhile, from being in your life. When you go NC with these type of people you MAKE SPACE for other people, people who will like you for who you are, who won’t even need to be told or reminded about boundaries. Believe you are worthy of having worthy people in your life, rather than crappy people.
Remember that crappy colleague of mine? I’ve completely ignored him the past month. Haven’t spoken one word to him anymore. Haven’t looked at him even. Instead I spend my time with colleagues who are open to me. He ignores me too and acts pleasant and sociable to others he wants to be. It doesn’t bother him that I ignore him. But it’s not important to me that he isn’t bothered. Has he noticed he’s completely non-existent to me? I’m sure he has. Does he care? I don’t think so. But of one thing I’m sure. He knows I do not want to be around him, and that I don’t desire his approval, and I’m sure he knows he cannot harrass me because of it.
Yesterday we had a teacher day, with workshops. One of those workshops was about talents and qualities. We had to play this game with 50 cards of talents and qualities in a group of 5. We had to draw a card and then decide which of the colleague had this quality or talent. I don’t know all the colleagues in my workgroup yesterday for very long nor a lot, but I have been socioalising with them some more the past month and the end of last schoolyear. None of the talents they gave me were a surprise for me, in that I knew for myself these were my qualities. But for some of them I was unsure whether my colleagues saw me in that way. It turned out that they did recognize my supertraits, even if they knew me but a little. And that was really nice to find out. Likewise the others had the same experience with the cards we gave to them.
I’m glad that nasty colleague of mine was nowhere near me and these colleagues during the exercise. He had another workshop. Hehe.