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.
Sunflower, I don’t mean control or punishment in the same way as spaths do… not in a malicious manner.
It’s not abnormal to try and apply some control over their environment. It’s part of being human. We wouldn’t have built cities, houses, grow food if a part of us does not try to control our surroundings. Trying to exert some control can be done for protective measures… We build houses and get jobs to pay for the house to have some type of security against the elements: against the cold, the heat, the sun, the rain, etc… You can see a house like a physical boundary we set up against the weather outside. The difference between a house and giving someone a head’s up on a boundary of ours by telling them “Dont do that.” is that when we sit in our house we built against the rain and the cold, we don’t expect the weather to stop raining or stop being so cold. We know the weather will do whatever it will do: rain, cold, heat, sunshine, …. And when we sit inside, we don’t spend our time all day at the window to mope about the fact it’s raining outside. We will notice it sometime and we will think, “I’d love it more when the sun’s out,” but we don’t end up feeling bad for ourselves when it doesn’t. Instead we turn our back to the window and the weather outside and do something else and we forget all about the rain.
When you go NC it’s like that house we build agains the weather. It’s a protective measure, but we cannot expect the these people to suddenly drop their disorder or their age old drama behaviour, their act, just because we shut them out of our emotional and mental home. They’ll do what they’ve always done: raining, hailing, howling, storm outside to whomever who cares to look and dares to go out in such a dog’s emotional weather. It’s alright to glance outside and think “Pity they’re no sunshine in my life, but just dreadful rain.” But there’s no need to go beyond that glance. Just let them rain all they want outside, and enjoy the cozy hearthfire with a mug of chocolate milk. If you do go out and tell them to stop raining, then you’re piling too much responsibility upon yourself.
It doesn’t make you an awful person at all to try to teach them to stop. But there is a lesson for you to realize you can’t make them stop. You can only stop them from doing it TO YOU, by not having them in your life.
Hugs 🙂
And TOWANDA on not letting yourself be entangled in another guy like the ex!!!
Ok, thank you.
Lol, you really got a way of saying it. “If you do go out and tell them to stop raining, then you’re piling too much responsibility upon yourself.” This is exactly what I do, it’s been my life. It seems to me that I attract people who want me to do it, take responsibility for their lives as well as I volunteer to do it.
BUT anyways, you got a nice way to get the message across. I got a good laugh in that truth. I imagined my self out in the pouring rain, in a yellow coat and hat, screaming at the sky: Stop raining! LOL
My head is so filled up with this information so I think I need to rest and digest what’s been said. Thank you Darwinsmom and everyone else. It is really good to have your support, I truly appreciate it. Thank you for listening to me and helping me today.
Hehehe, Sunflower,
I think we’ve all been shouting at the sky “Stop raining” in our yellow oilcoat and hat and scratching our head in mystery when that didn’t work and feeling guilty over it that we couldn’t make the sky stop raining, one time or another. 🙂 Imagery helps. That’s why I like dreams so much: they send us messages with imagery too.
NC is self protection. NC is keeping your physical self and your soul SAFE. Do NOT feel guilty. I do NOT do guilt anymore. I no longer feel the need to justify my actions as I KNOW my intentions are genuine. I do make mistakes as we all do and I will apologise (once only)but that’s what makes me human (I’m SO GLAD I’m human). There is NO malice behind my actions and I KNOW, I just KNOW I’m one of the “goodies” of this world. This world belongs to me too and I respect that truth. Spaths think they own the world but they do NOT.
Does any one think that the spaths choices stink and are in bad taste, vulgar even, but we end up convinced otherwise because the spath says so?
Just having a ramble tonight. 🙂
Truthspeak, just want to say “Thank-you”
and to you too Skylar.
Your support is priceless and your insights are so profound. Much love to you beautiful people for sharing yourselves.
From my heart 🙂
I think for those of us who have been traumatised, we need to hear the “details” of eachothers stories so that in relating to those toxic experiences we can heal and finally “get it”
However, I think for those who don’t “get it” we have to say, calmly “actions speak louder than words and I guess you just have to find out for yourself” That way we shouldn’t come across as being “bitter” or “vindictive”
Hello it’s been a while, I am glad to see so many of the regular posters and some new ones.
I have been off trying to become a better person myself – and doing more to understand that my spath is a spath and it’s not about me. I see that more clearly now than I did 5 years ago, but still have a ways to go. When I break NC, and let him near me, it STILL affects me. It hurts me.
Still, I understand that the things he says and does make no sense to me, I have no empathy for him because I can’t understand what it’s like to have a personality like that – where he claims two things to be true that are polar opposite.
Without an emotional core we blow in the wind and we are directionless.
I used to spend MONTHS WEEKS AND HOURS trying to figure out the TRUTH. Did he love me or hate me? Was it A or B? Was it Y or Z? And now I have learned that the truth isn’t “A” or “Y”, but the truth is that there is no answer to what he really feels. He has no core and no self.
I am a curious person and so I studied him and studied him to no end. And now I have the truth.
The more important question for me is why did I try so hard, why did I think I had to put up with such garbage in a relationship, why did I take that personally?
I was lonely. My mother taught me that my needs didn’t matter. And my mother taught me that everything was my fault.
I’m learning otherwise.
Thank you, Donna and Oxy and LF, for getting me to this point.
Hugs.
By the way, in GLAMOUR magazine today I saw an article about onnline con men, and they mentioned a site that you could report what happened to the government. There was a quote that said sometimes it’s enough to help the government connect the dots on other crimes. I searched online and can’t find the article, but what a great idea to report our spaths THERE, as they are likely involved in other crimes/cheating too.
yes , my x could make me feel like I hung the moon and then suddenly I was the most awful person he ever met..
we could be having a wonderful time and then in a blink he would go into a rage for something trivial I had said or done weeks or months ago..so I began to walk on eggshells never knowing what to expect and in time everything was so wrong about the relationship that I had to stop. At the time I felt as I was turning away the love of my life, the chance of a lifetime to be with the one and only.. Even with him banging on my doors and windows I would not continue with this troubled relationship..I was to tired physically and emotionally to deal with it, my health was failing. It took years for me to see what he was all about, I have no regret’s letting go of him or more to the point kicking him to the curb. banana split anyone?
Sunflower ((((hugs))))
You said:
“I think I have a real fear of punishment if I don’t do as I’m told. When I was a child my mother would try to commit suicide right infront of me if I didn’t do as she wanted. If I did not love her she would slit her wrist or try to hang her self. (I’ve mentioned this in other posts so I’m repeating my self here) Since I was 6 yrs old, this has been my life. I think that fear still lives in me.”
This is a TERRIBLE burden that your mother placed on your shoulders when you were too young to understand what was being done to you. That is/was ABUSE of a HORRIFIC NATURE to do to a child.
As an adult, though, you can realize that this is/was ABUSE and that you DID NOT DESERVE to ahve something like this done to you. You can work through this as an ADULT.
You can never change the “tapes” that your mother installed in your heart/mind/emotions, but you can HIT THE MUTE BUTTON.
When you find yourself wit these feelings that stem from that abandonment and that disrespect of you as a person (you are and were NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR HER “SUICIDE” THREATS OR ATTEMPTS!) You cann say to yourself “Sunflower, you are not responsible for how someone else feels, or responsible for them being or not being happy. The ONLY person you are responsible for their happiness and behavior is for YOURSELF”
Chant that like a mantra and eventually it will sink in. Also, if you are not receiving some professional therapy to deal wit this, I strongly suggest that you get some. This is a terrible thing to have to live with and over come without some help.
My family of origin wasn’t quite that dramatic, but dramatic enoug that it was instilled into me that I was responsible for everyone else’s happiness. It is NOT true. Each of us is responsible for our own. II also hope that you are not still in contact with your mother. It is tough going NC with your mother, even if they were abusive to you,, but I have found it is the only way to disengage from the “drama rama” that is so painful and dysfunctional. God bless you (((Hugs)))