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.
Hi Sky,
I’ve been having technical problems all day too – not just you. Completely agree with you re: wisdom.
One thought (jmo) – we ‘blank’ (split?) when information about our lives is just too much to handle and having that knowledge will actually put us in greater danger (i.e. can’t do grey rock if you’re out and out panicking, can’t help panicking if we pile on more than we’re capable of handling). As we become safer our bodies start to let us know that there is unfinished business.
Not sure if you’ve ever had a traumatic reaction (I’d bet you have) but your body puts you in tunnel vision – you only see the danger and your body doesn’t ‘let’ you see anything that isn’t important to attend to. I think splitting is a flip-side version of that. If you start to fight one predator, but aren’t aware of other predators lined up behind them, you’re actually making yourself more unsafe. Better in that case to not see but not panic. Your body sometimes has a bigger wisdom, and is trying to keep you alive – and you’re here with us.
There is a great quote by the author I mentioned the other day: Q: “Is preparation the cure for anxiety?” A: “No, the cure for anxiety is fear.” I thought this was a GREAT quote. Anxiety (and nightmares, etc…) tells us that there is something out there on our horizon to be afraid of, but isn’t specific with the information. It’s up to us to scan the horizon (or our lives, etc…) to see if there is a genuine threat, and from where.
You had a WHOLE LOT to be afraid of – too much for one lone person imho – regardless of how strong, brave, smart and talented you are. You didn’t feel ‘offended’ then, but how would you feel in the same situation now? A whole lot different, I’d wager.
Edit: One more thing. Most bad therapy (most of it, frankly imo) leads us down the garden path by telling us that all our fears are exagerated. You’ll notice that they never tell you to stop and figure out IF you may actually be in danger, and WHERE it’s coming from. As to figuring out what to do about it, why would you do that if all your fear is ‘irrational’. I’ve learned to view the word ‘irrational’ as a big red flag.
I think really bad advice: be nice, be polite, don’t be irrational, etc… is a big part of why people stay in abusive situations. Most MH professionals can’t, and more importantly WON’T, imagine the kinds of things most people on this blog have lived through. Thus, their ‘solutions’ for situations don’t work too well.
Sunflower,
If a BF of mine were to threaten suicide or any other thing like that, he would be an EX BF THAT DAY. As for doing things to you! DITTO, I would not stand for anyone abusing me or my pets, or anyone else.
If people are MEAN in any way, I want them out of my life NOW and FOREVER. If people are DISHONEST ditto, if they are IRRESPONSIBLE ditto.
Why would anyone want someone who is mean, dishonest and/or irresponsible in their lives?
That’s what LF is all about is teaching up to recognize these people and get them out of our lives, NC forever! (((hugs))))
Hi Sunflower,
I want to echo what Oxy and everyone else said above. You’ve been through some horrible horrible stuff. That is some awful abuse you’ve been through, by so many people in so many ways. I’ve been through physical and sexual torture, but I still think that the kind of psychological torture that you’ve been through is some of the hardest stuff to deal with, and to get your head clear from.
But – and this is important – YOU CAN GET YOUR HEAD CLEAR FROM IT. AND YOU CAN TEACH YOURSELF TO LOVE YOURSELF AND FIND LOVE IN YOUR LIFE. But as so many people here have said already, you have to clear the slime and junk out first to give yourself some space to heal and grow. And that does feel really lonely and frightening to do. But it’s not that much different than where you are now, except THERE ARE NO MORE BAD PEOPLE AROUND ANY LONGER!!! Once you start investing in yourself and your safety, good safe decent people will start to come in to fill up the empty spaces. It takes some time, we all have to learn how to tell the difference between good people and bad people before we can let that happen. But it does happen.
Re: feeling triggered and lonely – when young children are born and are being raised for the first few years of life, the caretaking by their primary caregivers literally grows their brain. By mimicking each other the (usuallly) mother’s and child’s brains literally start to grow to resemble one another. So you’ve learned a lot of your lifeskills and coping from your mother, and that’s not so good. But, AND THIS IS IMPORTANT, thats not totatlly where you get your wiring from. You also got it from other people you associated with, and your plain old genes from your parents, grandparents, etc… That’s a lot of influences that can give you the raw stuff to dilute bad parenting.
But, and here’s the fun part, our brains are constantly growing, and rewiring themselves based on our experiences. So, you haven’t had an ideal start, and you’re trying to work with lifeskills that haven’t been built in your best interests. BUT YOU CAN START TO DO THAT NOW! You can learn how to be kind to yourself, how to be loving to yourself, how to protect(!) yourself, how to invest in yourself. And each time you do that, your brain wires itself a little more toward that each time. It starts getting stronger and stronger. And before you know it, you’re no longer that scared person who lacks self-confidence, doesn’t recognize bad people, and lets herself get pushed around. Before you know it, you’re one of the strong survivors on here, like Donna, like Oxy, like Skylar, like Truthspeak, like Darwinsmom, like a whole mess of other people on here I don’t have time to mention.
Hugs to you Sunflower. You’re just at the start of much better things to come.
Sunflower,
Here is an article on narcissistis and suicide. It’s quite controversial, but I think it’s spot on. It talks about suicidal gestures being used by narcissists as instruments of control and abuse of others. Sounds to me pretty close to what you experienced.
I hope it helps you. The spam filter seems to be on hyperdrive tonight so I’ve played with the address of the link – just get rid of the spaces in the address below.
h t t p : // narcissists-suck.blogspot.com/2012/06/suicide-threats-and-narcissist . html
Hugs, Annie
In my world, threats of suicide are not tolerated. My mother attempted suicide when I was 4, and she meant to be “successful.” The abusive exspath threatened to shoot my children in front of me, then shoot me, then himself, all of the time. The second exspath made a veiled threat of suicide by saying, “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself,” when I asked him what consequences would occur if he continued entertaining his repulsive sexual interests (this was LONG before I learned about the frauds).
I will not, under any circumstances, tolerate threats of suicide. I’ve had too many friends take this course of action, and they may have ended their lives, but the people who are left behind might as well have been murdered along with them. A part of someone’s soul is snuffed out when a loved one commits suicide. A threat of suicide is the same as a threat of murder, in my book.
Sky, I think your comment on how you failed to feel offended by overt danger or abuse is very very valid. And yes, those of us who have grown up with abuse think it’s normal and don’t have a normal sense of entitlement. However, I make a distinction between that and *splitting*, which is a very specific feature of the borderline personality and not just a simple repression or denial of feelings. It’s a very specific way of acting out the intense abandonment by projecting good/bad onto people. I have never observed you to do this. That doesn’t mean you don’t – I just have never observed it personally.
I cannot remember when I started recovering my healthy anger about my boundaries being violated. But when I did, I often went overboard in expressing the anger because it had been bottled up for so many years and I didn’t know how to deal with it. For a while I was constantly angry and it seemed everyone around me was constantly triggering it. I think if the anger is in there, it is affecting you in some way. If it is not directed toward the appropriate people, then it is probably directed at yourself in the form of depression. However, there does come a point in recovery where you stop being so angry because you stop taking things personally. But that point comes once you have already released a lot of the anger from the past, so it no longer gets triggered by certain people/behaviors. I really don’t know where you are at in this process. If you have never felt any rage toward the people who have hurt you the most, then you probably are turning it inward. But if you’ve raged and grieved, then it’s appropriate not to take their behaviors personally and just brush it off as it belonging to them and not you. In fact, once you get to a certain point in your recovery, you stop hanging around with, tracking, or even thinking about those people. You choose healthier people to be around.
Recovering that righteous anger involves a certain degree of trust – trust in ourselves (that we can handle the anger), trust in the universe to support us while we’re going through it, trust in the healing process, and on occasion, trust in another person. If you don’t have trust, you may be too scared and stuck to allow those feelings to surface. You also need to feel a certain degree of emotional safety, which means you feel some sort of love either for yourself, or coming from someone else, even if just from a higher power. I did not have this kind of safety, love, or trust for a good part of my life, and that is why I was depressed for so many years. I feel a huge difference lately in my ability to trust. An example is that I spent $300 for 3 sessions with a hynotherapist. I trusted him and allowed him to help me. I recall that about 10 years ago, I contacted the same hynotherapist (I remember his hypnotic voice). At that time, I thought he was probably a quack and didn’t want to waste my money. The more motivated I have become to clear my past, the more willing I am to trust. And the more I do trust. So the universe sends people my way who can help me.
(((Truthspeak)))
My X attempted suicide twice while living with me, first he cut his wrist because I wanted him to leave. Well his attempt was intent on winning my sympathy, it worked.. I thought wow this guy must really love me..wrong..on close observation there were previous scar’s from many attempts/ intents. Bless his heart. Then he overdosed on 8 pain pills and left the empty bottle for me to find. That didnt win any sympathy with me. Bless his heart. They really are damaged people, I tried so hard to give him the life and love I thought he needed, wanted.
Hugs to you too, hens. Bless *your* heart.
Stargazer, interesting post – thank you. I’ve never really had depression (at least not the way it’s generally pictured), and I’m just starting to go through depressive episodes lately. It’s new for me – I have no skills to get through it. I had two other reactions (well, actually three) to directing my anger from my abuse internally rather than externally:
1) traumatic amnesia (I still don’t remember most of my childhood)
2) chronic illness
3) PTSD (very graphic violent nightmares, etc…)
Wait, that should be four: 4) triggers to specific things that create confusion/dissociation/illness.
I’m still not really able to access anger properly – I think it’s still blocked way down there – so it still comes out in violent nightmares and health problems. As I’m working things through in therapy, I seem to be moving up into depression, as a positive direction. Go figure…
Have to say – depression sucks. I’ve found ways to cope with the violent nightmares, etc… Repression isn’t so good for you, but a lot easier to take than depression.
Edit: Oh, forgot to mention. Before I let myself become ‘aware’ of the abuse I was a complete ‘Pollyana’, so I totally get where you’re coming from Sky re: not being offended by things that should offend you. Thing was, I had no idea I was Pollyana – absolutely hated anyone I thought was being Pollyanna-ish.
“suicide threats/gestures” are many times a form of MANIPULATION. “Do what I want you to or I will kill myself and then you will feel guilty”
ALL suicide threats should be taken SERIOUSLY, but the way they should be handled is to CALL THE POLICE and/or 911 so that the person threatening to harm themselves will be taken to a mental institution and receive care. If they NEED it, then they will get it, if they are just making an empty threat, being taken to a mental institution should make them aware that YOU are NOT going to be manipulated by their threats.
Non-professionals are not equipped to deal with suicide or depression that bad, so it should be left to professionals to deal with.
If it is manipulation, then you don’t want to deal with the kind of person who would attempt that to manipulate you…you need them out of your life any way.
People who are Borderline Personality Disordered frequently cut themselves or other kinds of self harm. This is also very serious because sometimes they DO end up killing themselves, either on purpose or in pretending to and actually doing it but not on purpose.
In any case, threat or for real, it should be handled professionally and if it is just a manipulation, then get them out of your life. If they are serious, they need TREATMENT and it is possible that the treatment will help if they are not ALSO psychopaths, but remember, even psychopaths can kill themselves…