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.
Somehow I need to understand “fruits” better. All the christians involved in our case seem to be mistaking the words, you know a man by his fruits, as assets. Through his con, he has somehow acquired a job making 4 + times more money than he has ever made in his life. This is seeming to be Gods miracle and “fruit”. His fruits (assets)look a lot better than mine right now but I know it’s all too bizarre to be legit. We’re talking about a man with no high school diploma, 9 felonies in our county alone, 7 of them new and honest hard working people can’t even find employment so it must be a miracle from God. ???
So I look a bit crazy while attempting to explain how this is all happening. He’s on probation too! I’m wondering about him being a snitch too. None of it makes sense from a law abiding citizens mind knowing all that I know about this guy. So are fruits as vague as it sounds or do others just know what that means and I don’t seem to get it?
Also Ox D, you are exactly right regarding MyPain. That post concerned me deeply as I heard the same thing you reference in your response. MyPain you must really think about what Ox is saying to you as she has vast knowledge on the subject and how these things can play out. There is a child involved who we like to think needs family but keeping secrets or peace as you say just to keep family is probably what Sanduskys wife said to herself or some version of it…………… Please think about the big picture and ask questions if you need help….
Eralyn,
The most “beautiful” fruit sometimes has ROTTEN CORES, the worm within the apple as it were.
External views of “fruit” or “success” is not always accurate.
Look at how many famous and rich business, media and sports stars are drugged out and miserable….yet on the outside they appear to be very successful.
Jesus had not a place to lay his head and He was hung on a cross between two thieves….yet who was the “success”? Who had the best “fruit?”
Eralyn,
I think “fruits” are those things that really matter. Money isn’t fruit. I think that the fruit a tree bears is what it gives to the world. So the fruit we bear is what we bring to the world. Money is what the world gives us.
Unfortunately, many of us bore bad fruit too because we are part of a disordered family and it is in our DNA. In my case I didn’t have kids at all. But there are other things we can bring to the world. Our friendship, our knowledge, and our compassion for others can also be shared.
My Pain, I can’t agree with Oxy more strongly than I do. Here at LF, I’ve learned that you need to make hard choices sometimes and give up what you wish you could keep. Your ex-spath came from that family. He is the fruit and they are the tree. It seems to me that you can do better than that. They enable him and they don’t sound healthy for your daughter to be around.
Ox Drover,
This post is excellent! The most profound statement you wrote, I believe, is; “Learning to validate our own knowledge of the truth may be the closest we come to receiving support”. So true, and one of THEE most important and life changing parts of our healing and moving forward on our paths. The fact that we had to rely on our own knowledge of the truth, as being our support system, at first was a difficult thing to have to come to terms with, but now, I think it forced us to dig deep within ourselves for sheer survival, so much so that, in the process of learning and developing this self reliance, we develop incredible strength within, that we wind up taking with us, on the rest of our life’s journey. This post of yours is one of much validation for me, personally. Thank you for sharing it. Much love, ~Shane
You’re welcome, Shane! I think it is by validating each other and supporting each other here we can get what we can’t get from those “real life” people who are fence sitters (at best) or minions of the psychopaths who afflict us.
So true, Ox D. I have noticed so much healing in myself, since finding this place, and reading all of the things that are expressed by the incredibly insightful survivors, here. The validation has speeded up the recovery process for me, in such a profound way. The fence sitters and minions to me, are just as wretched as the P’s. Except for the ones who are in a state of deep cog dis, and I am sure that the sister of the P that inflicted me, is a victim who is unaware of the damage that she is doing, by giving brother advice on how to conduct himself in particular situations. Correct me if I am wrong, however. : )
Sunflower,
what a horrific story about your mother. I’m so sorry you experienced that.
You said that your ex-spath admitted to not liking to get his hands dirty. My ex-spath admitted in a letter to God that he likes to convince other people to do evil. He didn’t say that it was because he doesn’t like to get his hands dirty, he just likes to tempt other people to do evil. I’m sure that there are many benefits to getting other people to do evil: you can blackmail them later, they do your dirty work for you, they protect you later because they don’t want to be implicated…etc… but my ex-spath KNEW that he just LIKED it.
All the other reasons were fringe benefits.
I believe that the description of Lucifer as he is depicted in the bible, is just a depiction of spaths in general. I think that the writers understood that much of the “fluff” around character disorders is just a distraction from their pure nature. They are filled with shame and envy. What their excuse for tempting others to do evil is, is irrelevant. We only need to know what they do, not why they believe they do it.
Skylar, well, the more I learn, the more I also remember about my past and other issues with my mom. I was her enabler. I feel quilty to admitt it, but I was. Totally under her control. I did stand up to her a number of times and now she’s out of my life. I can somewhat relate and excuse enablers, but to another extent not. I was born and raised to serve my mother, a hard thing for a child to understand and break free of. My mom is still in panic about me and still play tricks to make me feel shameful and guilty, but I’m not falling for it.
This article and all the posts are just amazing and coming at the PERFECT time for me. So much I want to say but I’m still learning how to talk about my life under the new paradigm of “survivor of sociopaths” rather than “inadequate failure.”
One huge change I made soon after finding LF was to follow Oxy’s advice and take my relationships off “life support.” Let go of the people who required huge amounts of energy and gave nothing back. So many people dropped off my radar screen after that and after a weird adjustment phase, I felt a million percent better. Now I’m getting it that fence sitters are also not good for me and I’ll be working on that one.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I can help with spreading the word about sociopaths and how to become aware of red flags and how to work through horrendous experiences at their hands and their minions. I think this site is vitally important for sharing information and sharing is what I can do. Whenever I have the opportunity, I can share what I’ve learned, what happened to me, what the resources for learning are. So I have a better direction now and I really appreciate Skylar’s observation that we can bring to the table friendship, knowledge and compassion. I have no idea how to teach, but I can share.
I also really appreciate the post from Stronger about trying to find your way back to God. I have no idea how to describe how hard it was to choose God first and let go of all the shiny people with their righteous titles who were convinced you had to get to God through them. Talk about sparkly facades…..and I was raised in the thick of sparkly abusers. I finally admitted that I was totally exhausted and confused and I prayed that God would guide me in a way that even I could understand. I could not understand therapy, books or friends, so I needed very clear, very simple baby steps. And here I am – with the clear answers I asked for. Thank you, thank you, thank you God and everyone here.
I think it’s so important that we continue sharing all we learn, all we have experienced, all we contribute to enlarging the awareness. So sorry for all the darkness we have endured and continue to fight. Thank you for being here.
I believe relying on your own knowledge of truth has been a real learning curve for me due to the games played with me while growing up. Keeping family secrets yet being a truth seeker and teller.
What is helping me here on this site is hearing all the recovery going on. People getting info they need and actually hearing how it affects their lives. Hearing someone else “get it” they need to be their own support of their own knowledge of truth, explains why my therapist years ago kept saying “define your own reality” until I wanted to sock him in the eye. (lol) I think it took a year and a half before I understood why he kept saying that! It had a lot to do with everyone messing with me, gaslighting and lying and I was just confused, hurt and wondering what, why and blah. It’s enlightening to hear others embracing being their own knowledge of truth when it’s something you’ve had a difficult time embracing.
Very healing for me!!! Thank you…………….