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.
Oxy:
Lol. “let’s just pretend none of this happened and start over.” This said my ex everytime I caught him in a lie or when he had done something hurtful.
“Yes, so what? I cheated on you, let’s just pretend none of this happened and start over. We will become so much closer to eachother now this is out in the open. It has really nothing to do with you and is non of your concern…”
I just want to puke…
OxD, you typed something that jumped out at me this morning, and I’d really, REALLY like some input on this. It was with regard to TRUST – that you’re willing to help someone but that you cannot accept help from someone that you don’t (or, cannot) trust, yourself. I’m sort of in the same boat.
Someone that I worked with sent me a check in the mail and I am very uncomfortable about this – she said that she was going to “send (me) something” a while back, and I responded that I didn’t want her to send me anything, at all. I am in horrific financial straights and could really use the money, but I’m sending this check back. I don’t trust this person to actually “care” about me in the sense that she hasn’t called me to ask how I’m doing or anything like that. This check is an expression of pity, I believe, and I don’t want anyone’s pity – reserve that pity for the kid that lost a leg in an auto accident, but please, don’t pity me.
What would be more appropriate would be for this person to call me on the phone and talk to me like a human being, but that’s not what’s happened, here. I’m thoroughly uncomfortable with taking a personal check from someone because they pity my situation but aren’t necessarily a trusted friend. It almost feels like this person is sending me a check in lieu of being a friend, and I don’t like it.
Brightest blessings
Whoops – I responded to this on another thread.
I can vouch for the family court enablers. Egads I had no idea how bad it was. I had a DV counselor for more than two years who could not by law testify on my behalf. The one person who knew in great detail what I had been through couldn’t say a word. The spath? Well, in the initial hearing, I was able to prove his abuse and perjury more than once, and all the commissioner did was make him go to a parenting class. He shined those guys on so much, they were willing to testify to his wonderful insight and clarity while trashing me because I obviously didn’t care enough about being a parent to attend a class. He was *ordered* to go, not me! The facilitator even had the gall to call me at home and suggest I attend after hearing him cry about all the mistakes I made as a parent. Gad!!! His other witness was a neighbor lady who I befriended when we moved to the neighborhood. Sweet lady, but when I read that she was going to be a witness to my “negative” parenting and his “positive” parenting, I was floored with feelings of betrayal. I suspect he was lying about what she was going to say (I ran out of money and ended up settling for 50/50 at mediation. Our commissioner didn’t seem to like me anyways), but I haven’t been able to bring myself to confront her. I suspect he’s inoculated her to me confronting her, and I don’t care to know how he did it. Last week, she even invited him and his wife to her house for a party and not me. Awkward. Slightly humiliating, but eff it. Clearly she doesn’t get it.
His last witness was a therapist he saw on two occasions after feigning remorse over getting caught cheating and trying to win me back until he realized I wouldn’t. She wanted me to come in for “couples therapy”, and I basically told her to get bent. She was going to testify to my “anger issues” and unwillingness to co-parent, thus causing untold damage to my son. He saw her twice a year before!! That’s the dazzling effect he has on women. It absolutely slays me.
So yeah – been there, done that, got the shirt. Man oh man do I hope I never have to go through another ordeal like THAT again.
Great article, but I am going to take it one step farther.
In my estimation, most “minions” are nothing but malignant narcissists. I guess minion could be used as another term, but to me, they are very disordered quite often and malicious. In many cases their is a level of jealousy of the “psychopath” for all of his successes.
The new GF of my ex husband is in my estimation a malginant narcissist. A dangerous combination. She stood by and watcheb by ex husband force me out of my home, destroy me financially, and mock my emotional devastation from his emotional abuse. I made sure she knew some of the “facts” and whether or not she bought completely in to the “crazy” label he begin giving me – she knew more of the story than many other women ever hear. I made sure she saw certain details of the demise of my life.
Finally, the proliferation of psychopathy in our judicial and legal system will continue to perpetuate the abuse of women and children until we take these demented individuals on full throttle. My goal is to not only educate women about the red flags of disordered men, but stand up to the judges and attorneys in our community that thrive on the destruction of women.
We may live in free America, but many times most women are locked up and denied the basic justices provided by our constitution.
Get out of my way minions.
Hope52, ditto. It’s a morbid fascination to me that the new targets are so willing to stand by these predators while they thoroughly dismantle the discarded ones, bit by bit, and on every level from financial to spiritual, and actually enable the process with their devoted support and encouragment.
“Yes, she was nuts, wasn’t she? You poor, poor thing! And, she beat you up? She needs to be locked up. Now, when do we go to the city, next, to engage in group BDSM while my mom watches my daughter – your future STEP-daughter?”
ROTFLMAO!!!!!!! Oh, lordy…..
Truthy, I agree with you….and I know that there are people who would say “take the check and don’t care why she gave it” but I agree. I can’t read the woman’s mind about WHY she is sending the check to you, I can only suppose. I imagine though that this woman does “want to help you” but maybe doesn’t really know how. It also may be “pity” I also agree with you though that it would have been more helpful to you, had she simply “been a friend” and called to see how you were, or offered to do something to help you, or just listened.
The reasoning behind “not taking a favor from someone you don’t trust” is that when you take favors you “owe” that person and are “beholden” to them, so if in the future, they ask a favor in return you are OBLIGATED TO COMPLY even if you don’t want to or it is very costly to do so.
Sunflower, when my egg donor said that “let’s pretend” it HIT ME LIKE A SLEDGE HAMMER BETWEEN THE EYES—and I realized that THIS HAD BEEN THE MANTRA MY WHOLE LIFE, everything in the family was “let’s pretend” and I also realized that while she would and wanted to PRETEND none of what SHE had done to me, boy she had a complete memory for every thing I had done wrong from the time I was two. LOL Yea, “let’s pretend” ROTFLMAO
Because these monsters all fall on a spectrum sometimes it’s hard to determine whether or not someone is in their cross hairs and whether or not a warning will be helpful. Sometimes the predator is also being preyed on. Sometimes their prey is not ready to heed a warning and will be defensive of the predator. Depending on your attachment to the dynamic it may be more personally injurious to open your mouth and say something. I’m of the view that everyone deserves a warning… If the warning can be received… and theirs the rub.
I left a 21 year old kid with a 31 year old pedophile. The pedophile, as all of them do, manipulated the kid into living with him. The guy was straight and the pedophile had been courting the kid as a “friend” for a couple years. Who knows what was going on. I figured the kid was “of age” and that whatever “relationship” was going on the damage was probably already done over the years. The thing is I left the situation before knowing the full depth of what was going on. I didn’t even know the guy was a pedophile when I broke it off with him. All I saw was the sex addiction, the kid moving in and a few other oddities. I figured out the rest later.
The pedophile, as many do, might simply be manipulating and using guys of legal age. There’s a matter of severity in the psychology of these predators. Some of them never go after kids that are minors. Legally and psychologically these people aren’t even defined as pedophiles although they have all the same narcissistic and sociopaths traits. These guys usually self identify as “gay”, are incapable of pair bonding and really only become apparent as they reach middle age. They’re not *as* destructive as a sociopath or narcissist except to the psychology of the their victims. Their motives fall under “duping delight” and social cover. They’re sexual/psychological predators.
It’s not always easy to know when and where you’re enabling a predator by keeping quiet simply because you can’t know the extent of the predator’s capacity to do wrong unless you’ve personally experienced it. People, even social/sexual predators don’t fit neatly into little boxes.
There is something seriously wrong with watching a spath destroy another but remember how convincing he was to you.
In my case where my own mother stood back as if she’s innocent while my obviously spath of some sort father has treated me time and again as a sub-human, she takes no responsibility. I am fairly sure when I go to my counselor who has met with my mother and my ex, he is going to tell me she herself is a malignant narcisist. I know there are two disordered people who raised me. I know they promoted my sister to treat me the same way. I will not tollerate it being done to my daughter. It’s very strange how I can see more clearly through my daughters eyes than my own.
OxD, is giving very protective advice and wise advice while I believe Divorced from Gaslighter, is looking at it from a different survival stand point and I would bet over time Gaslighter will be hurt again. I have taken the route of keeping the door open for various reasons to the people who have let me down or just diregarded me and I have been repeatedly hurt by doing this. I only feel this is safe if you can separate yourself from future pain inflicted by these people. If you are unable to compartmentalize this well, you will be hurt again. I am not as good at compartmentalizing as others seem to be.
I actually have looked into this compartmentalizing tecnique inquisitively as I see when people are doing it but I myself haven’t mastered my emotions this well in regular life.
I will say I had to learn compartmentalizing for court as you are not allowed to be human showing your hurt, betrayal, disdain of the treatment and you must put on your poker face. This is hard work for me but I know my inability to do this is partially (large part) what has put a target on my back for sociopaths.
A very vulnerable side of my authenticity must be covered to go on in this life. I believe it is sad to have to lose this but that brick has been inbedded in my head no doubt, a hard lesson learned.
Freemama,
The courts are a horrid place and never a place for justice. That alone was a rude awakening for me. I had my core beliefs broken down by family law. The degrading and humiliating is inhumane and these are people they’re dealing with who have committed no crime. Family law should NOT be handled this way.
One mom I know told me prior to my case starting to put my seatbelt on as this was going to be ugly. I didn’t understand as you can’t until you are there. She said she had to sit in court for 20 minutes listening how disgusting she was for passing gas in front of her 2 year old son. (lol) It’s all about degrading and humiliating while wearing down the opponent. It’s war.
Tinker, one of the things about psychopaths is that many of them are not “gay” or not “straight,” or even “bi-sexual” they will FARK A SNAKE if someone will hold it.
Many people who are not able to have a true “pair bond” will go from relationshit to relationshit or have multiple relationshits at one time, or be continually cheating while pretending to be pair bonded.
You are right, there is a spectrum of the psychopathy and what limits (if any) the person has.
Victims frequently are so Engrossed with the psychopath that they do not want to hear a warning…until it is too late. Some people pay with their lives for not listening to the warnings. Many victims (many of us qualify in this case) have “gone back” after escaping the clutches of the psychopath.
Like a cat plays wit a mouse, letting it get loose and then catching it again, that all plays into the DUPING DELIGHT and the “thrill of the chase” (or the “thrill of the KILL”) that makes the psychopath’s life “fun” for them.
Some people don’t see EMOTIONAL DESTRUCTION as “as bad” as killing someone or beating them up, but frankly I see it as sometimes WORSE.
Truthspeak,
I am a person who would give a check to someone without strings attached if I were financially secure and only had that to offer someone I felt for, not pittied (sp?). I know people don’t know how to help me right now as every door in the courthouse is closed to outsiders with something to say and nobody can get through this but me. Watching helplessly while someone suffers and there’s nothing you can do to help is an awful feeling.
I would hope if I sent you a check, you would take it. I, do believe, you wouldn’t have the feeling of my lack of caring as I would know how you are as this would be how I would know money could help. If you are really feeling this person is not genuinely caring, send it back by all means. Remember people with money donate money all the time to causes they believe in only because they want to or it’s a write off. 🙂
I have helped a lot of people in my life. I did this without any expectation of return. I will say after I became a single mom, that all stopped and I found myself in need of some help. It was an odd place. I received help from many good people who were not the same people as I had helped. I wondered if this was lifes little way of giving back. Whatever it was, I was grateful.
It’s a tough call whether someone is helping the only way they know how genuinely, pitying you or placing you in debt and your gut seems to be on overdrive with this check so I would say send it back. (and if I kept it, I think I would write something in the “for” line out of paranoia like “thank you for this gift” which is precautionary in case it’s ever said to be a loan)