By Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired)
What is hope? The word “hope” means a kind of “expectation of obtainment” and an emotional state of optimism, a trusting that what we want is going to come true. Here is how Wikipedia defines hope:
Hope is the emotional state, the opposite of which is despair, which promotes the belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one’s life. It is the “feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best” or the act of “look[ing] forward to with desire and reasonable confidence” or “feel[ing] that something desired may happen”. Other definitions are “to cherish a desire with anticipation”; “to desire with expectation of obtainment”; or “to expect with confidence”. In the English language the word can be used as either a noun or a verb, although hope as a concept has a similar meaning in either use.
And here is how Webster’s dictionary defines hope:
intransitive verb:
1: to cherish a desire with anticipation <hopes for a promotion>
2 archaic : trusttransitive verb
1: to desire with expectation of obtainment
2: to expect with confidence : trust
So we work because we hope and trust that we will get paid on Friday. We work hard in school to get good grades because we hope our work will pay off with a degree that we trust will allow us to get a better job and make more money. We are nice to others and we hope they will be nice back to us. We teach our children honesty and kindness because we hope they will grow up to be happy successful adults. We do lots of things because we hope and trust that those actions will result in good results.
However, there are times we hope and trust and work hard, but those good results do not materialize. Sometimes no matter what we do, or how much we hope, there is no possibility that what we want to happen is actually going to happen. It is at that point that we must accept the reality that our hopes are in vain. The doctor gives you or a loved one a diagnosis that there a limited time to live. What are the choices? To accept the diagnosis and get affairs in order, or do like Steve McQueen did and look all over the world for some quack who promises a “cure” to your terminal disease.
Webster defines another, less hopeful aspect of “hope” as:
— hope against hope
: to hope without any basis for expecting fulfillment
Malignant hope
Many times it seems that in our relationships with psychopaths we seem to hold on to that “hope against hope” that the relationship will improve. We try first one thing and then another and the relationship does not improve, but we hold on tenaciously to that “hope against hope,” which I call “malignant hope.”
Why “malignant hope”? Well, being a former medical professional, I like those 50 cent words that medicine uses, but this particular 50 cent word is pretty well understood by the general public. “Malignant” means “toxic” or “cancerous,” and that is exactly what “hope against hope” is—it is malignant like a cancer, and it metastasizes to every part of the body and soul. It spreads like a cancer and it destroys like a cancer because it forever keeps our expectations from being met, yet we “keep on trying” because of that malignant hope.
Each time we “hope for” something and it fails to materialize we are disappointed in proportion to how much “hope” we had, and how important the result is.
When I buy a lotto ticket I know the odds are above 13 million to one that I will win. Of course I “hope” to win, but I don’t really “expect” to win ”¦ so I don’t base my payment of next month’s rent on me winning. If I don’t win, I am not devastated. I really didn’t have MUCH hope that I would win.
However, let’s take a ridiculous example, and say I bought a lotto and had a great deal of false hope, malignant hope, that I would win, even with the odds being against me. I just KNEW FOR SURE that my hope against hope was going to come true. I knew I would have enough money to buy a house, a new car, a boat, and to live the life I wanted to live. I had never won before, but I knew I would win this time because I wanted it so badly. I needed it. When I watched the lotto drawing I just knew I would win. What happens when I fail to win? My hopes and my dreams are shattered, my entire life shatters before me, because I based everything I wanted on something that had little if any chance of happening. My hope of winning the lotto had become a malignant hope.
Psychopaths and malignant hope
Unfortunately, there are times when our hopes do become malignant hopes. When we hope against hope that a psychopath will change, will stop lying to us, stop cheating on us, bring their paycheck home. It never happens, yet we keep hoping it will.
People said to me concerning my son, Patrick, “he’s your son, you can’t give up hope,” or “where there is life, there is hope.” Those people were well meaning I am sure, but what they were telling me to do was to hold on to that malignant hope. I held on to it long enough, I saw over and over that he was not going to change, yet I kept hoping that he would. I saw proof that he had not changed over and over. Yet I continued to hope. Each time I was shown evidence that he had not changed in how he behaved, I was wounded again.
Someone gave me a sign once and I hung it on my wall, little realizing just how prophetic it would become. The sign said, “I feel so much better since I gave up hope.”
Actually I DO feel better since I gave up the malignant hope that my son would repent of his crimes, that he would change his attitude of entitlement.
It was only when I gave up that malignant hope that I ceased to be wounded and re-wounded by my son and the other people I had hoped would reciprocate my love and caring for them. I quit hoping they would change. It didn’t happen. It isn’t going to happen. I no longer hope or anticipate it will happen. I gave up the malignant hopes that I would win the “psychopathic lotto,” and the 13 million to one odds are not likely to be overcome just because I hope so much that they would be. People buy tickets and say, “Well, someone has to win, it could be me.” Well, I am no longer wasting my money or my hope on either the state lotto or the psychopathic lotto of malignant hope.
alohatraveler
Thank you Oxy.
I will be printing this out and giving it to a client next week.
Just what I needed.
Aloha
alohatraveler
Your wisdom is priceless, dear Oxy.
Ox Drover
High praise indeed coming from you Aloha! You held my hand through the worst of my pain and I will always be thankful for the comfort you provided to me in my craziness and pain.
Glad that you can use this to help one of your clients. I wish my two friends would give up their malignant hope for their psychopathic convict sons, but it is difficult I know. I’ve tried to talk to both of them but the reception is nil so I just said “well, God bless you, I hope your confidence in his repentance is realized.”
I KNOW how hard and how demeaning it is to go into the prison as a visitor, some of the staff who are as psychopathic as the prisoners get their rocks off treating the visitors like criminals. Hearing and seeing the bars and barbed and razor wire is also very demeaning.
I know both of these young men, have known them since they were 4-5 years old, though one I haven’t seen since he was 13 or 14, but the other one I have kept up with seeing him go down the chute into drugs, theft, stealing from family and friends and if he comes to my place after he gets out, I will escort him off the place, he won’t find a welcome here.
The “system” encourages the families to take them back which helps the system but doesn’t help the families of course, they are again hurt and traumatized by Junior violating his parole and the cycle continues.
“Statistics” show of course that those that have “family support” do better than those that don’t—but that does not prove that “family support” is the CAUSE that these people do better on release, it just means I think that those who have screwed over their families until they don’t have any support left don’t do well when they are released—but you know “statistics” can prove anything you want them to…like ON AVERAGE A MAN WITH ONE FOOT ON A RED HOT STOVE AND ONE ON AN ICE BLOCK IS ***COMFORTABLE***!!!! LOL ROTFLMAO HEE HEE
Stargazer
Good article. I held on to that hope for 3 years with a very selfish man I lived with. And then again for 3 short months (that seemed like 3 years) with a sociopath. Not to mention the years I hoped for a loving relationship with my mother and sister.
The hardest thing for me has been to let go of the malignant hope of having love from toxic people without letting go of the hope for love in general. I don’t want to give up on love just because of those bad experiences. I try to keep it alive if only in my dreams sometimes.
Ox Drover
Star, the desire to love and be loved is WHAT MAKES YOU PART OF THE HUMAN RACE…DUH????? Giving up on that would be to DIE emotionally and I have never ever EVER advocated giving up that hope for loving relationships with lots of people…maybe a “romantic one” but if not we still have friends and others that we can have relationships with, having a romantic love is not the end-all-be-all of life, but having LOVE is very important. Having relationships with others that are caring and mutually engaging, that is very important!
Don’t ever EVER EVERRRRR give up that desire for connections!~
Stargazer
Oh, I know you didn’t say that, Oxy. 🙂 I just see a lot of people do that. They become bitter and cynical and say they will never date again. I’ve been there. I don’t even kid around about it anymore because I know how powerful words are.
skylar
Thanks for the article, Oxy.
I needed it right now. After speaking with my parents, I get these malignant hopes sometimes.
My dad holds out his tears and his money: See I’m crying and I want you to have all this money.
right.
My mother and I spoke on the phone at length and I told her some things about spaths. She told me some things about her feelings regarding my dad – which I had already figured out. I didn’t even let her finish, I told her I already knew. I do have a lot of compassion for her and I treat her with respect. But that isn’t forgiveness. I wouldn’t forgive her, even if she were sorry, because she hasn’t changed and she’s going to keep doing what she does.
The PD’s make people PREDICTABLE. That’s why she didn’t have to tell me about her feelings of anger and vengeance at being betrayed. I knew. And once I knew that, then I also knew why her kids turned out screwed up. We lived with that as children and we sensed it. She KNOWS that she is the cause of all of our PD’s and it stems from her being betrayed and bottling up her rage for 50 years. It’s still bottled up.
callmeathena
What did she say about your dad? That he’s selfish?
callmeathena
OMG, Oxy, that is a great quote.
I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER NOW THAT I GAVE UP HOPE.
It might have been meant to be a joke, but it is very meaningful.
Hugs!
Athena
alohatraveler
Oxy,
Perhaps your article might help them. Sometimes people shut down in a conversation but in reading this through, without anyone to “yes, but”.. it might sink in a tiny bit.
The learning process about personality disorders can be slow.
First we have to shift our brain to realize that some people are not wired like us. and some people will say “yes, I want to change!” but do not mean it at all. This simple bit of lieing is hard for people to get their head around.
I just read the introduction to Donna’s new book. Maybe that will be helpful to your friends.
Still, I know that it can be draining to try to help people in person sometimes… people we know well… like we are too close to the situation.
I think that is what makes LF great. We only have words here. Without all the other stuff that gets in the way of our brain.. just words.
Anyway, I might have something exciting to tell you but I am going to wait a bit. But I can’t wait to tell you… so don’t ask me what it is because I WON’T TELL!
Thanks again for all of your contributions to LF community. You are a treasure to the people here.
Back to the BOOKS!
Aloha