tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60848842024-03-19T04:43:14.506-04:00Sanctuary for the AbusedSANCTUARY FOR THE ABUSED: Articles, clickable links & resources for victims & survivors. Dealing with verbal, psychological & emotional abuse and personality disorders.
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Or call 1-800-799-7233 Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger409125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-1105797245920949192024-01-02T00:43:00.000-05:002024-01-03T12:32:51.627-05:00Disabled Women & Abuse<center style="font-weight: bold;">
<img src="http://i.ytimg.com/vi/vHrnD1C8KoQ/0.jpg" height="240" width="320" /><br />
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<b style="color: red;">Violence Against Women with Disabilities</b></center>
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-size: 85%; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Patricia E. Erwin, MA<br />
Department of Criminology, Law & Society<br />
University of California<br />
Irvine, California, 92697-7080<br />
e-mail: perwin@uci.edu<br />
<br />
An article commissioned by:<br />
Battered Women’s Justice Project-Criminal Justice Office<br />
2104 Fourth Avenue S., Suite B<br />
Minneapolis, MN 55404<br />
800-903-0111, ext. 1</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">In the 1990's the Federal government passed two pieces of legislation that had a major impact on the disabilities rights movement and the battered women’s movement in the United States. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1992 and the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) of 1994 served notice that both communities were being afforded new protections, new resources, and renewed recognition by the Federal government. The ADA significantly broadens the scope of what is considered a disability and guarantees access to jobs and public places (Section, 1998) for the approximately 54 million Americans with disabilities (Tyiska, 1998). The VAWA adds several federal domestic violence crimes and provides for a civil rights remedy for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. However, </span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">at the intersection of disability and domestic violence is a population of women that has been rendered invisible by a lack of services in the battered women’s movement and a lack of recognition of the violence in their lives by disability service providers.<span style="color: #000066;"> </span></span><span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">In the words of one researcher, the experiences of violence against women with disabilities have been neither voiced nor heard. (Chenoweth, 1997).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">The multiple oppressions of being female, being disabled and being battered leave this community extremely vulnerable to intimate partners and to caregivers. In fact, all of the barriers an able-bodied victim of domestic violence might face are simply compounded by the victim’s own disability as well as the paucity of services available to help her lead a violence-free life. If women’s helplessness and vulnerability generally are seen as an opportunity as well as an excuse for male violence, disabled women’s vulnerability is seen as a blanket invitation. Disabled women are attacked again and again by partners, caretakers and strangers</span> (Burstow, 1992). Although reliable statistics are few, some researchers who have delved into this area call the problem an “epidemic” (with most conceding it is a vast unknown. (Nosek & Howland, 1998) (Groce, 1990; Grothaus, 1985; National Clearinghouse on Family Violence, 1998; National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 1996; Sobsey, 1994; Strong & Freeman, 1997; Tyiska, 1998).<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">DEFINING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">The term domestic violence is the most commonly used term to describe assault between intimates and usually includes a two-part statute: the description of what constitutes an assault and the relationship required between the parties to qualify as a “domestic” assault. For example, California statute defines abuse as:</span><br />
<blockquote style="font-weight: bold;">
<span style="color: #000066;">“Intentionally or recklessly causing or attempting to cause bodily injury, or placing another person in reasonable apprehension of imminent serious bodily injury</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">and “domestic violence” as:</span><br />
<br />
Abuse committed against an adult or fully emancipated minor who is a spouse, former spouse, cohabitant, former cohabitant, or a person with whom the suspect has had a child or is having or has had a dating or engagement relationship.” (California Penal Code Section 13700(a)(b).)</blockquote>
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">In addition, domestic abuse is commonly referred to as a pattern of coercive behaviors that involves physical abuse or the threat of physical abuse. It also may include repeated psychological abuse, assault, progressive social isolation, deprivation, intimidation or economic coercion</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> (Denver, 1998). While the criminal justice system usually focuses only on a single incident that brings a domestic assault to the police or the courts, research shows that there are usually multiple incidents that have taken place and multiple interventions. A 1970's study demonstrated that in domestic homicides police had been called to the home at least once before in 80% of the cases, and more than five times in 50% of the cases (Ferraro, 1993). In addition, Dobash and Dobash (1979) found that on average, </span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">battered women leave and come back six to seven times, with the most commonly cited reasons for returning as children, lack of resources, and fear of retribution.</span> This ongoing pattern of physical assaults coupled with other tactics of control is often termed battering (Pence & Paymar, 1993).<br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">SCOPE OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN WITH DISABILITIES</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">The problem of domestic violence generally is a well-documented and very serious phenomena. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) in 1995, female murder victims were more than twice as likely as men to have been killed by husbands or boyfriends; and for those cases in which the victim-offender relationship was known, husbands or boyfriends killed 26% of female murder victims, whereas wives or girlfriends killed 3% of the male victims’ (Craven, 1996). T</span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">he rate of battering is similarly lopsided against women</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">. The same report said that women experienced seven times as many incidents of non-fatal violence by an intimate than did males. And in the latest Department of Justice (DOJ) study, the National Violence Against Women Survey, the authors concluded:</span><br />
<blockquote style="font-weight: bold;">
“The survey found that women were significantly more likely than men to report being raped and physically assaulted by a current or former partner, whether the time frame considered was the person’s lifetime or the 12 months preceding the survey. <span style="color: red;">Moreover, women who were raped or physically assaulted by a current or former intimate partner were significantly more likely to sustain injuries than men who were raped or physically assaulted by a current or former intimate partner. Given these findings, intimate partner violence should be considered first and foremost a crime against women.”</span> (Emphasis added.)</blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">National crime victim surveys on the prevalence of violence against women in intimate relationships estimate that approximately 25% of all women will experience violence by a partner at some time in their life. The National Violence Against Women Survey (1998) found that 25% of surveyed women, compared with 8% of surveyed men, said they were raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabitating partner, or date at some point in their lif</span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">e. The survey revealed that most physical assaults consisted of grabbing, pushing, shoving, slapping and hitting, but that as the level of violence and injury increase, the “difference between men’s and women’s rates of physical assault . . . become greater.</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> Women were two to three times more likely than men to report an intimate partner threw something that could hurt or pushed, grabbed or shoved them. However, they were 7 to 14 times more likely to relate that an intimate partner beat them up, choked or tried to drown them, threatened them with a gun, or actually used a gun on them” (Tjaden & Thoennes, 1998).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">A 1996 U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) report on female victims of violent crime - based on several reports from the BJS and the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports - found that in 1992-93, females experienced 7 times as many incidents of non-fatal violence by an intimate as did males. Each year women experience more than 1,000,000 violent victimizations committed by an intimated, compared to about 143,000 that men experienced (Craven, 1996). Clearly, the rates of violence against women by intimates in this country are significant.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">Given the high rate of violence against women in general, the question arises - what about women with disabilities?</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> According to the National Council on Disability there are approximately 54 million Americans reporting some level of disability; of these, females have a disability rate of 20.2% and a severe disability rate of 11% (Tyiska, 1998). Disabilities range from mental retardation to being wheelchair bound, from being sight-impaired to total hearing loss. But getting a handle on the number of victims with disabilities who are victimized by any types of crime has proved elusive so far. The Office for Victims of Crime, in a special bulletin on the subject says it “offers no authoritative ‘census’ describing the numbers and characteristics of the victim population under review” (Tyiska, 1998).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">There are approximately a half-dozen studies looking at the subject of physical assaults against women with disabilities. Most of the studies that have been conducted in this area are from North America. They range in their estimations of the prevalence of this problem from 39% to 85% of women with disabilities experiencing some type of physical or emotional abuse at the hands of an intimate partner or caregiver. The DisAbled Women’s Network of Canada did a study of 245 women with disabilities in 1989 and found that 40% had experienced abuse (Nosek & Howland, 1998); the Institute for the National Clearinghouse on Family Violence reports on </span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">a study that found 40% of women with disabilities had been assault, raped or abused, and 39% of ever-married women with a disability had been physically or sexually assaulted by their partners (L'Institut Roeher Institute, 1994); the National Institute of Health studied 860 women, 439 of whom were disabled and found matching levels of reported physical abuse (36% in both groups) and sexual abuse (40% with disabilities vs. 37% for women without disabilities) but differences in the length of time abuse was experienced - 3.9 years compared to 2.5 years on average in favor of women with disabilities </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">(Young, Margaret A. Nosek, Howland, Chanpong, & Diana H. Rintala, 1997); and the Colorado Department of Health reports that 85% of women with disabilities are victims of abuse (Tyiska, 1998).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Unfortunately, most of these studies do not separate out abuse by an intimate partner versus abuse by a non-intimate caregiver, and as noted earlier, do not distinguish between types of abuse committed, e.g. physical versus verbal. Only the National Institute of Health (NIH) broke down abuse by attendants and health care providers and found women with disabilities are “significantly” more likely to be abused by this population (Young et al., 1997)</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">THE INTERSECTION OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND DISABILITY</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Given this, it seems obvious that women with disabilities will also be victims of this type of crime (McPherson, 1991). However, none of the national surveys done to date address whether or not female victims are disabled, and the studies that have been done with this population mostly lump together all violence against women with disabilities (i.e., domestic violence, rape, sexual assault, stranger assault etc.) and do not distinguish as to whether or not it was committed by an intimate partner (Nosek & Howland, 1998). According to Sharon Hickman, Executive Director of the Domestic Violence Initiative for Women with Disabilities, </span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">most policy makers, service providers and researchers simply do not see the population. “ . . . they think if they don’t see a wheelchair or a guide dog there is no disability. Nobody has had the money, the interest or the clout . . . to do a good definitive study on this,” she said. “It is mostly a hidden population” </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">(Hickman, 1998).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Societal attitudes about women with disabilities may be the cause of this exclusion as many people assume that women in this population do not have significant others.</span><br />
<blockquote style="font-weight: bold;">
“<span style="color: red;">Women with severe disabilities are not expected to have relationships. We are perceived as asexual, as not desiring love or sex or a committed involvement”</span> (Grothaus, 1985). A recent study, however, confirms that women with disabilities are involved in intimate relationships, and very concerned about the issue of violence within these setting. The survey found that abuse and violence was one of the top five concerns according to 92% of the participants and that 85% rated it as "very important" (Freeman, Strong, Barker, & Haight-Liotta, 1996).<br />
<br />
“The results of the Delphi survey indicate that women with disabilities themselves recognize abuse and violence, especially caretaker abuse, as a high priority issue that gets little attention from most service providers and policy makers. <span style="color: red;">Women with disabilities share with non-disabled women the fact that their intimate partners may physically, emotionally, or verbally abuse them. However, they can also be subject to the types of abuse that are not issues for non-disabled women, such as denial of medications, withholding of attendant services, or preventing use of assistive devices. </span>Assistive caretakers may be parents or other family members, or paid staff, as well as intimate partners, and the consequences of separation from these caretakers may be life-threatening.”</blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Caregiver violence is another aspect of interpersonal violence that women with disabilities face. Many rely on a paid or unpaid personal assistant to help them with a host of daily activities ranging from grocery shopping to bathing. The types of violence perpetrated in this relationship are outside of the usual definition of domestic violence, but can be just as impactful and can include the same physical violence many women suffer (literally - </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">delete</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">) at the hands of their partners.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Once in an abusive relationship, women with disabilities are motivated to stay by the same host of factors that keep non-disabled women in these relationships - fear of further violence, belief the batterer will change, love of the abuser, having children in common, having no economic support if they leave, religious beliefs, and many other concerns. But for women with disabilities there are additional factors that can limit their ability to leave such as physically not being able to exit the house, fear of losing caregiver service if they report the abuse, not knowing if the local shelter is physically accessible (i.e., wheelchair ramp, workers who know sign language), fear they will be institutionalized if they leave their partner and lack of resources.</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> The latter is particularly important as many women with disabilities either do not work or are not employed full time. The unemployment rate of women who are disabled is reported to be 74%, and those who do work earn only 64% of the wages of able-bodied women (Burstow, 1992). Magnifying all of these issues is the fact that society’s message to women with disabilities is they are lucky to have anyone. “</span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Disabled women may have little confidence in themselves because they have been told by society that they are not attractive . . . (they) have greater difficulties finding a spouse than non-disabled women or disabled men” (McPherson, 1991). When a woman with disabilities does get into a relationship, “she may feel validated as a woman and as a sexual being. It may be very hard for her to reject the role of lover/wife that she never expected to have in the first place”</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> (Grothaus, 1985). And “for many young women with an intellectual disability, having a boyfriend or a fiancee is a highly desired status” (Chenoweth, 1997). Fear of losing that status may keep many of these women from reporting abusive behavior by their partner.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">RESPONDING TO THE BATTERED WOMAN WITH A DISABILITY</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">The intersection of being a woman in today’s society and having a disability converge to enhance the negative impact of domestic violence.</span><br />
<blockquote style="font-weight: bold;">
“Being a woman with a disability has been described as a “double jeopardy,” as “two strikes,” and as having an “added layer of oppression.” These metaphors speak powerfully of the experiences of simultaneous discrimination through both having impairments and being a woman . . . Identifying differences in this way is a complex process involving discrimination, marginalization, and oppression through the points where multiple identities intersect.” (Chenoweth, 1997 :116)<br />
<br />
Additionally, support services for battered women who are also disabled are very limited with many shelters not fully accessible (Nosek, 1998). Women with disabilities “often find themselves in the situation where they not only are victims of violence in their homes, but may also be unable to apply for even the few community programs designed for the non-disabled . . . without a TTY for example, a hotline is of little help to a deaf woman . . . a shelter without a ramp is inaccessible to a wheelchair user who has been repeatedly battered and needs to leave home” (Groce, 1990). Furthermore, many of the tools offered to able-bodied battered women simply don’t work for a woman with a disability. For example, “few of the strategies listed in the classic safety plans are possible for women who must depend on their abuser to get them out of bed in the morning, dress them, and feed them” (Nosek & Howland, 1998).</blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">If a woman seeks help from a disability service provider or other community provider she may face a lack of understanding or knowledge of domestic violence. The Center for Independent Living in Carson City, Nevada did a study in which they sent surveys to 41 local agencies with three scenarios involving women with disabilities and domestic violence. The agencies were first asked what services they might provide to the women and then were asked what information and referral they would provide to the women. Of the 16 agencies which responded, </span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">80% failed to identify domestic violence as an issue in the three scenarios</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> (Hammon, 1999). Although this is a very small sample, it indicates that similar surveys are needed to determine whether or not domestic violence is being correctly identified by disability service providers.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">The issue of caregiver abuse raises further impediments for a woman with a disability. Reporting the abuse may result in the loss of her caregiver, whether they are an intimate partner or not. According to a review of the literature, </span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">women relying on caregivers are reluctant to report abuse because of threats that the caregiver will withdraw their services, threats by social workers that children will be taken away and threats by family members that the individual will be institutionalized or re-institutionalized </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">(L'Institut Roeher Institute, 1994).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Police response in these situations is likewise inadequate due too few protocols instructing line officers how to handle situations when either the victim or the suspect has a disability. If a victim is in a wheelchair and wants to go to a shelter, the police need to know whether the shelter is accessible and then how to transport the victim. </span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Police also exhibit some of the same prejudices as society at large concerning the disabled and this may be reflected in their response</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> (L'Institut Roeher Institute 1994) (Sanders 1997). </span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">If and when a prosecutor receives a case of domestic assault or caregiver abuse against a woman with a disability, issues of credibility, corroborating evidence, and accessibility will face her once again</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Furthermore, the crossover of domestic violence and disabilities brings up two unique cause and effect scenarios. The first is the impact of battering on a pregnant woman and her increased chances of giving birth to a disabled child. Sobsey (1994) says that battery of mothers during pregnancy causes an “unknown number of disabilities in their children” and that “low birth weight babies are born 2 to 4 times as frequently to mothers battered during pregnancy.” Second, there is the issue of the number of domestic violence victims who become disabled as a result of the abuse perpetrated upon them. This figure is unknown, but the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) estimates that there are at least 6 million people each year who suffer a permanent or temporary disability as the result of crime-related incident (Tyiska, 1998).</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">ABUSIVE TACTICS AGAINST WOMEN WITH DISABILITIES</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Most women who are victims of domestic abuse not only suffer from physical assaults, but also are subject to a variety of other tactics that serve to keep them in the abusive relationship. According to the Power and Control Wheel these tactics include: intimidation, emotional abuse, isolation, minimizing, denying and blaming, using children, male privilege, economic abuse and coercion and threats. For women with disabilities in an intimate relationship, these tactics can be exacerbated by her disability.</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> The following table gives examples of abusive tactics used against women with disabilities by intimate partners and by caregivers.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">Table 1</span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Examples of Abusive Tactics Against Women with Disabilities by Intimate Partners and Caregivers</span><br />
<b style="font-weight: bold;"><br />
TACTICS OF ABUSE</b><br />
<i style="color: #009900; font-weight: bold;">Isolation</i><br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Dismantling wheelchairs; disconnecting phones; using medications to sedate a woman; breaking or hiding crutches; not equipping a vehicle to be driven by someone with a disability</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Controlling access to family, friends and neighbors; controlling access to phone or destroying communication devices; limiting employment opportunities; discouraging contact with social work case manager or advocate</span><br />
<i style="font-weight: bold;"><br />
<span style="color: #009900;">Emotional</span></i><br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Telling them no one else will want them; calling them names i.e., ugly gimp; telling them “you’d be better off dead;” withholding medication</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Punishing or ridiculing her; refusing to speak or ignoring her requests; using a negative reinforcement program</span><br />
<br />
<i style="color: #009900; font-weight: bold;">Minimizing, Denying and Blaming</i><br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Denying or making light of the abuse; blaming her disability for the abuse;</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Denying her physical or emotional pain; justifying rules that limit autonomy and dignity; excusing abuse as behavior management</span><br />
<br />
<i style="color: #009900; font-weight: bold;">Using Children</i><br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Threatening to get custody if she tries to leave; threatening to report her to social workers so that children will be removed</span><br />
<br />
<i style="color: #009900; font-weight: bold;">Male or Caregiver Privilege</i><br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Speaking down to her; treating her like a child, telling her what she can eat and wear; telling a blind woman she dressed like a prostitute; telling her she is lucky to have him</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Treating her as a child or servant; making unilateral decisions; denying right to privacy; providing care in a way to accentuate her dependence and vulnerability</span><br />
<br />
<i style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #009900;">Economic</span> </i><br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Forcing her to sign over checks; telling her she cannot support herself; not allowing her access to money</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Using person’s property and money for self; stealing money; making financial decisions without her consent; limiting access to financial; pressuring person to engage in fraud</span><br />
<br />
<i style="color: #009900; font-weight: bold;">Physical Abuse</i><br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Withholding a wheelchair, forcing her to slide along the floor; hitting, kicking, biting, punching, slapping, dragging by hair; putting something in the path of a blind person; abandoning her in a dangerous situation</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Withholding food, heat, care; failing to follow medical, physical therapy or safety recommendations; missing medical appointments, not reporting serious symptoms or changes; hitting, slapping;</span><br />
<i style="font-weight: bold;"><br />
<span style="color: #009900;">Sexual Abuse</span></i><br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Making her do sexual things against her will; telling her if she doesn’t have sex he will leave her; physically attacking the sexual parts of her body; treating her like a sex object</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Being rough with intimate body parts; forcing sex against wishes; taking advantage of physical of developmental disability to engage in sex</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Withholding sex because she is "too sick" or unable and blaming her for it</span><br />
<br />
<i style="font-weight: bold;">Note. Sources: (Groce, 1990; L'Institut Roeher Institute, 1994; Mandeville & Brandl, 1997; National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 1996; Strong & Freeman, 1997; Tyiska, 1998)</i><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">----------</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">By looking at all these tactics one can see that </span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">very often a partner or caregiver who is abusing their victim may have to use physical violence very rarely, as the other tactics at their disposal can be very effective in keeping the victim in line.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Women who are battered and who have a disability face both personal and system-wide barriers to being able to leave an abusive situation. Whereas the battered women’s movement has drastically improved the intervention services available for non-disabled women - with increased shelter beds, criminal justice intervention systems, legal advocacy for individual women, police and prosecutor training, and a host of other initiatives - the same cannot be said for this more vulnerable population. In her discussion of a hate crime for violence against people with disabilities, Waxman (Waxman, 1991) summarizes the complex nature of the problem:</span><br />
<blockquote style="font-weight: bold;">
“The law does seek to protect disabled people, but only when they can be construed as vulnerable and lacking a choice about leaving a violent situation. With so few alternative life arrangements available to disabled people . . .; <span style="color: red;">and with disabled people learning to be compliant and self-doubting while they are socialized to regard their non-disabled relatives and associates as safe and infallible, disabled victims of violence often have little choice but to endure the violence</span>. In addition, some victims won’t report the violence because they’re afraid of their attackers, who are usually the very people they depend on; moreover, they fear the stigma of victimization as well as the risk that they’ll lose essential services and end up in an institution where they will most likely be attacked again. Society has little insight as to why it forces disabled people to face these intense pressures and situations, and why it therefore forces them to remain vulnerable to their abusers.”</blockquote>
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM RESPONSE</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Police Response</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">If a woman with a disability does decide to call the police regarding domestic violence, or if someone else reports it, the problems with accessibility do not go away. Danielle Dasch (1998), the Program Development Director at Working Against Violence, Inc., in Rapid City, South Dakota, h</span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">as seen police dismiss cases involving women with disabilities because they don’t feel like she is going to be a credible witness and asks, “How do we get these cops to realize that this contributes to their (the victim’s) vulnerability?</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">” An account from Australia reports similar attitudes and says that it is sometimes “almost impossible” to get the case into the criminal justice system. One worker there said, “</span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">The cops don’t come to places like group homes. If they do, it’s all too hard. They say the charge will never stick, the woman is a doubtful witness and it’ll get thrown out “so why bother?”</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> (Chenoweth, 1997).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">According to several reports, </span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">women with disabilities often have negative experiences with police officers, which makes it unlikely they will pursue future contact with them. Many of the attitudes, stereotypes and myths held by the public at large regarding women with disabilities, are also prevalent among members of the police force. Police officers believe these types of victims lack credibility and, in addition, the officers often lack standardized protocols for handling complaints by victims with disabilities so that responses vary widely</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> (L'Institut Roeher Institute, 1994, Sanders, 1997).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">In 1995, the Abuse Deaf Women’s Advocacy Service (ADWAS) filed a complaint under the ADA against the City of Seattle and King County for not providing sign language interpreters to deaf people in emergency situations. ADWAS systematically tracked how deaf women who were victims were handled by the criminal justice system and found the following: </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #009900; font-weight: bold;">· 911 operators hanging up on TTY calls</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #009900; font-weight: bold;">· Police not attempting to get interpreters when they respond to a call involving a deaf person</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #009900; font-weight: bold;">· Police communicating only with a hearing person (or child) at the scene. This could be the offender himself (Goldman & Hoog, 1995).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">The latter is especially problematic if you have a domestic violence situation where the abuser is the hearing person and the victim is not. The power and control the perpetrator already has is greatly enhanced by a lack of police knowledge not only as to dynamics of domestic violence, but also by the lack of an interpreter. One police training on people with disabilities uses this exact scenario to instruct officers on how not to handle such a call (Center, 1996), showing a video where the police only speak with the man and the child in the house to determine what happened, because the woman is impaired.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">The director of a program that serves women with disabilities says also </span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">if a woman calls the police and she has a speech problem, she may “sound incoherent and rambling . . . (and) they think you’re drunk and just dismiss you” (Hickman, 1998). This assertion is backed by a report stating that officers’ negative attitudes about people who have trouble communicating “may impede the investigation” (L'Institut Roeher Institute, 1994) and another which says “where a person is not able to communicate well, the police officer may see this as grounds for not pursuing a complaint” </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">(Sanders, Creaton, Bird, & Weber, 1997).</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">When officers do make a report, statements from a victim who has trouble communicating or who is learning disabled may be problematic[1]. Most police departments require officers to write the statements of the parties involved which inherently includes editing on the officer’s part. When confronted with this statement later in court, most non-disabled people cannot remember exactly what they said, let alone a person with a learning disability, or a person who does not recognize the sentence construction or the words used in her statement.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Another issue facing police is that the majority of crimes against this population are not reported by the victims themselves, and often the incident will be termed "abuse" rather than assault (Sanders et al., 1997). This has obvious parallels to domestic violence situations where until the last decade or so, an assault against one’s spouse or intimate partner was simply termed a “domestic” - a private matter to be handled by a therapist rather than the courts. Police rarely wrote reports on these cases and were even less likely to make an arrest (Buzawa & Buzawa, 1993; Dobash & Dobash, 1979; Martin, 1983; Schechter, 1982). The police policy regarding domestics up until the 1980's consisted of mediation between the parties or asking one person to leave the home for the night. It was not until the mid-1980's, under pressure from battered women’s advocates, that police departments began revisiting these policies with many now following a pro-arrest policy when they have probable cause (Buzawa & Buzawa, 1993).</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Court Proceedings</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">If and when a case of domestic violence against a woman with a disability does proceed to the prosecutor’s office, there is another set of obstacles to be overcome. In a booklet produced by the Berkeley Planning Associates (Strong & Freeman, 1997) on domestic violence and caregiver abuse, they say women with impaired cognitive skills may not be as well-equipped to negotiate the legal system, especially if they are required to defend themselves against a partner or caregiver who has greater cognitive ability. A worker at a domestic violence program in South Dakota witnessed a case where a woman with a learning disability and a physical disability was repeatedly assaulted and raped by the same man (Dasch, 1998). When the case went to court for a preliminary hearing on a protection order violation, the batterer was allowed to represent himself and to cross-examine his victim. </span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">The court allowed him to verbally abuse the victim and only stopped him when he called her a “dumb broad” and a “handicapped bitch</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">ADWAS in Seattle, reports that when victims who are deaf get to court, judges often confuse the deaf interpreter law with the foreign language interpreter law, which decrees that victims prove their poverty before the court will authorize payment for an interpreter (Goldman & Hoog, 1995). U</span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">nder the ADA, the court is legally obligated to provide interpreters to victims with disabilities free of charge. Also, the courts often postpone hearings several times because no interpreter is available. This practice gives batterers a window of opportunity to intimidate the victim, convince her to recant (Ferraro, 1993) or to not get the protection order</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">. ADWAS also notes that the Seattle courts have no system in place to provide interpreters in emergency situations, such as ex parte hearings for protection orders.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">SPECIAL ISSUES IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND THE DISABILITY COMMUNITY</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Battering During Pregnancy</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">As noted earlier battering during pregnancy causes an unknown number of disabilities in the children of victims. Sobsey (1994) says various studies show that between 4% and 23% of women are battered during pregnancy. Those who are beaten are twice as likely to have complications in their pregnancy than those who experienced trauma as the result of falls or auto accidents. This is obviously a cause for alarm as the rate of abuse of children with disabilities is also higher than for non-disabled children. Because domestic violence within families correlates to increased risk of child abuse within these same families, the children whose mother was abused during pregnancy could also experience greater risk for abuse as infants, children and young adults (Sobsey, 1994).</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">This abuse and disability cycle as laid out by Sobsey (1994), posits that some people become entrapped within the cycle, either being born with a disability, or becoming disabled as a result of abuse, thus increasing their chances of further violence.</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Women Disabled from Abuse</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Another important area to look at in terms of women who are domestic violence victims is the number who, as a result of their injuries, become either temporarily or permanently disabled. The Domestic Violence Initiative in Denver, Colorado reports that within their program approximately 40% of the women have disabilities resulting from abuse at the hands of their partners or caregivers (Hickman, 1998).</span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;"> One woman had her legs slammed in a car door by her abuser and will have both legs in casts for a year. She faces losing her home, her job and possibly her children, since she will not be able to maintain the standard of care she had provided for them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">The Office of Victims of Crime reports that catastrophic injuries as the result of violent assaults can result in loss of abilities to see, hear, touch, taste, feel, move, and think in the usual ways (Tyiska, 1998). A report by the National Clearinghouse on Family Violence (1998) in Canada reports that “women have cited violence by their husbands as causing a loss of vision and a loss of mobility.” In the technical assistance manual Open Minds, Open Doors, by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (1996) a story tells of a 28-year-old woman shot in the back by her boyfriend resulting in her becoming a paraplegic. A well known case in the area of police liability, THURMAN VS. CITY OF TORRINGTON, is an excellent example of how a woman can become permanently disabled due to an attack by her abuser. The police department in Torrington had previously arrested Tracy Thurman’s husband Charles and knew that she had a protection order against him. During a 1983 incident, Tracy called the police to report her husband was at her home in violation of the order. By the time police arrived, Charles Thurman had already stabbed Tracy in the neck and chest. After police arrived he kicked her two to three more times before the police officer stopped him and arrested him (Pence & Paymar, 1998). Tracy’s neck was broken resulting in permanent disabilities.</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Disabilities resulting from abuse range from actual physical disabilities to more hidden trauma, including head injuries, cognitive problems, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">). A 1995 study looked at the incidence and correlation of PTSD in battered women. The results showed that 81% of the subjects from the group of battered women had a PTSD diagnosis, while 62.5% of the verbal abuse group met the same criteria. </span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Those battered women with PTSD reported more physical and verbal abuse, more injuries, greater sense of threat, and more forced sex in the relationship. The authors concluded “that battered women are at risk for posttraumatic stress disorder. The women more at risk are those with more extensive physical abuse and those who have experienced abuse prior to the most recent reported battering relationship</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">” (Kemp, Green, Hovanitz, & Rawlings, 1995).</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">RECOMMENDATIONS</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Clearly there is a dearth of hard facts when we try to pinpoint the scope of violence against women with disabilities. One researcher concludes, “There is no question that abuse of women with disabilities is a problem of epidemic proportions that is only beginning to attract the attention of researchers, service providers, and funding agencies. The gaps in the literature are enormous” (Nosek & Howland, 1998). Research in this field is needed on a range of topics such as the scope of violence, degree of accessibility to shelter programs, but research must include recommendations for change.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Most pressing for women in violent situations is to increase the number of service providers who are knowledgeable about domestic violence and who can find accessible programs. Several projects around the country, including locations in Nevada, Colorado, Wisconsin and Vermont, have begun specialized services to serve as a bridge between disability service providers and domestic violence programs. These programs, some of which are no more than one person, help to facilitate cross-training of the disability and shelter communities and recommend that all agencies reach out to provide this training to their staff. They also advocate screening for domestic violence by disability providers and shelters knowing how to accommodate women with disabilities -- both physically and attitudinally.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Joint efforts between agencies can also be effective in covering the needs of this population. In Denver, Colorado, the Domestic Violence Initiative for Women with Disabilities helped to craft the Denver Interagency Protocol for Crime Victims Who are Older or Who Have a Disability. Signed by the Mayor, the Department of Social Services, the District Attorney and the Chief of Police, the protocol outlines step-by-step procedures for handling assault or abuse cases involving victims who are older or who have a disability. Victims are identified immediately by the police who notify on-call staff, after which the victim is accompanied throughout the court process and receive follow-up by a victim services specialist. Collaborative ventures such as this provide possibly the best solution to an extremely complex problem.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">In terms of advocacy, shelter and battered women’s programs have been very successful in championing the cause of individual victims, as well as taking the entire criminal justice system to task through systems advocacy (Dobash & Dobash, 1992; Schechter, 1982). Over the last ten years, advocacy itself has become more specialized with many programs now employing legal advocates and child advocates. The former helps all victims traverse the terrain of the criminal justice system, while the latter works with children and their mothers to balance the demands of child protection workers, the legal system and what is best for the child. This could be an effective model to help advocate for women who are disabled, given the specialized needs and resources of this population. Some might argue there is not a need for such specialized services, but if a program does not identify itself as a resource for women with disabilities, or provides inadequate service to those who do seek it out, these women will not ask for help. However, once a program becomes known as accessible, more women will turn to it for help when in a violent situation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Any and all service providers who work with victims of domestic violence with a disability should be systematically tracking how the women are treated by other agency providers. Are deaf women getting interpreters when the police arrive? Is the courthouse, including the clerk’s office and the courtroom, wheelchair accessible? Are forms and brochures provided for in Braille, large print and on audio-tape if needed? What are the barriers faced by women when trying to leave an abusive situation? Is an emergency caregiver service available with properly screened caregivers? The questions are many, but only by tracking exactly what is and is not happening will communities be able to provide fully accessible services and safety for women with disabilities.</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> <span style="color: red;">“Whether they are in relationships or not, because of the alarming prevalence of violence against disabled women, it is important for us to be extra vigilant in noticing violence and in offering assistance. In light of the paucity of women’s shelters for disabled women, advocacy is clearly called for”</span></span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">(Burstow, 1992).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Training for criminal justice personnel as well as specific policies for working with victims who have a disability are also clearly called for. Through the VAWA, millions of dollars has been funneled to train police officers and prosecutors on the dynamics of domestic violence. Unfortunately, most of this training is fairly general and does not include the additional barriers facing victims with disabilities. New monies through the VAWA (when it comes up for re-authorization next year - delete) or through other federal programs is undoubtedly needed to provide additional training in this area.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">In terms of policies, some argue that specialized policies have contributed to a negative stereotype of disabled people, emphasizing their “incapacities” as the defining feature of their identities, and placing them “within subordinate positions within both public and private spheres of social life” (Grattet & Jenness, 1999). However, it is likewise true that without specialized policies and procedures, women with disabilities trying to escape abusive situations will be left with a criminal justice response that does little to meet their need to be free from violence. As noted in a discussion on the feasibility of hate crime laws for people with disabilities, “ignoring difference is seldom enough to produce equality” (Grattet & Jenness, 1999).</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Policies for police should include on-call advocates or disability specialists to work with police officers responding to domestic violence calls. This is one step that is relatively easy but considerably enhances the quality of the police response by letting officers focus on whether or not a crime occurred, while an advocate can provide CONFIDENTIAL crisis intervention to the victim and assist her in implementing a safety plan. Additional policies are needed requiring the provision of interpreters for hearing impaired victims, the supplying of critical forms, reports and emergency telephone cards in forms accessible to all victims, as well as ensuring the presence of advocates at each step of the criminal justice process, including police and prosecutor interviews.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">While hate crime laws have been suggested as a means to increase the prosecution and thus safety of victims with disabilities (Waxman, 1991), its usefulness in domestic violence cases is open to debate. There are two avenues of hate crime to pursue if a woman with a disability is battered under gender-based provisions and under disability related statutes. </span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">However, in intimate relationships, it will be hard to show that the violence was perpetrated in response to hatred of either women or a people with disabilities, unless prosecutors can show a clear and convincing pattern. If a particular suspect could be shown to be a serial batterer of women with disabilities, its possible a prosecutor could pursue it as a hate crime, but it would be a first</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">CONCLUSION</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">The intersection of violence against women and disabilities forces us to rethink how we evaluate difference. By privileging one status over another we feed into an either-or belief system that only serves to prop up the status quo (Crenshaw, 1997; Fineman, 1997). Instead, we must approach this problem and others like it with an eye towards inclusiveness and the realization that to solve complex problems requires a paradigm shift, from a single-axis approach to a multi-layered one. Although this is not new, the argument that women with disabilities must have a voice within the broader women’s movement and the disability rights movement is still central to achieving change . . . women must work together to shift the position of women with disabilities from one of marginalization to one of inclusion, and inclusion in women’s broader agendas is the key to reducing the violence in these women’s lives’ (Chenoweth, 1997). </span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Without this approach, shelters and other services for battered women will remain the exclusive domain of able-bodied women, while those with disabilities will remain hidden in silence and in pain.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 85%; font-weight: bold;"><br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-style: italic;">REFERENCES</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Burstow, B. (1992). Radical Feminist Therapy: Working in the Context of Violence. Newbury Park, California: Sage Publications, Inc.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Buzawa, E. S., & Buzawa, C. G. (1993). The Impact of Arrest on Domestic Assault. American Behavioral Scientist, 36(5), 558-574.</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Center, L. E. R. (1996). Police and People with Disabilities [Video]. Minneapolis, MN: Law Enforcement Resource Center.</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Chenoweth, L. (1997). Violence and Women with Disabilities: Silence and Paradox. In S. Cook & J. Bessant (Eds.), Women's Encounters with Violence: Australian Experiences (pp. 21-39). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Craven, D. P. (1996). Female Victims of Violent Crime (NCJ-162602): U.S. Department of Justice.</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Crenshaw, K. (1997). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color. In K. J. Maschke (Ed.), The Legal Response to Violence Against Women (pp. 91-149). New York: Garland Publishing, Inc.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Dasch, D. (1998). Program Development Director : Working Against Violence, Inc., Rapid City, South Dakota. Personal Communication.</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Denver, C. o. (1998). Denver Interagency Protocol for Crime Victims who are Older or have a Disability . Denver: Denver: Mayor, Department of Social Services, District Attorney, Chief of Police.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Dobash, R. E., & Dobash, R. P. (1979). Violence Against Wives. New York: Free Press.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Dobash, R. E., & Dobash, R. P. (1992). Women, Violence and Social Change. London: Routledge.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Ferraro, K. J. (1993). Cops, Courts and Woman Battering. In P. B. Bart & E. G. Moran (Eds.), Violence Against Women - The Bloody Footprints (pp. 165-176). Newbury Park: SAGE Publications.</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Fineman, M. (1997). Challenging Law, Establishing Difference: The Future of Feminist Legal Scholarship. In K. J. Maschke (Ed.), Gender and American Law: Feminist Legal Theories (pp. 53-71). New York: Garland Publishing, Inc.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Freeman, A. C., Strong, M. F., Barker, L. T., & Haight-Liotta, S. (1996). Priorities for Future Research: Results of BPA's Delphi Survey of Disabled Women . Berkeley: Berkeley Planning Associates.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Goldman, L., & Hoog, C. (1995, ). The Light at the End of the Tunnel? Abused Deaf Women's Advocacy Services Newsletter, 3, 1-4.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Grattet, R., & Jenness, V. (1999, October 1999). Policy Responses to the Victimization of Persons with Disabilities: An Assessment of the Viability of Using Hate Crime Law to Enhance the Status and Welfare of Persons with Disabilities. Paper presented at the National Academy of Sciences -- Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences Education.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Groce, N. E. (1990). Special Groups at Risk for Abuse: The Disabled. In M. B. Straus (Ed.), Abuse and Victimization Across the Life Span (paperback ed., pp. 232-238). Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Grothaus, R. S. (1985). Abuse of Women with Disabilities. In S. E. Brown, D. Connors, & N. Stern (Eds.), With the Power of Each Breath: A Disabled Women's Anthology (First ed., pp. 124-132). Pittsburg: Cleiss Press - A Women 's Publishing Company.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Hammon, D. (1999). Access and Advocacy , Personal Communication.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Hickman, S. (1998). Executive Director : Domestic Violence Initiative for Women with Disabilities.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Kemp, A., Green, B. L., Hovanitz, C., & Rawlings, E. I. (1995). Incidence and Correlates of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Battered Women. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 10(1), 43-55.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">L'Institut Roeher Institute. (1994). Violence and People with Disabilities: A Review of the Literature . Canada: National Clearinghouse on Family Violence.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Mandeville, H., & Brandl, B. (1997, Winter 1996/97). Promoting Personal Safety. Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence Newsletter, 15, 3-14.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Martin, D. (1983). Battered Wives. New York: Pocket Books.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">McPherson, C. (1991). Violence as it Affects Disabled Women: A View from Canada. In E. Boylan (Ed.), Women and Disability (pp. 54-57). London: Zed Books Ltd.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">National Clearinghouse on Family Violence. (1998). Family Violence Against Women with Disabilities, [Internet]. Health Canada Online. Available: http://www.hc-sc.ca/hppb/familyviolence/womendiseng.html [1998, 10/23/1998].</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. (1996). Open Minds, Open Doors. Denver: National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Nosek, M. A., & Howland, C. A. (1998). Abuse and Women with Disabilities (www.vaw.umn.edu/Vawnet/disab.htm), [World Wide Web]. Violence Against Women Online Resources [1999, 11/99].</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Pence, E., & Paymar, M. (1993). Education Groups for Men Who Batter: The Duluth Model. New York: Springer Publishing Company.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Pence, E., & Paymar, M. (1998). Domestic Violence: The Law Enforcement Response [Video Training]. Duluth: Law Enforcement Resource Center.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Sanders, A., Creaton, J., Bird, S., & Weber, L. (1997). Victims with Learning Disabilities: Negotiating the Criminal Justice System. Oxford: Centre for Criminological Research, University of Oxford.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Schechter, S. (1982). Women and Male Violence. Boston: South End Press.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Section, C. R. D.--. D. R. (1998). A Guide to Disability Rights Law . Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Sobsey, D. (1994). Violence and Abuse in the Lives of People with Disabilities. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., Inc.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Strong, M. F., & Freeman, A. C. (1997). Caregiver Abuse and Domestic Violence in the Lives of Women with Disabilities . Berkeley: Berkeley Planning Associates.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Tjaden, P., & Thoennes, N. (1998). Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey : U.S. Department of Justice.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Tyiska, C. G. (1998). Working with Victims of Crime with Disabilities, OVC Bulletin (pp. 1-16). US Department of Justice: Office for Victims of Crime.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Waxman, B. F. (1991). Hatred: The Unacknowledged Dimension in Violence Against Disabled People. Sexuality and Disability, 9(3), 185- 199.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Young, M. E. P., Margaret A. Nosek, P., Howland, C., Chanpong, G., & Diana H. Rintala, P. (1997). Prevalence of Abuse of Women with Physical Disabilities. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Special Issue, 78(December 1997), S34-S38.</span><br />
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<i style="font-style: italic;">[1] A statement in a police report is essentially a “police construction. It is not the unprompted narrative of the witness, but a carefully crafted summary, often designed . . . to establish certain evidential points necessary to meet the technical requirements of proving guilt in a particular crime” (Sanders et al., 1997)</i><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">http://www.bwjp.org/documents/Erwin-diswomenformatted1.htm</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-1096026204373837342023-06-16T00:32:00.000-04:002023-06-18T19:56:47.200-04:00Signs To Look For In An Abusive Personality<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Many people are interested in ways to predict whether they are about to become involved with someone who will be physically abusive. Below is a list of common behaviors that are seen in abusive people. Many victims do not realize that these early behaviors are warning signs of potential future physical abuse, such as the last four (***) behaviors. If the person has several (three or more) of the first 12 listed behaviors, there is a strong potential for physical violence -- the more signs a person has, the more likely the person is a batterer. In some cases, a batterer may only have a couple of behaviors that the victim can recognize, but they may be very exaggerated (e.g., will try to explain his behavior as signs of his love and concern), and a victim may be flattered at first. However, as time goes by, the behavior becomes more severe and serves to dominate or control the other person.<br />
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1.<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;"> Jealousy: </span>At the beginning of a relationship, an abuser will always say that jealousy is a sign of love; jealousy has nothing to do with love, it is a sign of possessiveness and lack of trust. He will question the other person about whom she talks to, accuse her of flirting, or be jealous of the time she spends with her family or friends. As the jealousy progresses, he may call frequently during the day or drop by unexpectedly. He may refuse to let you work for fear you will meet someone else, or even do strange behaviors like checking your car mileage or asking friends to watch you.<br />
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2. <span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Controlling Behavior</span>: At first, the batterer will say that this behavior is because he is concerned with your safety, your need to use your time well, or your need to make good decisions. He will be angry if you are late coming back from an appointment or a class, he will question you closely about where you went and whom you talked to. As this behavior gets worse, he may not let you make personal decisions about your clothing, hair style, appearance.<br />
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3. <span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Quick Involvement</span>: Many people in abusive relationships dated or knew their abusive partners for less than six months before they were married, engaged or living together. He comes on like a whirlwind, claiming, “You are the only person I could ever talk to” or “I’ve never felt like this for anyone before. He will pressure you to commit to the relationship in such a way that you may later feel guilty or that you are “letting him down” if you want to slow down involvement or break up.<br />
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4. <span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Unrealistic Expectations</span>: Abusive people will expect their partner to meet all their needs; he expects you to be the perfect boyfriend/ girlfriend, the perfect friend or the perfect lover. He will say things like, “If you love me, I’m all you need and you are all I need.” You are supposed to take care of all of his emotional needs.<br />
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5. <span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Isolation</span>: The abusive person will try to cut you off from all resources. He accuses you of being “tied to your mother’s apron strings,” or your friends of “trying to cause trouble” between you. If you have a friend of the opposite sex, you are “going out on him” and if you have friends of the same sex, he may accuse you of being gay.<br />
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6. <span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Blames Others for Problems</span>: He is chronically unemployed, someone is always waiting for him to do wrong or mess up or someone is always out to get him. He may make mistakes and blame you for upsetting him. He may accuse you of preventing him from concentrating on school. He will tell you that you are at fault for almost anything that goes wrong.<br />
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7. <span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Blames Others for Feelings</span>: He will tell you, “You make me mad,” “You are hurting me by not doing what I want you to do,” or “I can’t help being angry.” He really makes the decisions about how he thinks or feels, but will use feelings to manipulate you.<br />
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8. <span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Hypersensitivity</span>: An abusive person is easily insulted, and claims that their feelings are hurt when really he is very mad. He often takes the slightest setbacks as personal attacks. He will rant about things that are really just part of living like being asked to work overtime, getting a traffic ticket, being asked to help others with chores.<br />
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9. <span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Cruelty to Animals or Children</span>: This is a person who punishes animals brutally or is insensitive to their pain and suffering. He may tease younger brothers or sisters until they cry.<br />
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10.<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">“Playful” use of Force in Sex</span>: This kind of person is likely to throw you down or try to hold you down during making out, or he may want you to act out fantasies in which you are helpless. He is letting you know that the idea of sex is exciting. He may show little concern about whether you want affection and may sulk or use anger to manipulate you into compliance.<br />
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11. <span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Verbal Abuse</span>: In addition to saying things that are meant to be cruel and hurtful, this can be seen when the abusive person tries to degrade you, curses you, calls you names or makes fun of your accomplishments. The abusive person will tell you that you are stupid and unable to function without him. This may involve waking you up to verbally abuse you or not letting you go to sleep until you talk out an argument.<br />
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12. <span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde</span>: Many people are confused by their abusive partner’s “sudden” changes in mood -- you may think he has a mental problem because he is nice one minute and the next minute he is exploding. Explosiveness and moodiness are typical of people who are abusive to their partners, and these behaviors are related to other characteristics like hypersensitivity.<br />
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13. <span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">*** Past Battering</span>: This person may say that he has hit girlfriends in the past but the other person “made him do it.” You may hear from relatives or past girlfriends that he is abusive. An abusive person will be physically abusive to any one they are with if the other person is with them long enough for the violence to begin; situational circumstances do not change a person into an abuser.<br />
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14. <span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">*** Threats of violence</span>: This could include any threat of physical force meant to control you: “I’ll slap you,” “I’ll kill you,” or “I’ll break your neck." Most people do not threaten their partners, but the abusive person will try to excuse his threats by saying, “Everybody talks that way.”<br />
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15. *<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">** Breaking or Striking Objects</span>: This behavior is used as a punishment (breaking loved possessions), but is mostly used to terrorize you into submission. The abuser may beat on the table with his fists, throw objects at or near you, kick the car, slam the door or drive at a high rate of speed or recklessly to scare you. Not only is this a sign of extreme emotional immaturity, but there is great danger when someone thinks they have the “right” to punish or frighten you.<br />
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16. <span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">*** Any Force During an Argument</span>: This may involve an abusive partner holding you down, physically restraining you from leaving the room, any pushing or shoving. He may hold you against the wall and say, “You are going to listen to me.”<br />
<br />
Mixed Messages<br />
My partner loves me . . . he didn’t mean to hurt me.<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;"> (Abuse is about power and control. It is not about love.)</span><br />
<br />
My partner promised to get counseling. <span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">(Abusers tend to make promises when they feel they are not in control.)</span></b><span style="font-size: 130%;"><br />
<span style="color: #3333ff; font-weight: bold;">When you file charges, you have taken control away from your abuser, who is likely to promise anything to get that control back.</span></span><b><br />
<br />
It is just that my partner was under a lot of stress . . . or drunk. <span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">(You can chose to believe that there are reasons, but there can never be a justifiable reason for your abuse.)</span><br />
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It will never happen again. <span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">(It might. Chances are, it will if your abuser is not held accountable.)</span><br />
<br />
It’s really not that bad, we have had great times.<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;"> (All relationships have good and bad times, but violent relationships are not good for anyone. Healthy relationships are based on caring, equality and respect. They are not about power and control.)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">Types of Abuse</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000099;">EMOTIONAL ABUSE - This is often the first sign of abusive behavior exhibited by someone who batters. In the beginning it may as simple as the silent treatment, but it often progresses to angry words and put downs</span>.<br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Finding faults in all your friends/family (this is the first step in the isolation process)</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Withholding emotions, not talking or sharing, withholding approval or affections</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Does not acknowledge your feelings</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Continuous criticism</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Name-calling, mocking, put-downs</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Yelling, swearing, being lewd</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Pressure tactics (using guilt trips, rushing you, threats to leave)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Humiliated in public (including outbursts of anger to insults in public)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Manipulation by lies, omitting facts, or telling only portions of the facts</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Angry gestures, slamming doors, throwing things, hitting walls or furniture near you</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Threats (to harm you, to not pay bills, to not buy groceries, etc.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Using children (making threats to take them or to call DHS, criticizing your parenting skills)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #3333ff;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">ECONOMIC ABUSE</span> - Again, this begins in subtle ways and develops into the abuser's dominant control over all economic aspects. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Insisting that you quit your job (saying he will take care of you, sites faults with coworkers and bosses - point out how they "mistreat" you)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Recanting on promises to pay bills (for example, your car payment, insurance, etc.)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Makes you account for your spending with no accounting for abuser's spending</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Limiting your access to funds (taking ATM card or removing your name from accounts)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Not paying bills, buying groceries, or taking care of the children's needs</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #3333ff;">PHYSICAL ABUSE - This is usually first exhibited by getting "in your face" or invading your personal space during an argument and progresses into offensive and harmful touches.</span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Shouting at you</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Invading your personal space</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Poke/pinch</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Grab/hold</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Push/shove</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Pull hair</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Slap/Punch</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Bite/spit</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Kick/stomp</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Cleaning/displaying weapons</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Refusing to let you leave</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Being locked in/out of house</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Destroying your possessions</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Abandoned in dangerous places</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Driving recklessly</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Disabling car, hiding keys to car</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Refusing medical care</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Hurtful/unwanted touching of sexual parts</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Rape (use of force, threats, coercion, or manipulation to obtain sex)</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Intimidating by blocking exit, making threatening gestures</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Refusing to let you sleep until he is ready to sleep/or making you go to sleep at the same time he does</span><br />
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<span style="color: #3333ff;">Are You in an Abusive Relationship?<br />
Answering the following questions may help you determine whether the relationship you are in is abusive. Check the questions that apply to you:</span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Does your partner:</span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Embarrass you in front of people?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Belittle your accomplishments?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Make you feel unworthy?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Criticize your sexual performance?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Constantly contradict himself/herself to confuse you?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Do things for which you are constantly making excuses to others or yourself?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Isolate you from many of the people you care about most?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Make you feel ashamed a lot of the time?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Make you believe he is smarter than you and therefore more able to make decisions?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Make you feel like you are crazy?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Make you perform sexual acts that are embarrassing or demeaning to you?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Use intimidation to make you do what he wants?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Prevent you from doing common-place activities such as visiting friends or family, or</span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">talking to the opposite sex?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Control the financial aspects of your life?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Use money as a way of controlling you?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Make you believe that you can not exist without him?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Make you feel that there is no way out and that "you made your own bed and you must lie in it?</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Make you find ways of compromising your feelings for the sake of peace?</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Treat you roughly (grab, pinch, push, or shove you)?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Threaten you (verbally or with a weapon)?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Hold you to keep you from leaving after an argument?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Lose control when he is drunk or using drugs?</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Get extremely angry, frequently, and without an apparent cause?</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Escalate his anger into violence . . .slapping, kicking, etc?</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Not believe that he has hurt you, nor feel sorry for what he has done?</span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Physically force you to do what you do not want to do?</span><br />
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<span style="color: #3366ff; font-weight: bold;">Do you:</span><br />
<br />
Do you believe you can help your partner change his abusive behavior if you were only to change yourself in some way, if you only did some things differently, if you really loved him more?<br />
<br />
Believe that you deserve to be abused or punished?<br />
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Find that not making him angry has become a major part of your life?<br />
<br />
Do what he wants you to do, rather than what you want to do, out of fear?<br />
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Stay with him only because you’re afraid he might hurt you if you left?<br />
<br />
<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">If you answered "yes" to many of these questions, you have identified an abusive relationship. If the abuse has occurred during dating, it is very likely to continue after marriage. Once physical abuse has occurred, it is likely to occur again and to escalate over time. You cannot change your partner’s behavior. You can only change yourself. It is not necessary to stay in a relationship of fear. You have the right to choose how you wish to live.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000099;">Traits And Characteristics Of Violent Offenders</span><br />
<br />
1. <span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">Low Frustration Tolerance</span> - Reacts to stress in self-defeating ways, unable to cope effectively with anxiety, acts out when frustrated. Frustration leads to aggression.<br />
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2. <span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">Impulsive </span>- Is quick to act, wants immediate gratification, has little or no consideration for the consequences, lacks insight, has poor judgment, has limited cognitive filtering.<br />
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3. <span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">Emotional Liability/Depression</span> - Quick-tempered, short-fused, hot-headed, rapid mood swings, moody, sullen, irritable, humorless.<br />
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4. <span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">Childhood Abuse</span> - Sexual and physical abuse, maternal or paternal deprivation,<br />
rejection, abandonment, exposure to violent role models in the home.<br />
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5. <span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">Loner </span>- Is isolated and withdrawn, has poor interpersonal relations, has no empathy for others, lacks feeling of guilt and remorse.<br />
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6. <span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">Overly sensitive</span> - Hypersensitive to criticism and real or perceived slights, suspicious, fearful, distrustful, paranoid.<br />
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7.<span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;"> Altered Consciousness</span> - Sees red, “blanking,” has blackouts, de-realization/depersonalization. <i>("It’s like I wasn’t there" or "It was me, but not me</i>”), impaired reality testing, hallucinations.<br />
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8. <span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">Threats of Violence </span>- Toward self and/or others, direct, veiled, implied, or conditional.<br />
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9. <span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">Blames Others</span><span style="color: #6600cc;"> </span>– Projects blame onto others, fatalistic, external locus of control, avoids personal responsibility for behavior, views self as “victim” instead of “victimizer,” self-centered, sense of entitlement.<br />
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10.<span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;"> Chemical Abuse</span> - Especially alcohol, opiates, amphetamines, crack, and hallucinogens (PCP, LSD), an angry drunk, dramatic personality/mood changes when under the influence.<br />
<br />
11. <span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">Mental Health Problems Requiring In-Patient Hospitalization</span> - Especially with arrest history for any offenses prior to hospitalization.<br />
<br />
12. <span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">**History of Violence** </span>- Towards self and others, actual physical force used to injure, harm, or damage. This element is the most significant in assessing individuals for potential dangerousness.<br />
<br />
13. <span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">Odd/Bizarre Beliefs </span>- Superstitious, magical thinking, <span style="color: red;">religiosity</span>, sexuality, violent fantasies (especially when violence is eroticized), delusions.<br />
<br />
14. <span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">Physical Problems</span> - Congenital defects, severe acne, scars, stuttering, any of which contribute to poor self-image, lack of self-esteem, and isolation. History of head trauma, brain damage/neurological problems.<br />
<br />
15. <span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">Preoccupation With Violence Themes</span> - Movies, books, TV, newspaper articles, magazines (detective), music, weapons collections, guns, knives, implements of torture, S & M, Nazi paraphernalia.<br />
<br />
16. <span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">Pathological Triad/School Problems</span> - Fire-setting, enuresis, cruelty to animals, fighting, truancy, temper tantrums, inability to get along with others, ejection of authority.<br />
</b><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: 85%;"><b>Alan C. Brantley, Traits and Characteristics of Violent Offenders, FBI Academy</b>.</span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-1160743738699953962023-04-19T00:48:00.001-04:002023-04-20T16:00:28.467-04:00Narcissistic Mothers' Characteristics<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/malcolm/gallery/images/340/malcolm4.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/malcolm/gallery/images/340/malcolm4.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 200px;" /></a><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #6600cc;">1. <span style="color: red;">Everything she does is deniable. </span><br />
There is always a facile excuse or an explanation. Cruelties are couched in loving terms. Aggressive and hostile acts are paraded as thoughtfulness. Selfish manipulations are presented as gifts. Criticism and slander is slyly disguised as concern. She only wants what is best for you. She only wants to "help" you.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc;"><span style="color: red;">She rarely says right out that she thinks you’re inadequate.</span> Instead, any time that you tell her you’ve done something good, she counters with something your sibling did that was better or she simply ignores you or she hears you out without saying anything, then in a short time does something cruel to you so you understand not to get above yourself. She will carefully separate cause (your joy in your accomplishment) from effect (refusing to let you borrow the car to go to the awards ceremony) by enough time that someone who didn’t live through her abuse would never believe the connection.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;"><span style="color: red;">Many of her putdowns are simply by comparison. She’ll talk about how wonderful someone else is or what a wonderful job they did on something you’ve also done or how highly she thinks of them.</span> The contrast is left up to you. She has let you know that you’re no good without saying a word. She’ll spoil your pleasure in something by simply congratulating you for it in an angry, envious voice that conveys how unhappy she is, again, completely deniably. It is impossible to confront someone over their tone of voice, their demeanor or they way they look at you, but once your narcissistic mother has you trained, she can promise terrible punishment without a word. As a result, <span style="color: red;">you’re always afraid, always in the wrong, and can never exactly put your finger on why.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc;"><span style="color: red;">Because her abusiveness is part of a lifelong campaign of control and because she is careful to rationalize her abuse, it is extremely difficult to explain to other people what is so bad about her.</span> She’s also careful about when and how she engages in her abuses. <span style="color: red;">She’s very secretive, a characteristic of almost all abusers</span> (“Don’t wash our dirty laundry in public!”) and will punish you for telling anyone else what she’s done. The times and locations of her worst abuses are carefully chosen so that no one who might intervene will hear or see her bad behavior, and she will seem like a completely different person in public. She’ll slam you to other people, but will always embed her devaluing nuggets of snide gossip in protestations of concern, love and understanding (<span style="font-style: italic;">“I feel so sorry for poor Cynthia. She always seems to have such a hard time, but I just don’t know what I can do for her!”) </span><br />
<br />
As a consequence the <span style="color: red;">children of narcissists universally report that no one believes them</span> (“I have to tell you that she always talks about YOU in the most caring way!"). Unfortunately therapists, given the deniable actions of the narcissist and eager to defend a fellow parent, will often jump to the narcissist’s defense as well, <span style="color: red;">reinforcing your sense of isolation and helplessness</span> (<span style="font-style: italic;">“I’m sure she didn’t mean it like that!”)</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc;">2.<span style="color: red;"> She violates your boundaries.</span><br />
You feel like an extension of her. Your property is given away without your consent, sometimes in front of you. Your food is eaten off your plate or given to others off your plate. Your property may be repossessed and no reason given other than that it was never yours.<span style="color: red;"> Your time is committed without consulting you, and opinions purported to be yours are expressed for you</span>. (She LOVES going to the fair! He would never want anything like that. She wouldn’t like kumquats.) You are discussed in your presence as though you are not there.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">She keeps tabs on your bodily functions and humiliates you by divulging the information she gleans, especially when it can be used to demonstrate her devotion and highlight her martyrdom to your needs </span>(<span style="font-style: italic;">“Mike had that problem with frequent urination too, only his was much worse. I was so worried about him!”</span>) You have never known what it is like to have privacy in the bathroom or in your bedroom, and she goes through your things regularly. She asks nosy questions, snoops into your email/letters/diary/conversations. S<span style="color: red;">he will want to dig into your feelings, particularly painful ones and is always looking for negative information on you which can be used against you.</span> She does things against your expressed wishes frequently. All of this is done without seeming embarrassment or thought.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc;"><span style="color: red;">Any attempt at autonomy on your part is strongly resisted.</span> Normal rites of passage (<span style="font-style: italic;">learning to shave, wearing makeup, dating</span>) are grudgingly allowed only if you insist, and you’re punished for your insistence (<span style="font-style: italic;">“Since you’re old enough to date, I think you’re old enough to pay for your own clothes!”</span>) If you demand age-appropriate clothing, grooming, control over your own life, or rights, you are difficult and she ridicules your “independence.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc;">3. <span style="color: red;">She favoritizes.<br />
Narcissistic mothers commonly choose one (sometimes more) child to be the golden child and one (sometimes more) to be the scapegoat.</span> The narcissist identifies with the golden child and provides privileges to him or her as long as the golden child does just as she wants. The golden child has to be cared for assiduously by everyone in the family. The scapegoat has no needs and instead gets to do the caring. The golden child can do nothing wrong. The scapegoat is always at fault. This creates divisions between the children, one of whom has a large investment in the mother being wise and wonderful, and the other(s) who hate her. That division will be fostered by the narcissist with lies and with blatantly unfair and favoritizing behavior. The golden child will defend the mother and indirectly perpetuate the abuse by finding reasons to blame the scapegoat for the mother’s actions. The golden child may also directly take on the narcissistic mother’s tasks by physically abusing the scapegoat so the narcissistic mother doesn’t have to do that herself.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc;">4. <span style="color: red;">She undermines.<br />
</span>Your accomplishments are acknowledged only to the extent that she can take credit for them. Any success or accomplishment for which she cannot take credit is ignored or diminished. <span style="color: red;">Any time you are to be center stage and there is no opportunity for her to be the center of attention, she will try to prevent the occasion altogether, or she doesn’t come, or she leaves early, or she acts like it’s no big deal, or she steals the spotlight or she slips in little wounding comments about how much better someone else did or how what you did wasn’t as much as you could have done or as you think it is</span>. She undermines you by picking fights with you or being especially unpleasant just before you have to make a major effort. She acts put out if she has to do anything to support your opportunities or will outright refuse to do even small things in support of you. She will be nasty to you about things that are peripherally connected with your successes so that you find your joy in what you’ve done is tarnished, without her ever saying anything directly about it. No matter what your success, she has to take you down a peg about it.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc;"><span style="color: red;">5. She demeans, criticizes and denigrates.</span><br />
She lets you know in all sorts of little ways that she thinks less of you than she does of your siblings or of other people in general. If you complain about mistreatment by someone else, she will take that person’s side even if she doesn’t know them at all. She doesn’t care about those people or the justice of your complaints. She just wants to let you know that you’re never right.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc;"><span style="color: red;">She will deliver generalized barbs that are almost impossible to rebut (always in a loving, caring tone): </span><span style="color: red; font-style: italic;">“You were always difficult” “You can be very difficult to love” “You never seemed to be able to finish anything” “You were very hard to live with” “You’re always causing trouble” “No one could put up with the things you do.” </span><br />
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She will deliver slams in a sidelong way - for example she’ll complain about how “no one” loves her, does anything f1or her, or cares about her, or she’ll complain that “everyone” is so selfish, when you’re the only person in the room. As always, this combines criticism with deniability.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;"><span style="color: red;">She will slip little comments into conversation that she really enjoyed something she did with someone else - something she did with you too, but didn’t like as much. </span>She’ll let you know that her relationship with some other person you both know is wonderful in a way your relationship with her isn’t - t<span style="color: red;">he carefully unspoken message being that you don’t matter much to her.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;"><span style="color: red;">She minimizes, discounts or ignores your opinions and experiences.</span> Your insights are met with condescension, denials and accusations (“I think you read too much!”) and she will brush off your information even on subjects on which you are an acknowledged expert. Whatever you say is met with smirks and amused sounding or exaggerated exclamations (“Uh hunh!” “You don’t say!” “Really!”). She’ll then make it clear that she didn’t listen to a word you said.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">6. <span style="color: red;">She makes you look crazy.<br />
</span>If you try to confront her about something she’s done, she’ll tell you that you have “a very vivid imagination” or that you "made it all up" (<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="color: red;">this is a phrase commonly used by abusers of all sorts to invalidate your experience of their abuse</span></span>) that you don’t know what you’re talking about, or that she has no idea what you’re talking about. She will claim not to remember even very memorable events, <span style="color: red;">flatly denying they ever happened</span>, nor will she ever acknowledge any possibility that she might have forgotten.<br />
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<span style="color: red;">This is an extremely aggressive and exceptionally infuriating tactic called “<a href="http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/109220/what_is_gaslighting_.html">gaslighting</a>,” common to abusers of all kinds</span>. Your perceptions of reality are continually undermined so that you end up without any confidence in your intuition, your memory or your powers of reasoning. This makes you a much better victim for the abuser.</span><br />
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</span><span style="color: #6600cc;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: 130%;">Narcissists gaslight routinely.</span> </span>The narcissist will either insinuate or will tell you and others outright that you’re unstable, otherwise you wouldn’t believe such ridiculous things or be so uncooperative.<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">You’re oversensitive. </span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">You’re imagining things. </span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">You’re hysterical. </span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">You’re completely unreasonable. </span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">You’re over-reacting, like you always do. </span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">She’ll talk to you when you’ve calmed down and aren’t so irrational. </span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">She may even characterize you as being neurotic or psychotic.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;"><span style="color: red;">Once she’s constructed these fantasies of your emotional pathologies, she’ll tell others about them, as always, presenting her smears as expressions of concern and declaring her own helpless victimhood. </span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">She didn’t do anything. </span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">She has no idea why you’re so irrationally angry with her. </span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">You’ve hurt her terribly. </span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">She thinks you may need psychotherapy. </span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">She loves you very much and would do anything to make you happy, but she just doesn’t know what to do. </span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">You keep pushing her away when all she wants to do is help you.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;"><span style="color: red;">She has simultaneously absolved herself of any responsibility for your obvious antipathy towards her, implied that it’s something fundamentally wrong with you that makes you angry with her, and undermined your credibility with her listeners</span>. She plays the role of the doting mother so perfectly that no one will believe you.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">7. <span style="color: red;">She’s envious.</span><br />
Any time you get something nice she’s angry and envious and her envy will be apparent when she admires whatever it is. She’ll try to get it from you, spoil it for you, or get the same or better for herself. She’s always working on ways to get what other people have. The envy of narcissistic mothers often includes competing sexually with their daughters or daughters-in-law. They’ll attempt to forbid their daughters to wear makeup, to groom themselves in an age-appropriate way or to date. They will criticize the appearance of their daughters and daughters-in-law. This envy extends to relationships. <span style="color: red;">Narcissistic mothers infamously attempt to damage their children’s marriages and interfere in the upbringing of their grandchildren.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">8. <span style="color: red;">She’s a liar in too many ways to count.</span><br />
Any time she talks about something that has emotional significance for her, it’s a fair bet that she’s lying. Lying is one way that she creates conflict in the relationships and lives of those around her - she’ll lie to them about what other people have said, what they’ve done, or how they feel. She’ll lie about her relationship with them, about your behavior or about your situation in order to inflate herself and to undermine your credibility.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">The narcissist is very careful about how she lies. <span style="color: red;">To outsiders she’ll lie thoughtfully and deliberately, always in a way that can be covered up if she’s confronted with her lie. </span>She spins what you said rather than makes something up wholesale. She puts dishonest interpretations on things you actually did. <span style="color: red;">If she’s recently done something particularly egregious she may engage in preventative lying: she lies in advance to discount what you might say before you even say it.</span> Then when you talk to anyone about what she did you’ll be cut off with “<span style="font-style: italic;">I already know all about it…your mother told me… (self-justifications and lies</span>).” Because she is so careful about her deniability, it may be very hard to catch her in her lies and<span style="color: red;"> the more gullible of her friends may never realize how dishonest she is.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">To you, she’ll lie blatantly. She will claim to be unable to remember bad things she has done, even if she did one of them recently and even if it was something very memorable. Of course, if you try to jog her memory by recounting the circumstances “<span style="font-style: italic;">You have a very vivid imagination</span>” or <span style="font-style: italic;">“That was so long ago. Why do you have to dredge up your old grudges?” </span>Your conversations with her are full of casual brush-offs and diversionary lies and she doesn’t respect you enough to bother making it sound good. For example she’ll start with a self-serving lie:<span style="font-style: italic;"> “If I don’t take you as a dependent on my taxes I’ll lose three thousand dollars!</span>” You refute her lie with an obvious truth: <span style="font-style: italic;">“No, three thousand dollars is the amount of the dependent exemption. You’ll only lose about eight hundred dollars.”</span> Her response: <span style="font-style: italic;">“Isn’t that what I said?”</span> <span style="color: red;">You are now in a game with only one rule: You can’t win.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">On the rare occasions she is forced to acknowledge some bad behavior, she will couch the admission deniably. She “guesses” that “maybe” she “might have” done something wrong. The wrongdoing is always heavily spun and trimmed to make it sound better. The words “I guess,” “maybe,” and “might have” are in and of themselves lies because she knows exactly what she did - no guessing, no might haves, no maybes.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">9. <span style="color: red;">She has to be the center of attention all the time.</span><br />
This need is a defining trait of narcissists and particularly of narcissistic mothers for whom their children exist to be sources of attention and adoration. Narcissistic mothers love to be waited on and often pepper their children with little requests. “<span style="font-style: italic;">While you’re up…</span>” or its equivalent is one of their favorite phrases. You couldn’t just be assigned a chore at the beginning of the week or of the day, instead, you had to do it on demand, preferably at a time that was inconvenient for you, or you had to “help” her do it, fetching and carrying for her while she made up to herself for the menial work she had to do as your mother by glorying in your attentions.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;"><span style="color: red;">A narcissistic mother may create odd occasions at which she can be the center of attention, such as memorials for someone close to her who died long ago, or major celebrations of small personal milestones.</span> She may love to entertain so she can be the life of her own party. She will try to steal the spotlight or will try to spoil any occasion where someone else is the center of attention, particularly the child she has cast as the scapegoat. She often invites herself along where she isn’t welcome. If she visits you or you visit her, you are required to spend all your time with her. Entertaining herself is unthinkable. She has always pouted, manipulated or raged if you tried to do anything without her, didn’t want to entertain her, refused to wait on her, stymied her plans for a drama or otherwise deprived her of attention.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;"><span style="color: red;">Older narcissistic mothers often use the natural limitations of aging to manipulate dramas, often by neglecting their health or by doing things they know will make them ill.</span> This gives them the opportunity to cash in on the investment they made when they trained you to wait on them as a child. Then they call you (or better still, get the neighbor or the nursing home administrator to call you) demanding your immediate attendance. You are to rush to her side, pat her hand, weep over her pain and listen sympathetically to her unending complaints about how hard and awful it is. (“<span style="font-style: italic;">Never get old!</span>”) It’s almost never the case that you can actually do anything useful, and the causes of her disability may have been completely avoidable, but you’ve been put in an extremely difficult position. If you don’t provide the audience and attention she’s manipulating to get, you look extremely bad to everyone else and may even have legal culpability. <span style="font-style: italic;">(Narcissistic behaviors commonly accompany Alzheimer’s disease, so this behavior may also occur in perfectly normal mothers as they age.)</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">10. <span style="color: red;">She manipulates your emotions in order to feed on your pain</span>.<br />
This exceptionally sick and bizarre behavior is so common among narcissistic mothers that their children often call them “emotional vampires.” Some of this emotional feeding comes in the form of pure sadism. She does and says things just to be wounding or she engages in tormenting teasing or she needles you about things you’re sensitive about, all the while a smile plays over her lips. She may have taken you to scary movies or told you horrifying stories, then mocked you for being a baby when you cried, She will slip a wounding comment into conversation and smile delightedly into your hurt face. You can hear the laughter in her voice as she pressures you or says distressing things to you. Later she’ll gloat over how much she upset you, gaily telling other people that you’re so much fun to tease, and recruiting others to share in her amusement. . She enjoys her cruelties and makes no effort to disguise that. She wants you to know that your pain entertains her. She may bring up subjects that are painful for you and probe you about them, all the while watching you carefully. This is emotional vampirism in its purest form. She’s feeding emotionally off your pain.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">A peculiar form of this emotional vampirism combines attention-seeking behavior with a demand that the audience suffer. Since narcissistic mothers often play the martyr this may take the form of wrenching, self-pitying dramas which she carefully produces, and in which she is the star performer. She sobs and wails that no one loves her and everyone is so selfish, and she doesn’t want to live, she wants to die! She wants to die! She will not seem to care how much the manipulation of their emotions and the self-pity repels other people. One weird behavior that is very common to narcissists: her dramas may also center around the tragedies of other people, often relating how much she suffered by association and trying to distress her listeners, as she cries over the horrible murder of someone she wouldn’t recognize if they had passed her on the street.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">11. <span style="color: red;">She’s selfish and willful.</span><br />
She always makes sure she has the best of everything. She insists on having her own way all the time and she will ruthlessly, manipulatively pursue it, even if what she wants isn’t worth all the effort she’s putting into it and even if that effort goes far beyond normal behavior. <span style="color: red;">She will make a huge effort to get something you denied her, even if it was entirely your right to do so and even if her demand was selfish and unreasonable. </span>If you tell her she cannot bring her friends to your party she will show up with them anyway, and she will have told them that they were invited so that you either have to give in, or be the bad guy to these poor dupes on your doorstep. If you tell her she can’t come over to your house tonight she’ll call your spouse and try get him or her to agree that she can, and to not say anything to you about it because it’s a “surprise.” She has to show you that you can’t tell her “no.”</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">One near-universal characteristic of narcissists: because they are so selfish and self-centered, they are very bad gift givers. They’ll give you hand-me-downs or market things for themselves as gifts for you (<span style="font-style: italic;">“I thought I’d give you my old bicycle and buy myself a new one!” “I know how much you love Italian food, so I’m going to take you to my favorite restaurant for your birthday!”</span>) New gifts are often obviously cheap and are usually things that don’t suit you or that you can’t use or are a quid pro quo: if you buy her the gift she wants, she will buy you an item of your choice. She’ll make it clear that it pains her to give you anything. She may buy you a gift and get the identical item for herself, or take you shopping for a gift and get herself something nice at the same time to make herself feel better.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">12. <span style="color: red;">She’s self-absorbed. Her feelings, needs and wants are very important; yours are insignificant to the point that her least whim takes precedence over your most basic needs.</span><br />
Her problems deserve your immediate and full attention; yours are brushed aside. Her wishes always take precedence; if she does something for you, she reminds you constantly of her munificence in doing so and will often try to extract some sort of payment. She will complain constantly, even though your situation may be much worse than hers. If you point that out, she will effortlessly, thoughtlessly brush it aside as of no importance <span style="font-style: italic;">("It’s easy for you…/It’s different for you…/You aren't as sick as I am").</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">13. <span style="color: red;">She is insanely defensive and is extremely sensitive to any criticism.</span><br />
If you criticize her or defy her she will explode with fury, threaten, storm, rage, destroy and may become violent, beating, confining, putting her child outdoors in bad weather or otherwise engaging in classic physical abuse.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">14. <span style="color: red;">She terrorized. For all abusers, fear is a powerful means of control of the victim, and your narcissistic mother used it ruthlessly to train you. </span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Narcissists teach you to beware their wrath even when they aren’t present. </span>The only alternative is constant placation. If you give her everything she wants all the time, you might be spared. If you don’t, the punishments will come. Even adult children of narcissists still feel that carefully inculcated fear. Your narcissistic mother can turn it on with a silence or a look that tells the child in you she’s thinking about how she’s going to get even.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">Not all narcissists abuse physically, but most do, often in subtle, deniable ways. It allows them to vent their rage at your failure to be the solution to their internal havoc and simultaneously to teach you to fear them. You may not have been beaten, but you were almost certainly left to endure physical pain when a normal mother would have made an effort to relieve your misery. This deniable form of battery allows her to store up her rage and dole out the punishment at a later time when she’s worked out an airtight rationale for her abuse, so she never risks exposure.<br />
You were left hungry because “<span style="font-style: italic;">you eat too much.</span>” (Someone asked her if she was pregnant. She isn’t).<br />
You always went to school with stomach flu because “<span style="font-style: italic;">you don’t have a fever. You’re just trying to get out of school.</span>” (She resents having to take care of you. You have a lot of nerve getting sick and adding to her burdens.)<br />
She refuses to look at your bloody heels and instead the shoes that wore those blisters on your heels are put back on your feet and you’re sent to the store in them because “<span style="font-style: italic;">You wanted those shoes. Now you can wear them.</span>” (You said the ones she wanted to get you were ugly. She liked them because they were just like what she wore 30 years ago).<br />
The dentist was told not to give you Novocaine when he drilled your tooth because “<span style="font-style: italic;">he has to learn to take better care of his teeth</span>.” (She has to pay for a filling and <span style="color: red;">she’s furious at having to spend money on you</span>.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;"><img src="http://images.medhunters.com/content/articles/motherAndMe/images/published/160x120/girl.jpg" /></span></center><p>
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<span style="color: #6600cc;"><span style="color: red;">Narcissistic mothers also abuse by loosing others on you or by failing to protect you when a normal mother would have. </span>Sometimes the narcissist’s golden child will be encouraged to abuse the scapegoat. Narcissists also abuse by exposing you to violence. If one of your siblings got beaten, she made sure you saw. She effortlessly put the fear of Mom into you, without raising a hand.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">15. <span style="color: red;">She’s infantile and petty.</span><br />
Narcissistic mothers are often simply childish. If you refuse to let her manipulate you into doing something, <span style="color: red;">she will cry that you don’t love her because if you loved her you would do as she wanted</span>. If you hurt her feelings she will aggressively whine to you that you’ll be sorry when she’s dead that you didn’t treat her better. These babyish complaints and responses may sound laughable, but the narcissist is dead serious about them. When you were a child, if you ask her to stop some bad behavior, she would justify it by pointing out something that you did that she feels is comparable, as though the childish behavior of a child is justification for the childish behavior of an adult. “<span style="font-style: italic;">Getting even</span>” is a large part of her dealings with you. Anytime you fail to give her the deference, attention or service she feels she deserves, or you thwart her wishes, she has to show you.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">16. <span style="color: red;">She’s aggressive and shameless.</span> <span style="color: red;">She doesn’t ask. She demands.</span><br />
She makes outrageous requests and she’ll take anything she wants if she thinks she can get away with it. Her demands of her children are posed in a very aggressive way, as are her criticisms. She won’t take no for an answer, pushing and arm-twisting and manipulating to get you to give in.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">17. <span style="color: red;">She “parentifies.”</span><br />
She shed her responsibilities to you as soon as she was able, leaving you to take care of yourself as best you could (i.e. <a href="http://www.covertincest.org/">covert incest</a>). She denied you medical care, necessary transportation or basic comforts that she would never have considered giving up for herself. She never gave you a birthday party or let you have sleepovers. <span style="color: red;">Your friends were never welcome in her house.</span> She didn’t like to drive you anywhere, so you turned down invitations because you had no way to get there. She wouldn’t buy your school pictures even if she could easily have afforded it. As soon as you got a job, every request for school supplies, clothing or toiletries was met with “<span style="font-style: italic;">Now that you’re making money, why don’t you pay for that yourself?</span>” You worked three jobs to pay for that cheap college and when you finally got mononucleosis she chirped at you that she was “<span style="font-style: italic;">so happy you could take care of yourself</span>.”</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;"><span style="color: red;">She also gave you tasks that were rightfully hers and should not have been placed on a child. </span>You may have been a primary caregiver for young siblings or an incapacitated parent. You may have had responsibility for excessive household tasks. Above all, you were always her emotional caregiver which is one reason any defection from that role caused such enormous eruptions of rage. You were never allowed to be needy or have bad feelings or problems. Those experiences were only for her, and you were responsible for making it right for her. From the time you were very young she would randomly lash out at you any time she was stressed or angry with your father or felt that life was unfair to her, because it made her feel better to hurt you. You were often punished out of the blue, for manufactured offenses.<span style="color: red;"> As you got older she directly placed responsibility for her welfare and her emotions on you, weeping on your shoulder and unloading on you any time something went awry for her.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">18. <span style="color: red;">She’s exploitative. </span><br />
She will manipulate to get work, money, or objects she envies out of other people for nothing. This includes her children, of course. If she set up a bank account for you, she was trustee on the account with the right to withdraw money. As you put money into it, she took it out. She may have stolen your identity. She took you as a dependent on her income taxes so you couldn’t file independently without exposing her to criminal penalties. If she made an agreement with you, it was violated the minute it no longer served her needs. If you brought it up demanding she adhere to the agreement, she brushed you off and later punished you so you would know not to defy her again.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">Sometimes the narcissist will exploit a child to absorb punishment that would have been hers from an abusive partner. The husband comes home in a drunken rage, and the mother immediately complains about the child’s bad behavior so the rage is vented on to the child. <span style="color: red;">Sometimes the narcissistic mother simply uses the child to keep a sick marriage intact because the alternative is being divorced or having to go to work.</span> The child is sexually molested but the mother never notices, or worse, calls the child a liar when she tells the mother about the molestation.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">19. <span style="color: red;">She projects</span>.<br />
This sounds a little like psycho-babble, but <span style="color: red;">it is something that narcissists all do</span>. Projection means that she will put her own bad behavior, character and traits on you so she can deny them in herself and punish you. This can be very difficult to see if you have traits that she can project on to.<br />
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An eating-disordered woman who obsesses over her daughter’s weight is projecting. The daughter may not realize it because she has probably internalized an absurdly thin vision of women’s weight and so accepts her mother’s projection. When the narcissist tells the daughter that she eats too much, needs to exercise more, or has to wear extra-large size clothes, the daughter believes it, even if it isn’t true.<br />
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However, she will sometimes project even though it makes no sense at all. This happens when she feels shamed and needs to put it on her scapegoat child and the projection therefore comes across as being an attack out of the blue. For example: She makes an outrageous request, and you casually refuse to let her have her way. She’s enraged by your refusal and snarls at you that you’ll talk about it when you’ve calmed down and are no longer hysterical.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">You aren’t hysterical at all; she is, but your refusal has made her feel the shame that should have stopped her from making shameless demands in the first place. That’s intolerable. She can transfer that shame to you and rationalize away your response: you only refused her because you’re so unreasonable. Having done that she can reassert her shamelessness and indulge her childish willfulness by turning an unequivocal refusal into a subject for further discussion. You’ll talk about it again “later” - probably <span style="color: red;">when she’s worn you down with histrionics</span>, pouting and the silent treatment so you’re more inclined to do what she wants.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">20. <span style="color: red;">She is never wrong about anything. No matter what she’s done, she won’t ever genuinely apologize for anything.</span><br />
Instead, any time she feels she is being made to apologize she will sulk and pout, issue an insulting apology or negate the apology she has just made with justifications, qualifications or self pity: <span style="font-style: italic;">“I’m sorry you felt that I humiliated you” “I’m sorry if I made you feel bad” “If I did that it was wrong” “I’m sorry, but I there’s nothing I can do about it” “I’m sorry I made you feel clumsy, stupid and disgusting” “I’m sorry but it was just a joke. You’re so over-sensitive” “I’m sorry that my own child feels she has to upset me and make me feel bad.”</span> The last insulting apology is also an example of projection.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">21. <span style="color: red;">She seems to have no awareness that other people even have feelings.</span><br />
She’ll occasionally slip and say something jaw-droppingly callous because of this lack of empathy. It isn’t that she doesn’t care at all about other people’s feelings, though she doesn’t. It would simply never occur to her to think about their feelings.<br />
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An absence of empathy is the defining trait of a narcissist and underlies most of the other traits I have described. <span style="color: red;">Unlike psychopaths, narcissists do understand right, wrong, and consequences, so they are not ordinarily criminal</span>.<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">She beat you, but not to the point where you went to the hospital. </span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">She left you standing out in the cold until you were miserable, but not until you had hypothermia. </span><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">She put you in the basement in the dark with no clothes on, but she only left you there for two hours.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">22.<span style="color: red;"> She blames. She’ll blame you for everything that isn’t right in her life or for what other people do or for whatever has happened. </span><br />
Always, she’ll blame you for her abuse. <span style="color: red;">You made her do it.</span> If only you weren’t so difficult. You upset her so much that she can’t think straight. Things were hard for her and your backtalk pushed her over the brink. This blaming is often so subtle that all you know is that you thought you were wronged and now you feel guilty.<br />
Your brother beats you and her response is to bemoan how uncivilized children are.<br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="color: red;">Your boyfriend dumped you, but she can understand - after all, she herself has seen how difficult you are to love. </span></span><br />
She’ll do something egregiously exploitative to you, and when confronted will screech at you that she can’t believe you were so selfish as to upset her over such a trivial thing.<br />
She’ll also blame you for your reaction to her selfish, cruel and exploitative behavior. She can’t believe you are so petty, so small, and so childish as to object to her giving your favorite dress to her friend. She thought you would be happy to let her do something nice for someone else.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">Narcissists are masters of multitasking as this example shows. Simultaneously your narcissistic mother is:<br />
<span style="color: #009900; font-style: italic;">1) Lying. She knows what she did was wrong and she knows your reaction is reasonable. </span><br />
<span style="color: #009900; font-style: italic;">2) Manipulating. She’s making you look like the bad guy for objecting to her cruelties. </span><br />
<span style="color: #009900; font-style: italic;">3) Being selfish. She doesn’t mind making you feel horrible as long as she gets her own way. </span><br />
<span style="color: #009900; font-style: italic;">4) Blaming. She did something wrong, but it’s all your fault. </span><br />
<span style="color: #009900; font-style: italic;">5) Projecting. Her petty, small and childish behavior has become yours. </span><br />
<span style="color: #009900; font-style: italic;">6) Putting on a self-pitying drama. She’s a martyr who believed the best of you, and you’ve let her down. </span><br />
<span style="color: #009900; font-style: italic;">7) Parentifying. You’re responsible for her feelings, she has no responsibility for yours.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">23. <span style="color: red;">She destroys your relationships.</span><br />
Narcissistic mothers are like tornadoes: wherever they touch down families are torn apart and wounds are inflicted. Unless the father has control over the narcissist and holds the family together, adult siblings in families with narcissistic mothers characteristically have painful relationships. Typically all communication between siblings is superficial and driven by duty, or they may never talk to each other at all. In part, these women foster dissension between their children because they enjoy the control it gives them. If those children don’t communicate except through the mother, she can decide what everyone hears. Narcissists also love the excitement and drama they create by interfering in their children’s lives. Watching people’s lives explode is better than soap operas, especially when you don’t have any empathy for their misery.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;"><span style="color: red;">The narcissist nurtures anger, contempt and envy - the most corrosive emotions - to drive her children apart.</span> While her children are still living at home, any child who stands up to the narcissist guarantees punishment for the rest. In her zest for revenge, the narcissist purposefully turns the siblings’ anger on the dissenter by including everyone in her retaliation. (<span style="font-style: italic;">“I can see that nobody here loves me! Well I’ll just take these Christmas presents back to the store. None of you would want anything I got you anyway!”</span>) The other children, long trained by the narcissist to give in, are furious with the troublemaking child, instead of with the narcissist who actually deserves their anger.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;"><span style="color: red;">The narcissist also uses favoritism and gossip to poison her childrens’ relationships.</span> The scapegoat sees the mother as a creature of caprice and cruelty. As is typical of the privileged, the other children don’t see her unfairness and they excuse her abuses. Indeed, they are often recruited by the narcissist to adopt her contemptuous and entitled attitude towards the scapegoat and with her tacit or explicit permission, will inflict further abuse. The scapegoat predictably responds with fury and equal contempt. A<span style="color: red;">fter her children move on with adult lives, the narcissist makes sure to keep each apprised of the doings of the others, passing on the most discreditable and juicy gossip (as always, disguised as “concern”) about the other children, again, in a way that engenders contempt rather than compassion.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">Having been raised by a narcissist, her children are predisposed to be envious, and she takes full advantage of the opportunity that presents. While she may never praise you to your face, she will likely crow about your victories to the very sibling who is not doing well. She’ll tell you about the generosity she displayed towards that child, leaving you wondering why you got left out and irrationally angry at the favored child rather than at the narcissist who told you about it.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">The end result is a family in which almost all communication is triangular. The narcissist, the spider in the middle of the family web, sensitively monitors all the children for information she can use to retain her unchallenged control over the family. She then passes that on to the others, creating the resentments that prevent them from communicating directly and freely with each other. The result is that the only communication between the children is through the narcissist, exactly the way she wants it.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc;">24. <span style="color: red;">As a last resort she goes pathetic.</span><br />
When she’s confronted with unavoidable consequences for her own bad behavior, including your anger, she will melt into a soggy puddle of weepy helplessness. It’s all her fault. She can’t do anything right. She feels so bad. What she doesn’t do: own the responsibility for her bad conduct and make it right. Instead, as always, it’s all about her, and her helpless self-pitying weepiness dumps the responsibility for her consequences AND for her unhappiness about it on you.<br />
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As so often with narcissists, it is also a manipulative behavior. If you fail to excuse her bad behavior and make her feel better, YOU are the bad person for being cold, heartless and unfeeling when your poor mother feels so awful.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #6600cc;"> </span><br />
<a href="http://parrishmiller.com/narcissists.html" target="_blank">ORIGINAL POST</a>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_89496413"><br />
</a><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/405538969464208/" target="_blank">FACEBOOK GROUP FOR DAUGHTERS OF NARCISSISTIC MOTHERS: DoNM FREEDOM! (closed group - you must apply to join via Facebook and be 100% No Contact)</a></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com98tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-1068953023095650602023-03-29T00:23:00.000-04:002023-04-02T18:26:42.214-04:00VERBAL, EMOTIONAL & PHYSICAL ABUSE IS ABOUT CONTROL<center>
<span style="font-size: 180%;"><b face="arial" style="font-family: arial;"></b></span><br />
<img src="http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a229/_wrist_slasher_/7a0254f6.jpg" /></center>
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<b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #3333ff;">CONTROLLING HER TIME</span></b><span style="font-family: "arial";">: <span style="font-weight: bold;">The abuser controls his partner's time by making her wait. He will say he is ready to talk, but will continue doing something else while his partner waits. He will tell her he is ready to go to bed, then make her wait. If she complains of having to wait, he will blame her for "not having enough patience", "I have to wait on you too", or "Do you expect me just to drop everything!"-- thereby blaming her for HIS making her wait.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">This also commonly occurs when the abuser is called to a meal, family activity, or that everyone else is ready to leave. If the partner does something while waiting, the abuser will then angrily proclaim that "HE has been waiting on HER".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">A subtle way of controlling a partner's time is to leave most, if not all, of the work for her to do-then complaining about anything she does for herself, or what she does not get done.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Other examples are procrastinating promised work (especially what she is counting on), "watching just one more program" or "playing one more game" (that goes on and on and on), refusing to give a simple and direct answer to concrete and direct questions (Are you going to do this or that. "We'll have to wait and see, I suppose, maybe, what do You think, I didn't know I was supposed to...why don't you figure it out!")</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The abuser may also control his partner's time by grandstanding. If she tells him she is unhappy about an incident, he will deny it happened, discount her feelings, or accuse her of trying to start a fight. He might also proclaim that "you're causing the problem by bringing it up," "no one else notices," "everyone else does, so why can't I," Diverting, countering, blocking, "forgetting," forcing her to explain, making her repeat because the abuser was not listening or paying attention, and "prove it" are also common ways to control the partner's time and energy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">It is rare that an abuser will be willing to discuss or negotiate HIS plan-to do so would be giving up control. This type of control is two-fold: Control her time in some way, any way, then blame HER for it.</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #3333ff;">CONTROLLING HER MATERIAL RESOURCES:</span></b><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> The verbal abuser may control one or all of his partner's material resources by WITHHOLDING information as well as by withholding work which he has promised to do, often by "forgetting", "I don't know how", or "I didn't know I had to".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Another common practice of the abuser is to withhold needed money, then compound the abuse by forcing her to act on her own, beg, plead, or do without. He then begins blaming his withholding on her acting on her own, begging, pleading, or "trying to be a martyr."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">In more severe cases, the controlling abuser will keep money from his wife that is necessary for her survival and that of their family (whether it is the promised food budget money or his entire salary). He gives no thought to "spending his own money," or what his control and selfishness is doing to his wife and family who are either deprived of necessities or working desperately to support themselves while HE feels in control and free!</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #3333ff;">CONTROLLING WITH BODY LANGUAGE AND GESTURES</span></b><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The verbal abuser uses body language to control his partner, just as he uses words. The words and gestures often go together. This can be seen as using HIMSELF to control his partner. Following are some hurtful and intimidating ways of controlling that are forms of withholding and abusive anger:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Sulking</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Stomping out</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Refusing to talk</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Walking away</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Refusing to give her something</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Hitting or kicking something</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Refusing to make eye contact</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Driving recklessly</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Boredom-crossed arms, eyes closed, head down, deep sighs</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Withdrawing or withholding affection</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Showing disgust-rolled eyes, deep sighs, inappropriate sounds</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Strutting and posturing</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #3333ff;">CONTROLLING BY DEFINING HER REALITY:</span></b><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> This form of control is very oppressive. When he tells his partner what reality is, he is playing God, he is discounting the partner's experience by defining "THE TRUTH"-which in fact is a LIE. Some examples: That's not what you said or That's not what I said or That's not what you did or That's not what I did or That's not what happened. That's not what you saw. That's not what you felt. That's not why you did it. I know you better than you know yourself!</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #3333ff;">CONTROLLING BY MAKING HER RESPONSIBLE</span></b><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">: By telling his partner she is responsible for his behavior, this verbal abuser attempts to avoid all responsibility for his own behavior. In other words, he avoids accountability by BLAMING. Examples include:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">I did it because you...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">You didn't remind me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">You just don't see what I do.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Just show me how</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Set a good example</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #3333ff;">CONTROLLING BY ASSIGNING STATUS</span></b><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Putting her down, especially on what she does best.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Putting her up, praising or thanking her for trivial things rather than the big things she does, which demeans her talents, time, and energy, while implying she is best suited to do trivial or demeaning tasks. This category also includes statements such as: That right! You're a woman!! (said with disgust) What makes you think you can do that? I'm the leader, the boss. You're not THAT stupid. Just THINK about it. ITS THAT'S SIMPLE.</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #3333ff;">CONTROLLING BY DIMINISHING YOUR PARTNER:</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Belittling</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Laughing at or smirking</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Offensive jokes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Mimicking your partner</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Patronizing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Scornful, disdainful, contemptuous tone of voice</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Ignoring, "I'm not listening to you"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Avoiding eye contact, turning away</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Expecting partner to talk to you while you're watching TV, reading, game playing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Words like "Sooo" or "So what!" or "That means NOTHING to me" or "Whatever"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Bafflegabbing - talking in ways intended to mislead or baffle your partner</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Insulting your partner</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Making inappropriate sounds</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Making inappropriate facial expressions-rolled eyes, grimaces, deep sighs</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Starting a sentence then stating, "Forget it.."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Accusing her of being "controlling", "having to have the last word"</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #3333ff;">CONTROLLING</span></b><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-weight: bold;"> behaviors such as those above are used by verbal abusers to gain feelings of power and control whenever the suppressed fear and pain in his own life start to "seep out" - terrified of not being in control, terrified of "feeling," terrified of her leavin</span>g.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><b style="color: #990000;">VERBAL, EMOTIONAL, FINANCIAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL & PHYSICAL ABUSE ARE ALL FORMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.</b></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-1110940300855627042023-02-25T00:23:00.000-05:002023-02-27T02:09:22.586-05:00Why Not Everyone Can Just "Move On" and "Get Over It"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/96/6c/f2/966cf2fab104e6644f7c1df87c1b08b9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="294" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/96/6c/f2/966cf2fab104e6644f7c1df87c1b08b9.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="color: #6600cc;">Reality and Revictimization...</span> </b></center>
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<b><span style="color: red;"><i>Victim, survivor, victimology, victim abuse...<span style="font-size: 130%;"> why are victims being told to deny their reality? </span></i></span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: red;"><i><span style="font-size: 130%;"> </span></i><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #000066;">You have been methodically and diabolically abused and suddenly you hear "don't be a victim, choose to be a survivor." The concept that a victim can always consciously choose how to proceed, is</span> <b><span style="color: red;">wrong</span></b>.</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">The phrase, "move on with your life" is common. In a commanding, offhand and arrogant tone, those who have fought and lost a custody battle, their home, car and savings, family, job and may be suffering physically</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> <span style="color: #000066;">(</span></span><i style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">adrenal fatigue, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, lupus, crohn's disease, etc. are common</i><span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #6600cc;">)</span> </span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">are stunned to be told, "well, better move on with your life."</span><br />
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<b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">The entire infrastructure of a life is often destroyed leaving the victim, stunned, numb, hypervigilant, indigent, betrayed and perplexed as to why they are expected to "choose" to not be a victim. Give them a time machine and this can be done. Give them revictimization abuse and it cannot. They are victims.</span></b><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">It's time to give that word back its status and in doing so, give respect to the abused. Respect comes in the form of providing help. An empowering, compassionate approach to those who have been stripped of dignity through repeated abuse in courts of law, or by their partners, begins with recognizing and defining the situation of the victim.</span><br />
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<u style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: #3333ff;">What is the definition of a "victim"?</span></b></u><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">According to the dictionary a victim is: <span style="font-style: italic;">One who is harmed by, or made to suffer from an act, circumstance, agency, or condition; a person who is tricked, swindled, or taken advantage of.</span></span><br />
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<b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">The victim of a narcissist or abuser is <span style="font-size: 130%;">traumatized</span>. There are biochemical changes in the body and structural changes in the brain. Thought patterns change, memories are lost, immune system strongly affected, brain cells die, there is chest pain, muscle pain, feelings are intense and emotions chaotic. Victimization is never deserved</span></b><span style="font-weight: bold;">.</span><br />
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<u style="font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: #3333ff;">Why are victims revictimized?</span></b></u><br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-weight: bold;">So why does someone brutalized, <span style="color: #000066;">abused, and traumatized have to be afraid of the word "victim" ? Because it's politically correct to say, "I'm not a victim, I'm a survivor." Much the same way, people think the capitalist economy gives everyone an equal chance to become wealthy (</span></span><i style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #000066;">which of course it does not - if everyone started with the same funding, self esteem, contacts, educational background, health, then that would be</span><span style="color: #000066;"> </span><span style="color: red;">true</span></i><span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">) but when the playing field is not level some have an advantage.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #3333ff; font-weight: bold;"><b>Not everyone who is the victim of emotional, verbal, and narcissistic abuse are the same. Some have more resiliency than others. Some are numb, some are without any resources or support. Many have physiological changes that need to be addressed. And when those who need help come looking for it, instead of being welcomed, they find "helpers" that tell them they are responsible for their healing and they better choose it now or they will always be a victim and never a survivor. These people are revictimizing those they want to help because "choice" is NOT always an option</b>.</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #6600cc;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #000066;">Dr. Frank Ochberg, Harvard trained MD and trauma expert, says</span> </span><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red; font-size: 130%;">our culture now disparages, blames, isolates, and condemns someone for being a victim.</span></b></blockquote>
<b style="font-weight: bold;"></b><span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">We must reclaim the word "victim" and renew our commitment to those who are victims. We should examine the role of a victim impact statement and victim advocate for those who are traumatized emotionally as well as from a criminal act.</span><br />
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<b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">Are you being victimized again by someone who says, "if you won't stop being a victim. I won't help you"? Maybe your attorney, therapist. siblings, or friends are claiming you can just choose to stop being a victim. Maybe they think you can start a company without money, and buy a house with bad credit. Maybe they don't know what they are talking about.<br />
</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #3333ff;">As a victim of any kind of abuse you deserve:</span></b><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">1. Compassion</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">2. Validation</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">3. Freedom from therapeutic verbal abuse</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">4. A support team to open doors to resources</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">5. A friend, therapist or counselor who can teach you the skills to rebuild your life.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">Depending on who you are, this may take a long time or not. Variables include amount and length of abuse, health, supportive family or not, finances, genetic explanatory style (optimism or pessimism), coping skills you may already have and many others. </span><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: #000066;">A</span>s a victim, you have the right to say, "STOP" to those who blame the victim</span></b><span style="font-weight: bold;">.</span><i style="font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: #3333ff;"> An entire self help industry has arisen that believes if you just really really wanted to, you can be happy and healthy and fully functional as soon as you choose to be</span></b></i><span style="font-weight: bold;">. </span><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red; font-size: 130%;">A starting point for recovery are post traumatic stress sites. </span></b><span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">There you will find trained and compassionate support people with articles that explain trauma healing methods.</span><br />
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<b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #3333ff;"><u>The Scientific Basis of Healing, Happiness and Recovery</u> </span></b><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">It doesn't matter if you call yourself a victim, survivor or Martian. No one should deny you victim status. It is what is. A victim is not a slothlike creature, nor stupid. Nor is a victim responsible for what happened to her and we must stop worrying about language and start helping. A victim is a person with a life in chaos. What matters is that you get the help you need and the compassionate trained person to give you the skills.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">The good news is that happiness is trainable, resiliency comes back and psychologists are moving from the Freudian model which has dominated psychology for too long and was wrong to boot, to a model that moves from pathology as the dominant scheme</span><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #3333ff;"><span style="color: #000066;">.</span><span style="color: #000066;"> </span>The process of de-traumatization begins with validation. It then moves to retraining explanatory style. Depending on the depth and time of the abuse, it may take a long or short time to process to empowerment and control. IT IS NOT NECESSARY to analyze every event. It IS necessary to be heard and listened to and to tell your story.</span></b><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: 180%;"><b>Validation is critical. </b><br />
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<a href="http://www.narcissisticabuse.com/victim.html"><span style="font-weight: bold;">SOURCE</span></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-73944980429449202472023-02-06T01:00:00.000-05:002023-02-07T21:07:37.614-05:00A Same-Sex Domestic Violence Epidemic Is Silent<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2013/11/manshadow_top/6c3d54a68.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2013/11/manshadow_top/6c3d54a68.jpg" height="195" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by Maya Shwayder<br />
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Two months into their relationship, Chris's boyfriend José pushed him to the ground in a fit of anger and ripped the clothes off his body. "We had gone out dancing, and when we got home, I was changing in front of him," said Chris, 34.<br />
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"I had on my favorite pair of underwear; it was the pair I had worn the first time we went out. He saw the underwear, and just flew into a rage, saying, 'How dare you wear those! Those are for me!'"<br />
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José threw him on the floor of their bedroom closet, and smashed the only light bulb in the room, leaving them in darkness. He loomed above Chris on the floor as he tore the underwear away. That was the first time things had ever turned violent between the two.<br />
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"I was in such a state of shock," Chris recounted seven years later, his fingers tapping at a wine glass stem and his brown eyes drifting. "I thought, 'Oh, he's just jealous; it's the drinking,' and I let it go. There was a lot of drinking in this relationship. No drugs, but lots of drinking."<br />
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The second time was worse. "He was angry at something—I can't remember what—and I was laughing," said Chris. José again became incensed, strode into the kitchen and grabbed a butcher knife. "He pulled me by my hair, had me on my knees and had the butcher knife at my neck."<br />
<br />
Chris says he didn't react. At the time, his sister was pregnant, and he wanted to live to see his niece. "I talked him down, told him to give me the knife. I put my hand on his, and we put the knife back in place together," said Chris, demonstrating by holding his two hands together.<br />
<br />
That night, José locked their bedroom door for fear that Chris would escape and tell someone. The next morning, he told Chris, "You know I didn't mean it, right?"
<br />
<br />
"That was his way of apologizing to me," Chris scoffed. The relationship lasted nine months, but continued to affect Chris for years after it ended.<br />
<br />
***
<br />
<br />
Sam, 25, describes himself as having been "naive and impressionable," during the time he was dating David. "He's not a stupid person," Sam told me over Skype. "He never hit me or threw things directly at me, but he would frighten me enough to make me back down."<br />
<br />
According to Sam, David became increasingly controlling after they moved in together, three or four months into their relationship. At that point, because of the apartment lease, he said, "it was too late to just up and go."
<br />
<br />
One of David's main methods of control was evoking pity and threatening to harm himself.
<br />
<br />
"He would get very sad and upset which, in hindsight, was a plea for compassion," Sam said, "As time went on, he became controlling through jealousy. Any attention that I didn't give to him—whether I gave it to friends, family, or other guys, even just other gay men who were my friends—he would get very upset if I hung out with them too much."
<br />
<br />
David eventually forced Sam to open a joint bank account so that Sam couldn't "stockpile" any funds and move out. He increasingly tried to cut off Sam’s contacts with friends and family.
<br />
<br />
After two and a half years, Sam managed to end the relationship after David admitted he had returned to using cocaine.
<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
LaTesha, 18, is a consummate Queens girl. Tough and stoic behind her soft voice and hooded sweatshirt, she is about to graduate from high school and wants to study criminal justice in college. She has already been beaten up by a girlfriend. "It only happened when we got into an argument," she said, her brown eyes getting serious. "If she felt like she was being disrespected, she would swing at me."<br />
<br />
"We always argued," she continued. "But you know how a couple can argue and then just be back to normal? We would argue, be back to normal. When we argued again, she would bring up the last argument. And it would just build up.” There was always something to argue about and usually, LaTesha said, it was girls.
<br />
<br />
"She was so insecure," LaTesha recalled. "If I'd be hanging out with one of my friends who was a girl, she'd see me and say 'What's this? You cheating on me?' And I always told her, 'You need to stop.' And then we would get into it. It was a pattern. We would break up for one week, get back together another. We must have broken up about 20 times."
<br />
<br />
The final break-up happened when Monique landed several punches on LaTesha in front of the staff of Safe Space, an LGBT community center in Jamaica, Queens.
<br />
<br />
***
<br />
<br />
Chris, Sam, and LaTesha are smart people with educations, plans, and busy social lives. They all identify as homosexual, and they all have had experiences with physically or psychologically abusive partners who left them financially, mentally, or emotionally damaged. Domestic violence—or as it's often referred to today, intimate partner violence—is usually discussed in the context of heterosexual relationships. But partner violence is also an issue in the LGBTQ community, a fact that has only come to light in recent years.
<br />
<br />
Tre'Andre Valentine, the Community Programs Coordinator at The Network/La Red, a Boston-based domestic violence support group specifically for LGBTQ people, says that because domestic violence is still thought of as a heterosexual problem, there can be major hurdles when trying to find funding and conduct research, as well as when providing services to people who don't fit in the stereotype of a domestic violence survivor. "The idea that a woman can be the one who's abusive throws a wrench in the traditional view," Valentine said. "The idea that only men can be batterers makes it a lot harder for men to get access to shelter."
<br />
<br />
Yejin Lee, an associate at the Anti-Violence Program in New York City, said that the assumption of heterosexuality has been a huge stumbling block for gays and lesbians seeking refuge from an abuser. "One problem is the way domestic violence has been framed for the past 30 years," she said. Since the entire movement against domestic abuse started as a battered women's movement, Lee said, we are ingrained to think that victims are all are married, straight women.
<br />
<br />
As a mental health counselor with the Violence Recovery Program in Boston, Jessica Newman says that because the default assumption is that people are straight, there can be an attitude within shelters that a gay person somehow “deserved” the violence. "Same-sex relationships are often demonized or marginalized," she said, "So some people's attitudes are 'it serves you right.'"
<br />
<br />
But Newman, Lee, and Valentine all added that there are also internal factors that keep a cover of darkness over the issue of domestic violence in the gay community.
<br />
<br />
"There can be a fear of making the community look bad," said Newman. "Some people might have a real and legitimate fear of being looked down on, or not finding services through the police, judicial system, or a shelter. People don't want that negative image of the community out there."
<br />
<br />
Valentine added, "There's the idea that we'll be airing dirty laundry. It sort of discredits the community to say that abuse is happening, after all the work we've been doing [to enter mainstream society]. There's the feeling that we don't want to attach something additionally bad to us, so it's not talked about."
<br />
<br />
Sitting in a small restaurant near Madison Square Garden, Chris mulled over his past. "I know gay couples in the Bronx who beat the shit out of each other," he said. "The weird thing is, it's like fighting with your brother. You're going at each other, and you're not taking it seriously, and you don't think of it as a problem, it's just the fabric of your relationship. But you don't realize it's a piece of fabric you can cut out."
<br />
<br />
Raised in a conservative, military family, with a history of sexual abuse running on both sides, Chris said he always felt like the odd one out growing up. "I was raised to tolerate what was dished out," he remembered. "It was just dysfunctional. I grew up with a closeted uncle who died of AIDS and a mother who hit my father, who would then turn around and hit us."
<br />
<br />
Chris moved from Chicago to New York when he was 21 so that he could live life as an out gay man, he said. "I had a full time job, full time benefits, and my own apartment," he said. "That didn't last."
<br />
<br />
Chris met José at a lounge in Washington Heights in late September 2004, and for him, it was love at first sight. "I saw his eyes, the way he dressed," he said. "He made me feel secure. He was a husky guy. My ideal: a masculine Latino."
<br />
<br />
A honeymoon period ensued and within three months the two were living together. Chris said he doted on José, alienating friends and family in the process. But the honeymoon period ended soon after José moved in. He started taking over everything in Chris's life. "It started with verbal abuse," Chris said. "Little things: put downs about the apartment, about me, and then it turned into everything. He wasn't happy with anything."
<br />
<br />
"I grew up self-conscious. I was made to feel inferior at school and at home," Chris continued. "And I just lost all the self-esteem that I had found when I came here and came out. I'm smart! I graduated from college, I've won awards. And he just made me feel like so much less than I was. [But] the less happy he was, the more I would try to fix things."
<br />
<br />
Chris sensed José wasn't happy, but it never occurred to him that the relationship had turned bad, or would soon turn physically violent.
<br />
<br />
"I didn't tell anybody [about the violence in the relationship],” Chris said. “I didn't want to! They're just going to tell you what you don't want to hear."
<br />
<br />
The summer after José moved in, after those first incidents of violence, Chris was mugged on the street outside their apartment. The thief punched him in the nose, but when Chris went to run after him, José grabbed his arm and stopped him.
<br />
<br />
"He wouldn't let me call the cops," recalled Chris. "José didn't have legal papers to be in the U.S. and he was scared of what might happen."
<br />
<br />
Furious, traumatized, and gushing blood, Chris turned around and backhanded José on the street. The two stood looking at each other. Chris remembers this as the moment when the relationship truly began to go downhill.
<br />
<br />
"I didn't think about leaving until that moment," he said. "It got to the point where I was crying in public. I was crying at work. I couldn't speak my feelings."
<br />
<br />
The very last time José turned violent was close to the end of their relationship. "He was always on the phone a lot," Chris said. "So one time I reached for his phone to go through it and see who he was talking to, and he just grabbed my wrist and twisted."
<br />
<br />
By this point, Chris remembers, José was out all the time and coming home late, or not coming home at all. In August of 2005, Chris kept a promise to himself. "I told him, 'I can't count on these fingers how many times you've lied,'" Chris said, spreading all ten fingers out on the table in front of him. "And I promised myself once I couldn't count your lies on these fingers, it would be over.'"
<br />
<br />
That night, Chris went out without José. "I told myself if I could kiss someone else, then I didn't really love him. Well, I kissed someone else, and I went home and told him to move out."
<br />
<br />
Data on the rates of same-sex partner abuse have only become available in recent years. Even today, many of the statistics and materials on domestic violence put out by organizations like the Center for Disease Control and the Department of Justice still focus exclusively on heterosexual relationships, and specifically heterosexual women. While the CDC does provide some resources on its website for the LGBT population, the vast majority of the information is targeted at women. Materials provided by the CDC for violence prevention and survivor empowerment prominently feature women in their statistics and photographs.
<br />
<br />
In 2013, the CDC released the results of a 2010 study on victimization by sexual orientation, and admitted that “little is known about the national prevalence of intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and stalking among lesbian, gay, and bisexual women and men in the United States.” The report found that bisexual women had an overwhelming prevalence of violent partners in their lives: 75 percent had been with a violent partner, as opposed to 46 percent of lesbian women and 43 percent of straight women. For bisexual men, that number was 47 percent. For gay men, it was 40 percent, and 21 percent for straight men.
<br />
<br />
The most recent statistics available on same-sex intimate partner violence from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, which focuses on LGBT relationships, reported 21 incidents of intimate partner homicides in the LGBT community, the highest ever. Nearly half of them were gay men and, for the second year in a row, the majority of survivors were people of color—62 percent.
<br />
<br />
In 2012, NCAVP programs around the country received 2,679 reports of intimate partner violence, a decrease of around 32 percent from 2011. However the report noted that many of the NCAVP’s member organizations were operating at decreased capacity due to limiting the number of cases they were able to take. The report said that excluding data from organizations, there was actually a 29 percent increase in reports of violence from 2011 to 2012.
<br />
<br />
"Statistics are very controversial," wrote Curt Rogers, executive director of the Gay Men's Domestic Violence Program, in an email. "And it's possible that men are underreported. The bottom line for me [is that] it happens to men, period, so we should be inclusive in our approach and not marginalize the male victim population."
<br />
<br />
Valentine, from The Network/La Red, said that in his experience, the rates of violence in the LGBTQ community seem comparable to those in the straight community. "The rate of domestic violence that has been documented is one in four women, and it's pretty much the same for LGBTQ folks," he said.
<br />
<br />
"Reporting can be really difficult, and historically we [LGBTQ people] have not had a very good relationship with police and law enforcement, so folks may not be reporting it."
<br />
<br />
In any case, he continued, the police might not believe the victims when they call, the attitude often being, "You're both men, work it out between yourselves," or, "Women aren't violent; they don't hit each other."
<br />
<br />
Indeed, according to the NCAVP report, only 16.5 percent of survivors reported interacting with the police, but in one-third of those cases, the survivor was arrested instead of the abuser. A mere 3.7 percent of survivors reported seeking access to shelters.
<br />
<br />
"We need to change the way we look at domestic violence," Rogers said. "I don't see it in any way as a gender issue. I see it as a power and a control issue."
<br />
<br />
***
<br />
<br />
Sam met his first and, so far, only boyfriend, David, outside of a club one night while he was in his second year of college. "The first thing I remember thinking when I saw him was 'Oh God, never,'" he said, laughing. "As in, I would never date somebody like that. He was very assertive; almost a purposely bitchy persona, which is not uncommon in the club scene."
<br />
<br />
But date they did. After a bit of flirting back and forth on Facebook, within three or four months, as Sam remembers it, they were living together.
<br />
<br />
"In hindsight," said Sam, "I sort of already knew things were off, which really should have been my chance to get away. But it wasn't until we moved in when I started to realize that amount of control that was going on."
<br />
<br />
David soon became aware that Sam was unhappy and, according to Sam, he increasingly tried to force a façade of a stable life and healthy relationship on him.
<br />
<br />
"He went from using emotions to manipulate me, to smashing things, to threatening to commit suicide, to threatening to harm our cat, to threatening to ruin me in various ways—socially, academically, that kind of thing. About a year in, I tried twice to get out of it. He would say 'Okay, that's fine,' and then he would smash up the apartment. He would smash mirrors or push the Christmas tree over or threaten to kill himself. That's usually when the threats became the worst, when he was trying to control me into staying," Sam said, recounting once incident when he tried to break up with David, and David smashed an entire rack of drying dishes, saying, 'Well I guess we don't need any couples dishes anymore.'"
<br />
<br />
Sam insisted that David was delusional and trying to cling to the idea of a stable, normal life with Sam. David, as it turns out, did not have a stable background. He came from a troubled family: His mother was alcoholic, and his parents, while loving, were dysfunctional and destructive. In addition, David told Sam that an older boy had molested him when he was 12 or 13. He developed a cocaine habit that, he told Sam when they met, he had kicked.
<br />
<br />
Both men eventually grew depressed, and Sam felt increasingly frightened and isolated by David's behavior—not to mention embarrassed that the neighbors could always hear when David flew off the handle. He had only one friend he felt he could turn to, who of course pleaded with Sam to break things off.
<br />
<br />
During this time, David began slipping back into cocaine use, and Sam buried himself in his studies. Focusing on earning an honors degree, he said, helped get him through.
<br />
<br />
"Often he would try to 'guilt trip' me about the time I spent doing school," Sam recalled. "But I was able to hang on to that as sort of a hope and a goal."
<br />
<br />
In December 2010, David forced Sam into an engagement. "I was so afraid of what he was capable of," Sam recalled. "It was less problematic to keep this up than to break it up." Then, in mid-August 2011, David came forward and admitted he had started using cocaine again.
<br />
<br />
"I was in the shower," said Sam. "And he came in the washroom and said, 'I have something to tell you. I've been doing cocaine again. A lot of it, and spending a good chunk of our money on it.' We'd been really struggling money-wise, like, probably below poverty line at some points."
<br />
<br />
Sam got out of the shower and went out, and David began making calls to friends and family, admitting his problem, telling them that he'd been lying to them and taking money from them.
<br />
<br />
"Years ago, he had had one slip up," Sam said. "And I said, 'Okay, I get it, you're a recovering addict. But you do it again, you slip up again, and it's over.' And that's the card I pulled. I'd been looking for a way out for two years."/br>
<br />
<br />
The psychology of domestic abuse, both those who perpetrate it and those who survive it, has been studied for years. Multiple factors have been shown to contribute, including childhood abuse, mental illness, cultural norms, stress, and unbalanced power dynamics in the relationship.
<br />
<br />
Brian Norton has been a therapist in New York for 12 years, specializing in "challenges related to gay men (homophobia, coming out, etc.)" and couples therapy. He said that often a controlling or abusive personality forms in childhood.
<br />
<br />
"We all recreate the same dynamics over and over again. Ninety-nine if not 100 percent of the time, victims have had previous abusive relationships."
<br />
<br />
Abusive relationships are, of course, emotionally draining for the victim. "It's disorienting," Norton said. "One minute they're telling you they love you, and being strong, and loving and positive; then they're cheating on you, or not respecting you, and not paying attention to what you need."
<br />
<br />
Benjamin Seaman, also a New York-based therapist who has been practicing since 2001, specializes in polyamorous relationships and has also seen the "full spectrum" of gay couples. In Seaman's philosophy, violence and abuse are "usually the tools of someone who feels powerless." Seaman agreed that bad relationships fuel other bad relationships and that sometimes the lingering stress of abusive childhood incidents leads to an ongoing shame in adulthood. This can further contribute to stress in a gay relationship, said Seaman, when one or both of the people are "self-loathing" gays.
<br />
<br />
Norton gave the example of one couple currently in his care. "One person in the couple doesn't have his life together, and his partner does. He feels intimidated and threatened by the success and stability of the partner. So he became abusive."
<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
LaTesha, the high-school student from Queens, admits that when she was in first grade, she used to "do things that we weren't supposed to do" with a next door neighbor's daughter. The first person she came out to was her best friend when she was 15. Her mother found out by reading her diary. "She was just like, 'You love girls now? Not in my house!' and she started bashing me. And so I told her I would never tell her anything ever again."
<br />
<br />
LaTesha was 16 when she met Monique, who was 18, in school. The two started dating, and soon after, started fighting. "This scar, on my neck? Her," she said softly, massaging the thin line with her fingers. "That's from her nails."
<br />
<br />
LaTesha insists the two didn't physically fight often in their 19 months together. "I'm not the type to do that," she said. "If I love somebody, I will never put my hands on them. I just figured that she got mad, and she swung. That’s what happens when people get mad—I didn't see it as she was beating me. I didn't see it as that. But then I had to realize that's not always the answer for when we get into altercations.”
<br />
<br />
Others noticed. "People would come to me and ask what happened, 'cause I would usually have scratches or a little bruise on my face. I'd tell them I got into it with her and they'd say, 'I don't' understand why you're putting yourself through this.' I'd be like, 'Well, I love her, and I'm going to accept her for who she is.'"
<br />
<br />
Monique began trying to manipulate LaTesha, telling her who she could and couldn't hang out with. She bought LaTesha a cell phone and then took it back when she thought LaTesha was texting other girls. When they fought, Monique would hurl insults at LaTesha, saying, "I hope you die of AIDS," and calling her a slut. After the last time the two broke up, LaTesha said, "She just wouldn't let it go. She tried to get back with me. I was still in love with her [Monique], but I didn't want to be with her anymore."
<br />
<br />
At the time, LaTesha had started dating another girl. Monique didn't like this, tracked the pair down at Safe Space, and came in swinging at the new girlfriend. A final confrontation occurred in front of staff, counselors, and peers at Safe Space. LaTesha had begun volunteering as a peer educator there after she and Monique broke up for the last time. "I could have gotten banned from Safe Space," LaTesha said of the fight.
<br />
<br />
"We weren't even together, and she was, quote-unquote, in love with me. I was just like, 'No. You're not going to hit her. You got a problem, it's between me and you.' And she swung at me. She got in my face and said, 'What are you gonna do?' And she hit me, and then she did it again."
<br />
<br />
The Safe Space staff managed to separate the two, and LaTesha remained a peer counselor with the group.
<br />
<br />
Lesbian women can have a very hard time finding shelter. And sometimes, an abuser will call a shelter claiming to be a victim. "What may happen," said Valentine at Network/La Red, "is that both a survivor and an abuser can access services, so it might not be the safest harbor for a lesbian survivor."
<br />
<br />
Newman at the Violence Recovery Program said that proper screening techniques can help enhance shelters' safety. "We screen both parties," she said. "And we won't work with batterers. We'll refer them to a batterer's intervention program. But I've definitely seen it. People will see themselves as victims when they're not."
<br />
<br />
It's tough enough to get into a domestic violence shelter if you're straight, no matter your gender. Kristen Clonan is a spokesperson for Safe Horizon, which claims to be New York City's largest provider of domestic violence residence with nine shelters and around 725 beds throughout the city. Clonan said that in 2011, nearly 2,500 women, children, and men sought out shelter at Safe Horizon, and Safe Horizon's three hotlines field 163,000 calls annually.
<br />
<br />
That's a lot of demand for 725 beds. And shelters that cater to LGBT people are even more perilously few and far between. Cassildra Aguilera, the LGBTQ program coordinator for Safe Space, said there is one shelter in New York City that identifies as LGBTQ-specific, with 200 beds. Of the mainstream shelters, only 12 are LGBTQ friendly, and all are based in Manhattan. According to Network/La Red in Boston, only two of the 30 domestic violence shelters in Massachusetts are specifically geared toward LGBTQ people: Network/La Red, and the Gay Men's Domestic Violence Program. Of mainstream programs, only eight accept LGBT people. Many shelters, even if they say they're LGBT-friendly, reportedly fail when it comes to providing for LGBT safety needs.
<br />
<br />
Valentine of The Network/La Red said there's a lot of homophobia in shelters among shelter residents. "The staff might have a non-discrimination policy, but it's not enforced, and that definitely affects a lot of survivors."
<br />
<br />
Transgender people have an especially hard time, according to Newman. They might not find a shelter, because often neither men's nor women's shelters take transgendered people. If they find a place in a homeless shelter, they might be housed with the men, which could be dangerous, or with women, which can agitate shelter residents. Curious people may ask intrusive questions, or they might not be seen as "real" women or "real" men, which, Newman said, is tremendously demeaning.
<br />
<br />
A month after breaking up with José, Chris tried to commit suicide. He failed, and shortly after began a course of therapy that, he says, helped him come to terms not only with this damaging relationship, but also with his tumultuous family life. After a rough few years during which he suffered from depression and severely decreased libido, he has just begun to make his way into the dating scene again. He has a steady job working in children’s after-school education.
<br />
<br />
Sam graduated from college and has begun a master’s degree program. He and his friends work to actively ignore and cut David out of their lives, despite David's repeated attempts to be in touch and get back together. And Sam says he has begun to date again, as his mental health has slowly improved with the help of his psychiatrist and his counselor.
<br />
<br />
Soon after the last violent encounter with Monique, LaTesha met the girlfriend she is currently seeing and says that she has definitely learned from her experience with Monique.
<br />
<br />
"The girlfriend I have now, she's so much different than before. You know, if we argue, we just won't talk to each other. If we play-fight, and we know it's about to get serious, we'll stop."
<br />
<br />
LaTesha is still a volunteer peer educator with Safe Space. Every week, she works to educate the Queens community about the LGBT population and spread the message of safe sex and healthy relationships.
<br />
<br />
In May 2013, President Obama re-authorized the Violence Against Women Act. While the law still focuses on women in heterosexual relationships, it has a new section that includes coverage of same-sex partners—a big sign that attitudes are changing. Rogers and Newman both agree that circumstances are improving for gays seeking shelter and help.
<br />
<br />
"Twenty years ago there was nothing," Rogers said. "Now there are significantly more resources and a much higher likelihood of a positive response from mainstream providers and first responders."
<br />
<br />
As individuals and society come to recognize same-sex partner violence as an existing problem, there is hope.
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/11/a-same-sex-domestic-violence-epidemic-is-silent/281131/">SOURCE</a>
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br />
Copyright © 2015 by The Atlantic Monthly Group</i></span></span>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-1136082773816905252023-01-19T00:07:00.000-05:002023-01-20T19:41:58.369-05:00Bill of Rights for Domestic Violence Victims<center style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">
<img height="320" src="https://i.pinimg.com/736x/f0/c3/9d/f0c39d2f9886126ec2c1a486082937cf--pre-raphaelite-art-paintings.jpg" width="213" /><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><a href="http://www.aardvarc.org/dv/billrights.shtml">Domestic Violence Victim Bill of Rights</a></span></center>
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">* You have the right NOT to be abused.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">* You have the right to anger over past abuse.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">* You have a right to choose to change the situation.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">* You have a right to freedom from fear of abuse.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">* You have a right to request and expect assistance from police or social agencies.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">* You have a right to share your feelings and not be isolated from others.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">* You have a right to want a better role model of communication for yourself and your children.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">* You have a right to be treated like an adult.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">* You have a right to leave the abusive environment.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">* You have a right to privacy.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">* You have a right to express your own thoughts and feelings.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">* You have a right to develop your individual talents and abilities without harrasssment.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">* You have a right to legally prosecute the abusing spouse.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">* You have a right not to be perfect.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">(Adapted from; Victimology: An International Journal., Vol. 2 1977-78, No. 3-4, p.550)</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-1115816837828249942023-01-12T00:58:00.000-05:002023-01-13T20:21:05.303-05:00Emotional Rape<center style="font-family: arial;">
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<br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><b style="color: #6600cc;"><br />
</b></span></center>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Emotional rape has many similarities to physical rape, particularly date rape. Date rape involves the sexual use of someone's body without consent. In a like manner<span style="color: red;">, <span style="font-size: 130%;"><span>e</span></span></span></span><span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;">motional rape is the use of someone's higher emotions, such as love, without consent. </span><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><br />
<br />
However, </span><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">in the case of emotional rape the lack of consent is contained in what the perpetrator doesn't say... his or her hidden agenda. Emotional rape can happen to both men and women. Both forms of rape can be very devastating and require specialized programs for recovery.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Several major obstacles are encountered in recovery from emotional rape.</span><span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> <span style="color: #000066;">The first is that the victim knows that something bad happened, but doesn't know what or why</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #000066;">.</span> And as in date rape, a big issue is that of trust. </span><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Victims often feel that they will never be able to love or trust anyone again. Other obstacles to recovery, again similar to date rape, are the re-victimization of the victim by friends, family, and society and the subsequent tendencies toward self-blame and silence about what happened.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><br />
<b style="color: #000066; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">It Could Happen to Anyone</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Shara, who died after jumping from a freeway overpass into rush hour traffic, was exploited by a rapist who could accurately be described as armed and dangerous; an accomplished deceiver who had raped before.</span><br />
<br />
<i style="color: #000066; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">Without exception, victims describe two predominant characteristics of their rapists:</i><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">1. They are charismatic, ostensibly attractive personalities, likely to be widely admired, but with a naturally manipulative nature.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">2. They can completely conceal their true selves.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<i style="color: #000066; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">These two observations draw attention to one of the central features of such behavior:</i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Emotional rape can happen to anyone. The widely varying backgrounds and personalities of those who have already become victims</span><span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> <span style="color: #000066;">demonstrate the danger in thinking otherwise; in believing "It could never happen to me."</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 130%;"><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">It is sometimes difficult to believe that no moral responsibility rests with the victim - because he or she was weak, naive, or otherwise "to blame" - but that it lies with the rapist, whose ability to conceal his or her true self is such that almost anyone could be deceived.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The focus here is mainly on the rapist, examining what it is that makes an individual capable of this form of psychological aggression.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><br />
<b style="color: #000066; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">Colliding Emotions</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">It is no exaggeration to describe emotional rape as the most underrated trauma of our age;</span><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> the effects are powerful and potentially destructive.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Victims are forced to cope with a tangle of conflicting emotions, experiencing all the traumatic after effects of both rape and loss.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">This confused pattern of emotional responses is very similar to that experienced by victims of sexual rape.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">It's a pattern commonly identified as post-traumatic rape syndrome, although victims of emotional rape will be unaware that this is what is happening to them.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">These colliding emotions become so entangled that it is extremely difficult - and would be a serious misrepresentation - to attempt to categorize them individually. They are inseparable.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">However, it is possible to identify certain generalized feelings which characterize the emotional aftermath. Principally, these are:</span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Denial</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Isolation</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Feeling 'Had' or 'Used'</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Loneliness</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Rage and Obsession</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Inability to Love or Trust</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Loss of Self-Esteem</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Confusion</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Erratic Behavior</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Hidden and Delayed Reactions</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Fear and Anxiety</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Each of these is considered in detail in this book, as are the typical physical and material after effects, so<span style="color: #000066;"> </span></span><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">victims will understand that what they are going through is normal, that they are not alone, and that they are not insane.</span><br />
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<a href="http://emotional-rape.com/" style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">LEARN MORE - CLICK HERE</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-1081775590989409162023-01-01T00:13:00.000-05:002023-01-02T01:37:41.573-05:00IS YOUR NARCISSIST/ PSYCHOPATH/ ABUSER PLAYING YOU?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://breakups.org/images/survive-a-narcissist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://breakups.org/images/survive-a-narcissist.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">a list of </span><b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">FAVORITE PHRASES</b><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> (by no means complete!!)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"you are my soul mate" or "this is fate" <span style="color: red; font-style: italic;">(came up over 50 times on this poll)</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"I'm sorry that you feel that way"<span style="color: red;"> (because I'm not taking responsibility for this)</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"End of conversation!!!", <span style="color: red;">(when it is your turn to speak)</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"I did (whatever BS) because of the medication I'm taking/ forgot to take" </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"I'm always supportive of you and your education/career" <span style="color: red;">(but when you're not around, and take the focus off of me, I have to find supply elsewhere, baby)</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Cute nicknames: Baby, you are my honey, my sweetie, babe, dear... etc</span> <span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">(good for when you have more than one woman on the go; in case you forget her name!)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"You/they made me do (whatever BS). It wasn't my fault. You drove me to it."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"I'm a good husband / father and other women are envious and want to ruin that."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"Don't listen to her <span style="color: red;">(when they get caught by someone)</span> she's in love with me/ obsessed with me/ making it up/ lying/ psycho..."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">" I can't control how you feel "</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"I'm very literal" </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"why do you interpret everything I say" </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"I don't feel anything" <span style="color: red;">( means he doesn't care and truly can NOT 'feel')</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"I don't express my emotions well" </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"I never said that," <span style="color: red;">(when you repeat something from a prior conversation -- sometimes just an hour ago.)</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"that never happened" <span style="color: red;">(even when the proof is right there)</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"Not my fault" <span style="color: red;">(projection)</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"Explain that to me, I'm thick" or "I don't get it"</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"I told you that" or "that's what I told you"</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"I would never lie to you"</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"Listen to my words" <span style="color: red;">(as he played his word games)</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"I swear on my life/to God..."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"if you really think it's necessary."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"up to you"<br />
</span><span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><br />
"I will do anything to make you happy" <span style="color: red;">(</span></span><span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">except be honest)</span><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"if that's what you want"</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"I am a good man"</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"It's not what you think" </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"just do me one favor...."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"I/ you never...."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"I/ you always...."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";">For more click here: </span><a href="http://www.youareatarget.com/" style="font-family: arial;">YOU ARE A TARGET</a><br />
<br />
<i><span style="color: #674ea7;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">These were written the 'male', your abuser may well be female!</span></b></span></i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-7381072879895998512022-12-09T16:00:00.000-05:002022-12-09T16:19:26.751-05:00The Differences Between A Sociopath And A Narcissist<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://paularenee.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/maskofasociopath.jpg?w=529" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://paularenee.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/maskofasociopath.jpg?w=529" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by <span class="byline"><span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="http://learus.wordpress.com/author/learus/" rel="author" title="View all posts by Learus Ohnine">Learus Ohnine</a></span></span></span>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When we try to analyze the people we cross paths with in society,
it is possible to misinterpret our analysis for lack of a better
understanding. For those who have crossed paths with a sociopath and a
narcissist (on separate occasions), it may seem like there is little to
no difference between the two when in fact one can be mistaken for the
other. Both are considered to be social terrorists, however, there are
distinguishing characteristics that would imply neither of them are one
in the same. Therefore, I would like to explain briefly the differences
in character between these two personality disorders…</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A <a href="http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/narcissistic-personality-disorder/DS00652">Narcissist</a> will </span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">often let you know up front what they’re about. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">They will tell you grandiose
stories of themselves of either their accomplishments (real or fake) or
of their associations with important people (real or fake). </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">They
generally do not tell these stories for any other gain than to hear
praises. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">They have an unquenchable desire to be admired, worshiped, and
adulated with no real gain from those that respond to them in this way
other than to feed their own ego. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">They need to be the center of
attention at all times in any social gathering.</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A <a href="http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/antisocial-personality-disorder/DS00829">Sociopath</a> will </span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">NEVER let you know up front what they are about, because they wear a mask
to hide their true identity. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">They will tell you grandiose stories of
themselves of either their accomplishments (real or fake, but mostly
fake) or of their associations with important people (real or fake, but
mostly fake). </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">They generally tell these stories to appear as a “good
person” to gain trust and as a cover-up for their ulterior motives. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">They
have the same unquenchable desires as the Narcissist as a result of the
power and control they gain over their victims. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">They do not care to be
the center of attention at all times in any social gathering unless
doing so promises to earn them more unsuspecting victims.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here’s a few more brief distinguishing characteristics:</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A Narcissist can occasionally have a conscience. A Sociopath has no conscience whatsoever, nor do they
have any remorse for hurting others intentionally.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A Narcissist can occasionally be constructive. A Sociopath is <u>always </u>destructive.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A Narcissist’s world can be built by their own hands. A Sociopath prefers their world to be built by someone else’s hands.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A Narcissist is self-deceptive. A Sociopath is socially deceptive.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A Narcissist needs admirers. A Sociopath needs victims.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A Narcissist lacks empathy in the form of belittling, name-calling,
and defaming another’s character. A Sociopath lacks empathy in a
criminal or physically violent way.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A Narcissist exploits themselves in a
grandiose manner. A Sociopath pretends to be someone who they are not to
hide their hidden agendas.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Both think they are superior to anyone and everyone, both think they
deserve special treatment, both process the world differently, and both
play to “win”. However, it is possible for both personality traits to be
combined into one, which is called a “Narcissistic Sociopath,” and is
more <a href="http://listverse.com/2011/11/14/10-monumental-malignantly-narcissistic-sociopaths/">dangerous</a> than the two of them separately.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://learus.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/the-differences-between-a-sociopath-and-a-narcissist/" target="_blank">SOURCE</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #351c75;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">From what I know: All Sociopaths are also Narcissists. Not all Narcissists are/or become Sociopaths. </span></i></b></span><br />
<span style="color: #351c75;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One can be a Narcissistic Sociopath but NEVER a Sociopathic Narcissist. The spectrum only moves one way. - Barbara</span></i></b></span>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-84036271845278941782022-12-08T00:02:00.000-05:002022-12-09T01:01:08.725-05:00When Toxic People Start Hoovering<br />
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<b>Trying to break free from someone who won’t let you go?<br />
</b><br />
<a href="http://boardofwisdom.com/cachetogo/images/quotes/586088.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><b> Wanting to end a relationship with someone who keeps trying suck you back in with manipulations (or fake apologies too) ?<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<span style="color: #990000;">You’re being hoovered!</span></span><br />
<br />
Some toxic people will let you leave a relationship without caring one bit. They never really cared about you, and if you don’t want to be used and abused anymore, they’re simply on to the next person before you can say, “Bye!”<br />
<br />
Others, however…<br />
<br />
Others hoover.<br />
<br />
The toxic hooverer doesn’t truly care about you either — they just want to keep you around to feed on emotionally, and when you decide to go no contact, they don’t plan on letting you get away that easily.<br />
<br />
Many hooverers have traits of borderline, narcissistic, antisocial or histrionic personality disorders.</b><br />
<b><br />
Hoovering is manipulation to gain control over your choice to distance yourself, and typically takes the following forms:<br />
</b><br />
<ul>
<li><b> Ignoring your requests to break off the relationship and attempting to continue on as if nothing has changed. </b></li>
<li><b> Asking you when you’re going to “get over it” and return to your past actions.<br />
</b></li>
<li><b>Sending you a fake apology to give you hope that things have changed.</b></li>
<li><b> Trying to trick you into contact by saying someone needs you, is sick, or in trouble.</b></li>
<li><b> Triangulating with others, communicating things to you through them.</b></li>
<li><b> Saying they’re worried about you, concerned about whether you’re okay, need to know where you are, etc.</b></li>
<li><b> Sending unwanted cards, messages and gifts, sometimes gifts for your children, as they know you are likely to feel guilty about keeping a gift from your kids. Don’t allow this – exposing your children to manipulation is far worse!</b></li>
<li><b> Returning old items you left behind.</b></li>
<li><b> Baiting you with drama games.</b></li>
<li><b> Contacting you about “important” things they “forgot” and suddenly have to tell you.</b></li>
</ul>
<b> <u><br />
Don’t Fall for Hoovering Tactics</u><br />
<br />
Attempts to pull you back into a toxic relationship are not valid expressions of caring and concern — they are attempts to regain control over your behavior. <span style="color: #990000;">Beware — hoovering attempts are often disguised as caring, loneliness, hurt, desperation, fear, and other things designed to play on your sympathies and pull you back.</span> Abusers know that pulling on heartstrings works very well. <i>(In the case of BPD, it may be simply out-of-control emotions and fear of abandonment more than an attempt to control you per se; however you will likely still feel that you are not being allowed to end a relationship you no longer want).</i><br />
<br />
If your wish to end a relationship is not being honored, <span style="font-size: large;">whatever a toxic person thinks will work best on you will be what they try, so when one angle doesn’t work, they will try another, and another, ramping up their efforts until it seems they might never stop</span>. </b><br />
<br />
<b>Typically, hoovering DOES stop if the person being hoovered does not fall for the hooverer’s tricks.<br />
<br />
The sooner the person being hoovered completely ignores everything and does not respond to anything at all in any way, the sooner the toxic person finally understands that they do not have the control. Some toxic people may still make the occasional attempt on holidays, anniversaries of events, etc. Don’t bite the bait. Simply ignore any attempts.<br />
<br />
If you have already made it clear that you do not want a relationship (or if it’s obvious) <span style="color: #990000;">then DON’T ever contact the person doing the hoovering to tell them to stop again, or how angry you are. That is a reward. They will be thrilled to receive your attention and pleased to know that their efforts have paid off by snagging you, so they’ll be contacting you even more!</span></b><br />
<br />
<br />
<b>
<u>Harassment</u><br />
<br />
If you have told someone you do not want contact, and they continue to bother you, the police <i>can </i>assist you. If you ever feel that someone you are trying to break off a relationship with may be capable of more than simply annoying you mildly, contact your local police for assistance. They are well-accustomed to dealing with skillful manipulators and have many smart ways of handling them, so do not hesitate to ask for help. (And remember, you have nothing to be ashamed about; you’re not the one behaving badly, and the police are there to protect you from abuse.)</b><br />
<b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://lightshouse.org/lights-blog/when-toxic-people-start-hoovering">FROM THIS SITE - CLICK HERE<br />
</a></b></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-1085745533178435512022-11-17T00:44:00.000-05:002022-11-18T00:30:08.034-05:00Who Is This Person?<center style="font-family: arial;">
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<i style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #6600cc;"><span style="color: #000066; font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;">"When Your Perfect Partner Goes Perfectly Wrong - Loving or Leaving the Narcissist in Your Life"</span></span></i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">by Mary Jo Fay</span></span> <br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Chapter 13</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde phenomenon that occurs in relationships with narcissists is a regular theme among those who sent me their stories. Soaring with the extreme highs of new love with the most incredible, romantic, unbelievably perfect man or woman of your dreams is tantamount to a romance novel or soap opera. </span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #000099;">So many of us pray and hope for such a relationship, but we never truly think it can really happen. Then, when it does, there is such fear of losing such bliss that many are blinded when Dr. Jekyll behaves like the deadly Mr. Hyde. They ignore the red flags and the gut feelings that keep trying to tell them something's wrong because they know "Mr. Perfect" was not a figment of their imagination. He was very real.</span> </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">And so, if he's suddenly Mr. Hyde momentarily, they are convinced it is a temporary situation and that their perfect partner will return any minute, if they are just patient enough </span><br />
<blockquote style="color: #000099;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">. In addition, victims keep going over and over in their own minds what they did "wrong" to sabotage the relationship. They convince themselves if they just figure out what not to do, that they can make everything "go back to normal" when all was magical, wonderful, and utterly perfect. If only they knew just how wrong their belief is!</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Another prevalent theme among victims is the feeling that when the perfect partner leaves (or she leaves him), that he will treat his next significant other differently. They envy the new person in the narcissist's life and are convinced the new love is being treated "perfectly," or at least better, than they were. Of course the new partner will know better than to ever do anything that might upset Mr. Perfect. She will live the life of the fantasy world that the discarded victim once held. She wouldn't dream of making the same mistakes that the first victim did. She's probably smarter, more beautiful, thinner, or more understanding than the first victim. Isn't everyone? Isn't that what he told his first victim over and over?<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="color: red;">They remain paralyzed with guilt, confusion, and sorrow and continue to blame themselves for the loss.</span></span> Despite the fact that most of us realize people don't change easily and that logic would dictate if someone behaves a certain way with one person, he will also behave that way with another, the fantasy of the lost "perfect" love now seemingly given unconditionally to another, permeates their minds like a malignant cancer. Many just don't seem to be able to irradiate their cancer and move on to a clean bill of health.<br />
<br />
Perhaps Marti and Erica's accounts will help illuminate some light on this subject…</span><br />
<br />
<b style="color: #000099; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">Marti and Erica…</b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Marti and Erica didn't know each other last year, yet this year they sit with me and we talk of how they were both involved with the same narcissist. The fact that they even fell upon each other is remarkable, as they live several hundred miles apart. Yet when they found each other and began sharing stories of the same painful dance, their laughter and tears merged in a unique sisterhood.</span><br />
<br />
<b style="color: red; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">Marti:</b><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> A bright, beautiful gal in her late 30s, with long, flowing locks and stylish professional fashion was well-educated and mature in the ways of the world. She had worked in business for years as a savvy sales rep and was very comfortable with both men and women.</span><br />
<br />
<b style="color: red; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">Erica:</b><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;"> </span>Fresh out of an almost-19-year marriage and a bit cautious and still healing her wounds, she was none-the-less a strong woman with conviction and an independent streak. Her blonde hair and snappy, blue eyes sparked a spirit that was longing to get out, yet one that appeared a bit defiant and untamed.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 130%;"><span style="color: #3333ff; font-weight: bold;">Neither of them ever guessed they'd be swept off their feet by one very manipulative man.</span></span><br />
<br />
<b style="color: red; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">Marti…</b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #993300;">I first met Gus online. </span>While I'd done the Matchmaker scene for quite a while, it usually took a lot to get me to actually take the next step to meet someone. I was in the early stages of running my own small business, so time was a commodity and the thought of wasting it on meaningless coffees and dinners with guys who were nothing like what they appeared to be online, just didn't excite me. I would periodically reply to an email, take a phone call and meet someone, but was more often frustrated than excited. Sometimes I'd just walk away from the whole dating process for months at a time. For some reason Gus was different. Once we connected, it was like we couldn't stop. After only 24 hours of emails and phone calls, I just had to meet him. Our first obstacle was that we lived six hours apart, but we knew we had to get together as soon as possible. We agreed to meet in a town halfway between us for a dinner date. As his email had led me to believe, he turned out to be absolutely charming. He just "got me" instantly. Dinner was fabulous! We had this intense connection – a chemistry that was indescribable – both intellectually and physically. Two days later we rendezvoused for the weekend and we both knew what we were anticipating. I knew something special would happen once we connected overnight and of course it did. It was indescribable! I stayed three days more than I had planned. I barely thought about my business and even cancelled a speaking engagement just to stay with him. I was so caught up in his charms … in the magic. It was like I was hypnotized. All I could think about was him … and us. By the end of seven days he asked me to marry him, and I had to say yes! How could I ever find someone like him again? I wasn't about to let him go! I sincerely believed there couldn't be another man like him in the world. We immediately went ring shopping because Gus insisted that he didn't want me to go home without "proof" of how serious he was about us. As we excitedly hurried into the jewelry store, Gus, grinning ear to ear, announced to the clerk, "Today's our anniversary!" She smiled and said, "That's wonderful! How many years?" To which Gus replied, "Seven days!" I was flying. I guess I must have completely missed the quizzical look she gave us. We got a ring with seven stones to always remind us of our life-changing seven days together that had sent us in a direction we knew would last a lifetime.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">While my rational mind kept sending me caution signals that no one got engaged in only seven days, my optimistic nature couldn't get over the wonderful gift God had given me. In fact, when friends (and even strangers) learned of our whirlwind romance they often told us their stories of love at first sight, quick engagements, and dozens of happy years of marriage! I could not imagine anything going wrong in this relationship because it was so absolutely perfect! Nothing could be so terrible that we couldn't possibly work it out. One of Gus' strengths was his incredible ability to listen, understand both sides of any issue, and to remain calm and compassionate no matter what the situation (even when I spilled red wine on his carpet). His demeanor was gentle, kind, and so polite; opening the car door for me each and every time, even buckling me into my seatbelt, which he made a big deal about doing so that he could "keep me safe," at the same time he'd sneak a kiss.I felt so adored. It felt like he hung on each of my words and knew just what to say every second we were together. He made me feel like royalty. It was hard carrying on a relationship with a six-hour drive between us, but we were so in love we knew we could do anything necessary to keep it alive. He was so romantic. He would write poetry that swept me off my feet. He even bought a Webcam for my computer – a device rather like a video camera – so we could see each other while we emailed or chatted by phone. It was so great just to see him and hear his voice when I couldn't be with him. We were grateful to the latest technology for keeping us connected. He was attentive to every detail; every word I wrote, every thing I said. It was like he lived just to make me happy. He even insisted on buying new tires for my car, as he was concerned that if I was going to be driving to see him very often, that he wanted me to be on the safest tires available. Then came the flowers. I was hosting a big event and he was unable to make the trip. I understood completely and didn't give it a second thought, so imagine my surprise when I arrived at the conference center and there was the largest arrangement of flowers I had ever seen! The note said, "If only I could be there with you tonight … All my love, Gus." Romance, flowers, love letters, planning our future … He was my Prince Charming. He could do no wrong in my eyes. He had won my heart.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">And then I started noticing subtle changes …</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Quite honestly I really didn't get it at first. It started with little comments that seemed a bit quirky and out of place. For example, he told me one day that my actions spoke more to him than my words and he gave the example that he knew my favorite color was yellow, even though I'd told him it was purple. I laughed and said, "Actually, it really is purple." "Of course it's not, Marti. Just look around your house. You have yellow things everywhere," he replied, almost speaking down to me as a parent might scold a child. I agreed that, yes, the bedspread we were sitting on was yellow, but there was far more green everywhere, purple in some places, and even red. All decorating choices I liked, but truly if I had to pick a favorite color, it was purple … even in my company logo.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"No, it isn't," he countered. "I can see that plain as day. But if that's what you want to believe, you go right ahead and believe it. I know better." I thought that was really odd, but harmless. Not so harmless, in reality – as I would later realize. He would say, "I will watch your actions, not what you say, to determine what you really mean."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">On his first visit to my home I was overwhelmed with work, and as my office is in my house, it showed the effects of my stress by looking as though a tornado had struck. Although the rest of the house was in perfect order, I figured I'd just close the door to my messy office and not worry about sorting through the stacks of papers to tidy it up before he got here. Well that idea didn't fly with Gus at all. He pressured me to let him see my office. I brushed off his request a couple of times, telling him that the room wasn't fit for man nor beast, but he became defensive and told me I was "shutting him out" of a part of my life. I "must" be keeping secrets from him. What was I hiding? I promised him that I wasn't hiding anything, but that I was very embarrassed to have him see my office in such shambles. I finally gave in and opened the door. Of course there were no secrets or anything of particular interest other than the mess, but he became very quiet and withdrawn for the rest of the day. I thought this behavior a bit odd, but again, was so overwhelmed with the deep and incredible love we shared, that I just figured it wasn't a big deal. If he didn't mind my messy office, I guess I didn't mind showing him. Only now have I begun to realize that what he was showing me by that behavior was that he had absolutely no respect for my boundaries. By giving in, I never told him "no" and meant it. Thus, he just kept pushing my boundaries further and further – always testing the waters to see just how far he could go. He often said things like "I'm going to be your husband, so I have a right to …"</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">One particularly busy day he was back at his house, so many miles away, so we'd check in with each other often via the Webcam; longingly looking into each other's eyes, wishing we were together. After talking for quite a while I told him that I really had to get some work done, so we said goodbye and I shut the Webcam off. He called back instantly and insisted that I keep it on so he could see my "beautiful face" any time he wanted. I smiled that he was so passionate and interested, but I told him I really found it hard to concentrate and I'd get nothing done knowing he was so close and distracting. He really insisted, but I stood my ground. So we said goodbye and agreed we'd talk later in the day. When we got on the phone that night he was cold and silent. I couldn't figure out why he was angry. After much coaxing on my part, he confessed that he felt "hurt" that I wouldn't leave the Webcam on all day so that he could watch me. I held to my earlier points about needing to focus and kept the discussion light, but I was really uncomfortable, even creeped out by what felt like voyeuristic and controlling behavior. He tried to make me feel that his interest was caring and romantic, but the little pangs of nausea I was getting didn't seem to be related to any foods I ate.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Most of the time things were great – amazingly great! Overwhelmingly great! Beyond description great! But over time, things became stranger and stranger. Our plan was to spend a few months dating, decide what changes one or both of us would make to bring us closer together geographically, then marry and move within a year. I began to learn that his grandiose plans were wishful thinking at best. It also became clear that if I gave up my business and life here to move to him, he'd never value or appreciate that I did so. He seemed to have great respect for my work unless it took me away from him for even a minute. While he wanted to know every minute detail of my life, it turned out that he didn't always like to share his. Sometimes he'd share with great depth, even on difficult issues and I'd feel really connected to him, yet other times a seemingly superficial question would make him furious. Several times he abruptly ended a conversation (not an argument) by saying he refused to talk about that subject any longer, period. Also, when I'd get a business call from a male colleague during business hours, he would instantly become jealous or cold and demand to know all about the person who called, yet a woman would occasionally call him at 3 a.m. and when I asked him about it he would get defensive and angry at my curiosity. Although his feelings were easily hurt, he was indifferent when mine were. He appeared to care less and less about my needs and my life. All those first nights of listening to every word I said seemed to disappear. One night he called after I'd just found out that my stepfather had died. He was very sympathetic for about three minutes, but then he asked a question that made it obvious he wasn't listening. He admitted he was distracted and I nicely asked him to call me back when he was finished and we could talk.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">I really needed to feel that I had his full attention in my time of need. There was a sudden chill at the other end of the phone. </span>He icily said "fine," hung up, and never called back. I was stunned. In my darkest hour I was looking for a comforting partner and he suddenly turned into a cold, uncaring stranger. Then for the next several days we exchanged emails and voice messages whereby he chastised me for suggesting he call back when he was distracted. He said I was rude in pointing out his lapse of attention. "It's like pointing out to someone when they've farted," he quipped. He even said I should have been grateful for his "generosity," as he had called knowing I'd be hurting and I should have just kept talking even though I knew he wasn't listening. Never, not once, did he ask how I was feeling about my stepfather's death.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">I couldn't believe the words coming out of his mouth. This mouth that had kissed me like no one else in my wildest dreams. This mouth that had whispered romantic poetry to me for hours on end. This mouth that had tasted my body and all its crevices. Who was this person attached to this mouth?! Certainly not the person I was choosing to spend the rest of my life with. Where did that man go? These are a few of the "choice words" he emailed me after this incident:</span><br />
<i style="color: #000099; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"></i><br />
<blockquote>
<i style="color: #000099; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">Dear Marti,</i><br />
<i style="color: #000099; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">I will be guarding my heart and emotions from this point on. I feel I have opened myself up prematurely to your personal attacks and therefore must protect my own feelings. The Bible says "it is better to have only a crust of bread to eat upon the rooftop than to feast with many in a house of contention" and I believe that to be true.</i><br />
<i style="color: #000099; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><br />
</i><br />
<i style="color: #000099; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">I have listened to your voice mails and am disappointed with your efforts at communication. I am growing weary of what I perceive to be a pattern of nitpicking over my phone etiquette. You must acquire a more effective method of conveying your thoughts…I am not stupid.</i><br />
<i style="color: #000099; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><br />
</i><br />
<i style="color: #000099; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">I believe about you what I have observed about you. I am not swayed by words to believe something I have not seen demonstrated, regardless of the frequency with which I hear the explanation. If I believe, after observing your behavior, that you are irresponsible, then I will not change my mind when you simply say with words that you are "a responsible person." In this regard you will only sway me with your actions. Furthermore, the continuous droning of statements not backed with observable behavior or perceptible intentions, only serves to shut me off.</i><br />
<i style="color: #000099; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><br />
</i><br />
<i style="color: #000099; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">Perhaps if you were to recognize these communication failures on your own I would not have to hang up on you and wait for your emotions to subside. Even better would be for you to restrict these intense emotional diatribes to written words in an effort to limit your verbosity and to focus on the important points and issues.</i><br />
<i style="color: #000099; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><br />
</i><br />
<i style="color: #000099; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">On another matter, you still play hide and seek with secrets only you can know. The fact you hesitate to allow me into certain areas of your house when we have promised to spend the rest of our lives together, is quite disturbing to me. This is not how a loving relationship should look.</i><br />
<i style="color: #000099; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><br />
</i><br />
<i style="color: #000099; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">Please be assured that I am standing by to help in any way that I am able, in spite of the impression I may have given by words or deeds, up until this moment.</i><br />
<i style="color: #000099; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">Love always, Gus</i></blockquote>
<i style="color: #000099; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"></i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">I physically wanted to throw up. I had just returned from a visit with him and was still "under the ether" – madly, crazily in love and thinking of every way possible to be with him. There was no contention in my words or my heart. The intense coldness of his email and the unreasonable reaction to our conversation was so confusing. It just didn't make sense. In fact, one moment we'd have a loving phone call, then I'd check my email and there'd be a hurtful note that he had to have written before we talked! Then he'd send a note about a house we should buy together. Talk about Dr. J and Mr. Hyde! Although my worries increased, I was still convinced that my perfect partner would return if we just understood each other better. I blamed the distance and limited time together and decided not to address certain issues until we were together, for surely it would be easier in person. <span style="color: red;">I found that if I just "dropped" a tough subject, so did he, yet I felt more and more distant from him. </span><br />
<br />
Things sort of fell into a pattern of Gus getting upset and me being confused about why. Then came an interesting weekend where I was being honored at a banquet for my work with the non-profit community. Gus was coming and I looked forward to including him in a special moment in my life. However, one of my growing worries was related to his heavy drinking. It wasn't uncommon for him to pour himself a vodka at 9 a.m. and I worried that alcohol could become a problem between us. I gingerly shared my concerns with him and he promised that drinking wouldn't be a problem because of his love for me. Of course he was in the limelight at the dinner, being on the arm of the guest of honor. He basked in my glory and I even introduced him to the audience as the man I was going to marry. Unfortunately, my fears were realized when he embarrassed himself and me by getting drunk. I </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">was hurt and fearful that I was going to have to leave my perfect love because of alcohol, but in the morning he lovingly apologized, saying he never wanted to see that look of disappointment in my eyes ever again and he thanked me for not giving him a hard time. Once again, I melted.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Then one night, the red flag got bigger. It was past midnight and I was getting ready for bed. I had put on a cucumber mask, slipped into my flannel PJ's, and was about to fall asleep when the phone rang. It was Gus, and I was happy to hear his voice before falling asleep. After nearly an hour on the phone he surprised me by telling me that he was a mere four minutes away from my house! (He had been driving nearly six hours and hadn't given me a clue he was coming.) He wanted to talk all the way to my driveway, but I begged off in order to wipe the mask off my face and look presentable when he arrived. I would have to scramble to get it all done in four minutes!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">He suggested I leave the door unlocked for him, but I said I'd just meet him at the door. (Living alone I wasn't comfortable leaving my door unlocked and I was racing for time as well.) He rang the doorbell and I opened the door within seconds, but when I saw his face I was startled. He was furious. He had transformed from my sweet, romantic man into someone I didn't recognize. His eyes shot bullets at me as I held the door opened for him and I softly questioned, "Gus, what's wrong?" "It was extremely inconvenient for me to have to wait outside your door!" he cursed. "But Gus, it was only a few seconds," I countered. "It's just not right that you treat me that way, Marti. I'm your fiancé, for God sake!" We argued and by that time I really didn't care if he stayed or went. In fact I remember saying that I was aghast that he would say he was "inconvenienced" when he was the one showing up in the middle of the night. "I'm outta here," he bellowed, and then turned to go, but I could tell he didn't really want to. We talked it through and as it turned out, his sister had passed away and he told me he was on the way to her funeral. Of course my heart softened immediately. As we were making up, he shared with me how he had hated his sister and was torn about even going to the funeral. In the end, he didn't go and said it would be a "lesson" to his other siblings that if they didn't "straighten up" he wouldn't show up at their funerals either. (Can you say huge red flag?) He could never give me a reason for the intensity of his hatred, and although we made up once again, that red flag stayed with me and was perhaps the one that eventually began to get my attention. As of weeks later, he still hadn't even called his mother to see how she was handling the death of her daughter! I couldn't help but wonder how he'd treat me if he ever really got mad at me. For the first time I allowed myself to wonder what the truth was about why his children hate him – a fact that he had shared with me early-on. Somehow, we spent a blissful weekend once again and then came the final straw. We were having such an incredible time together that I decided to cancel everything for the next week and drive back to his home with him. I was going to miss some huge meetings, but had decided it was worth it. I told him I'd go, but that I would need to get a little bit of work done before leaving. He agreed. While Gus waited for me to finish up that morning, he got bored and went to the store. When he came back he announced, "Clearly spending time with me is not important to you, so I'm going to take off." And he made motions to leave … right then. I was totally shocked and taken off-guard. We'd discussed and agreed to the plan only a couple of hours earlier. So where did this angry response come from? I just didn't get it. Couldn't he see that I was canceling meetings, rescheduling work, printing paperwork to take along? I was totally rearranging my life and business to spend time unscheduled time with him. Didn't he appreciate all that I was doing? I was expected to understand when he had work to do. On one hand I wanted to talk it through and work something out, rather than give up on our week together. Yet on the other hand, his irrational behavior made me actually fearful that his anger would lead to something I couldn't handle. What if he drove like a crazy person and we ended up in a wreck? What if he just decided to throw me out on the side of the road? Or worse, what if, once we got to his house he decided he just didn't "feel like" driving me all the way home again? We had planned to take my dog and the thought of having to buy a plane ticket and bring my dog back in a crate on a plane made me think twice. The caution signs started hitting me over the head. I finally recognized that I no longer felt safe and didn't know what to expect from this man. At the same time I struggled with my own sense of integrity – I was wearing his ring and my word had always meant a lot to me. Knowing that if things were this chaotic so early in the relationship it would only get worse, I decided to hold my ground. When I told him that it just wasn't working out between us, he was astonished. Then, in defiance he asked, "Are you really breaking up with me?" Interestingly, he never asked why. He just stated that he was in this "for the long term" and that clearly I wasn't as committed.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Fortunately, a knowledgeable friend had begun to educate me about narcissism during the few weeks before that awful moment. She knew I was head-over-heels in love with Gus, but had seen the terrible signs in our relationship, so had been careful to feed me little bits of information whenever I had called her in tears and confusion. Her support and information gave me the strength to know that the situation would never change. So, instead of torturing myself with doubt about the "what ifs," I was able to end the relationship with certainty and the reality that a better future was waiting for me elsewhere, once I let go.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The education she gave me about this serious personality disorder literally saved my emotional well-being. I started to understand the roller coaster ride I was on and see his behaviors for what they really were – controlling, manipulating, and outrageous. My "Perfect Gus" was just an act – nothing more than what Brad Pitt or any other movie star was capable of. One minute a knight in shining armor and the next minute a heartless, blood-sucking vampire. It was all just a wicked deception.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The sad difference, I realized, was that Brad Pitt knows he is acting. Gus doesn't. I felt terribly sad for him, for I knew he would never change nor understand who or what he really was. Yet, I understood my empathy for his "illness" didn't mean I had to marry him. That would have been the biggest mistake of all. No matter how incredible the good stuff was with us, the bad stuff wasn't tolerable.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">If you do not feel sane or safe in your relationship, get out. Listen to your gut. Don't ignore the warning signs. I was lucky. It only cost me 12 weeks of my life. It could have been so much worse. Now I'm a bit hypersensitive to potentially narcissistic behavior, which makes dating even more challenging, but I'm so glad to have a healthier perspective and I'm sure that I learned this lesson with Gus for a reason. Perhaps it was just to enable me to develop the even stronger bond I know have with my girlfriend who educated me about this terrifying disorder.</span><br />
<br />
<b style="color: red; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">Erica…</b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #993300;">I met Gus on the Internet as well</span>. I was new to the online dating scene, after having recently divorced my husband of nearly 19 years. I was cautious but hopeful. It actually took Gus a while to respond to my email and when he did reply he apologized and said that he had just experienced a tough break-up (with Marti, I realized later), and he was pretty melancholy about the whole thing. He explained that he was taking his time before he "stuck his neck out again." Of course, I felt sorry for him immediately. "The poor guy must be sensitive and emotional for him to react that way," so said my heart. I loved sensitive guys! I just always thought they were a myth. We emailed for a couple of weeks and then he suggested we meet for ice cream on Saturday. I apologized, but said that I had already made plans for the weekend. "No need to apologize, dear," he wrote. "I understand you have a life. We'll get together in time, if this is meant to be." I was so impressed. He respected my boundaries and needs, and that was rare in my past relationships with men. We kept the email doors open and kept chatting, learning more and more about each other in the process.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">As with Marti, Gus and I lived hours from each other. While one of the joys of living in quiet, laid-back New Mexico is the slower lifestyle and the friendly people, the vast emptiness between towns makes going anywhere a lengthy ordeal. The logistics of a long-distance relationship had its ups and downs in my mind, but I wasn't ready to rule it out. He kept offering other times when we might be able to connect, but for the longest time I was busy with my teenager's sporting events or school schedules, in addition to my own work schedule at the credit union during the day and the local pub at night. "Is there ever going to be a time I will get to meet you?" he wrote. I felt guilty. He had shown himself to be so patient and understanding that I finally gave him my phone number so we could at least talk.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Our first phone conversation ended up lasting for hours. It was like we had known each other for years. Maybe even all our lives. There were no tentative opening lines or worries that either of us wouldn't meet the expectations of the other. It was fabulous. When next he asked me if we could meet, I was still hesitant. Talking with someone over email or on the phone was one thing – in the flesh was quite another. I was still new to this dating thing, after being married so many years, and I didn't want to get in over my head. I asked him what his expectations were. His answer was perfect – Absolutely no expectations. Lunch only. Friends for as long as necessary. Purely platonic was just fine with him. He would get a room at a hotel and whatever time I could give him around my hectic family and work schedule, he would accept. No questions asked. We agreed to meet for lunch on Thursday and on Wednesday afternoon he surprised me by waltzing in to the credit union where I worked. I didn't know he was there and when a co-worker told me there was a man asking for me, I was completely amazed. He told me that he just wanted to be "early" for our lunch date the next day and would it be OK if he stopped at the pub where I worked in the evening and had a few beers while I was stuck there? Of course I didn't object at all. I was so impressed he had gone out of his way to come early to spend as much time with me as possible! I had never expected it. What a wonderful surprise! He obviously was a man who cared a great deal.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">My friends were overjoyed for me. "<span style="font-style: italic;">Oh, Erica – he's adorable,</span>" they said. I had to agree. When I walked into work that evening, he was already at the bar and had a big map lying open on the counter. I asked him what he was doing and he said he was looking to invest in some land and was studying the map of the area to get a better understanding of the big picture. Of course, I was immediately impressed that he must have enough money to invest in anything. (Little did I know the truth was he didn't have a dime in his pocket.) We chatted a great deal while I tended bar throughout the course of the evening and I found him to be delightful. By the time our lunch date came around the next day, I couldn't wait to see him again. He mesmerized me, without a doubt. He was like a drug. I would sit and look at him for hours on end. It was like I was a different person when I was with him. He kept encouraging me to tell him everything about myself. He listened so intently. He shook his head compassionately if I spoke of something painful from my past, then would pat my hand gently in understanding. He eyes grew teary in sympathy when I discussed an extremely difficult moment during my divorce. As he'd been divorced too, I felt he knew my pain first-hand. He was so polite. He held the doors open for me. Kissed my hand. Even wanted to buckle my seatbelt for me, which was the only thing that left me feeling a bit uncomfortable. Yet, at the end of that first date when he said, "Would you mind if I give you a kiss on the cheek?" I knew I was hooked.<br />
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The minute I left him to go back to work, all my mind could do was figure out how to spend every possible moment with him. Just as we were about to say good-bye, he had an idea. He was attending a birthday party that evening back in his small town and on impulse he suggested I join him, and if I wanted, I could spend the weekend. My mind whirled! I had just promised my ex-husband I would take care of our 16-year-old daughter while he was out of town, but I instantly considered possible alternative options concerning what I could do with her. He could see me hesitate and he said, "It's all about what's important to you, dear. Do this only if you're comfortable. There's no pressure." Within seconds I had made up my mind to go. The weekend turned out to be something out of a dream. Romance. Scented oils. Tender kisses. Incredible bliss.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">I wanted to marry this man after only knowing him 48 hours!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">I took him home to meet my mom right then and there. I guess I should have thought something was a little out of the norm when he walked in her house and said, "Should I call you Mom?" when he hadn't even officially met her yet. Hindsight is a marvelous thing and I realize now that my mother had been in a relationship for 19 years with a narcissist and the first thing she commented was how much Gus reminded her of her ex-husband! Fortunately the reality of an instant marriage was not possible for us, as I already had a life plan I was working around. I was due to move to Phoenix within a few weeks, where I was registered to begin a two-year court reporter course. Nothing was going to deter me. Not even Gus. However, I swore to him that if all remained the same, I would promise to marry him at the end of that time. He was thrilled!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">I look back at that momentary lapse of sanity and wonder how the heck he pulled me into his web so easily. Was it the charisma? His great acting job of being such a knight in shining armor? What? To this day, I can't even figure it out. The fact I so quickly farmed out my daughter to friends without hesitation, just to spend the weekend with a man I had only met 12 hours before, still boggles my mind to this day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">He was very good at what he did. We were instantly boyfriend and girlfriend. I would drive several hours to his house to be with him every weekend I could possibly get away. Of course we had endless phone calls and emails that were filled with romantic language and love poetry he wrote for me.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The red flags started showing up by the third weekend I spent with him. By the time I had driven to his house I realized that I had forgotten some necessary toiletries and knew I needed to stop at Wal-Mart to pick them up. I decided to go to Gus' house first and figured we could stop and get the supplies when we went out. He agreed we should stop at the store on our way to dinner and kill two birds with one stone. We had a great conversation on the way and I figured I'd just rush in and out of the store so we could be on our way. With that in mind, I jumped out of his truck once we parked, and hurried into the store. He seemed to lag behind and I just figured he'd stroll around until I got my things and we'd be out of the store in no time. Yet, once inside the store I could feel his personality change like a light bulb flickering out. I shook off the weird feeling, but there was no denying it. He had suddenly become very angry over something and I hadn't a clue what it could be about. I tentatively asked him what was wrong and he jumped down my throat. "How dare you not let me open the truck door for you?! You know that's my job. You absolutely ignored me on your way into the store!" At first I thought he was kidding. Like he was playing the hurt little kid who had tried to do something right and no one had noticed, but I quickly realized he was dead serious. His eyes were cold and seemed to throw missiles at me. I had never seen him like this before. My gut told me this was terribly wrong and I decided right then to return home that evening. I made him take me back to my car and I left. It had become quite clear to me that we just weren't compatible and I told him that.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">As I drove the many hours to get back home I gradually started doubting myself. I kept going over and over the situation, trying to decide if it was a figment of my imagination or if it had really happened that way. It seemed too ridiculous to be real. Then I remembered this lovely man that had swept me off my feet and I blew the entire episode off as a complete misunderstanding.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">I decided to call him up and apologize. It wasn't worth throwing away all the good we had over some silliness. He accepted my apology and we went on as though nothing had ever happened. The next weekend it was his turn to drive to my town. I was all excited to have him meet my friends and was sure they'd like him as much as I did. We were all meeting at the pub I worked at and I could barely contain myself all day awaiting his arrival. When at last he showed up, I was shocked. He was wearing tattered clothes, a beat up old cowboy hat, and had a cigar hanging out of his mouth. I knew that he understood that it was a non-smoking bar, and yet he flaunted his cigar like he was above the rules. I didn't know which surprised me most – the fact that he looked like a homeless person for his first appearance with my friends, or the fact that he thought it was OK to push the rules of the bar with his cigar. When I reminded him that he wasn't allowed to smoke inside, he said, "That's OK, honey. I'll just hold it, okay dokie?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Now I realize that growing up in New Mexico I should be used to the cowboy look, but it has never really done anything for me. I had shared that with Gus in one of our first days together, so I was mildly surprised that he would wear his cowboy hat, knowing how I felt about it. Much less not take the time to clean up a bit for my friends. At first I was a bit disappointed and angry and then I said to myself, "Come on, Erica. You're being a real bitch. He just drove four hours to see you and you're going to get upset over this?" I tried to let the whole incident go. It wasn't worth it. I was looking forward to our time alone together, and that was worth everything to me. Yet, the next day when he insisted I accompany him to the local ranch-wear store to buy a new cowboy hat and clothes, a little bell started going off in my head. That little bell rang even louder when he made me take a picture of him in his new outfit which he knew I disliked. I just didn't get it. We continued to take turns driving to each other every weekend. The next weekend we decided to meet at a small restaurant I had never been to before. I got there before he did and had a couple of beers before he arrived. When I asked him what was good on the menu, indicating I'd never been to the restaurant before, he insisted, "Oh, come on, you know you've eaten here before." I thought that was a strange statement and I reaffirmed that I had indeed not ever been there before. His eyes suddenly grew cold and the conversation ceased. As the silence hung between us like a brick wall, I couldn't believe what had just transpired. Apparently my disagreeing with him had sent him into "angry land" and now I was being punished for it. In addition, I realized that he was playing the cowboy outfit again. All I could think was where did my REI outdoorsman go? And what is he trying to prove with the cowboy stuff? I asked him if he knew where the bathroom was and he wouldn't answer me. So, out of spite I fought back in a rather defiant way. Still wearing my dress and heels from work, I walked over to a table of men sitting near us and asked them where the bathroom was. They were most happy to tell me and Gus' rage only multiplied. Needless to say the evening was a disaster and the end result was that he blamed it all on me drinking too much. The red flags had begun to wave furiously and I was refusing to see them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The roller coaster pattern had begun. Wonderful days. Terrible days. Passionate lovemaking with candles and scented oils. Cherry wine with chocolate on the rim. (Come to find out, Marti had taught him that one!) Angry nights with hours of the "silent treatment," for infractions I wasn't even aware of. Moments of rage, with eyes so black and deep, I feared I might get sucked into them. I think part of the reason I stayed so long is that I'm a caretaker by nature. I love doing things for other people. Helping them. I have spent so many years putting other people's needs before my own that it just came naturally for me. And of course there was always that deeply imbedded memory of Mr. Perfect. I knew he had to be in there somewhere, if I only knew how to get him to come out and stay out. I guess that means I kept looking for his potential to change, which I've since learned is one major mistake.<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="color: red;"> Never enter a relationship looking at someone for their potential. Look for what is. </span></span><br />
<br />
Then he began with the ongoing sermon about my "actions." He would tell me how it was his "observations" that told him who I really was. "I will watch your actions, not your words, Erica," he used to </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">taunt me. Then there was the other sermon about his "needs." "I have independence and you will acknowledge that." I never was entirely sure what he meant by that one. I would go crazy with the mind games he played with me. Yet, every time I considered leaving, he reeled me back in with his charm. It was an amazing phenomenon, now that I look back on it. The beginning of the end occurred one night when he was going to meet me at the bar for a drink before we went home.<br />
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I knew an old friend was coming in that night and I told Gus that I'd love to have him meet George, a 60-something-year-old friend of my mother's. Gus said fine and showed up a bit before I was finished. He jumped into a conversation with another guy at the bar and by the time I clocked out, the only empty stool at the bar was one seat away from Gus and next to George. Since Gus was obviously deep in conversation, I sat next to George and waited for my opportunity to introduce the guys to each other. When he finally finished chatting and walked the three steps over to us, I could barely wait to introduce him as my "boyfriend" to my dear friend George. They shook hands and then Gus threw me another curve. He turned to me and said, "Hon, I'm really tired. I've got a long trip ahead of me. I'm going to head on home. It's OK. You go ahead and chat. Take the time you need. I'll let your dogs out when I get home."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">All at once I realized what was up. He was jealous and was playing the hurt little boy. He was punishing me for talking to my old friend and not dropping everything for him. So he was going to leave without me and I would have hell to pay later. I was livid. This was too much. I didn't need a child having a temper tantrum in my life. I had already raised three children of my own. I simply didn't need another one. So he left and I stayed. By the time I got home an hour later, he was nowhere to be seen, nor had my dogs been cared for. I called him on his cell phone to be sure he was OK. After all, he had been drinking for a couple of hours and that, combined with his anger when he left, caused me concern. I certainly didn't want him to be off the road in a ditch somewhere. But he wouldn't answer his phone. I drove around looking for him and at last saw his truck at a local motel. I called his room from the lobby phone and asked him what was going on. In a cold, calculating voice he simply said, "I'm going to bed. Why does it matter to you? You were obviously more interested in your old friend than you were in me." I replied that I hadn't done anything wrong and he assured me that if I would just think about it longer, I'd realize just how wrong I was. After all, I was a smart person, he assured me. "If you just look at it from my side, you'll know you're wrong," he snarled. What was I supposed to do? I loved this guy. I blamed myself. I sucked up my pride and apologized if I had done anything to hurt his feelings. He acted wounded for quite a while and once again, we made up.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The next day he fell into reeling me in again. He fixed my car, which I was so grateful for, as I really didn't have the money to pay a mechanic. He took me to lunch. He bought me flowers. I hoped that whatever stress had caused him to lose himself, that it was moving out and the "old Gus" was returning. My ex-husband and I lived in the same small town and still shared custody of our children, so that mandated we still communicated on a regular basis. At times things were pretty emotional for me and Gus suggested that I might benefit from taking some time off. "Why don't you move in with me for a while? It will give you some time to rest and put a little space between you and your ex too. Might be just what the doctor ordered." He also highly suggested that I really had no reason to ever talk to my ex again. I sort of blew the comment off, not believing that he really meant it. How could he? We still had joint custody of our kids. It was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving when I moved in with him. I had to borrow my ex-husband's truck to move my big items and was on the phone with him arranging the details when Gus called and I picked him up on call waiting. I told him I was on the phone with Brian and Gus agreed that I should call him back when Brian and I had finalized all the details. When I called him back he was cool and distant. I didn't figure out until much later that he was furious with me for not taking his call over my conversation with Brian. I later paid for that mistake with several hours of the "silent treatment."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">On Thanksgiving Day I cooked a huge dinner for Gus and a bunch of his friends. The day seemed perfect and he bragged to his friends about what a good cook I was. Yet, after they all left he immediately returned to giving me the cold shoulder. Except for one thing…</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Since I was a new member in his household he took me by the hand (literally) and walked me through all his expectations. How he wanted his laundry washed and the clothes folded. How I should clean the toilets. Exactly how the food was to be stored in the refrigerator. I couldn't believe that he was treating me like a child who knew nothing when at age 41 with nearly 19 years of marriage behind me and raising three kids, I thought I had learned a few things by now. My gut was screaming at me that something was drastically wrong, and I was finally starting to listen. I decided to go to bed and think about it with a fresh mind in the morning. Gus wasn't tired yet, so decided to stay up and watch some TV before he joined me. I felt emotionally and physically drained. I kept remembering his suggestion to move in with him so that I could rest. Somehow I didn't see that happening. My mind kept reliving all my "transgressions," trying to make sense of it all. I finally couldn't deal with it any further and fell asleep in sadness. About an hour later Gus came to bed and started screaming at me, wanting to know where his cell phone was. In a groggy daze, I realized he must be talking about his extra cell phone he had lent me after he had accidentally driven over mine and broken it. I told him I thought it was in my car, all the while wondering why it was such a big deal in the middle of the night. When he insisted I go get it, I refused and rolled over to go back to sleep. Well, that was entirely the wrong thing to do. "By God, you go get it right now!" he bellowed, as I lay there wondering, "Who is this man?" Again I refused to get out of bed and at that point he grabbed me and physically threw me out of the bed, insisting he would not sleep with me. "I refuse to sleep with a contentious woman!" Then he began screaming scripture to me, "It is better to have only a crust of bread to eat upon the rooftop than to feast with many in a house of contention." I looked at him in amazement one last time while he yelled, "Why do you insist on defying me and not showing me respect?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">I left his bed and slept in the guestroom, knowing full-well that I was leaving in the morning, never to return. I was scared, confused, depressed, and full of self-doubt. What was so wrong with me that he would treat me this way? I had moved in on Tuesday and I moved out by Friday. It still amazes me when I rethink the whole thing. How did the man I wanted to marry within 48 hours of meeting him become a Frankenstein monster who destroyed everything in his path? And furthermore, how did I fall for it?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The one thing that saved me from thinking I had gone completely crazy was finding Marti's business card and an old email of hers that Gus had left lying about. As soon as I got to a safe place I summoned up all my nerve and called her. It was like finding a life line. She told me about the turbulent relationship she had lived through. (She lasted 12 weeks – I had only made it 9.) But the pattern was exactly the same in both of our relationships. We laughed together and cried together. We compared stupid details and stories of his behaviors that left us amazed. We realized how he tried to parent both of us in his own way. "Now, darling, if you'd just realize I'm trying to help you," he loved to tell us. In my case he always told me how he just viewed himself a little further along in the divorce education than I was and so he could "teach me the ropes."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">In Marti's case he attempted to be the all-knowing businessman. (He had no credentials or background in business – he was a plumber by trade.) Yet he insisted on showing Marti how to run her business and her finances. The behaviors relating to him having control were absolutely like déjà vu. We marveled at how the whole, pathetic process had evolved. After I left Gus he didn't try to contact me. About a week and a half later I emailed him and said I was sorry things had turned out the way they did. He blasted me back with a scathing email, blaming </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">all our problems on my drinking. (This from a man who used drugs and alcohol freely.) All I can say is thank God I discovered the issue I was dealing with was NPD. Understanding the behaviors and motivating factors behind his actions has helped me quit carrying the guilt that seemed to follow me like a stalker. I kept believing that everything had been my fault. Now I know better.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The sad thing is that both Marti and I know he will find another victim and we just wish there was a way that innocent women could be warned. It's easy to spot loud, rough, pushy men. You know to stay away from them. But these actors are another matter. They're so insidious. They're like quicksand – you don't know you're in danger until it's too late and then it seems close to impossible to get out</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">…</span><b style="color: red; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"> Closure</b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">As I finished the interview with Marti and Erica that night, I mentioned that since I had never met Gus, I could only use my imagination as to what he must look like. Erica instantly pulled pictures of him out of her wallet. Marti and I were surprised and asked her what on earth she was doing, still carrying his photos with her. She honestly couldn't say. I also found it interesting that I saw a rather plain looking man when they both commented on how "handsome" he was. The photos obviously stirred deep, emotional responses in both of them.I suggested they burn them ceremoniously right there..</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">They each took one and lit a match to it, watching it melt and shrivel up symbolically into the ashtray, as the bartender curiously watched the powerful event unfold. Hopefully, the imagery will translate into moving on for both of them. It can be done. It just takes time and a belief that they can.</span><br />
<blockquote style="color: #993300; font-family: arial;">
<i><span style="font-weight: bold;">"Narcissists have no feelings of any kind. You must remember that above all. They are simply actors on the stage, pretending with all their might. Yet, it is all a lie. There is no real emotion of any kind. Any actor can act and these folks win the Academy Award in that category."</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Michael – survivor</span></i></blockquote>
<i style="color: #6600cc; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-10912106353638824182022-10-24T00:08:00.000-04:002022-10-24T19:23:04.364-04:00Abusive Narcissistic Parents<center style="color: #000099; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">
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<span style="color: #000099; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">A person that is narcissistic might have certain characteristics that makes life very difficult for their child. This type of parent can be very self-centered. While narcissistic parents cannot be generalized to say that all will behave the same way, there are abusive narcissistic parents.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000099; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">For example, a narcissistic father might turn their child down when asked to race, since the parent believes that they alone will win the race. The father might tell the child he won’t race because he will win anyway. This parent might also be very angry should they lose the race; thus, placing blame on their child.<br />
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Another example is that of the narcissistic mother. When her child wants to help her in the kitchen or with other chores, the mother might continuously belittle the child and tell them that they can’t do anything right.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000099; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">How then, does narcissism affect the child? While I have been made aware that not all narcissistic parents are the same, I do believe the child can suffer a great deal with this type of parent, especially if they are not seeking help for the narcissism. The child might feel as though they can do nothing right. They may feel that they continually fail their parent, since that is the message that might be sent by their narcissistic parent. The child might also withdraw inwardly, so that they cannot be barraged with negative comments and statements by their abusive parent.<br />
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Children of narcissistic parents that are abusive, must be on guard constantly. They must strive to do their very best in school, for fear of being told how successful their parent was in comparison. A child that struggles with their schoolwork has it hard at home, since the narcissistic parent might go on and on about their own successes, creating a sense of shame for the child.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000099; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Another way that narcissism affects the child is that of the emotions. For example, a child that is being bullied at school has a variety of strong emotions they feel. Sadly, the narcissistic parent might not know how to show sympathy or empathy towards their child, since they can be so self-absorbed. Their child is then left to defend themselves and to not show any emotion, since the narcissistic parent might not acknowledge the child’s emotions. This can have huge effects on the child. It is as though their narcissistic parent expects them to not feel. When they do feel strong emotions, they are not accepted by the parent.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000099; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The child of narcissistic parents might find themselves feeling as though they want to quit, since they can’t measure up. They might feel as though they are nothing but a failure, since they can’t do as good as their parents supposedly did in school. Some children, as they grow older in this environment, may turn to self-injury.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000099; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">If you are involved in the life of a child that has narcissistic parents that are abusive, please do all that you can to offer them constant praise and acceptance. Help them to know that they are not the problem in this relationship.<br />
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Lastly, report the verbal and emotional abuse to the authorities. There is no form of abuse that is worse than another. Abuse is abuse and the child deserves to receive help.</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art45816.asp" style="color: #000099; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">SOURCE</a><br />
<a href="http://narcissists-suck.blogspot.com/"><br />
<span style="color: #000099; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Narcissists-Suck - written by the child of a Narcissistic Mother</span></a><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000099; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/405538969464208/" target="_blank">FACEBOOK GROUP for Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers (must be totally No Contact )</a> </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-79402545433089115962022-09-13T00:33:00.000-04:002022-09-14T20:04:16.689-04:00THE SMEAR CAMPAIGN - Hallmark of a Narcissist or Sociopath<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-V0X19CcFFYE/U1bw8aSYYEI/AAAAAAAAAu8/9E3SMHM44EA/s1600/Smear+Campaign.jpg"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-V0X19CcFFYE/U1bw8aSYYEI/AAAAAAAAAu8/9E3SMHM44EA/s1600/Smear+Campaign.jpg" width="320" /></a></b></div>
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<b><i>Sociopath a.k.a. Anti-Social Personality Disorder or Psychopath</i></b></div>
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<b>When you are under libelous attack by a person who has deceived and defrauded you,<span style="color: #990000;"> there is a possibility that the person is a sociopath.</span> Sociopaths have no heart, no conscience and no remorse. </b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #990000;">They will lie, cheat and steal from you and then tell everyone that it is all your fault.</span></b></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">It is</span><u style="color: #990000;"> impossible </u><span style="color: #990000;">for healthy people to imagine how a sociopath thinks</span>. Try for a moment imagining having no conscience? <u>The best way to sum it up is "You are not a person to a sociopath"</u>. The shortest route between a sociopath and his or her agenda is a straight line, regardless of who or what stands in the way. A personality disorder is not an illness per se; it is simply a disorder.<span style="color: #990000;"> Many mental health professionals will tell you that apart from a miracle of God, they cannot be treated or cured; they are programmed for life.</span></b></div>
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<i><b>"Since their information -- including emotional information -- is scattered all over both brain hemispheres, it takes too long for the brain to retrieve and process information, and the entire process of socialization becomes so ponderous that ultimately it fails."</b></i></div>
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<i><b>(From the book "Without Conscience" by Robert Hare, PhD.)</b></i></div>
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<b>So how many are there? Depending which expert's estimates you use, psychopaths / sociopaths comprise one percent to four percent of the world's population. And many experts think these estimates are <u>low</u>.</b></div>
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<b>Why is it so critical for you to know about sociopaths? Because millions of sociopaths also called psychopaths, are living among us. Yes, many of them are criminals, locked up in jail. But<span style="color: #990000;"> far more are on the street, hurting people without openly breaking laws, operating in the grey areas between legal and illegal, or simply eluding the authorities. They can appear to be normal, but they pose a tremendous threat to us all</span></b></div>
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<b><u>Sociopaths have no heart, no conscience and no remorse.</u> They don't worry about paying bills. They think nothing of lying, cheating and stealing. In extreme cases, sociopaths can be serial rapists and serial killers.</b></div>
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<b>Think you can spot a sociopath? Think again. Sociopaths often blend easily into society. They're entertaining and fun at parties. They appear to be intelligent, charming, well-adjusted and likable. The key word is "appear." Because for sociopaths <u>it's all an illusion, designed to convince you to give them what they want.</u></b></div>
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<b>If you expect sociopaths to have a crazy or sinister appearance, <u>you're sadly mistaken. </u>Sociopaths look non-descript, average or attractive -- just like anybody else.</b></div>
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<b>Sociopaths come from all walks of life -- including well-educated, well-off families. Many sociopaths, therefore, have good social graces. They know how to dress and how to behave in polite society.</b></div>
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<b>This doesn't stop them from lying, cheating and stealing. On the contrary,<span style="color: #990000;"> it makes their deceptions easier</span>. Sociopaths from middle-class or privileged backgrounds often excel at white collar crime -- fraud, phony stock schemes, conning, embezzlement.</b></div>
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<u><b>Why sociopaths are hard to recognize</b></u></div>
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<b>1. They're fluent talkers (liars). Even when caught in a lie, they change their stories without skipping a beat.</b></div>
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<b>2. They're totally comfortable in social situations and cool under pressure.</b></div>
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<b>3. They use family or business connections to make themselves <u>appear </u>legitimate.</b></div>
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<b>4. They often become, or pretend to be, clergy, lawyers, physicians, teachers, counselors and artists. Most of us generally assume people in these positions are trustworthy.</b></div>
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<b>5. They're happy to exaggerate -- or fabricate -- credentials. Few of us check their references.</b></div>
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<b>6. <span style="font-size: large;">They will say absolutely anything to get what they want. The words, to them, mean absolutely nothing.</span></b></div>
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http://catinallity-cattery.info/</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com101tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-84928051121301894302022-08-01T00:17:00.000-04:002022-08-01T00:25:41.543-04:00"Get Over It"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://indowaves.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/tears_of_sadness.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://indowaves.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/tears_of_sadness.jpg" height="255" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>By Richard Zwolinski, LMHC, CASAC<br />
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Neuroscientistific research shows that our memory is strongest and lasts the longest when our emotions are heightened. This helps explain why we might remember every nuance of our wedding day or our valedictory speech in college.<br />
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<span style="color: blue;">It also holds true for our memories of traumatic events such as abuse or even one-time events such as severe accidents</span>.<br />
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Trauma and abuse seem etched in people’s memories, while “important” information, such as remembering the Capitols of the states, is more easily forgotten. Often, treatment techniques used in the treatment of PTSD (and other disorders such as depression and anxiety which are sometimes related to painful memories), assume that traumatic memories are the hardest to let go of.<br />
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Now, new research seems to show that if you really want to forget a memory—you might be able to. Researcher Gerd Waldhauser from Lund University in Sweden says that we can learn to control our memory in the same way as we can control our motor impulses.<br />
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EEG measures of the brain show that the same parts of the brain are activated when we stop our motor impulses as when we suppress a memory. Waldhauser believes that just as we can practice restraining motor impulses, we can also actively train ourselves to repress memories and maybe even forget painful or traumatic events.<br />
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In general, science says that some of our less-necessary memories are “erased” when current events or other information need new “space” in which to “write” new memories. But emotionally-charged memories (both positive and negative) seem to stubbornly hang on, and sometimes, as in the case of PTSD, haunt us.<br />
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Therapists and their clients know that painful memories can also be suppressed or repressed to the point of near-total forgetfulness. In some cases, patients might have to access these painful memories in order to come to a deeper understanding of why they feel/act the way they do. When uncovering these memories, they sometimes feel so “new” and raw that they can, in effect, be re-traumatized all over again.<br />
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Traumatized patients often have a hard time coping with everyday life, let alone the work they need to do in order to uncover and resolve painful memories. That’s why many therapists who work with victims of trauma and abuse prefer to first focus on helping the patient build coping skills before uncovering and exploring the painful past.<br />
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Not every inability to cope is linked to a traumatic memory. Sometimes many years of maladaptive conditioning and numerous instances of inappropriate messages from caregivers “build up”.<br />
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A tip about trauma, memory, and coping skills: If you are involved in any way (as a family member, friend or even therapist), with someone who seems to be “stubbornly” clinging to a painful memory, there’s a right way and a wrong way to help them.<br />
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It comes down to a fine line between gently but repeatedly encouraging someone in their efforts to build proactive coping skills and/or a more positive outlook OR telling them to “get over it” and “move on.” <span style="color: #990000;">The first is about the needs of the person who is suffering; the second is about <i>your </i>needs.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Richard Zwolinski, LMHC, CASAC is the author of <u>Therapy Revolution: Find Help, Get Better, and Move On Without Wasting Time or Money</u> and is an internationally licensed psychotherapist and addiction specialist with over 25 years experience as well as a consultant to organizations and companies in the fields of mental health and addiction.</i></span><br />
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<a href="http://blogs.psychcentral.com/therapy-soup/2011/07/dont-tell-someone-with-ptsd-to-get-over-it/">SOURCE</a></b></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-33891874085008910552022-07-03T00:02:00.000-04:002022-07-03T01:19:41.864-04:00Psychological Abuse in Intimate Relationships Increases Intensity of PTSD Symptoms<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;">
<b><a href="http://www.preemiebabies101.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/ptsd2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.preemiebabies101.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/ptsd2.jpg" height="250" width="250" /></a></b></div>
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<b>The most common forms of intimate partner violence (IPV) are sexual violence, </b></div>
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<b>sexual coercion, psychological abuse and physical abuse and each causes significant psychological problems. </b></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_843814924">The act of using pressure … to have sexual contact (physical or verbal/mental):</a><br />
<a href="http://sexualcoercionna.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/what-is-sexual-coercion/">Pressure in this case can mean physical pressure, verbal pressure or emotional pressure. Physical pressure can include hitting, kicking and slapping the victim; holding the victim down; continuing with the sexual behavior after the victim has been told to stop; and even continuing to kiss the victim as he/she tries to pull away.</a> </blockquote>
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<a href="http://sexualcoercionna.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/what-is-sexual-coercion/">Verbal pressure includes behaviors like threatening to use physical force against the victim, yelling at the victim, name calling, tricking, lying, blackmailing and badgering the victim.</a> </blockquote>
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<a href="http://sexualcoercionna.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/what-is-sexual-coercion/">Emotional pressure is used much more frequently than physical and verbal pressure and is the most subtle of all the sexual coercion tactics. Using emotional pressure includes the perpetrator convincing the victim that he/she cares more for the victim than he/she actually does, threatening a break-up, wearing the victim down by using the same tactic over and over again, making the victim feel obligated to participate in sexual acts, guilting the victim participating, utilizing peer pressure and even the perpetrator using his/her position of authority over the victim.</a></blockquote>
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<b>“Many victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) experience negative mental health outcomes including anxiety problems, substance abuse, depression, and suicidal ideation,” said Amber Norwood and Christopher Murphy of the University of Maryland. “Most notable are high rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with prevalence estimates ranging from 33% to 84%.” Yet in a relationship, not all four behaviors predict PTSD, according to a recent study conducted by Norwood and Murphy. The team theorized that because research suggests that intimate partner rape causes extreme psychological trauma, that sexual violence would be the strongest predictor of PTSD in IPV. In order to confirm their theory, the researchers interviewed 216 women who were in abusive relationships and asked them about the frequency and types of abuse that they experienced.</b></div>
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<b>The results of the study revealed similar findings to previous research, with some exceptions. “As predicted, the rate of PTSD diagnosis was higher in both the sexual coercion (56.8%) and sexual violence (63.2%) groups when compared to the no sexual abuse group (32.3%),” said the researchers. But they were surprised by some of their findings, such as the fact that psychological abuse increased PTSD symptoms much more significantly than physical violence. Overall, exposure to sexual violence and sexual coercion together did increase the presence of PTSD. But when taken as separate factors, only sexual coercion was directly linked to increased PTSD symptoms. </b></div>
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<b>“Though not hypothesized, the finding that sexual coercion (which resembles psychological abuse) is more predictive of PTSD symptoms than sexual violence (which resembles physical abuse), appears to be consistent with the overall finding that psychological abuse had the most consistent unique associations with PTSD. When all four abuse variables—physical abuse, psychological abuse, sexual coercion, and sexual violence—were examined together, only psychological abuse remained a significant unique predictor of PTSD symptoms.”</b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><b>Reference:</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><b>Norwood, A., & Murphy, C. (2011, August 22). What Forms of Abuse Correlate With PTSD Symptoms in Partners of Men Being Treated for Intimate Partner Violence?. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0025232</b></i></span></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychological-abuse-intimate-relationships-ptsd/">SOURCE</a></b></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-1140013441854682482022-06-28T00:19:00.000-04:002022-06-28T23:35:19.096-04:00Victim Blaming & Control<center>
<span style="font-size: 180%;"><a href="http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2005/11/10/on-victim-blaming-and-control/" style="font-family: arial;"><b>On victim-blaming and control</b></a></span><br />
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It's virtually a law of Internet discussion that any conversation about rape & abuse will turn into a debate about the need for women to keep themselves safe. The attitude that women have the responsibility to protect themselves from abuse is, at the most generous reading, an uncritical acceptance of the idea that men cannot be prevented from raping. At its worst, it is yet another example of the way society makes women responsible for anything men dislike. And all the while, there is no acknowledgement that </span><b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">this is just the mechanism by which sexist men can benefit from rape without themselves committing it.</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">That women are sexual beyond the ways men wish them to be disturbs a certain kind of man. The fears that once kept female sexuality in check are gradually being eroded by social change and medical advances: fear of ostracism, fear of disease, fear of unwanted pregnancy. </span><b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">But fear of rape remains, and it can be a powerful weapon.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">There was one piece of fall-out from the paratrooper incident that I didn't mention. A family member learned that I'd gone back to the camp with a couple of men for sex. He had no reason to think anything non-consensual had happened, but he was horrified all the same. He told me that my behaviour was disgusting and that I should be ashamed of myself. Friends and other family members defended his attitude by pointing out what many people in the other thread pointed out - that I'd put myself at quite some risk.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">That explanation failed to convince me. </span><b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">Disgust and shame are appropriate responses to moral wrongdoing, not foolhardy risk-taking. He was horrified that I'd allowed myself to be sexual in an unapproved way; the risk of rape was a justification, not his true motivation.</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">It shocks some people that I want sex and don't want to submit to male authority. It shocks them even more that these two desires outweigh my fear of rape, so that I dare to gratify both by picking up paratroopers in a pub. The "prudent" suggestions for keeping myself safe always boil down to giving up sex (or at least, the kind of sex I'm interested in) or submitting to male authority.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">These "solutions" might well have no effect on my risk of being raped. But even if they were guaranteed to protect me from all risk, they wouldn't be worth it. I think I'd rather be raped than spend the rest of my life turning aside from what I wanted and settling for something less. I know I'd rather take risks than allow fear of rape to control my expression of my sexuality.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">In my ideal world, men would not be tempted to commit rape. Sexual encounters would be handled with negotiation, not with one partner's insistence on getting what he wants at the expense of another. Men would respect the desires of women to control what happens to their bodies, whether they've known each other for ten minutes or ten years.</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">And in my ideal world, the fear of rape could not be used as a justification for slut-shaming.<br /><br />
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<a href="http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2005/11/10/on-victim-blaming-and-control/" style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">Posted by Nick Kiddle at Alas, a Blog</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-1125890045001778622022-06-13T00:13:00.000-04:002022-06-13T20:21:44.085-04:00Confusion Technique<center style="font-family: arial;">
<b style="color: red;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 130%;">ONE TECHNIQUE USED BY ABUSERS & SEDUCERS</span><br />
Confusion Technique</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The birth of Milton H. Erickson’s Confusion Technique: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 85%;">Milton Erickson’s Collected Papers-Volume I-pg. 259</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">"One windy day as I was on my way to attend that first formal seminar on hypnosis conducted by Clark Hull in 1923 , a man came rushing around the corner of a building and bumped hard against me as I stood bracing myself against the wind. Before he could recover his poise to speak to me, I glanced elaborately at my watch and courteously, as if he had inquired the time of day, I stated “It’s exactly 10 minutes of two,” although it was actually closer to 4:00pm, and I walked on. About a half a block away I turned and saw him still looking at me, undoubtedly still puzzled and bewildered by my remark."</span><br />
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"I continued on my way to the laboratory and began to puzzle over the total situation and to recall various times I had made similar remarks to my classmates, and acquaintances and the resulting confusion, bewilderment, and feeling of mental eagerness on their part for some comprehensible understanding. Particularly did I recall the occasion on which my physics laboratory mate had told his friends that he intended to do the second (and interesting) part of a coming experiment. I learned of this, and when we collected our experimental material and apparatus and were dividing it up into two separate piles, I told him at the crucial moment quietly but with great intensity, “THAT SPARROW REALLY FLEW TO THE RIGHT, THEN SUDDENLY FLEW LEFT, AND THEN UP, AND I JUST DON’T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT.” While he stared blankly at me, I took the equipment for the second part of the experiment and set busily to work with the equipment for the first part of the experiment. Not until the experiment was nearly completed did he break the customary silence that characterized our working together. He asked, “How come I’m doing this part? I wanted to do that part.” To this I replied simply, “It just seemed to work out naturally this way.”</blockquote>
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="color: red;">Confusion techniques are techniques that disrupt the regular pattern of a person’s conscious processing strategy, thereby enabling the development of hypnotic processes.</span></span><span style="color: #000066;"> In the therapeutic context, confusion techniques utilize whatever the client is doing to inhibit hypnosis or other therapeutic developments as the basis for inducing those developments. More precisely put, is that such hypnotic techniques are naturalistic communications which disrupt rigid mentally set patterns.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Confusion techniques are based on the following assumptions:</span><br />
<span style="color: #009900; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">1. There are many automatic and predictable patterns in a person’s behavioral processes, such as the handshake;</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #009900; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">2. Disruption of any of these patterns creates a state of uncertainty dominated by undifferentiated arousal (e.g. confusion);</span><br />
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<span style="color: #009900; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">3. Most people strongly dislike the state of uncertainty, and are hence extremely motivated to avoid them;</span><br />
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<span style="color: #009900; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">4. The arousal will increase unless the person can attribute it to something (“this happened because …”);</span><br />
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<span style="color: #009900; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">5. As uncertainty increases, so does the motivation to reduce it;</span><br />
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<span style="color: #009900; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">6. The person who is highly uncertain will typically accept the first viable way by which the uncertainty can be reduced (e.g. suggestions to drop into hypnosis).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #000066;">In accord with the utilization of these assumptions, most confusional techniques follow the basic steps listed below:</span><br />
<br />
</span><span style="color: #009900; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">a) Identify pattern(s) of expression - identify a regular pattern such as a handshake, or a particular idiosyncratic pattern of the individuals, such as fiddling with the hair when nervous.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #009900; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">b) Align with the pattern - this involves pacing the client until the appropriate context arises. The application of rapport and respect is critical in this step to prevent the client from pulling away from the hypnotherapist.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #009900; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">c) Introduce confusion via interrupting or overloading the pattern - interruptions should be short and quick, usually entailing a few interruption patterns, e.g. the handshake induction involves, initial fluctuation of sensations upon the hand, followed by the lifting of the wrist with the opposite hand, a ghostly wondering look in the eyes followed with an imperceptible release of the hand being shook. This, in turn, should provide a bewilderment and uncertainty to be further utilized.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #009900; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">d) Amplify the confusion - once uncertainty is produced in the subject, the hypnotherapist continues to act in a completely congruent and meaningful way, which amplifies the client's confusion.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #009900; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">e) Utilize the confusion - at this point the client is willing to accept any simple suggestion to reduce or eliminate the confusion, at which time the hypnotherapist can simply state "That's right … go deeply into trance … now … John."</span><br />
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<span style="color: #3333ff; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Clinical Applications of Confusion Techniques:</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">An Ericksonian hypnotherapist uses confusion to support the person by creating an opportunity to disengage from the rigid limits of normal ways of being and experience the "Self", in more nurturing ways. Confusion techniques can liberate a person from a false and limiting identity.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The hypnotherapist must develop, maintain, and communicate a belief that the client is an intelligent, capable, and unique individual deserving the utmost respect, and that the intent of hypnotic communication is to support the person.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Confusion should usually be introduced gradually, after rapport has been established with the client, perhaps after the 2nd or 3rd sessions. The hypnotherapist should establish that his intent is to fully respect and protect the client’s needs and values while stimulating his ability and desire to develop the desired changes. The hypnotherapist should also make clear that fulfilling these intentions will require that he communicates in a variety of ways, one of them being confusion.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">In some circumstances, confusion techniques should not be used. This particularly applies to those already deeply confused, such as suicidal individuals, and people in grieving. With these people, confusion is already present – the hypnotherapist only needs to utilize it.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The client’s processes should be the basis for selecting or developing confusion techniques. The general utilization principle that "whatever a person is doing is exactly that which will allow trance to develop", can help the hypnotherapist realize what type of confusion technique might work, and how and when it should be applied.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #3333ff; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Key elements & workings of Confusion Techniques:</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The various forms of confusion techniques developed are based on the assumption that, as humans, we require understanding, and somewhat of a comprehension to what we experience, otherwise we tend to shut down and go inside, in order to possibly make sense of the confusing occurrence.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">There are various techniques employed to do this, such as the handshake induction, pantomime, shock, and various forms of verbal techniques.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The handshake induction employs the method of confusion via a pattern interrupt. Any specific pattern, which has been learned and requires a sequence of steps from beginning to end, if interrupted causes a momentary point of confusion. The key to its use is via the operator catching the moment, and offering a simple suggestion such as, “Now, Alice…just drop … deeply into trance”. Given such an understandable, easy point of direction, the confused individual accepts the suggestion and follows it.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">When employing the confusion technique verbally, steps are taken via verbal wording to overload the subject’s mental abilities. This can be done using a play on words such as “knows, nose, nos”. Furthermore, irrelevancies and nonsequiturs can also be employed to achieve the desired results.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Considerations when providing suggestions for confusion to set in are that the operator speaks in a casual, but earnest manner conveying an intent, and expectation of understanding. A steady flow of language with only enough pauses for the subject to almost begin a reply, yet constantly interrupted with new trains of thought.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Eventually the play with words becomes confusing, distracting, and inhibiting, which causes the subject to develop a need for some form of communication which can be readily comprehended, and easily responded to.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #000066;">Thus, </span><span style="color: red;">“the Confusion Technique is a play on words or communication of some sort that introduces progressively an element of confusion into the question of what is meant, thereby leading to an inhibition of response called for but not allowed to be manifested and hence to an accumulating need to respond”.</span> <span style="color: #000066;">“The culmination occurs in a final suggestion permitting a ready and easy response satisfying to the subject, and validated by each subject’s own, though perhaps unrecognized on a conscious level, of experiential learnings”.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Milton’s Confusion Technique as printed in “The Collected Papers”,<br />
Volume I pgs. 258, 259"</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"></span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"It is primarily a verbal technique, although pantomime can be used for confusional purposes as well as for communication. As a verbal technique, the Confusion Technique is based upon plays upon words, an involved example of which can be readily understood by the reader but not by the listener, such as “Write right right, not wright or write.” Spoken to attentive listeners with complete earnestness, a burden of constructing a meaning is placed upon them, and before they can reject it, another statement can be made to hold their attention. This play on words can be illustrated in another fashion by the statement that a man lost his left hand in an accident and thus his right (hand) is his left. Thus two words with opposite meanings are used correctly to describe a single object, in this instance the remaining hand. Then too, use is made of tenses to keep the subject in a state of constant endeavor to sort out the intended meaning. For example one may declare so easily that "the PRESENT and the PAST can be so readily summarized by the simple statement, “That which now IS WILL soon be WAS yesterday’s FUTURE even as it WILL BE tomorrow’s WAS.” Thus are the past, the present, and the future all used in reference to the reality of “today”.</span></blockquote>
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"></span><span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #000066;">The next item in the Confusion Technique is the </span><span style="color: red;">employment of irrelevancies and non sequiturs, EACH OF WHICH TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT appears to be a sound and sensible communication (i.e. - schizophasia or "word salad").</span> <span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="color: red;">Taken IN CONTEXT they are confusing, distracting, and inhibiting and lead progressively to the subjects’ earnest desire for an actual need to receive some communication which, in their increasing state of frustration, they can readily comprehend and to which they can easily make a response.</span></span> <span style="color: #000066;">It is in many ways an adaptation of common everyday behavior, particularly seen in the field of humor, a form of humor this author has employed since childhood.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">A primary consideration in the use of a Confusion Technique is the consistent maintenance of a general casual but definitely interested attitude and speaking in a gravely earnest, intent manner expressive of a certain, utterly complete expectation of their understanding of what is being said or done together with an extremely careful shifting of tenses employed<span style="color: #000066;">. </span></span><span style="color: #000066;">Also of great importance is a ready flow of language, rapid for the fast thinker, slower for the slower minded, but always being careful to give a little time for a response but never quite sufficient. Thus the subjects are led almost to begin a response, are frustrated in this by then being presented with the next idea, and the whole process is repeated with a continued development of a state of inhibition, leading to confusion and a growing need to receive a clear-cut, comprehensible communication to which they CAN MAKE a ready and full response."</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #3333ff; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Values of Confusion Techniques:</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The values of the confusion technique are twofold. In experimental work it serves excellently to teach experimenter's a facility in the use of words, a mental agility in shifting their habitual patterns of thought, and allows them to make adequate allowances for the problems involved in keeping the subjects attentive and responsive. Also it allows experimenters to learn to recognize and to understand the minimal cues of behavioral changes within the subject. A final value is that long and frequent use of the confusion technique has many times effected exceedingly rapid hypnotic inductions under unfavorable conditions such as acute pain of terminal malignant disease and in persons interested but hostile, aggressive, and resistant.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The following was used by Milton Erickson on two separate accounts with different patients. Italicized words indicate tonal markings. “The Collected Papers”, Volume I pgs. 285, 286"</span><br />
<blockquote style="color: #000066; font-family: arial; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">
"You know and I know and the doctors you know know that there is one answer that you know that you don't want to know and that I know but don't want to know, that your family knows but doesn't want to know, no matter how much you want to say no, you know that the no is really a yes, and you wish it could be a good yes and so do you know that what you and your family know is yes, yet they still wish it were no. And just as you wish there were no pain, you know that there is but what you don't know is no pain is something you can know . And no matter what you knew no pain would be better than what you know and of course what you want to know is no pain and that is what you are going to know, no pain. [All of this is said slowly but with utter intensity and with seemingly total disregard of any interruption of cries of pain or admonitions of "Shut up".] Esther [John, Dick, Harry, or Evangeline, some family member or friend] knows pain and knows no pain and so do you wish to know no pain but comfort and you do know comfort and no pain and as comfort increases you know that you cannot say no to ease and comfort but you can say no pain and know no pain but you can say no pain and know no pain but know comfort and ease and it is so good to know comfort and ease and relaxation and to know it now and later and still longer and longer as more and more relaxation occurs and to know it now and later and still longer and longer as more and more and more relaxation and wonderment and surprise come to your mind as you begin to know a freedom and a comfort you have so greatly desired and as you feel it grow and grow you know, really know, that today, to-night, tomorrow, all next week and all next month, and at Esther's [John's] 16th birthday, and what a time that was, and those wonderful feelings that you had then seem almost as clear as if they were today and the memory of every good thing is a glorious thing "… (IF YOU THINK THAT WAS TOUGH, YOU SHOULD TRY RE-TYPING IT WITH ONE FINGER)</blockquote>
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">One can improvise indefinitely, but the slow, impressing, utterly intense, and quietly, softly emphatic way in which these plays on words and the unobtrusive introduction of new ideas, old happy memories, feelings of comfort, ease, and relaxation as presented usually results in an arrest of the patient's attention, rigid fixation of the eyes, the development of physical immobility, even catalepsy and of an intense desire to understand what the author so gravely and so earnestly is saying to them that their attention is sooner or later captured completely. Then with equal care the operator demonstrates a complete loss of fear, concern, of worry about negative words by introducing them as if to explain but actually to make further helpful suggestions.</span><br />
<blockquote style="color: #000066; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">
"And now you have forgotten something, just as we all forget many things, good and bad, especially the bad because the good are good to remember and you can remember comfort and ease and relaxation and restful sleep and now you know that you need no pain and it is good to know no pain and good to remember, always to remember, that in many places, here, there, everywhere you have been at ease and comfortable and now that you know this, you know that no pain is needed but that you do need to know all there is to know about ease and comfort and relaxation and numbness and dissociation and the redirection of thought and mental energies and to know and know fully all that will give you freedom to know your family and all that they are doing and to enjoy unimpeded the pleasures of being with them with all the comfort and pleasure that is possible for as long as possible and this is what you are going to do."</blockquote>
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"Usually the patients' attention can be captured in about five minutes, but one may have to continue for an hour or even longer. Also, and very important, one uses words that the patients understands. Both of the above patients were college graduates.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">When such cases are referred to me, I make a practice of getting preliminary information of personality type, history, interests, education, and attitude, and then in longhand I write out a general outline of the order and frequency with which these special items of fact are worked into the endless flow of words delivered with such earnestness of manner.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Once the patients begin to develop a light trance, I speed the process more rapidly by jumping steps, yet retaining my right to mention pain so that patients know that I do not fear to name it and that I am utterly confident that they will lose it because of my ease and freedom in naming it, usually in a context negating pain in favor of absence of diminution or transformation of pain.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #000099;">Then one should bear in mind that t</span><span style="color: red;">hese patients are highly motivated, that their disinterest, antagonism, belligerence, and disbelief are actually allies in bringing about the eventful results,</span> <span style="color: #000066;">nor does this author ever hesitate to utilize what is offered. The angry, belligerent man can strike a blow that hurts his head and not notice it, the disbeliever closes his mind to exclude a boring dissertation, but that excludes the pain to, and from this there develops unwittingly in the patients a different state of inner orientation, highly conducive to hypnosis and receptive to any hypnotic suggestion that meets their needs; sensibly one always inserts the hypnotic suggestion that if ever the pain should come back enough to need medication, the relief from one or two tablets of aspirin will be sufficient. "And if any real emergency ever develops, a hypo will work far greater success than ever." Sometimes sterile water will suffice."</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-88954333812590938332022-06-04T00:41:00.000-04:002022-06-04T01:11:10.376-04:00INVALIDATION<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/e0/ff/c5/e0ffc50b54965f7c5a8e78f810ff10ad.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/e0/ff/c5/e0ffc50b54965f7c5a8e78f810ff10ad.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b>Invalidation denies the importance of your experiences, your feelings, your thoughts, your wisdom, and even your existence.</b></div>
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<b>Invalidation. It takes many forms, but the person doing it is always communicating the same thing — your needs don’t matter!</b></div>
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<b>People who invalidate you don’t want you to feel and think what you feel and think. They want you to feel and think what they do. It’s an imposition, an annoyance, or something else undesirable when you don’t.</b></div>
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<b>Dysfunctional, toxic and abusive people are champion invalidators.</b></div>
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<b>A father’s 3-year old son has gotten hurt skinning his knee on the sidewalk, and the father instantly pulls his bawling child up by the hand, exclaiming, “It’s not bad, you’re not hurt, what are you crying for? Look, it’s only a scrape, get up!”</b></div>
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<b>But his son IS hurt, twice — once, physically, by falling, and again, by being denied his legitimate feelings by his father, the person whose job it is to teach him that his feelings always matter. Later in life, when the child becomes a man and marries a woman whose expectations of him are unreasonable and who calls him a baby if he complains, it is a reflection of his father’s bad parenting.</b></div>
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<b>Children’s – and everyone’s – feelings are always legitimate. The feelings may be difficult to fully understand, however, if enough listening is done instead of merely trying to stuff down the unwanted feelings, the reasons make themselves known and can be addressed and healed, not just hidden.</b></div>
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<b>Invalidation often takes the form of being told that you should not feel as strongly as you do. Other times, you’ll be told that your concerns are nothing to worry about. Some common invalidating statements are:</b></div>
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<b>“You’re oversensitive” </b></div>
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<b>“What are you crying about?” </b></div>
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<b>“Everything’s fine!” </b></div>
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<b>“Oh, you poor baby!” </b></div>
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<b>“Get over it!” </b></div>
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<b>“What’s the matter NOW???” </b></div>
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<b>“So WHAT!”</b></div>
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<b>Your wishes may also be ignored in favor of the other person’s preferences. You may feel as if you don’t have an equal voice in the relationship or in what takes place. When you explain that being ignored makes you unhappy, you’ll be made to feel as if your concerns aren’t legitimate, and you should be ashamed of yourself for making life difficult for the invalidator.</b></div>
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<b>Getting invalidators to truly hear you out isn’t easy, and in many cases, is impossible. If nothing else, remember that your feelings – no matter what they are – always have a legitimate reason, and are there for a real and important purpose. You may experience invalidation by someone else, but you can practice what mentally healthy people do all the time – know that all feelings always matter, even when some people don’t understand them, and always, always… validate yourself.</b></div>
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<b><a href="http://lightshouse.org/lights-blog/toxic-people-and-psychological-invalidation" target="_blank">FROM THIS FANTASTIC BLOG - CLICK HERE</a> </b></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-91214566712263656742022-06-02T00:19:00.001-04:002022-06-02T02:19:00.662-04:00Emotional Abuse or Am I Going Crazy?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ_sBcQh31yCc_EYTFrRIJ9hXt-kwjhsBqqnP8S3H8qE9-o9paq5jYBHvqjfs-T2CKcdXl3VBbcfNWXAdgGwB-jWDEmlDD7M9VT-3LZFW4Eaf2XEHx7innzDfnKcrfHFiIlzArcw/s1600-h/emotionalabuse.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161476904735596450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ_sBcQh31yCc_EYTFrRIJ9hXt-kwjhsBqqnP8S3H8qE9-o9paq5jYBHvqjfs-T2CKcdXl3VBbcfNWXAdgGwB-jWDEmlDD7M9VT-3LZFW4Eaf2XEHx7innzDfnKcrfHFiIlzArcw/s200/emotionalabuse.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><span style="color: #000099; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The blows of physical or sexual abuse are oftentimes obvious. Broken bones, bruises, and lacerations leave scars as evidence. Yet worst of all are the scars of emotional abuse - nearly invisible to the naked eye. Unfortunately, these can be more caustic, long-lasting, and life-altering than those left by any other type of abuse and the psychological damage the most profound.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000099; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">What is emotional abuse? Sometimes called "Ambient Abuse," it is an extremely subtle form of control and manipulation that may go unrecognized for months or years – many times even by those on the receiving end – at least until it is too late. By the time the victim is aware of the actual abusive behaviors, she has oftentimes become a bundle of nerves and finds it difficult to see her way off the emotional roller coaster ride she’s stuck on. Worse yet, she can’t even explain what’s happening to her, and in some cases, she may actually think she is going crazy; struggling with anxiety, depression, fear, or eventually – apathy. She may quit doing anything, for fear of doing it "wrong" - at least according to the controller in her life.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000099; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Abusers and controllers may start out using little digs like, "Honey, everyone knows that you do it this way …," as just another way to say, "How stupid are you that you don’t know this?" Constant criticism becomes part of the game. "You are too fat, dumb, ugly," or even, "I wish I had that abortion instead of having you!" These are all ammunition in emotional abuse.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000099; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Even teasing can be abusive, for it frequently has some truth at its core. Jane lives in a marriage where her husband’s teasing-type cuts are constant. "The Ayatollah says dinner is ready," he announces regularly whenever they have guests. He thinks it’s funny. She certainly doesn’t. And what are we, the guests supposed to think – that he is paying her a compliment? Absolutely not. I don’t care how much he smiles or laughs when he throws it out there – it is meant to wound. And she knows it. And he knows that she knows it.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000099; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Emotional abuse may take the form of the controller limiting the "victim’s" outside contacts. "You don’t need anybody but me," he may remind you constantly, and can actually get angry if you spend time with your friends or family, even on the phone. The more he can lock you away from your external support systems, the more he locks you in his boxx of control.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000099; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Deanna’s husband tells her what time she can go to bed, what she is allowed to eat, and just how long she’d better be gone when she goes out to do errands. He never gives her a birthday or Christmas gift. He threatens to kill her and hide her car if she doesn’t obey him. He makes her recite each day that she is worthless – that he will tell her what she is worth, what she can and can’t do, and who she is allowed to see when. This is obviously extreme emotional abuse.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000099; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Unfortunately, all these situations may seem extremely difficult to escape for the victim. The brainwashing of weeks, months, and years of constant demeaning remarks are meant to make her feel worthless and as though no one else in the world could love her. Thus, her fear of leaving exceeds the fear of staying, and even worse – many times she blames herself for all that is wrong. Guilt becomes her constant companion. Leaving seems impossible. And besides, it’s "not that bad." For if it were, there would certainly be broken bones to prove it. Or so she believes.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000099; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">If you find yourself trapped in the boxx of emotional abuse, it’s important to know you CAN escape! The long-term emotional damage caused by this type of situation will affect your physical as well as your mental health – and that of your children. While there may not be laws protecting you from the constant verbal attacks, you do have the ability to recognize it for what it is – definitely NOT something that goes hand-in-hand with a loving relationship. Furthermore, teaching your children that this is an acceptable behavior only leads them to believe that emotional abuse is an acceptable part of a normal relationship. Would you wish this for your child? Or your grandchild?</span><br />
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<blockquote><span style="color: #000099; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 85%; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Mary Jo Fay is a speaker and writer. Her latest book is called, "When Your Perfect Partner Goes Perfectly Wrong – Loving or Leaving the Narcissist in Your Life." </span><a href="http://www.outoftheboxx.com/" style="color: #000099; font-family: arial; font-size: 85%; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">http://www.outoftheboxx.com</a></blockquote>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: 85%; font-weight: bold;">FACEBOOK GROUP: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/125163764176530/" target="_blank">VICTIMS OF NARCISSISTS</a></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 85%; font-weight: bold;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="color: blue;">(the above group does <u>not </u>allow any discussions involving the children or parenting issues) </span></span></span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com83tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-1113105610742853982022-05-25T00:43:00.000-04:002022-05-25T21:17:47.394-04:00How Narcisissts & Psychopaths Do It<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Whether consciously or unconciously - this is their "playbook" on how they reel in their victims and keep them in.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><b><span style="color: red;">THE ART OF SEDUCTION</span></b></span></center>
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">by Robert Greene</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">PART TWO</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">1-CHOOSE THE RIGHT VICTIM</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Everything depends on the target of your seduction. Study your prey thoroughly, and choose only those who will prove susceptible to your charms. The right victims are those for whom you can fill a void, who see in you something exotic. They are often isolated or at least somewhat unhappy (perhaps because of recent adverse circumstances), or can easily be made so-for the completely contented person is almost impossible to seduce. The perfect victim has some natural quality that attracts you. The strong emotions this quality inspires will help make your seductive maneuvers seem more natural and dynamic. The perfect victim allows for the perfect chase.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">2-CREATE A FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY- APPROACH INDIRECTLY</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">If you are too direct early on, you risk stirring up a resistance that will never be lowered. At first there must be nothing of the seducer in your manner. The seduction should begin at an angle, indirectly, so that the target only gradually becomes aware of you. Haunt the periphery of your target's life-approach through a third party, or seem to cultivate a relatively neutral relationship, moving gradually from friend to lover. Arrange an occasional "chance" encounter, as if you and your target were destined to become acquainted-nothing is more seductive than a sense of destiny. Lull the target into feeling secure, then strike.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">3-SEND MIXED SIGNALS</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Once people are aware of your presence, and perhaps vaguely intrigued, you need to stir their interest before it settles on someone else. What is obvious and striking may attract their attention at first, but that attention is often short-lived; in the long run, ambiguity is much more potent. Most of us are much too obvious-instead, be hard to figure out. Send mixed signals: both tough and tender, both spiritual and earthy, both innocent and cunning. A mix of qualities suggests depth, which fascinates even as it confuses. An elusive, enigmatic aura will make people want to know more, drawing them into your circle. Create such a power by hinting at something contradictory within you. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">4-APPEAR TO BE AN OBJECT OF DESIRE- CREATE TRIANGLES</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Few are drawn to the person whom others avoid or neglect; people gather around those who have already attracted interest. We want what other people want. To draw your victims closer and make them hungry to possess you, you must create an aura of desirability-of being wanted and courted by many. It will become a point of vanity for them to be the preferred object of your attention, to win you away from a crowd of admirers. Manufacture the illusion of popularity by surrounding yourself with members of the opposite sex-friends, former lovers, present suitors. Create triangles that stimulate rivalry and raise your value. Build a reputation that precedes you: if many have succumbed to your charms, there must be a reason.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">5-CREATE A NEED: STIR ANXIETY AND DISCONTENT</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">A perfectly satisfied person cannot be seduced. Tension and disharmony must be instilled in your targets' minds. Stir within them feelings of discontent, an unhappiness with their circumstances and with themselves: their life lacks adventure, they have strayed from the ideals of their youth, they have become boring. The feelings of inadequacy that you create will give you space to insinuate yourself, to make them see you as the answer to their problems. Pain and anxiety are the proper precursors to pleasure. Learn to manufacture the need that you can fill.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">6-MASTER THE ART OF INSINUATION</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Making your targets feel dissatisfied and in need of your attention is essential, but if you are too obvious, they will see through you and grow defensive. There is no known defense, however, against insinuation-the art of planting ideas in people's minds by dropping elusive hints that take root days later, even appearing to them as their own idea. Insinuation is the supreme means of influencing people. Create a sublanguage-bold statements followed by retraction and apology, ambiguous comments, banal talk combined with alluring glances-that enters the target's unconscious to convey your real meaning. Make everything suggestive.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">7-ENTER THEIR SPIRIT</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Most people are locked in their own worlds, making them stubborn and hard to persuade. The way to lure them out of their shell and set up your seduction is to enter their spirit. Play by their rules, enjoy what they enjoy, adapt yourself to their moods. In doing so you will stroke their deep-rooted narcissism and lower their defenses. Hypnotized by the mirror image you present, they will open up, becoming vulnerable to your subtle influence. Soon you can shift the dynamic: once you have entered their spirit you can make them enter yours, at a point when it is too late to turn back. Indulge your targets' every mood and whim, giving them nothing to react against or resist.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">8-CREATE TEMPTATION</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Lure the target deep into your seduction by creating the proper temptation: a glimpse of the pleasures to come. As the serpent tempted Eve with the promise of forbidden knowledge, you must awaken a desire in your targets that they cannot control. Find that weakness of theirs, that fantasy that has yet to be realized, and hint that you can lead them toward it. It could be wealth, it could be adventure, it could be forbidden and guilty pleasures; the key is to keep it vague. Dangle the prize before their eyes, postponing satisfaction, and let their minds do the rest. The future seems ripe with possibility. Stimulate a curiosity stronger than the doubts and anxieties that go with it, and they will follow you.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">9-KEEP THEM IN SUSPENSE- WHAT COMES NEXT?</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The moment people feel they know what to expect from you, your spell on them is broken. More: you have ceded them power. The only way to lead the seduced along and keep the upper hand is to create suspense, a calculated surprise. People love a mystery, and this is the key to luring them farther into your web. Behave in a way that leaves them wondering, What are you up to? Doing something they do not expect from you will give them a delightful sense of spontaneity-they will not be able to foresee what comes next. You are always one step ahead and in control. Give the victim a thrill with a sudden change of direction.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">10-USE THE DEMONIC POWER OF WORDS TO SOW CONFUSION</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">It is hard to make people listen; they are consumed with their own thoughts and desires, and have little time for yours. The trick to making them listen is to say what they want to hear, to fill their ears with whatever is pleasant to them. This is the essence of seductive language. Inflame people's emotions with loaded phrases, flatter them, comfort their insecurities, envelop them in fantasies, sweet words, and promises, and not only will they listen to you, they will lose their will to resist you. Keep your language vague, letting them read into it what they want. Use writing to stir up fantasies and to create an idealized portrait of yourself.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">11-PAY ATTENTION TO DETAIL</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Lofty words and grand gestures can be suspicious: why are you trying so hard to please? The details of a seduction-the subtle gestures, the offhand things you do-are often more charming and revealing. You must learn to distract your victims with a myriad of pleasant little rituals-thoughtful gifts tailored just for them, clothes and adornments designed to please them, gestures that show the time and attention you are paying them. All of their senses are engaged in the details you orchestrate. Create spectacles to dazzle their eyes; mesmerized by what they see, they will not notice what you are really up to. Learn to suggest the proper feelings and moods through details.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">12-POETICIZE YOUR PRESENCE</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Important things happen when your targets are alone: the slightest feeling of relief that you are not there, and it is all over. Familiarity and overexposure will cause this reaction. Remain elusive, then, so that when you are away, they will yearn to see you again, and will only associate you with pleasant thoughts. Occupy their minds by alternating an exciting presence with a cool distance, exuberant moments followed by calculated absences. Associate yourself with poetic images and objects, so that when they think of you, they begin to see you through an idealized halo. The more you figure in their minds, the more they will envelop you in seductive fantasies. Feed these fantasies by subtle inconsistencies and changes in your behavior.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">13-DISARM THROUGH STRATEGIC WEAKNESS AND VULNERABILITY</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Too much maneuvering on your part may raise suspicion. The best way to cover your tracks is to make the other person feel superior and stronger. If you seem to be weak, vulnerable, enthralled by the other person, and unable to control yourself, you will make your actions look more natural, less calculated. Physical weakness-tears, bashfulness, paleness-will help create the effect. To further win trust, exchange honesty for virtue: establish your "sincerity" by confessing some sin on your part-it doesn't have to be real. Sincerity is more important than goodness. Play the victim, then transform your target's sympathy into love.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">14-CONFUSE DESIRE & REALITY: THE PERFECT ILLUSION</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">To compensate for the difficulties in their lives, people spend a lot of their time daydreaming, imagining a future full of adventure, success, and romance. If you can create the illusion that through you they can live out their dreams, you will have them at your mercy. It is important to start slowly, gaining their trust, and gradually constructing the fantasy that matches their desires. Aim at secret wishes that have been thwarted or repressed, stirring up uncontrollable emotions, clouding their powers of reason. The perfect illusion is one that does not depart too much from reality, but has a touch of the unreal to it, like a waking dream. Lead the seduced to a point of confusion in which they can no longer tell the difference between illusion and reality.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">15-ISOLATE THE VICTIM</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">An isolated person is weak. By slowly isolating your victims, you make them more vulnerable to your influence. Their isolation may be psychological: by filling their field of vision through the pleasurable attention you pay them, you crowd out everything else in their mind. They see and think only of you. The isolation may also be physical: you take them away from their normal milieu, friends, family, home. Give them the sense of being marginalized, in limbo-they are leaving one world behind and entering another. Once isolated like this, they have no outside support, and in their confusion they are easily lead astray. Lure the seduced into your lair, where nothing is familiar.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">16-PROVE YOURSELF</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Most people want to be seduced. If they resist your efforts, it is probably because you have not gone far enough to allay their doubts-about your motives, the depth of your feelings, and so on. One well-timed action that shows how far you are willing to go to win them over will dispel their doubts. Do not worry about looking foolish or making a mistake-any kind of deed that is self-sacrificing and for your targets' sake will so overwhelm their emotions, they won't notice anything else. Never appear discouraged by people's resistance, or complain. Instead, meet the challenge by doing something extreme or chivalrous. Conversely, spur others to prove themselves by making yourself hard to reach, unattainable, worth fighting over.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">17-EFFECT A REGRESSION</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">People who have experienced a certain kind of pleasure in the past will try to repeat or relive it. The deepest-rooted and most pleasurable memories are usually those from earliest childhood, and are often unconsciously associated with a parental figure. Bring your targets back to that point by placing yourself in the oedipal triangle and positioning them as the needy child. Unaware of the cause of their emotional response, they will fall in love with you. Alternatively, you too can regress, letting them play the role of the protecting, nursing parent. In either case you are offering the ultimate fantasy: the chance to have an intimate relationship with mommy or daddy, son or daughter.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">18-STIR UP THE TRANSGRESSIVE & TABOO</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">There are always social limits on what one can do. Some of these, the most elemental taboos, go back centuries; others are more superficial, simply defining polite and acceptable behavior. Making your targets feel that you are leading them past either kind of limit is immensely seductive. People yearn to explore their dark side. Not everything in romantic love is supposed to be tender and soft; hint that you have a cruel, even sadistic streak. You do not respect age differences, marriage vows, family ties. Once the desire to transgress draws your targets to you, it will be hard for them to stop. Take them farther than they imagined-the shared feeling of guilt and complicity will create a powerful bond.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">19-USE SPIRITUAL LURES</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Everyone has doubts and insecurities-about their body, their self-worth, their sexuality. If your seduction appeals exclusively to the physical, you will stir up these doubts and make your targets self-conscious. Instead, lure them out of their insecurities by making them focus on something sublime and spiritual: a religious experience, a lofty work of art, the occult. Play up your divine qualities; affect an air of discontent with worldly things; speak of the stars, destiny, the hidden threads that unite you and the object of the seduction. Lost in a spiritual mist, the target will feel light and uninhibited. Deepen the effect of your seduction by making its sexual culmination seem like the spiritual union of two souls. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">20-MIX PLEASURE WITH PAIN</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The greatest mistake in seduction is being too nice. At first, perhaps, your kindness is charming, but it soon grows monotonous; you are trying too hard to please, and seem insecure. Instead of overwhelming your targets with niceness, try inflicting some pain. Lure them in with focused attention, then change direction, appearing suddenly uninterested. Make them guilty and insecure. Even instigate a breakup, subjecting them to an emptiness and pain that will give you room to maneuver-now a rapprochement, an apology, a return to your earlier kindness, will turn them weak at the knees. The lower the lows you create, the greater the highs. To heighten the erotic charge, create the excitement of fear.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">21-GIVE THEM SPACE TO FALL: THE PURSUER IS PURSUED</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">If your targets become too used to you as the aggressor, they will give less of their own energy, and the tension will slacken. You need to wake them up, turn the tables. Once they are under your spell, take a step back and they will start to come after you. Begin with a touch of aloofness, an unexpected nonappearance, a hint that you are growing bored. Stir the pot by seeming interested in someone else. Make none of this explicit; let them only sense it and their imagination will do the rest, creating the doubt you desire. Soon they will want to possess you physically, and restraint will go out the window. The goal is to have them fall into your arms of their own will. Create the illusion that the seducer is being seduced.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">22-USE PHYSICAL LURES</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Targets with active minds are dangerous: if they see through your manipulations, they may suddenly develop doubts. Put their minds gently to rest, and waken their dormant senses, by combining a non-defensive attitude with a charged sexual presence. While your cool, nonchalant air is calming their minds and lowering their inhibitions, your glances, voice, and bearing-oozing sex and desire-are getting under their skin, agitating their senses and raising their temperature. Never force the physical; instead infect your targets with heat, lure them into lust. Lead them into the moment-an intensified present in which morality, judgment, and concern for the future all melt away and the body succumbs to pleasure.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">23-MASTER THE ART OF THE BOLD MOVE</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">A moment has arrived: your victim clearly desires you, but is not ready to admit it openly, let alone act on it. This is the time to throw aside chivalry, kindness, and coquetry and to overwhelm with a bold move. Don't give the victim time to consider the consequences; and create conflict, stir up tension, so that the bold move comes as a great release. Showing hesitation or awkwardness means you are thinking of yourself, as opposed to being overwhelmed by the victim's charms. Never hold back or meet the target halfway, under the belief that you are being correct and considerate; you must be seductive now, not political. One person must go on the offensive, and it is you.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">24-BEWARE THE AFTEREFFECTS</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Danger follows in the aftermath of a successful seduction. After emotions have reached a pitch, they often swing in the opposite direction-toward lassitude, distrust, disappointment. Beware of the long, drawn-out goodbye; insecure, the victim will cling and claw, and both sides will suffer. If you are to part, make the sacrifice swift and sudden. If necessary, deliberately break the spell you have created. If you are to stay in a relationship, beware a flagging of energy, a creeping familiarity that will spoil the fantasy. If the game is to go on, a second seduction is required. Never let the other person take you for granted-use absence, create pain and conflict, to keep the seduced on tenterhooks. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">APPENDIX A:</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">SEDUCTIVE ENVIRONMENTS/ SEDUCTIVE TIME</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">In seduction, your victims must slowly come to feel an inner change. Under your influence, they lower their defenses, feeling free to act differently, to be a different person. Certain places, environments, and experiences will greatly aid you in your quest to change and transform the seduced. Spaces with a theatrical, heightened quality-opulence, glittering surfaces, a playful spirit-create a buoyant, childlike feeling that make it hard for the victim to think straight. The creation of an altered sense of time has a similar effect-memorable, dizzying moments that stand out, a mood of festival and play. You must make your victims feel that being with you gives them a different experience from being in the real world.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">APPENDIX B</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">SOFT SEDUCTION: HOW TO SELL ANYTHING TO THE MASSES</span><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The less you seem to be selling something-including yourself-the better. By being too obvious in your pitch, you will raise suspicion; you will also bore your audience, an unforgivable sin. Instead, make your approach soft, seductive and insidious. Soft: be indirect. Create news and events for the media to pick up, spreading your name in a way that seems spontaneous, not hard or calculated. Seductive: keep it entertaining.<br />
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Your name and image are bathed in positive associations; you are selling pleasure and promise. Insidious: aim at the unconscious, using images that linger in the mind, placing your message in the visuals. Frame what you are selling as part of a new trend, and it will become one. It is almost impossible to resist the soft seduction.</span><b style="color: #000066; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #6600cc;"></span></b><br />
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<a href="http://www.seducersworld.com/" style="color: #000066; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">SEDUCERS WORLD</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-19846201349103329692022-05-06T00:00:00.000-04:002022-05-06T00:14:53.705-04:00Narcissistic Mothers<b><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>By Cyndi Lopez </i></span></b><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>
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<b><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i>I do not love; I do not love anybody except myself. That is a rather shocking thing to admit. I have none of the selfless love of my mother. I have none of the plodding, practical love. . . I am, to be blunt and concise, in love only with myself, my puny being with its small inadequate breasts and meager, thin talents. I am capable of affection for those who reflect my own world.</i> – Sylvia Plath</span></b></blockquote>
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<b><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">There is a special place in hell for narcissistic mothers. Ms. Plath herself indulged in the ultimate narcissistic act when she committed suicide by sticking her head in the oven while her two young children were asleep in the same apartment. How thoughtful of her to have sealed off their rooms with towels so that the fumes wouldn’t consume them too. She needed someone to live on to remember her and care that she was gone.</span></b><br />
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<b><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Narcissistic mothers do not have children for the same reasons the rest of us do. They do not look forward to the birth of their child because they can’t wait to see what they look like or what type of personality they will have or who they will become. No, they have children for one reason only: More mirrors. They have children so that the children will love them unconditionally, not the other way around. They have children to do things for them. They have children to reflect their false images. They have children to use, abuse and control them.</span></b><br />
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<b><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">They don’t see their role as a mother as life’s biggest gift. It’s a burden they didn’t expect. They thought they were creating little “mini-me’s.” They didn’t take into account the fact that somewhere around age 2, these spiteful, ungrateful (in their minds) little creatures start to develop their own individual personalities and wills of their own. For the rest of us, that’s the best part of being a mom — watching our children grow into increasingly independent, confident, free-thinking individuals. For the narcissistic mother, each step away from her is an absolute act of betrayal.</span></b><br />
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<b><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Children have emotions that they express quite freely. This annoying practice is squashed as early as possible since narcissists cannot handle emotions. “What is wrong with you?” and “You’re so oversensitive” and “You’re overreacting” are common phrases uttered to children of narcissists.</span></b><br />
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<b><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">These mothers end up resenting all the work that goes into raising a child, having no use for them unless they are achieving, doing something or otherwise reflecting their false image onto them. Children are a nuisance to them, taking precious time away from their own agendas. They don’t like to have to shop for clothes for their children, prepare meals for them, do their laundry, pay for daycare, enroll them in activities, drive them to friends’ houses, throw birthday parties, pay for their college educations or protect them from abuse.</span></b><br />
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<b><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">They will smother and overprotect their children under the guise that they are taking care of them. They will fail to provide age-appropriate information on such things as menstruation, personal grooming (make-up, hairstyles, shaving, etc.), budgeting money and dating. This all serves to keep her children under her control as long as possible. If they are ill-informed and overprotected, they will not feel confident to grow or move further away from her.</span></b><br />
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<b><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">They will use their children as slaves. They will delegate all household chores to the children as early as possible. They will insist that they pay for their own personal items and clothing as early as possible. Older children will become responsible for younger children. No matter how many of her responsibilities her children take on, it will never be enough or be done well enough. They expect perf</span></b><b><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">ection and constantly remind their children that they fail to meet this expectation.</span></b><br />
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<b><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Of course, they train their children to believe that they are the ideal mother. Any evidence to the contrary is to be kept secret at all costs. They will behave much differently toward their children in public than they do at home. They will vehemently deny any wrongdoing on their part and most likely blame their children, completely rewriting history.</span></b><br />
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<b><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Narcissistic mothers don’t stop being narcissists when their children become adults. They will play siblings against each other. They will compare siblings. They will talk to siblings about each other. When they have a problem with one, they will talk to another about it.</span></b><br />
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<b><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">They are jealous of their children’s successes, even though they brag to others about them (‘see how great MY kids turned out’). They will make snide comments if they think one of their adult children has a better marriage, house, job, etc. than they do. They are thrilled when they perceive that one of their adult children has failed in some way (although they never tell others about these “failures”; it reflects poorly on them). They are more than happy to assist when necessary because that makes them look good, plus, there is an added bonus of having favors to collect on. Asking a narcissistic mother for a favor feels like selling your soul to the devil. It’s emotional extortion.</span></b><br />
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<b><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">These mothers steal their kids’ childhoods, identities and future healthy relationships. They will keep on taking and sucking the life out of their children for as long as they live, if their children allow it. It is incredibly difficult and painful to acknowledge that your mother never loved you without blaming yourself — she raised you to blame yourself for everything. But it is necessary to put the blame where it rightfully belongs in order to insure that this insidious disorder isn’t perpetuated generation after generation. </span></b><br />
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<a href="http://psychcentral.com/lib/2010/narcissistic-mothers/"><b><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">SOURCE</span></b></a><br />
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<b><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/groups/405538969464208/" target="_blank">FACEBOOK GROUP FOR DAUGHTERS OF NARCISSISTIC MOTHERS (MUST BE TOTAL NO CONTACT) </a></span></b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-1110077431903567452022-04-26T00:13:00.000-04:002022-04-26T08:10:41.830-04:00Abuser As Slanderer<div style="font-family: arial; text-align: center;">
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<b style="color: #000066;"><span style="font-size: 180%;">Narcissistic Abuser as Slanderer</span> </b></div>
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">by Kathy Krajco</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">On their way through life, narcissists leave a trail of trashed good names in their wake. This is a serious problem in the workplace, for narcissists often destroy the careers of their betters. Narcissistic managers and administrators often are </span><b style="color: #000066; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #3333ff;">serial bullies</span></b><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">, who destroy the career and credibility of anyone who doesn't participate in a lynching and therefore is a threat to blow the whistle.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #6600cc;"></span></span><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The narcissist is a slanderer partly to get attention. But he is a slanderer mainly because he must be one to create his phony image.</span><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> </span><b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">He makes himself look good by making others look bad.</span></b><br />
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<b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">Yet narcissists are not the only people who create a false image of themselves. If you want to call it close, virtually everybody does, even that paragon of honesty,</span> <span style="color: #000066;">Prince Hamlet. In a world that surrounds us with the prying eyes of fault-finders, we would be traitors to ourselves if we were not at least modest about the things we should be ashamed of. Especially insofar as they are none of anybody else's business. In fact, it's a virtue to keep what's private private. It is the moral equivalent of wearing clothes.</span></b><br />
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<b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">Yet narcissists are different: they are hypocrites = for looks only. <u>They think a thing ain't wrong if they get away with it.</u></span></b><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">In other words,</span><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #6600cc;"> </span></span><b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">they confuse appearances with reality</span></b><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">.<span style="color: #000066;"> Consequently, they have no conscience — just an unconscience. That is, they repress their conscience. Hence, what they do in the dark is shockingly different than what they do in the light of day. These are the people who put make-up on their image a little too thick in spots.</span></span><br />
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....they confuse appearances with reality</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 180%;"><span style="color: red;">....they project instead of repent.</span></span></b></center>
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<span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;">Since it's all about their image, as Hamlet's mother said, </span><b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #000066;">they</span><span style="color: #000066;"> </span><span style="color: red;">view sin as some kind of taint instead of as moral illness, or spiritual dis-ease.</span></b><span style="font-weight: bold;"> <span style="color: #000066;">This is what gives them the notion that it can be "washed away" or smeared off. No wonder that, to get rid of it, they project instead of repent.</span></span></div>
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<u><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Projection is the Oldest Trick in the Book.</span></u><br />
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Magicians call it "misdirection." </span><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"></span><span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><b>The Serpent pulled it on Eve when he accused God of being the liar. ("God told you THAT?") Stupid Eve should have looked at the other end of that pointed finger for the liar</b>.</span><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> As St. Paul does when he says that if somebody condemns others of being [fill in the blank], you can bet your bippy that he is one himself. Sometimes in a different way, but always at least the moral equivalent of one.* Paul was in line with the ancient Hebrew scriptures. Their name for the spirit in which people do this is satan, which means the "finger-pointer," the "name-slayer" (slanderer), the "prosecutor/persecutor," or the "accuser." In some places (e.g., the Book of Job) they also call him "the policer of the world." Which makes me wonder why religious leaders think that condemning these and those for this and that all the time is a good deed. This trick still works great today: I know of one narcissist who was a pedophile and for many years kept people from noticing the glaring warning signs in his own behavior by spreading rumors about one single teacher after another at his school. (He, of course, was married.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 130%;">* An example of what I mean by moral equivalence: Mr. Self-Righteous union-busts to keep the workers in his shoe factory so poor they go barefoot — and shows moral indignation in loudly condemning his neighbor for "muzzling an ox trampling the grain."</span> </blockquote>
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</span><b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">The rules about projection are in the Book of Leviticus, prescribed in the ritual for the Day of Atonement.</span></b><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> <span style="color: #000066;">Christianity has inherited them. The scapegoat must be the cleanest, most perfect potential victim available, the one with the most potential to do well in the world. </span></span><i style="color: #6600cc; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #000066;">(Sloppy thinking has twisted the meaning a full 180 degrees: these ugly demonstrations of the human race in action, symbolically performed by abominable cruelty to an animal, were intended to shame us. Not to prescribe this travesty of justice as the way to purify ourselves and win salvation from justice.)</span></i><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>The worst thing about projection is that mud sticks best to a clean spot.</b></span></div>
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<b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">I'm sure that people who do this think they're clever, but it's childsplay</span></b><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">. <span style="color: #000066;">Send a muddy child into an unsupervised school yard and wait to see what happens. He will rub himself off on every cleaner, smaller child he can find, till they are all crying and he looks good by comparison.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #6600cc;"></span></span><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Looks good by comparison. Those are the all-important words. </span><b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">The hypocrite makes himself look good by comparison with others. He does that the easy way — by making others look bad</span><span style="color: #000066;">.</span></b><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> <span style="color: #6600cc;">This is the root of envy. Which is not a rare motive for what people say about others. It's a common motive.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">In a moment of self awareness, the hypocrite says, "Well, I may not be perfect, but I'm not as bad as others are." Then he instantly looks for somebody to make himself look better than = somebody to rub himself off on. And he's certainly smart enough to pick somebody pretty good to look better than!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">So, narcissists are by no means alone in doing this. It's just that they invest so much energy in doing it. They are fixated on their image to the point that it is uppermost in their mind 100% of the time. In contrast, normal people project only when on the defensive. And then they're likely to shake themselves off on whoever happens to be near at the moment. So, their aim is poor, and sometimes they project a flaw off onto somebody who actually has it. But a narcissist's aim is impeccable. </span><b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;"></span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">For example, whom does he call a <i>liar</i>? <u>The most honest person around. </u></span></b></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">Who does he say is <i>dangerous</i>?<u> The savior of the group.</u></span></b></span><span style="font-size: 180%; font-weight: bold;"> </span></blockquote>
<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Every single time. His talent for farce is so great that you could mistake him for astute.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Also, normal people have normal, human and loving relationships. So they don't smear themselves off on just anybody. They wouldn't dream of harming those near and dear. And they stick to slander (which has at least some degree of truth in it), rarely engaging in calumny (lies). When they do calumniate somebody, he or she is an enemy. Even then they don't go hog-wild and calumniate somebody so badly and so widely as to destroy them and ruin their lives. Not so with the narcissist. </span><b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">He is a child with no sense of measure or moderation. He loves only himself. He has no normal human relationships. He relates to people as objects</span></b><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">. <span style="color: #000066;">So he will smear himself off on his own children as thoughtlessly as we smear ourselves off on a towel. In fact, </span></span><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: black;">he is most likely to smear off on somebody he owes gratitude, because needing help damages his image. So he repays help as though it were an insult.</span> </span><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">He must devalue it by devaluing the giver of it, as if such a contemptible person is incapable of really helping somebody as grand as he.</span><br />
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<b>he is most likely to smear off on somebody he owes gratitude, because needing help damages his image. So he repays help as though it were an insult.</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #000066;">Since he is a little child, the only reign on a narcissist's behavior is what he feels he can get away with. So, the more he gets away with, the more repressed guilt he has to purge himself of. The bad thing about repressed guilt is that it is an unconscious puppet master. Scripture calls it "the demon lurking at the door."</span> </span><b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">The door being the way out, the escape, through repentance</span></b><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">This could be why narcissists get worse with age. The load of repressed guilt they keep trying to purge themselves of (in a way that only dirties them more) gets so heavy that the wild accusations they make get viciouser and viciouser. It's as though they get drunk on blood.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">They become living, breathing Projection Machines. </span><b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red; font-size: 130%;">Projection becomes such a knee-jerk reflex that a narcissist accuses his victim of doing to him the very thing (or essentially the same thing) as he is in the very act of doing to the victim.</span></b><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> <span style="color: #000066;">This creates bizarre scenes that make you wonder whether the narcissist is hallucinating or tripping out on psychedelic drugs. You feel like Alice in Wonderland.</span> </span><b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">You have to pinch yourself and wonder whether </span></b><i style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><b><span style="color: red;">"it's me or him that is crazy."</span></b> </i><br />
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<b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">If you've ever thought that, congratulations. It means you're not.</span></b><span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold;"> <span style="color: #000066;">The narcissist never thinks that: he just accuses whoever he abuses of being the crazy one. (I said "crazy," not "insane." There's a difference.)</span></span></div>
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<b>The narcissist never thinks [he's crazy]: he just accuses whoever he abuses of being the crazy one.</b></div>
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Another big difference between narcissists and normal people when they're projecting on you is that narcissists expect you to share their delusion. Yes! You cannot help but perceive this as gaslighting.</span><b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: #000066;"> </span>Narcissists try to make you be what they say you are because, like a psychopath, they view you as an object, not as a human person with perceptions and a mind of your own.*</span></b><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> <span style="color: #6600cc;"></span></span><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">They view you as an extension of themselves (like a tool) to control. It is the moral equivalent of the control a rapist thinks he has over the body of another, whom he views as but an object, an extension of himself, an executioner of HIS will. Psychologists call this bizarre behavior projective identification, a defense mechanism. The narcissist wants you to identify with the image he projects on you. </span><b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">You are a mirror to reflect his fantasy, so he pressures you to behave as though it is real.</span></b><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">* A narcissist's need to conform you to his or her specifications can go to bizarre extremes. For example, I know of one female narcissist who, during an assault on her sister, habitually forced her up against a wall and then spent a long time moving and twisting her sister's arms about to position them grotesquely — thus forcing her sister into different "shapes."</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #000066;">Behave is the key word.</span> </span><b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">Narcissists do not connect with reality: appearances are all that matter in their world. So, you can lay out your grievances to a narcissist in a letter to let him know what you think, but if tomorrow you encounter him and act as though none of it happened, he is perfectly satisfied.</span></b><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #6600cc;"></span></span><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">So, though the narcissist's projective identification seems like gaslighting and affects the victim like gaslighting, it is not gaslighting in the strictest sense of the word. </span><b style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">For the narcissist only cares how you behave; he does not care what you think.</span></b><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> <span style="color: #000066;">He doesn't think at all about what you think. In fact, you can crash his brain by asking, "What do you think I think about you?" The question does not even compute.</span></span><br />
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<u style="color: #000066; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;">Bottom Line</u><span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">: Anyone who outshines a narcissist diminishes the glow of his glory. So, that person had better be somebody with power that he fears or had better lay low and get away.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000066; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://narc-attack.blogspot.com/">ORIGINAL FROM THIS GREAT SITE</a> </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-1136782019375191752022-04-20T00:24:00.000-04:002022-04-20T22:25:09.295-04:00Stockholm Syndrome & Cognitive Dissonance<center style="font-family: arial;">
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<a href="http://www.drjoecarver.com/" style="font-weight: bold;">The Mystery of Loving an Abuser</a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic;">By Joseph M. Carver, PhD -- Mental Health Professional, Clinical Psychologist</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">People are often amazed at their own psychological conditions and reactions. Those with depression are stunned when they remember they've thought of killing themselves. Patients recovering from severe psychiatric disturbances are often shocked as they remember their symptoms and behavior during the episode. </span><span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">A patient with Bipolar Disorder recently told me "I can't believe I thought I could change the weather through mental telepathy!" A common reaction is "I can't believe I did that!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">In clinical practice, some of the most surprised and shocked individuals are those who have been involved in controlling and abusive relationships. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">When the relationship ends, they offer comments such as:</span></span><br />
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">"I know what he's done to me, but I still love him", </span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">"I don't know why, but I want him back", or </span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">"I know it sounds crazy, but I miss her". </span></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: red;">Recently I've heard "This doesn't make sense. He's got a new girlfriend and he's abusing her too… but I'm jealous!" Friends and relatives are even more amazed and shocked when they hear these comments or witness their loved one returning to an abusive relationship. While the situation doesn't make sense from a social standpoint, does it make sense from a psychological viewpoint? The answer is - Yes!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">On August 23rd, 1973 two machine-gun carrying criminals entered a bank in Stockholm, Sweden. Blasting their guns, one prison escapee named Jan-Erik Olsson announced to the terrified bank employees "The party has just begun!" The two bank robbers held four hostages, three women and one man, for the next 131 hours. The hostages were strapped with dynamite and held in a bank vault until finally rescued on August 28th.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">After their rescue, the hostages exhibited a shocking attitude considering they were threatened, abused, and feared for their lives for over five days. In their media interviews, it was clear that they supported their captors and actually feared law enforcement personnel who came to their rescue. The hostages had begun to feel the captors were actually protecting them from the police. One woman later became engaged to one of the criminals and another developed a legal defense fund to aid in their criminal defense fees. Clearly, the hostages had "bonded" emotionally with their captors.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">While the psychological condition in hostage situations became known as "Stockholm Syndrome" due to the publicity – the emotional "bonding" with captors was a familiar story in psychology. It had been recognized many years before and was found in studies of other hostage, prisoner, or abusive situations such as:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> * Abused Children/ Adults</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> * Battered/Abused Women</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> * Prisoners of War</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> * Cult Members</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> * Incest Victims</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> * Criminal Hostage Situations</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">* Controlling/Intimidating Relationships</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">* Betrayal Victims </span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "arial";">* Abusive, Controlling Boss</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">In the final analysis, emotionally bonding with an abuser is actually a strategy for survival for victims of abuse and intimidation. The "Stockholm Syndrome" reaction in hostage and/or abuse situations is so well recognized at this time that police hostage negotiators no longer view it as unusual. In fact, it is often encouraged in crime situations as it improves the chances for survival of the hostages. On the down side, it also assures that the hostages experiencing "Stockholm Syndrome" will not be very cooperative during rescue or criminal prosecution.</span><span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> Local law enforcement personnel have long recognized this syndrome with battered women who fail to press charges, bail their battering husband/boyfriend out of jail, and even physically attack police officers when they arrive to rescue them from a violent assault.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Stockholm Syndrome (SS) can also be found in family, romantic, and interpersonal relationships. The abuser may be a husband or wife, boyfriend or girlfriend, friend, sibling, father or mother, boss, or any other role in which the abuser is in a position of control or authority.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">It's important to understand the components of Stockholm Syndrome as they relate to abusive and controlling relationships. Once the syndrome is understood, it's easier to understand why victims support, love, and even defend their abusers and controllers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Every syndrome has symptoms or behaviors and Stockholm Syndrome is no exception. While a clear-cut list has not been established due to varying opinions by researchers and experts, several of these features will be present:</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> * Positive feelings by the victim toward the abuser/controller</span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> * Negative feelings by the victim toward family, friends, or authorities trying to rescue/support them or win their release</span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> * Support of the abuser's reasons and behaviors</span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> * Positive feelings by the abuser toward the victim</span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> * Supportive behaviors by the victim, at times helping the abuser</span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> * Inability to engage in behaviors that may assist in their release or detachment</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Stockholm Syndrome doesn't occur in every hostage or abusive situation. In another bank robbery involving hostages, after terrorizing patrons and employees for many hours, a police sharpshooter shot and wounded the terrorizing bank robber. After he hit the floor, two women picked him up and physically held him up to the window for another shot. As you can see, the length of time one is exposed to abuse/control and other factors are certainly involved.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">It has been found that four situations or conditions are present that serve as a foundation for the development of Stockholm Syndrome. These four situations can be found in hostage, severe abuse, and abusive relationships:</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> * The presence of a perceived threat to one's physical or psychological survival and the belief that the abuser would carry out the threat</span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> * The presence of a perceived small kindness from the abuser to the victim</span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> * Isolation from perspectives other than those of the abuser</span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> * The perceived inability to escape the situation</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">By considering each situation we can understand how Stockholm Syndrome develops in romantic relationships as well as criminal/hostage situations. Looking at each situation:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Perceived threat to one's physical/psychological survival</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The perception of threat can be formed by direct, indirect, or witnessed methods. Criminal or antisocial partners can directly threaten your life or the life of friends and family. Their history of violence leads us to believe that the captor/controller will carry out the threat in a direct manner if we fail to comply with their demands. The abuser assures us that only our cooperation keeps our loved ones safe.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Indirectly, the abuser/controller offers subtle threats that you will never leave them or have another partner, reminding you that people in the past have paid dearly for not following their wishes. </span><span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Hints are often offered such as "I know people who can make others disappear". Indirect threats also come from the stories told by the abuser or controller – how they obtained revenge on those who have crossed them in the past. These stories of revenge are told to remind the victim that revenge is possible if they leave.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Witnessing violence or aggression is also a perceived threat. Witnessing a violent temper directed at a television set, others on the highway, or a third party clearly sends us the message that we could be the next target for violence. Witnessing the thoughts and attitudes of the abuser/controller is threatening and intimidating, knowing that we will be the target of those thoughts in the future.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The "Small Kindness" Perception</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">In threatening and survival situations, we look for evidence of hope – a small sign that the situation may improve. When an abuser/controller shows the victim some small kindness, even though it is to the abusers benefit as well, the victim interprets that small kindness as a positive trait of the captor. In criminal/war hostage situations, letting the victim live is often enough. Small behaviors, such as allowing a bathroom visit or providing food/water, are enough to strengthen the Stockholm Syndrome in criminal hostage events.</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">In relationships with abusers, a birthday card, a gift (usually provided after a period of abuse), or a special treat are interpreted as not only positive, but evidence that the abuser is not "all bad" and may at some time correct his/her behavior. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Abusers and controllers are often given positive credit for not abusing their partner, when the partner would have normally been subjected to verbal or physical abuse in a certain situation. An aggressive and jealous partner may normally become intimidating or abusive in certain social situations, as when an opposite-sex coworker waves in a crowd. </span><span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">After seeing the wave, the victim expects to be verbally battered and when it doesn't happen, that "small kindness" is interpreted as a positive sign.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Similar to the small kindness perception is the perception of a "soft side". During the relationship, the abuser/controller may share information about their past – how they were mistreated, abused, neglected, or wronged. T</span><span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">he victim begins to feel the abuser/controller may be capable of fixing their behavior or worse yet, that they (abuser) may also be a "victim". Sympathy may develop toward the abuser and we often hear the victim of Stockholm Syndrome defending their abuser with "I know he fractured my jaw and ribs…but he's troubled. He had a rough childhood!" Losers and abusers may admit they need psychiatric help or acknowledge they are mentally disturbed, however, it's almost always after they have already abused or intimidated the victim. The admission is a way of denying responsibility for the abuse.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> In truth, personality disorders and criminals have learned over the years that personal responsibility for their violent/abusive behaviors can be minimized and even denied by blaming their bad upbringing, abuse as a child, and now - video games. One murderer blamed his crime on eating too much junk food – now known as the "Twinkie Defense". While it may be true that the abuser/controller had a difficult upbringing – showing sympathy for his/her history produces no change in their behavior and in fact, prolongs the length of time you will be abused. </span><span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">While "sad stories" are always included in their apologies – after the abusive/controlling event - their behavior never changes! Keep in mind; once you become hardened to the "sad stories", they will simply try another approach.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> I know of no victim of abuse or crime who has heard their abuser say "I'm beating (robbing, mugging, etc.) you because my Mom hated me!"</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Isolation from Perspectives Other than those of the Captor</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">In abusive and controlling relationships, the victim has the sense they are always "walking on eggshells" – fearful of saying or doing anything that might prompt a violent/intimidating outburst. For their survival, they begin to see the world through the abuser's perspective. They begin to fix things that might prompt an outburst, act in ways they know makes the abuser happy, or avoid aspects of their own life that may prompt a problem. If we only have a dollar in our pocket, then most of our decisions become financial decisions. If our partner is an abuser or controller, then the majority of our decisions are based on our perception of the abuser's potential reaction. We become preoccupied with the needs, desires, and habits of the abuser/controller.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Taking the abuser's perspective as a survival technique can become so intense that the victim actually develops anger toward those trying to help them</span><span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">. The abuser is already angry and resentful toward anyone who would provide the victim support, typically using multiple methods and manipulations to isolate the victim from others. Any contact the victim has with supportive people in the community is met with accusations, threats, and/or violent outbursts. Victims then turn on their family – fearing family contact will cause additional violence and abuse in the home. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">At this point, victims curse their parents and friends, tell them not to call and stop interfering, and break off communication with others</span><span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">. Agreeing with the abuser/controller, supportive others are now viewed as "causing trouble" and must be avoided.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> Many victims threaten their family and friends with restraining orders if they continue to "interfere" or try to help the victim in their situation. On the surface it would appear that they have sided with the abuser/controller. In truth, they are trying to minimize contact situation that might make them a target of additional verbal abuse or intimidation. If a casual phone call from Mom prompts a two-hour temper outburst with threats and accusations – the victim quickly realizes it's safer if Mom stops calling. If simply telling Mom to stop calling doesn't work, for his or her own safety the victim may accuse Mom of attempting to ruin the relationship and demand that she stop calling.</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">In severe cases of Stockholm Syndrome in relationships, the victim may have difficulty leaving the abuser and may actually feel the abusive situation is their fault. In law enforcement situations, the victim may actually feel the arrest of their partner for physical abuse or battering is their fault.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> Some women will allow their children to be removed by child protective agencies rather than give up the relationship with their abuser. As they take the perspective of the abuser, the children are at fault – they complained about the situation, they brought the attention of authorities to the home, and they put the adult relationship at risk. Sadly, the children have now become a danger to the victim's safety. For those with Stockholm Syndrome, allowing the children to be removed from the home decreases their victim stress while providing an emotionally and physically safer environment for the children.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Perceived Inability to Escape</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">As a hostage in a bank robbery, threatened by criminals with guns, it's easy to understand the perceived inability to escape. In romantic relationships, the belief that one can't escape is also very common. Many abusive/controlling relationships feel like till-death-do-us-part relationships – locked together by mutual financial issues/assets, mutual intimate knowledge, or legal situations. Here are some common situations:</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> * </span><span style="color: silver; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Controlling partners have increased the financial obligations/debt in the relationship to the point that neither partner can financially survive on their own.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: blue;"> </span>Controllers who sense their partner may be leaving will often purchase a new automobile, later claiming they can't pay alimony or child support due to their large car payments.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">* The legal ending of a relationship, especially a martial relationship, often creates significant problems. A Controller who has an income that is "under the table" or maintained through legally questionable situations runs the risk of those sources of income being investigated or made public by the divorce/separation. The Controller then becomes more agitated about the possible public exposure of their business arrangements than the loss of the relationship.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">* </span><span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The Controller often uses extreme threats including threatening to take the children out of state, threatening to quit their job/business rather than pay alimony/support, threatening public exposure of the victim's personal issues, or assuring the victim they will never have a peaceful life due to nonstop harassment</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">. In severe cases, the Controller may threaten an action that will undercut the victim's support such as "I'll see that you lose your job" or "I'll have your automobile burned".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">* </span><span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Controllers often keep the victim locked into the relationship with severe guilt – threatening suicide if the victim leaves. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The victim hears "I'll kill myself in front of the children", "I'll set myself on fire in the front yard", or "Our children won't have a father/mother if you leave me!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">* </span><span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">In relationships with an abuser or controller, the victim has also experienced a loss of self-esteem, self-confidence, and psychological energy. The victim may feel "burned out" and too depressed to leave. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Additionally, abusers and controllers often create a type of dependency by controlling the finances, placing automobiles/homes in their name, and eliminating any assets or resources the victim may use to leave. In clinical practice I've heard "I'd leave but I can't even get money out of the savings account! I don't know the PIN number."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">* </span><span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">In teens and young adults, victims may be attracted to a controlling individual when they feel inexperienced, insecure, and overwhelmed by a change in their life situation. When parents are going through a divorce, a teen may attach to a controlling individual, feeling the controller may stabilize their life.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> Freshmen in college may be attracted to controlling individuals who promise to help them survive living away from home on a college campus.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">In unhealthy relationships and definitely in Stockholm Syndrome there is a daily preoccupation with "trouble". Trouble is any individual, group, situation, comment, casual glance, or cold meal that may produce a temper tantrum or verbal abuse from the controller or abuser. To survive, "trouble" is to be avoided at all costs. The victim must control situations that produce trouble. That may include avoiding family, friends, co-workers, and anyone who may create "trouble" in the abusive relationship. </span><span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The victim does not hate family and friends; they are only avoiding "trouble"! The victim also cleans the house, calms the children, scans the mail, avoids certain topics, and anticipates every issue of the controller or abuse in an effort to avoid "trouble". In this situation, children who are noisy become "trouble". Loved ones and friends are sources of "trouble" for the victim who is attempting to avoid verbal or physical aggression.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Stockholm Syndrome in relationships is not uncommon. Law enforcement professionals are painfully aware of the situation – making a domestic dispute one of the high-risk calls during the work hours. Called by neighbors during a spousal abuse incident, the abuser is passive upon arrival of the police, only to find the abused spouse upset and threatening the officers if their abusive partner is arrested for domestic violence. </span><span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">In truth, the victim knows the abuser/controller will retaliate against him/her if </span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">1) they encourage an arrest, </span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">2) they offer statements about the abuse/fight that are deemed disloyal by the abuser, </span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">3) they don't bail them out of jail as quickly as possible, and </span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">4) they don't personally apologize for the situation – as though it was their fault.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Stockholm Syndrome produces an unhealthy bond with the controller and abuser. It is the reason many victims continue to support an abuser after the relationship is over. It's also the reason they continue to see "the good side" of an abusive individual and appear sympathetic to someone who has mentally and sometimes physically abused them.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Is There Something Else Involved?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">In a short response – Yes! Throughout history, people have found themselves supporting and participating in life situations that range from abusive to bizarre. In talking to these active and willing participants in bad and bizarre situations, it is clear they have developed feelings and attitudes that support their participation. One way these feelings and thoughts are developed is known as "cognitive dissonance". As you can tell, psychologists have large words and phrases for just about everything.</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">"<u>Cognitive Dissonance</u>" explains how and why people change their ideas and opinions to support situations that do not appear to be healthy, positive, or normal. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">In the theory, an individual seeks to reduce information or opinions that make him or her uncomfortable. When we have two sets of cognitions (knowledge, opinion, feelings, input from others, etc.) that are the opposite, the situation becomes emotionally uncomfortable. Even though we might find ourselves in a foolish or difficult situation – few want to admit that fact. Instead, we attempt to reduce the dissonance - the fact that our cognitions don't match, agree, or make sense when combined. "Cognitive Dissonance" can be reduced by adding new cognitions – adding new thoughts and attitudes. Some examples:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> * Heavy smokers know smoking causes lung cancer and multiple health risks. To continue smoking, the smoker changes his cognitions (thoughts/feelings) such as</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">1) "I'm smoking less than ten years ago",</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">2) "I'm smoking low-tar cigarettes",</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">3) "Those statistics are made up by the cancer industry conspiracy", or</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">4) "Something's got to get you anyway!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">These new cognitions/attitudes allow them to keep smoking and actually begin blaming restaurants for being unfair.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">* You purchase a $40,000.00 Sport Utility Vehicle that gets 8 miles a gallon. You justify the expense and related issues with 1) "It's great on trips (you take one trip per year)", 2) "I can use it to haul stuff (one coffee table in 12 months), and 3) "You can carry a lot of people in it (95% of your trips are driver-only)."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">* Your husband/boyfriend becomes abusive and assaultive. You can't leave due to the finances, children, or other factors. Through cognitive dissonance, you begin telling yourself "He only hits me open-handed" and "He's had a lot of stress at work."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Leon Festinger first coined "Cognitive Dissonance". He had observed a cult (1956) in which members gave up their homes, incomes, and jobs to work for the cult. This cult believed in messages from outer space that predicted the day the world would end by a flood. As cult members and firm believers, they believed they would be saved by flying saucers at the appointed time. As they gathered and waited to be taken by flying saucers at the specified time, the end-of-the-world came and went. No flood and no flying saucer! Rather than believing they were foolish after all that personal and emotional investment – they decided their beliefs had actually saved the world from the flood and they became firmer in their beliefs after the failure of the prophecy. The moral – the more you invest (income, job, home, time, effort, etc.) the stronger your need to justify your position. If we invest $5.00 in a raffle ticket, we justify losing with "I'll get them next time". If you invest everything you have, it requires an almost unreasoning belief and unusual attitude to support and justify that investment.</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Studies tell us we are more loyal and committed to something that is difficult, uncomfortable, and even humiliating.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> The initiation rituals of college fraternities, Marine boot camp, and graduate school all produce loyal and committed individuals. Almost any ordeal creates a bonding experience. Every couple, no matter how mismatched, falls in love in the movies after going through a terrorist takeover, being stalked by a killer, being stranded on an island, or being involved in an alien abduction. Investment and an ordeal are ingredients for a strong bonding – even if the bonding is unhealthy. No one bonds or falls in love by being a member of the Automobile Club or a music CD club. Struggling to survive on a deserted island – you bet!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Abusive relationships produce a great amount on unhealthy investment in both parties. In many cases we tend to remain and support the abusive relationship due to our investment in the relationship. Try telling a new Marine that since he or she has survived boot camp, they should now enroll in the National Guard! Several types of investments keep us in the bad relationship:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> * </span><span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Emotional Investment</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> – We've invested so many emotions, cried so much, and worried so much that we feel we must see the relationship through to the finish.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> * </span><span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Social Investment </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">– We've got our pride! To avoid social embarrassment and uncomfortable social situations, we remain in the relationship.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">* </span><span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Family Investments</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> – If children are present in the relationship, decisions regarding the relationship are clouded by the status and needs of the children.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">* </span><span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Financial Investment</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> – In many cases, the controlling and abusive partner has created a complex financial situation. Many victims remain in a bad relationship, waiting for a better financial situation to develop that would make their departure and detachment easier.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">* </span><span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Lifestyle Investment</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> – Many controlling/abusive partners use money or a lifestyle as an investment. Victims in this situation may not want to lose their current lifestyle.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">* </span><span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Intimacy Investment</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> – We often invest emotional and sexual intimacy. Some victims have experienced a destruction of their emotional and/or sexual self-esteem in the unhealthy relationship. The abusing partner may threaten to spread rumors or tell intimate details or secrets. A type of blackmail using intimacy is often found in these situations.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">In many cases, it's not simply our feelings for an individual that keeps us in an unhealthy relationship - it's often the amount of investment. Relationships are complex and we often only see the tip of the iceberg in public. For this reason, the most common phrase offered by the victim in defense of their unhealthy relationship is "You just don't understand!"</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The combination of "Stockholm Syndrome" and "cognitive dissonance" produces a victim who firmly believes the relationship is not only acceptable, but also desperately needed for their survival. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The victim feels they would mentally collapse if the relationship ended. In long-term relationships, the victims have invested everything and placed "all their eggs in one basket". The relationship now decides their level of self-esteem, self-worth, and emotional health.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">For reasons described above, the victim feels family and friends are a threat to the relationship and eventually to their personal health and existence. The more family/friends protest the controlling and abusive nature of the relationship, the more the victim develops cognitive dissonance and becomes defensive. At this point, family and friends become victims of the abusive and controlling individual.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Importantly, both Stockholm Syndrome and cognitive dissonance develop on an involuntary basis. </span><span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">The victim does not purposely invent this attitude. Both develop as an attempt to exist and survive in a threatening and controlling environment and relationship.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"> Despite what we might think, our loved one is not in the unhealthy relationship to irritate, embarrass, or drive us to drink. What might have began as a normal relationship has turned into a controlling and abusive situation. They are trying to survive. Their personality is developing the feelings and thoughts needed to survive the situation and lower their emotional and physical risks. All of us have developed attitudes and feelings that help us accept and survive situations. We have these attitudes/feelings about our jobs, our community, and other aspects of our life. As we have found throughout history, the more dysfunctional the situation, the more dysfunctional our adaptation and thoughts to survive. The victim is engaged in an attempt to survive and make a relationship work. Once they decide it doesn't work and can't be fixed, they will need our support as we patiently await their decision to return to a healthy and positive lifestyle.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><u>Family and Friends of the Victim</u></span><br />
<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">When a family is confronted with a loved one involved with a Loser or controlling/abusive individual, the situation becomes emotionally painful and socially difficult for the family. While each situation is different, some general guidelines to consider are:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> * Your loved one, the "victim" of the Loser/Abuser, has probably been given a choice - the relationship or the family. This choice is made more difficult by the control and intimidation often present in abusive/controlling relationships. Knowing that choosing the family will result in severe personal and social consequences, the family always comes in second. Keep in mind that the victim knows in their heart the family will always love them and accept their return – whenever the return happens.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> * Remember, the more you pressure the "victim" of the Loser/Abuser, the more you prove the their point. Your loved one is being told the family is trying to ruin their wonderful relationship. Pressure in the form of contacts, comments, and communications will be used as evidence against you. An invitation to a Tupperware party is met with "You see! They just want to get you by yourself so they can tell you bad things about me!" Increasing your contacts is viewed as "putting pressure" on their relationship – not being lovingly concerned.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> * Your contacts with your loved one, no matter how routine and loving, may be met with anger and resentment. This is because each contact may prompt the Loser/Abuser to attack them verbally or emotionally. Imagine getting a four-hour lecture every time your Aunt Gladys calls. In a short time, you become angry each time she calls, knowing what the contact will produce in your home. The longer Aunt Gladys talks – the longer your lecture becomes! Thus, when Aunt Gladys calls, you want to get her off the phone as quickly as possible.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">* The 1980's song, "Hold on Loosely", maybe the key to a good family and friend approach. Holding on too tight produces more pressure. When the victim is out of the home, it's often best to establish predictable, scheduled contacts. Calling every Wednesday evening, just for a status report or to go over current events, is less threatening than random calls during the week. Random calls are always viewed as "checking up on us" calls. While you may encounter an answering machine, leave a polite and loving message. Importantly, don't discuss the relationship (the controller may be listening!) unless the victim brings it up. The goal of these scheduled calls is to maintain contact, remind your loved one that you are always there to help, and to quietly remind the controller that family and loved ones are nearby and haven't disappeared.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">* Try to maintain traditional and special contacts with your loved one - holidays, special occasions, etc. Keep your contacts short and brief, with no comments that can be used as evidence. Contacts made at "traditional" times – holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. – are not as threatening to a controller/abuser. Contacts that provide information, but not questions, are also not as threatening. An example might be a simple card reading "Just a note to let you know that your brother landed a new job this week. You might see him on a Wal-Mart commercial any day now. Love, Mom and Dad". This approach allows the victim to recognize that the family is there - waiting in the wings if needed. It also lessens the lectures/tantrums provided by the Loser as the contacts are on a traditional and expected basis. It's also hard to be angry about brother's new job without looking ridiculous. Also, don't invent holidays or send a reminder that it's Sigmund Freud's birthday. That's suspicious…even in my family.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">* Remember that there are many channels of communication. It's important that we keep a channel open if at all possible. Communication channels might include phone calls, letters, cards, and e-mail. Scheduled monthly shopping trips or outings are helpful if possible. The goal is to maintain contact while your loved one is involved in the controlling/abusive relationship. Remember, the goal is contact, not pressure.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">* Don't feel the victim's behavior is against the family or friends. It may be a form of survival or a way of lowering stress. Victims may be very resistive, angry, and even hostile due to the complexity of their relationship with the controller/abuser. They may even curse, threaten, and accuse loved ones and friends. This hostile defensiveness is actually self-protection in the relationship – an attempt to avoid "trouble".</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">* The victim needs to know and feel they are not rejected because of their behavior. Keep in mind, they are painfully aware of their situation. They know they are being treated badly and/or controlled by their partner. Frequent reminders of this will only make them want less contact. We naturally avoid people who remind us of things or situations that are emotionally painful.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">* Victims may slightly open the door and provide information about their relationship or hint they may be considering leaving. When the door opens, don't jump through with the Marines behind you! Listen and simply offer support such as "You know your family is/ we are/ I am behind any decision you need to make and at any time you make it." They may be exploring what support is available but may not be ready to call in the troops just yet. Many victims use an "exit plan" that may take months or even years to complete. They may be gathering information at this point, not yet ready for an exit.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">* We can get messages to people in two ways - the pipeline and the grapevine. The pipeline is face-to-face, telling the person directly. This seldom happens in Loser situations as controllers and abusers monitor and control contacts with others. However, the grapevine is still open. When we use the grapevine, we send a message to our loved one through another person. Victims of controlling and abusive individuals are often allowed to maintain a relationship with a few people, perhaps a sibling or best friend. We can send our loved one a message through that contact person, a message that voices our understanding and support. We don't send insults ("Bill is such a jerk!) or put-downs ("If he doesn't get out of this relationship he'll end up crazy!) - we send messages of love and support. We send "I hope she/he (victim) knows the family is concerned and that we love and support them." Comments sent on the grapevine are phrased with the understanding that our loved one will hear them in that manner. Don't talk with a grapevine contact to express anger and threaten to hire a hit man, and then try to send a message of loving support. Be careful what and how the message is provided. The grapevine contact can often get messages to the victim when we can't. It's another way of letting them know we're supporting them, just waiting to help if and when needed.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">* Each situation is different. The family may need to seek counseling support in the community. A family consultation with a mental health professional or attorney may be helpful if the situation becomes legally complex or there is a significant danger of harm.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">* As relatives or friends of a victim involved with a controller or abuser, our normal reaction is to consider dramatic action. We become angry, resentful, and aggressive at times. Our mind fills with a variety of plans that often range from rescue and kidnapping to ambushing the controller/abuser with a ball bat. A rule of thumb is that any aggression toward the controller/abuser will result in additional difficulties for your loved one. Try to remain calm and await an opportunity to show your love and support when your loved one needs it.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">* In some cases, as in teenagers and young adults, the family may still provide some financial, insurance, or other support. When we receive angry responses to our phone calls, our anger and resentment tells us to cut off their support. I've heard "If she's going to date that jerk, it's not going to be in a car I'm paying for!" and "If he's choosing that woman over his family, he can drop out of college and flip hamburgers!" Withdrawing financial support only makes your loved one more dependent upon the controller/abuser. Remember, if we're aggressive by threatening, withdrawing support, or pressuring – we become the threatening force, not the controller/abuser. It actually moves the victim into the support of the controller. Sadly, the more of an "ordeal" they experience, the more bonding takes place as noted in Stockholm Syndrome and cognitive dissonance.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">* As you might imagine, the combination of Stockholm Syndrome and cognitive dissonance may also be active when our loved one is involved in cults, unusual religions, and other groups. In some situations, the abuser and controller is actually a group or organization. Victims are punished if they are viewed as disloyal to the group. While this article deals with individual relationships, the family guidelines may be helpful in controlling-group situations.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #6600cc; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;"><u>Final Thoughts</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">You may be the victim of a controlling and abusive partner, seeking an understanding of your feelings and attitudes. You may have a son, daughter, or friend currently involved with a controlling and abusive partner, looking for ways to understand and help.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">If a loved one is involved with a Loser, a controlling and abusing partner, the long-term outcome is difficult to determine due to the many factors involved. If their relationship is in the "dating" phase, they may end the relationship on their own. If the relationship has continued for over a year, they may require support and an exit plan before ending the relationship. Marriage and children further complicates their ability to leave the situation. When the victim decides to end the unhappy relationship, it's important that they view loved ones as supportive, loving, and understanding – not a source of pressure, guilt, or aggression.</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">This article is an attempt to understand the complex feelings and attitudes that are as puzzling to the victim as they are to family and friends. I've outlined recommendations for detaching from a Loser or controlling/abusive individual but clearly, there are more victims in this situation. I</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">t is hoped this article is helpful to family and friends who worry, cry, and have difficulty understanding the situation of their loved one. It has been said that knowledge is power. Hopefully this knowledge will prove helpful and powerful to victims and their loved ones.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-weight: bold;">Please consider this article as a general guideline. Some recommendations may be appropriate and helpful while some may not apply to a specific situation. In many cases, we may need additional professional help of a mental health or legal nature.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Dr. Carver has thirty years of clinical experience in a variety of settings including inpatient, outpatient, private practice, state hospitals, child-protective agencies, community mental health centers, neuro-rehabilitation, and now juvenile correctional facilities. He is currently in private practice and the Psychology Supervisor at Ohio River Valley Juvenile Correctional Facility.</span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6084884.post-76451274876214889692022-04-02T00:26:00.000-04:002022-04-02T19:18:10.575-04:00Emotional Manipulator -- Skilled Controller<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>by Cassandra</b></div>
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<b>Abusers can be masters of disguise and covert operations. He or She hones their skills to expert precision, lest people see through the mask to the ruthless ambition and envy beneath.</b></div>
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<b>Above all, the abuser seeks to keep that mask firmly in place so as not to lose the support of those who’ve been fooled by the outer facade.</b></div>
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<b>This list of characteristics describes abusers and gives an awareness of the techniques used by * Chameleons * who may be male or female.</b></div>
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<b>1. <u>Charming in public</u> – exuding warmth and charm, an abuser smiles and tells jokes, praises and flatters you, outwardly supports you with a show of approval and reassurance, makes you feel valuable and appears to be attentive to your needs.</b></div>
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<b>2. <u>Rumor-monger in private</u> – criticizing you behind your back, he may suggest that you have personal or emotional problems, carefully building a case against you via calculated misinformation passed on to others behind the scenes. He manipulates others into criticizing you and then rewards them for their participation in his plot to undermine your image in every way.</b></div>
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<b>3. <u>Two-faced</u> – He pretends to support you while planning to destroy you; then when you challenge him, he suddenly transforms from supportive to bullying. His soft-spoken manner hides his destructive intentions, his flattering words hide his desire to control you, and his seemingly warm personality hides his take-no-prisoners attitude.</b></div>
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<b>4.<u> Distorts truth and reality</u> – He misleads people by omitting key facts. He’s extremely concerned to preserve an appearance of integrity, all the while withholding significant information. He misleads people by omitting key facts, he quotes hearsay as important and authoritative, then, justifies his opinion by falsely claiming others think the same way.</b></div>
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<b><i>Master of the half-truth, he miss-states and belittles your viewpoint</i>, asks questions that demean you, then interrupts before you can fully respond, he changes the subject before you can correct his miss-statements, then he adds new false accusations faster than you can respond to the old ones.</b></div>
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<b>5. <u>Hypocritical </u>– His spoken philosophy and behavior don’t match, his words creating a positive image which does not match his actions. He describes his mistakes as minor, but your mistakes as serious, or ignores his own mistakes while always highliting yours. – He calmly demeans you, but is angry because you don’t respect him. Not respecting him = pointing out the inconguities and inconsistencies between who he claims to be and what he actually does and says.</b></div>
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<b>6. <u>Evasive </u>– He acts confused by any complaint about his behavior and always shifts the focus to others. He acts like he is the one who is being victimized. He tries to make you feel guilty for hurting him, accusing you of behavior that was far worse than his and asserting that you are the cause of his bad behavior (if he ever does admit to behaving badly).</b></div>
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<b>7. <u>Pompous </u>– He acts like a know-it-all and never apologizes, unless to prove how rarely he makes a mistake. He’s a prima donna … condescending in words, tone of voice and mannerisms. Every issue which effects him is high drama and he’ll try to demolish the opposition in every discussion to keep the focus on himself.</b></div>
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<b>8. <u>Self-righteous</u> – In order to disguise his corrupt character, he always claims the moral and ethical high ground. He brags about the goodness of his own character while suggesting that others have dubious motives. He frequently talks of his superior ethical standards, implying that others don’t have his high standards and using distorted examples to prove that others are not nearly as superior as he.</b></div>
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<b>9. <u>Obsessed with image</u> – He believes that his image is more important than reality, so he disguises his true emotions and desires. When you see beneath his persona, he will suggest that your actions have hurt his image. Alternatively, he says that your proposed actions (i.e., exposing him) will hurt your own image.</b></div>
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<b>10.<u> Passive-aggressive behaviour</u>: (Anger Expressed Inappropriately)</b></div>
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<b>* Put-downs</b></div>
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<b>* Sarcasm</b></div>
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<b>* Insults</b></div>
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<b>* Rudeness</b></div>
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<b>* Sabotage</b></div>
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<b>* Intimidation</b></div>
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<b>* Belittling Remarks</b></div>
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<b>11. <u>Pretends to care</u> – While pretending to care about others, he is at his most manipulative and dangerous. Most people are taken in by his apparently positive energy, enthusiasm and charisma, but in reality, they are naively being fooled by an attractive personality which hides a morally and ethically corrupt abuser who is coldly and ruthlessly pursuing his own selfish ends.</b></div>
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<b>His expression of affection is tainted with possessiveness and he compliments you only because it serves his purpose. He has a look of concern, but he doesn’t truly respect you.</b></div>
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<b>He pretends to be your friend while tearing you down, destroying your reputation, weakening your position, and exaggerating the importance of your mistakes.</b></div>
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<b>12.<u> Plays the victim</u> – He exaggerates his pain and suffering, trying to make you feel guilty for causing his pain and claiming that you don’t appreciate him.</b></div>
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<b>He becomes angry and indignant when you try to reason with him, then says he is tired of doing all the compromising.</b></div>
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<b>The above list of characteristics describes abusers and gives an awareness of the techniques used by * Chameleons * who may be male or female.</b></div>
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<b><a href="http://voiceofcassandra.wordpress.com/category/character-assassin/"><br />
SOURCE</a></b></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com18