I reiterate that if you feel sorry for someone or guilty about them, and especially if the reason you do is that they have told you or otherwise communicated to you that you should, they are probably being abusive to you. I have heard people say their “head freezes” — they go into emotional shock and cannot respond. I find I send my mind elsewhere, which is not a good idea since I still hear what I am being told. My intention is to protect myself but what it means is that I am not fully present for what is being said and I do not say stop it, you are out of line until things have gone outrageously far.
Now, that Nice White Lady and many others like her would say this is “codependent.” I think codependency may exist. I have seen it. I know that the soul wrenching guilt I feel when I see an abusive person suffering and do not want to join them in their grave plot is a result of the attempt to teach it to me. I know, for instance, that my penchant for talking people through their pain and into reason is a result of two things: (a) my ancient habit of protecting myself from learning patently false facts and ideas about the world by saying out loud that I did not believe them and showing why, and (b) my decision, made early on, never to be so cold as the adults I knew.
However, I do not think that fully covers my response to people like the Blackguard, and I think the label “codependency” complicates it too much. Much more simply, I would say that I do not recognize and name all forms of verbal abuse easily because I was taught so early on that these were standard ways of speaking to people and that one had to accept being treated that way. Rather than try to search one’s soul for “codependent” traits, one can very well learn what verbal abuse is and how to counter it. I find it is not that I need to build “self esteem” and so on to be able to name what is happening and counter it. I find that all I need are the tools.
I also reiterate that it is not that there are just a few abusive people, and that people like me want them and find them. I think there are a lot of abusive people and they try everyone. I also do not believe you should stay in one abusive relationship for a long time so that you be immunized against any others. I think that is ridiculous. More people will always try, and the question is to have the presence of mind to get away or stand up. I do not always have presence of mind, but I do have presence of back — my breath gets shallow and I can feel my lungs get tense inside my back.
If you doubt me, what do you to say to my massively mentally healthy friend, the macho Latin man, who I strongly suspect could make a phone call and get a few things done leaving no trace — but who turns out to have been confused by that Blackguard, just as I have? To have wondered whether he was going crazy? To have gotten consultation on the matter? What do you say to that, Nice White Lady?
Of course, I can hear her now. My friend, if he is my friend, cannot be mentally healthy. But the Nice White Lady is a Twelve Stoner, and when applied to people to whom they do not apply, are a form of verbal abuse. The difference between me and my friend is, he gets through these things faster and does not find it necessary to tell the person off so he can regain his equilibrium, as it still is for me.
*
The Blackguard abuses me by telephone and as he speaks I seem to see him in a half-grave, thrashing around, speaking wildly, unwilling to climb out but insisting he is not dead.
I stand there and argue with Graveman here, thinking it is all right because it is just a phone call to my kitchen, not realizing until later that it isn’t really very different from having some crazy mean person flag you down on the street and letting them have a go at you.
And I notice there is a certain look of quizzical dead coldness, with a small sneer that manages to combine fear, hurt, disgust, and scorn, that people put on in person to indulge in verbal abuse. I may not realize their words are illegitimate, but that expression elicits a frown in me and I before I know it I am feeling sorry for them and responsible for them, because after all, they are disabled.
I pass right by and through the fact that this reaction in me means I have just undergone verbal abuse.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
before I know it I am feeling sorry for them and responsible for them, because after all, they are disabled
This is exactly it! The way that a healthy person (or a relatively healthy one) gets sucked into relating to an abusive person is precisely because the abusive person registers in the visceral parts of the healthy person’s mind as disabled. That has always been my experience. First point of contact: registering the abuser as disabled. Second point: trying to figure them out so that you can alleviate their pain.
The disabled/abusive person, however, does not experience themselves in this way. They don’t experience anything in this holistic, visceral way. Rather, they believe they have attracted you to them with their superior mind (roughly in relation to yours). They consider the way to keep you in their thrall is to continue to use their “mental power” (which they associate with the power to manipulate and blackmail people) in order to dominate you “mentally”.
Ah, yes, it is all true. However that is where I escape. My verbally abusive relative actually was disabled when I, very small, was told to be a tolerant caretaker because of the disability. I am not sure people would have allowed the verbal abuse had they known about it … although later on they were themselves victims and also scapegoated me.
So I have this automatic reaction that the abuse is a normal situation (especially if I am in a house when it happens) and that the person is ill.
I didn’t realize it was a general reaction but I’m glad — because this goes against what I’m told, that only “codependent” people would respond to the pain and try to help.
When they try to do the mental power thing is when I start to laugh, *if* they are officially designated as smart. That is why my X had to stage so many diabetic fits, to keep me worried about whether he would die on me. It’s also why the Blackguard is losing — I am so much smarter than he, it is unreal.
BUT it is true, that is what they try to do, and I think it is what my Reeducator did, because I didn’t think it was required he be smart in the same way I was, and because I had transference, and so on.
So this relative was literally disabled? I see. I think this is why Nietzsche refers to “the sick” in terms that do not differentiate between mental and physical but allow that one aspect may be linked to the other aspect. They so often are — but there are mentally healthy ppl who are physically sick, so this is not inevitable.
No, it is those who are mentally healthy who try to help, because they are most aware. If you see someone who has been a victim of a road accident and you just ignore them, you are guilty of criminal negligence, or something to that effect. To be so emotionally blunted that you just go your merry way is NOT the sign of mental health, and those who tell you that it is are simply pulling the wool over your eyes. As Nietzsche said, “We are not so badly off that we need to be stoics.”
Watch out for the “mental power” trope and its dynamic. I know that on the surface it is very laughable, but you might be surprised how something so petty and laughable can be used against you with effect. Part of WHY it works so effectively is that valid sense of innate superiority you feel in relation to the manouever. You (and I) are inclined to think: “What is that little bit of poison or pettiness to me?” But don’t forget –it IS poison. It does work as poison, and it might seem laughable on the surface, but your ongoing toleration of it will eventually lead to your demise, like a frog boiling in gradually increasing water temperatures.
Re the mental power point, yes. And that was why Reeducation was bad, too. That is why the no chit chat policy has been introduced. Because he does have influence.
He also casts spells, it seems. I have vaguely considered casting some back but I think it is a trap, at least the kind of white magic he is up to. I may put a protection spell on my house and office, though.
Not so badly off that we need to be stoics, correct. One just does not need to let the sick turn into vampires and so on, or vampires use their illness to vampirize. [Allow that, and you are what the 12 Stoners call an “enabler.”]
I think these sick people can be very effective, because they are more in tune with that which you and I are out of tune with — other people’s fears and lower motivations. So they are able to utilise these and get them to work against you. That is how they hope to prove their “mental strength” and superiority to you.
Yes, that’s true, and it’s true of this person.
“I also reiterate that it is not that there are just a few abusive people, and that people like me want them and find them. I think there are a lot of abusive people and they try everyone.”
Bing bing bing bing!
Gavin de Becker has written a lot about how to defend oneself from social predators, and that is exactly what he says: they try it on everyone, in subtle ways. The people who don’t immediately fend them off are the ones they attack harder and more persistently.
So when we notice that certain people have a history of being victimized by multiple abusers, it’s not a sign that they want to be abused, it’s a sign of not yet having learned how to defend themselves.
The people who don’t immediately fend them off are the ones they attack harder and more persistently
That is one aspect of how it works. But there are those who will attack again and again even if they are warned off. It depends on how ill they are and how much it is worth it to them to be able to release their pent up emotions on somebody. It may be that this need is so strong that they will risk and even endure being hit back really sharply.
True.
…which is why those who are structurally disadvantaged in society — such as women — are often hit again and again, whether they hit back or do not. It’s because “nobody will believe them anyway” and because “it’s worth it to me just to hurt someone who doesn’t matter socially and get rid of my pent up tension.”
Also it is the women who have something to offer — such as intellectual skills or something precocious — that are often particular targets for this kind of abusiveness. It’s almost like the sensation of damaging someone who COULD be worth something, but is now reduced to rubble because of you, gives these patriarchal men a special shot of self esteem that they could not get from elsewhere.
And wow, your points here are important, yes. Sometimes in following the implications I overlook essential points like these you make here.
I think the NWL (Nice White Lady) believes in codependency theory so as not to face these truths.
I didn’t know about Gavin de Becker. Very interesting: http://www.bookfinder.com/dir/i/Beauty_Bites_Beast-Awakening_the_Warrior_Within_Women_and_Girls/0971144702/
He seems quite interesting as a figure.
This is why I don’t like small towns, actually — you cannot hide from these people, have to always be on your guard against emotional predators, cannot walk down the street in peace.
Hum. I live in what most would consider privileged circumstances. I had to help care for a very manipulative, weak, and subtly abusive mother in law, which meant that the great goals I had set myself for my 60’s went by the wayside. It’s not as if I had a choice. Where do people get the idea that there is any choice in these matters? What was I going to do? Run away and live on a mountaintop? (Don’t think I wasn’t tempted.) I could not let this abusive person drive me out of my own life!
Now I’m running into other kinds of problems: my husband and I are having trouble maintaining our equilibrium with each other. In general, we just hum along, but a lot of unsolved problems between us are surfacing.
If you think people are into you for stuff now, be warned that it gets worse and worse as you get older. If older people strike you as unfeeling, consider what they have been through that makes them that way.
My daughter observes that both my husband and I have become grumpier of late. Consider how useful grumpiness is at keeping others off your back! Consider how people are more apt to do what you want or let you alone, according to what you want or need, if you are grumpy.
When people are being young and cute, for instance, I look at them and say to myself, “That person thinks this exhibtion of young and cute is going to stop me from expecting good service from him.” But I sent the oversalted food back anyway. My daughter was so surprised at this change in me. I would have sucked it up once upon a time.
Hey, just writing this out makes me feel better. Thanks for providing this forum, Dr. Z!
Good!
Just to clarify in case it isn’t clear, the stuff people are into me for now, they always have been into me for, and the cold adults to whom I refer were in their early thirties!
There are always people like that around, and they are of all ages. It’s difficult to compete with them, since they are so ruthless.
It’s difficult to compete with them, since they are so ruthless.
This is true. But it is not the much touted ruthlessnes of the protocapitalist “winner”.
Rather, it is spiritual hunger that makes them so ruthless. They want to be close to admirable things, like intellect, creativity and so on, which they lack themselves. So they latch onto someone who has these qualities, and try to build their self esteem by covert competition, by mind games that are supposed to prove their superiority over the one who is actually gifted, and so on.
Actually I think that there is a very basic misunderstanding of their own motivation that causes such ppl to claim to be acting out of “love” or to be “in love”.
What they experience is a ravenous hunger for the things of the spirit (that I have mentioned). But this ISN’T “love”, its hunger and need.
Still, they justify their pursuit of the victim in these very positive terms.
Yes…
More on the difference between codependent types and plain abuse victims:
Codependent — believes the problem is all the other person, wants to change them, wants to stay in the relationship, and also wants the problem to continue (even though they complain about it) because they fear change and have a lot of their identity built into managing this problem. In fact, I think a lot of them have an abusive streak and have attached themselves to an addict because the addict feels guilty and is thus abusable!
Abuse victim — it is not their fault. Telling them they don’t have to put up with it is good, because they may not know. But telling them it’s their fault and they asked for it just replicates the abuser’s behavior. If you think that, Nice White Lady, you’re an ally and an enabler, and it is ridiculous you think you deserve to be on such a high horse.
And – on the question of trying to use reason and empathy on people incapable of it, consider this, posted for other reasons today by one of my Facebook friends … “To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.” ~Thomas Paine