Moral Harassment Techniques for Victims’ Awareness: Stockholm Syndrome
Victims of abuse often need years to realize and accept that they were abused. Why? Because Stockholm syndrome prevents them from accusing the abuser of what they have done. This is the psychological response to abuse, when a victim bonds with the abuser, expresses empathy and other positive feelings towards them, or even defends them.
Under pressure and distress, our psyche is unable to accept the fact of abuse. We try to invent excuses for the aggressor, justify their cruel actions and neglect. In fact, we co-identify ourselves with them and cannot put up with the feeling that our fellow humans can be such monsters. Unfortunately, they can. They can even enjoy torture.
Disclaimer. This blog post is written by a former victim, not a psychology genius.
This Stockholm syndrome is not necessarily something arising spontaneously. Experienced manipulators learn psychological tricks specifically to achieve maximum effect with it. They are interested in the long-lasting Stockholm syndrome phase as they hope that their victims will remain silent for years or even decades. They double, triple and quadruple love bombing when they feel that they might be losing control over the victim. They know very well that these memories from the last contact are powerful. They hope that these memories will bring the victim back to them someday and let them consume the victim’s resources again. We’ll discuss this deliberate Stockholm syndrome creation. This may sound disgusting, but they do it, and I have survived this myself.
Stockholm Syndrome: How Does It All Start?
After parting ways with the destructive personality, we normally try to come up with some explanation of what happened. Our health is ruined, we have plenty of unusual diseases, very often even doctors are puzzled with that bunch of psychosomatic things we bring to them after years of abuse. However, we strive to protect the abuser anyhow though nearly everyone is tactfully trying to point us out in the right direction. We keep on telling ourselves that all those things happened to us due to a chain of coincidences or even blame ourselves for the loss of our true love that forgot our birthday, our prospective business partner who never signed anything with us, our “friend” who envied each of our achievements.
We are still blinded by the after-effect of that painful break-up (predators often make it twice as painful as they are enraged due to the ‘property’ loss). We feel completely lost due to white words and dark actions said and committed at the same time. We get love and devotion messaging along with all sorts of betrayal, defaming, etc. We blame ourselves as the potential reason of the aggressor’s anger, change of heart, escape, or our sudden rebellion. We want to believe in good and kind people around and are unwilling to accept the facts.
Stockholm Syndrome: What Does It Look Like?
For our closest circle, we look completely insane while trying to protect the aggressor, not ourselves, so terribly wounded by that bastard. People try to persuade us that we are wrong. We push back on them and often lose our best friends willing us only good. We are still focused on what happened to us and the very purpose of it, the person who turned our life into a horror movie or a thriller.
Those willing to believe only in good people are at risk — some of them will never recover from the Stockholm syndrome and remain enslaved by the aggressor forever. They will get all the stabs in the back and return to their predators for a portion of poisoned happiness again and again until they are completely destroyed.
Stockholm Syndrome: Why Does It Work?
Acceptance of violence is tough. The position of a victim abused by an aggressor is bitter pill to swallow. So many of us will continue to say to ourselves: “Nope, it can’t be so. A human being cannot be so evil. They didn’t play with my feelings, life, welfare. They didn’t beat me. I wasn’t hurt. That was just a chain of bad coincidences. Probably, it’s my fault… Other people were misleading Mr./Ms. X who hurt me, there was no evil intention…”
This complex mechanism protects us from the general crush of trust in humanity. We co-identify with the aggressor in order not to get too disappointed. We depend on them like kids, and this is why we love that aggressor unconditionally, just like our parent who misbehaves protected by that parental status. They just get us trapped, first endangering us by becoming Masters of our fate as the only employers, spouses, or business partners, and then, second, by introducing another round of love bombing when we depart.
Stockholm Syndrome: Real-World Examples
Eva Braun, Adolf Hitler’s girlfriend, joined him to die with him when World War II was wrapping up. It was her own choice, she could have escaped and saved her life. However, she preferred to stay with her Master, marry him, and commit suicide. The Stockholm syndrome was stronger than the instinct of self-preservation.
Some victims of the NXIVM cult have continued to speak in defense of its founder. The court got over 50 testimonials where Keith Raniere was portrayed as a Godlike figure who could heal people, demonstrate miracles and change people's cognitive abilities. The addiction appeared to be too hard for them to believe in the facts.
Stockholm Syndrome: How to Protect Yourself From It?
Honestly, there’s no workaround that could cure a person of their traumatic experience completely and at once. If a predator tortured you in the past, you’ll have to deal with an unhealthy addiction to their parental figure who once had the power to make important decisions and control your life-changing choices. Seeing them or talking about them is going to be tough, avoiding this person is the best you can do.
Awareness is key. If you are going to meet someone who brought evil to your life in the past and feel overly excited about that, don’t get trapped. You don’t really feel affection for that destroyer. In fact, it’s the affection for yourself who used to be abused, humiliated, bullied, tortured. You are simply trying to make that predator more human in your head to proceed with life and not to get disappointed. Read about Stockholm syndrome and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. You’re going to have all these flashbacks and memories. You’re going to recall the old times again and again. Find a supportive circle for yourself. Make an appointment with a good psychotherapist you trust. Consider pharmacological help if needed — anti-depressants could help you go through this, they might be the only way out for the toughest cases.
Conclusion
The aggressor knows about your Stockholm syndrome and will try to exploit it to bring you back under their umbrella of influence. This means more torture and less freedom for you. Sometimes victims get back to the predators who abused them to make sure that it’s the aggressor, not them. It’s tough and super painful as the sadist will set the higher and higher bar for your pain threshold with each circle. However, if after yet another comeback you stop being blinded and accept your abuser for who they are, consider yourself blessed. You managed to escape before being killed, committing suicide, or having cancer caused by years of distress.
Remember that the Stockholm syndrome speaks about your normality, not vice versa. You’re just an empathic person healing after trauma, not someone insane. Don’t let your PTSD and Stockholm syndrome bring you back to that nightmare. Speak out to the extent you can (very often abusers are people of power…). Concentrate on self-healing, not the aggressor’s figure. They will send their flying monkeys your way. Ignore people with mental disorders (predators are always surrounded by them). If they try to communicate with you via your friends “seduced” by them, give those friends some slight hints — this might save their lives.
What about that feeling of disappointment? Humans are still great. Predators aren't, though. They are not fully human, to be honest. Zero empathy, poor emotional life, inability to love, mental disorders. Let psychiatrists deal with all this. The best quote I’ve ever heard is “not my monkeys, not my circus”. This sect around your aggressor is their circus.
Are you a clown? I think, nope :)
