Stockholm syndrome

Old 11-23-2008, 12:49 PM
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Stockholm syndrome

the thread on acoholics taking hostages brought Stockholm syndrome to mind. We do have the choice to leave or stay but the explaination below pretty much sums up why some of us hang around longer than others. Take out being threatened with death (though I'm sure this has happened to some here) and it might ring some bells.

The Stockholm Syndrome comes into play when a captive cannot escape and is isolated and threatened with death, but is shown token acts of kindness by the captor. It typically takes about three or four days for the psychological shift to take hold.

A strategy of trying to keep your captor happy in order to stay alive becomes an obsessive identification with the likes and dislikes of the captor which has the result of warping your own psyche in such a way that you come to sympathize with your tormenter!

The syndrome explains what happens in hostage-taking situations, but can also be used to understand the behavior of battered spouses
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Old 11-23-2008, 12:52 PM
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For me, I have this kind of relationship with my internalised-abuser/persecutor. Now that is hard to disentangle from, I can tell you.
As to relationships, never had any, because of difficult dysfunctional family stuff as a child.
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Old 11-23-2008, 01:46 PM
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thank you!!!!
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Old 11-23-2008, 03:02 PM
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I Thought Of Stockholm syndrome too but I figured it was way to severe to compare to the general statement made about A's taking hostages. Some of it seems to make sense. Like the acts of "kindness" from them that seem to make us feel we are worth something to them.

We must start out being less that confident. I know my self esteem was never high but he told me how pretty I was and how different I was. He said he just wanted to be around me. I couldn't figure out why. Nobody has ever talked to me like that. The first few times I saw him I never spoke to him. But I could not get his face out of my mind.
There was something in his eyes that I can't explain and to this day I can't bear to see him because even though he is digging his grave with a bottle I still see that something in his eyes. I still don't know what it is. I would rather not see his face for as long as I live because of this.

Regardless of all the feelings he told me (and all my friends) he had for me It became a knock me down pull me up kind of life. Of course I was not going to tell anyone the extent of it. No way!! I could handle it. It was OUR business.

I started to feel confused and a little trapped. He became more belligerent with his drinking and I began to lie about things. My feeling of being trapped began to get reinforced in different ways. I lied to his sister about the marks on my neck where the glass beads of my necklace dug in when he choked me. I was ashamed of myself for being in that situation at all but I didn't see a way out.

The cops said If I had him arrested for domestic violence that he would have me arrested and we would both go to jail. They said he had marks on him too. Those marks were from me trying to get his hands off my throat. They said it didn't matter. I sat there on the driveway with a ring of angry marks around my neck and a sore swollen throat. I croaked out the words "I guess i can't press charges because I don't want to go to jail." I was in no condition to sit in jail. It scared me to think about it.
Every single time I packed my stuff to leave (had nowhere to go but in the moment but didn't care, never thought of vera house or anything like that...it wasn't THAT bad) he would act like I was crazy.

Then I would wear myself out physically and mentally, which I think he waited for or maybe he didnt care, and then the "talk" would come. He would say he was tired of fighting and just wanted us to be ok.
I remember all too well the vapid stare on my face and the empty, wasted feeling in my head. My face red from screaming and crying just trying with all my guts to make a point, any point, and the headache that would follow me for the next day. All I wanted was for him to listen to me. Just try to understand where I was coming from. But I know now that he couldn't because he was too busy planning his next move.

Our relationship was long series of these episodes where each time I ended up looking and feeling like an out of control, over emotional train wreck.
We'd stay away from each other for a few hours or he would storm out leaving me to wonder what the hell I was doing wrong all the time.

He would ask me later "are we ok?" and I would say "I guess" because I couldn't cry anymore, or think or react to anything. I just wanted peace. I wanted to be next to him feel like we were "normal" Sometimes he would ask me if I needed anything and he would act like he cared and then we would be ok for awhile and we would go to his mom's for dinner or he would hug me and say he loved me and we both would cry...but it was never really ok...because it happened again and again for 13 years.

How could I have fallen for this? I never thought of myself as being that weak. I thought I was being strong by sticking it out. I thought that when you love someone you take the bad with the good. At least we didn't fight every single day and night like my parents did. At least he didn't rape me and punch me in the head like his father did to his mother. There was always an "at least'. there was always some small gift or a card that would melt my heart and make me think he was trying. That I was too angry all the time. That I was being difficult and that he wasn't such a bad guy.

I can tell you that I LET HIM hurt me more than any other human has and he has been gone for almost four years. For some reason I still think of him every single day. I think of him now as a lost soul. as someone I used to know and love. As someone who could have been a really decent, talented, attractive and strong man. He never lived up to the hero I WANTED HIM TO BE!!!!

I remind myself that he could make the choice to get away from his AGF and get a life of his own. I remind myself that even if he were to get sober it wouldn't matter to me because there is so much turmoil inside that booze drenched mind that he could never have the energy to be in a relationship.As for me I'm never going back to that.

If I ever get into a relationship again I will see everything as a red flag so for now I'd rather just stay single. I consider myself unavailable. I feel that getting into a relationship now or any time soon would be bad because I might fall into the same trap. I know it's possible because some of the smartest people end up being voluntary hostages.
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Old 11-23-2008, 03:08 PM
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I am the Stockholm Syndrome poster girl. Over the last 20 years I've married my AH three times and divorced him twice.

OR I'm just dumb as a box of rocks.
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Old 11-23-2008, 04:24 PM
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What you've all written really resonates with me too. I guess we all end up asking ourselves at some point, why did I put up with this. Loner1968, I can really relate to what you're saying as I stayed 16 years in a relationship where we had a series of episodes like you described. You just get so worn down after awhile and just welcome the calm and try to pretend you have a 'normal' relationship......until the next chaotic episode. You do end up feeling like a train wreck. For some reason, I hung in there thinking I was strong and could endure anything to see him get well. Well, it took it's toll. At the end of those dramas I'd always feel like it was me that had the problem and I was just an ungrateful, emotional, controlling woman and that I should be so luck he stayed with me. I would do anything just to have peace. And when the words come, you know they are yet another series of meaningless promises that will be broken very shortly. But I would hang on to them and keep thinking, "Maybe this is the time that he finally 'gets it.'

It's only been 6 months that he's been gone and I, too, think of hiim every day, many times a day. I don't want what we had but am still at the stage of fantisizing that maybe he could come back a changed man. From everything I'm reading here, I don't think that is likely. And as someone said, his brain would be such mush from all the drinking that who knows how many years it would ever take him to start thinking rationally. All I can say is that this disease truly is devastating as it affects so many people around them, not just us. I am very grateful for the lack of drama in my life and will do everything possible not to ever attract a situation like that again.
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Old 11-23-2008, 04:50 PM
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It took me a few years to make the decision to divorce my ex. I had probably been unhappy the last 5 years, but yet did not do anything about it because we have two children. What I have found is we actually get along better since we are divorced and parent our kiddos better. When we were married, I was resentful of all the issues surrounding the alcoholism and constantly preapring myself for the next crisis-DWI's, wrecks, ect. Now I feel I can let him make those choices without it having the financial and legal backlash on me that it used to. When he comes to see the kids, we are able to have nice dinners, watch movies and whatever with no tension. It has helped the transition for our kiddos and has lifted a burden off of us as well.

But it took me YEARS to get the courage up to get to the point where I am today.

So you guys..quit being so hard on yourself. It isn't an easy decision by any means. I firmly believe that everyone gets to their point of action at the time they should and not a second before.

On another note, I do believe anyone CAN change when the person gets good and ready. I think the moral to story really is don't put your whole life on hold waiting for that moment or trying to make that moment happen faster. You just have to live and let live.
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Old 11-23-2008, 04:57 PM
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these posts really help to remind me im not crazy and im not the only that has been trapped for so long, unless you've been there no one really understands, my family cant figure out why i stayed with my xah so long, and really i cant figure it out myself but reading everything on here makes me realize im not alone
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Old 11-23-2008, 06:59 PM
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Bailyboop: As for me, I'm not putting my life on hold. I admit I was in the beginning but I also believed his lies about "working it out" You can't work anything out with an A who has a girlfriend before he's even out the door.

He is going to get tired of his life of drama and chaos someday (or God forbid he will die or kill someone drinking and driving) but I won't be around to see it. I always told myself I would support his recovery, should he choose it, but I don't have to be in a relationship with him to do that. I have lost all trust in him. He doesn't deserve my trust yet I still care about him as a person. Empathy or insanity. Either way it is what it is.
I am learning to be less hard on myself about it all. It has taken years and I still have a long way to go. it almost feels like he left a scar on my soul and I hope someday that it will fade away.

I think it is great that you can have dinner together and get along with each other. I could never do that.I can't even stand the thought of running into him at a store. We never had any kids because I chose not to. he claimed after he left that my "refusal" to have kids was one of the reasons he left. I knew having child with him would only be subjecting an innocent person to a life of hell and poverty. I think it is amazing that you can have him in your life like that.
We all just need to learn however we learn. Nothing and nobody can make it happen for us just like nothing or nobody can stop them from drinking.
Thanks for your stories. It helps to remember sometimes that these things were very real and that they do not have to be that way ever again.
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Old 11-23-2008, 08:05 PM
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I can tell you with absolute certainty that if we did not have children together, my decision would have happened much sooner, and we would not be having dinners together. : )

My X cheated on me as well...along with many other things that I don't go into anymore because it is in the past to be left there.

I do the things I do now because he is the father of my children. He can't hurt me anymore. I took that power back. I gave the power back to the rightful owner, my Creator. That is how I do it.
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