WantsOut

I read this one on a long list of AA and Alanon slogans. I thought it might be useful for some of us here:

Active alcoholics don't have relationships; they take hostages.

embraced2000

and i was one willing hostage! he was so tall, good looking, and charming. and he needed fixed, real bad. so he fit my bill perfectly.

damn, i hate it when that happens. i finally figured out that the reason i was so angry about it all, was that i was forced to look at me, and what role i played in it all. i didn't want to fix me......i wanted to fix him. he didn't want fixed. i got really sick trying to convince him that i was going to fix him right up.

here's one slogan i made up.....i went to fix him up, and damned if i didn't have to get my brain re-wired!

this fits for me in my case, because i chose him. so i took him hostage, too.

WantsOut

Maybe we all get Stockholm Syndrome

StandingStrong

I was a willing hostage - and I made a darn good one at that.
Have you read up on the Stockholm Syndrome? It relates to the subject at hand if you're interested.

WantsOut

I've read accounts of it before. What part were you thinking of - how the hostages warned the robbers that the police were coming? Or how one of them married a robber later?

StandingStrong

The part that usually comes to mind for me isn't an exact situation, I guess. It's the over all manipulation of the victims. Such as the "niceties" of allowing these people restroom breaks and whatnot. While to alot of people this would have seemed a common courtesy, others saw that the robbers had "heart and decency" so to speak.
It was in the giving of the victims little things and mild respect - I believed it was referred to as giving them "Crumbs" in the article I remember reading - that these victims were drawn into the robber.
It was in the "crumbs" that I was thinking of the similarities. It was the moments of seeing remorse in my XAH that sucked me in, it was the words that I had so desperately wanted to hear and believe, it was the actions during his "suck up mode" as I refer to it, etc. - it was the crumbs that kept me seeing the good, kept me hooked, and kept me loving him.
Even hostages that aren't willing particpants can be drawn into that role of becoming willing participants if given enough crumbs.

Not sure if I explained that well but hopefully you get what I'm talking about.

WantsOut

No, that was frighteningly clear. Wow. Good post.

lillamy

Yup. No doubt.

TimTim

I like this one:

"If you always do what you always did, youll always get what you always got."

I love that one. Makes me smile everytime cause I can remember the first person who said it to me.

elizabeth1979

I see the hostage thing..but in all honesty, I was a volunteer hostage.

WantsOut

I just thought I was going to the bank. Suddenly I got caught up in all this drama ...