Escape Abuse!

Note: It’s quite interesting to us that the NYT chose to put this piece in the “Opinion” section of their site/paper.  No part of the article is “opinion”.  It is all fact. It is all news.  The trouble is, we suppose, that it’s news about women and their protection from abuse (ie: it’s news that doesn’t involve fashion, childcare or cooking) so it ends up buried on an “opinion” page when it is actually fact. The FACT that a new position was created within the Obama administration to coordinate efforts against the insidious problem of DV in the United States is not “opinion”, nor is the FACT that DV incidences have increased substantially since the US and world economy has gone bad.  Nothing in the piece is “opinion”. It is all FACT and important news. But it’s “only” important news for women suffering in abusive and violent situations in their lives, so one has to guess that the NYT deems such “news” trivial and thus it ended up on the “opinion” page.  Interesting, indeed. 

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A New Advocate for Women

Domestic violence is a serious law enforcement and public health problem affecting as many as one in four women in this country. Yet Washington has devoted too little attention to reducing domestic violence and sexual assaults generally. We welcome President Obama’s decision to create a new post, White House adviser on violence against women, and his appointment of a seasoned advocate for victims to fill it.

Lynn Rosenthal is a former executive director of the National Network to End Domestic Violence. She will report to Mr. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, whose keen interest in the issue dates from his days in the Senate and his key role in enacting the 1994 Violence Against Women Act.

Ms. Rosenthal’s challenge, and the administration’s, will be to improve the carrying out of existing laws intended to protect women, starting with better coordination of the activities of all the government bureaucracies involved, including the Justice Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

A national survey of domestic violence shelters released in May showed a significant increase in the number of women seeking assistance since last fall, a rise largely attributable to the stresses of the economic crisis and rising unemployment. States need to set up more emergency shelters and find more transitional housing for people fleeing violent situations. And they must do more to help these victims rebuild their lives.

Ms. Rosenthal will need to tackle bureaucratic and legal hurdles and find more money to help states, localities and charitable groups address those needs. She must also help end the scandal of the thousands of rape kits sitting untested in crime labs and police storage facilities across the country, allowing countless criminals to escape punishment. All of this will require strong and creative leadership from Ms. Rosenthal and Mr. Biden and from the president.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/opinion/01wed4.html?_r=2

Introduction

Nothing is as practical as good theory. Professor Berit Ås developed the theory of the master suppression techniques, thus making a tool women (and others) can use to identify what goes on when they are not listened to, when they are overlooked or ignored. Maybe it is not that you make a poor argument or fail to present a case properly. It may not have anything to do with the individual, but with the group membership you are given by others, like your gender. To identify the master suppression techniques is to make them visible and thereby neutralise their effect. Immensely practical, as well as useful.

The five master suppression techniques that Berit Ås identified are:

• Making Invisible
• Ridiculing
• Withholding Information
• Damned If You Do And Damned If You Don’t
• Heaping Blame and Putting to Shame

In theory, techniques like these may be used on all suppressed groups. However, Berit Ås believes that they are used in specific combinations and situations in regards to women, due to the patriarchial society’s definition of women as objects or property.

In co-operation with Berit Ås, KILDEN presents the master suppression techniques on the web. More than 20 years has passed since they were identified, written about and discussed for the first time, but they are still valid. To have knowledge of the master suppression techniques means that you too can reveal and reduce their effect.

Click below to READ MORE specific details about these Master Suppression Techniques.  Dan, my ex-abuser, either consciously or unconsciously, used these against me almost constantly, particularly ridiculing and blaming.

http://kilden.forskningsradet.no/c16881/artikkel/vis.html?tid=55475

Boy does THIS hit some major nails on the head regarding my ex! How about yours?  Do you see him or her in the description below? The entire article is worth a visit to the site to read in its entirety.

A Field Guide to Narcissism - by Carl Vogel

• • •

The beauty of being a narcissist is that even when disaster stares you in the face, you feel neither doubt nor remorse. In a study, researchers asked a pair of participants to undertake a task that was rigged to fail. Most people tend to protect their partner, sharing either the credit or the blame. “But the narcissists would say, ‘It’s totally the other person’s fault.’ They’re completely willing to step on someone,” says narcissism researcher Keith Campbell, associate professor of social psychology at the University of Georgia.

Intensely narcissistic people often live tumultuous lives, as few people can tolerate them for long. But having a milder version of the personality type comes with many side benefits. Subclinical narcissists are happy. They are less likely to be depressed, sad or anxious, and rate their subjective well-being more highly. They’re less reactive to stress, and recover more rapidly from it.

Mild narcissism also seems to help people recover from accidents or other trauma—it gives them an unrealistic sense of their own invulnerability, and they believe that they will be able to handle whatever else life throws at them. As one researcher put it, being somewhat narcissistic is like driving a huge SUV: You’re having a great time, even while you hog the road, suck up extra resources and put other drivers at higher risk.

A narcissist can be hard to identify, in part because he is likely to be much more fascinating than you would expect for someone so self-absorbed, and in part because you wouldn’t think someone with such self-regard could be so defensive and needy.

• • •

As bad as narcissistic behavior can be in a coworker, golf buddy or relative, it’s worse in a romantic partner. Male or female, narcissists are the quintessential sharks: Self-confidence and charm make them highly appealing in the early stages of attraction. Since narcissists are very concerned about appearance, they’re likely to be well-groomed and fashionable. “He was into nice things, the best brand names. Everything was about treating himself well,” says Lynn, a 30-year-old consultant in San Diego, about her ex-boyfriend. “And he was totally charismatic. After we were going out for a while, I could see him turn it on and off when he wanted something.”

•  •  •

Obviously, most narcissists aren’t killers, but they do tend to be very unsatisfying mates. If he’s had a string of relationships, if he can’t stop talking about how much people admire him, if he gets easily riled when he doesn’t get what he wants—he may not be just another commitment-phobic man. He’s a narcissist.

Unfortunately, anyone can be seduced by a narcissist. One misconception is that only those with low self-esteem date someone who’s so self-centered, but people with normal self-respect can also end up involved with a narcissist. They have decisive, take-charge personalities in a society that shuns wishy-washiness.

Link to entire article:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200512/field-guide-narcissism

Yes! He did just that! And to complete Steven Stosny’s sentence, which continues to describe my ex in therapy to a veritable tee:

They will make their wives sound like Norman Bates’ mother from Psycho – they’re just minding their own business, when she comes screaming out of nowhere wielding a bloody knife.

That’s exactly what he did. There is MUCH more to Mr. Stosny’s latest blog entry which I’ll write more about later, but this particular sentence literally *jumped* off the page at me because it so aptly described my ex in therapy.  Playing victim is one of an abuser’s best known tactics.

ALSO coming up soon:  Enabling, Authenticity, and Agency:  What are these things, and what do they mean to targets of abuse? (title may change but subject matter will essentially be the same).

Are you a “White Knight?

Are you attracted to needy, damaged, or helpless people?

Do you feel like your love can heal your partner?

Are you overly involved in your partner’s problems?

Are you hungry for constant reassurance in relationships?

Do you make excuses for your partner?

Do you try to “save” people from themselves?

It’s said that sometimes, people who end up in abusive relationships (with a violent substance abuser, for instance) are “rescuers” who are eternally trying to ‘fix’ or ‘rescue’ other people from their own issues, whether those are financial problems, addiction or substance abuse, or other damaged relationships - including those with family, friends, and ex- intimate partners. Certainly not every target/victim of abuse is a “rescuer” but a healthy examination of where and why you may be taking too much responsibility for the “demons” or problems, and most of all - the behavior of others, is worth a focused look. This blog entry is from Mary C. Lamia - author, clinical psychologist, and psychoanalyst in Marin County, CA.

I include an excerpt below.

In legends and folklore, the white knight rescues the damsel in distress, falls in love, and saves the day. Real-life white knights are men and women who enter into romantic relationships with damaged and vulnerable partners, hoping that love will transform their partner’s behavior or lives; a relationship pattern that seldom leads to a storybook ending. White knights can be any age, race, sexual orientation, culture, or socioeconomic status, but all have the inclination and the need to rescue. Although white knights can exist in a wide range of relationships, such as in a business or a friendship, we will limit our focus to the white knight in intimate relationships.

…

You will discover that many rescuers often go from one person in need of rescue to another, riding into each new partner’s life on a white horse to save the day. In the initial stages of the relationship, the rescuer seems gracious and happily altruistic, but as time goes by, he feels increasingly unhappy, disappointed, critical, and powerless.

Although the white knight’s heroic actions may take the form of slaying her partner’s metaphorical dragons, her real goal, which is often beyond her awareness, involves slaying the dragons from her own past. Thus, at a deeper level the compulsive rescuer is trying to repair the negative or damaged sense of herself that developed in childhood.