conuly

you know, it could just be plain ignorance talking in my situation. around me, there are several women's shelters that take in alot of women plus alot of outreach groups as well, so women around me dont seem to have it as bad off as i am sure they do elsewhere. i probably should have considered that before opening my yap.

*inserts foot into mouth*

:)

From:

Let me guess. You have never been a victim of abuse. You have no idea what it is like. And judging by your icon, you're male, too.

From:

don't bring his balls into this one. men are abused too, but the media doesn't let that out all easy-like. it can be just as bad, sometimes worse.

From:

I don't deny that men are abused as well as women. What I object to is men making generalizations about women's experiences.

From:

Well, not to start a flame war (and i hope we're both mature enough not to), but i don't like anyone assuming generalizations are made due to one's gender.

From:

Okay, let me put it this way: I don't like it when someone makes generalizations about a group they don't belong to.

From:

perfect. we're in agreement on that.

From:

you are right on one count. i am a male.

i have been a victim of sexual abuse and i got out of the situation as soon as i was old enough to realize what was going on, so i know what it feels like. what i was admitting i guess was that it was unfair for me to apply my surroundings and experiences to other people.

it was fairly easy for me to get out of the situation as all i had to do was tell someone and that relative never came around again. simple, problem gone. i forget that not everyone has it as lightly as that. not that the recovery has been nice, but we won't go into that, this is not the time nor place.

From:

It's because they develop a psych disorder called Stockholm Syndrome -- same reason that abused children try to protect their abusers even though it means continuing to be mistreated. Anybody, if put under certain conditions, will develop it.

Here's a good info page on how it develops, where the name came from, etc.:
http://www.drjoecarver.com/articles_stockholm.html

From:

azarias.livejournal.com

Well, at least the cockfighting bill is a good thing. Except for the part where cockfighters aren't tied up in a room with a dozen pissed-off, heavily-armed roosters on the first offense.

(I'm mentioning this because I'm trying to convince myself that the Honorable Representative from Charleston has wrecked his career, and I need distraction from the reality that he's probably going to wind up a speaker at the RNC next Presidential race.)

From:

nerdinium.livejournal.com

It is called 'traumatic bonding' - it's why children will try to protect their abusers. An adult version is called the 'Helsinki Syndrome'.

From:

conuly

That's one thing that goes on. I imagine that it's more complex than just one reason, though.

From:

Just so you know, in case you ever want to share links on it -- Helsinki Syndrome is a common misnomer for Stockholm Syndrome. The actual event that prompted the name was a bank robbery during 1973 in Stockholm; people often mix it up with the terrorist kidnappings in Helsinki during the 1972 Olympics.

(I only know this because I Googled it when I saw your comment, as I was wondering if Helsinki Syndrome was the same as Stockholm Syndrome. :)

From:

leora.livejournal.com

I looked this information up recently. Some of the stuff on Helsinki effect claims the reverse. Especially as the Stockholm incident may not have actually been a case of the "Stockholm effect".

Also, throwing either term at the phenomenon doesn't add anything to it than saying that victims of abuse often love and protect their abusors and that's just human nature.

However, I have serious problems with a US Republican telling people that if they are abused they can just leave their relationships while shaping tax and welfare laws to punish those who aren't married and reward those who are.

From:

Where I looked up Helsinki Syndrome, what it said was simply that it's a misnomer -- not a separate disorder at all.

One of the reasons it's important to have a name for things like this (and have full explanations) is specifically so idiots like that senator can be educated about it in the first place. You can't even tell them what it is, let alone begin to explain how it works, if there are no words for it so you can find out in the first place. Just telling them "oh, it's human nature" (it's actually mammalian nature as other species do it as well) will not even begin helping them understand or accept it.

I agree that the guy is a stupid jerk that needs a clue-by-four to the head, I'm not denying that. I'm not going to waste energy flipping out over a specific situation I have no personal power to alter, however -- whenever possible, I prefer to focus my energy where it will have a chance of improving things.

From:

The most dangerous time for a domestic violence victim is after she leaves her abuser. Then he's most likely to kill her, because if he can't have her, then no one can. So I imagine that many times, the woman doesn't leave, or she keeps going back, because being beaten is better than being dead.

From:

conuly

Exactly. What's she going to do, get a restraining order? I'm sure he'll care so much about that when he's busy, y'know, killing her.

From:

marveen.livejournal.com

Didn't that Dixie Chicks song* have a line in it about how "Earl walked right through that restraining order just like it wasn't there"?

(I've seen the video and heard the song ONCE. It was controversial, remember?)

*"Goodbye, Earl" Lyrics HERE (http://www.lyricsfreak.com/d/dixie-chicks/40999.html), and the line I was thinking of was "But Earl walked right through that restraining order/
And put her in intensive care".

From:

dkmnow.livejournal.com

When I first read about Seligman's experiments in learned helplessness, I was thunderstruck for days afterwards. Then, for weeks, I could talk about nothing else.

Years later, I went through a phase of reading just about everything Alice Miller had ever written. Then one day, on Star Trek: TNG, I noticed a passing reference to Stockholm Syndrome. I had never heard the term, so I looked it up on the web.

Boom.

While I realized that SS was intdended to apply only to hostage realated situations, I couldn't avoid the relevance to traditional Western pedagogy. The parent-child dynamics that are as common as dirt and regarded as both "normal" and "moral" by most may be more "subtle" than those described in the SS literature, but to my mind, they were shockingly unmistakable.

Look at it this way: there is no "hostage" so utterly dependent upon winning the esteem of his/her "captor" that the child is upon the parent. In the child's visceral perception, the possibility of withdrawal of parental love is tantamount to a death-threat! And a children who are constantly exposed to such danger, whether real or imagined, will increasingly resort to even bizarre extremes of behavior in a desperate attempt to offset the fear they must endure.

The insidiousness of these dynamics in the average Western family in no way diminishes the damage that is done - in fact, by rendering it "undetectable" by most standards, the hope for healing is all but demolished. And when a person has been raised under such a construct, so long as they have no other intelligible context for comparison, it is a clockwork certainty that they will seek out relationships that echo the authoritarian regime of their upbringing.

Worse yet, these facts go unrecognized by the general public. Despite poignant descriptions of work such as that of Seligman, or Milgram (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment), for god's sake, people routinely go through college and into social services (or whatever) without ever having the slightest grasp of the power and scope of such dynamics. It's like the information is just too personally threatening to us to be permitted to register in our awareness.

Despite my life-long fascination with psychology, I went through the first thirty years of my life without having the first inkling of how relevant these things really are to all of us.

Now, I find the widespread ignorance regarding these matters to be even more terrifying than the psychosocial dynamics themselves.

But I do understand why that ingnorance persists.

Hmm...having rambled myself out on what most here likely consider obvious anyway, I s'pose I should go have a look at that article now, eh?

From:

One of the highschools I went to had a policy that if you wore a wallet chain to school, you were suspended and a board would meet to discuss how long the suspension should last and if it should be turned into an expulsion.

Oddly enough, the same punishment was given for comitting rape on school grounds.

From:

conuly

I'm hoping that rape was more likely to end in expulsion?

From:

I cannot think of any times when I heard of anyone breaking either of these rules, so I can't say for sure, but I would expect so.

From:

wodhaund.livejournal.com

WHOA.

That's my local newsstation! WTF, how did I miss that???

And no, I'm afraid it's not a joke. Quite a few of us locals have been bitching about this for a while. They kept saying they would table the cockfighting bill and work on the domestic violence one instead, those bastards.

...If you'll pardon me, I have some phone calls to make.

(deleted comment)

From:

neurotica0.livejournal.com

Ever consider that many of them don't have anywhere to go?
Ever consider that survival sometimes involves taking the best scenario, even if it's by no means pleasant.

The first 6 (not sure on that number exactly) months after a woman leaves her abuser can be the most dangerous for her. That loss of control and power for the abuser can cause the violence to escalate. Many women who leave their abusers become the victims of stalker, further assault, and sometimes murder.

From:

you know, it could just be plain ignorance talking in my situation. around me, there are several women's shelters that take in alot of women plus alot of outreach groups as well, so women around me dont seem to have it as bad off as i am sure they do elsewhere. i probably should have considered that before opening my yap.

*inserts foot into mouth*

:)

From:

Let me guess. You have never been a victim of abuse. You have no idea what it is like. And judging by your icon, you're male, too.

From:

don't bring his balls into this one. men are abused too, but the media doesn't let that out all easy-like. it can be just as bad, sometimes worse.

From:

I don't deny that men are abused as well as women. What I object to is men making generalizations about women's experiences.

From:

Well, not to start a flame war (and i hope we're both mature enough not to), but i don't like anyone assuming generalizations are made due to one's gender.

From:

Okay, let me put it this way: I don't like it when someone makes generalizations about a group they don't belong to.

From:

perfect. we're in agreement on that.

From:

you are right on one count. i am a male.

i have been a victim of sexual abuse and i got out of the situation as soon as i was old enough to realize what was going on, so i know what it feels like. what i was admitting i guess was that it was unfair for me to apply my surroundings and experiences to other people.

it was fairly easy for me to get out of the situation as all i had to do was tell someone and that relative never came around again. simple, problem gone. i forget that not everyone has it as lightly as that. not that the recovery has been nice, but we won't go into that, this is not the time nor place.

From:

It's because they develop a psych disorder called Stockholm Syndrome -- same reason that abused children try to protect their abusers even though it means continuing to be mistreated. Anybody, if put under certain conditions, will develop it.

Here's a good info page on how it develops, where the name came from, etc.:
http://www.drjoecarver.com/articles_stockholm.html

From:

azarias.livejournal.com

Well, at least the cockfighting bill is a good thing. Except for the part where cockfighters aren't tied up in a room with a dozen pissed-off, heavily-armed roosters on the first offense.

(I'm mentioning this because I'm trying to convince myself that the Honorable Representative from Charleston has wrecked his career, and I need distraction from the reality that he's probably going to wind up a speaker at the RNC next Presidential race.)

From:

nerdinium.livejournal.com

It is called 'traumatic bonding' - it's why children will try to protect their abusers. An adult version is called the 'Helsinki Syndrome'.

From:

conuly

That's one thing that goes on. I imagine that it's more complex than just one reason, though.

From:

Just so you know, in case you ever want to share links on it -- Helsinki Syndrome is a common misnomer for Stockholm Syndrome. The actual event that prompted the name was a bank robbery during 1973 in Stockholm; people often mix it up with the terrorist kidnappings in Helsinki during the 1972 Olympics.

(I only know this because I Googled it when I saw your comment, as I was wondering if Helsinki Syndrome was the same as Stockholm Syndrome. :)

From:

leora.livejournal.com

I looked this information up recently. Some of the stuff on Helsinki effect claims the reverse. Especially as the Stockholm incident may not have actually been a case of the "Stockholm effect".

Also, throwing either term at the phenomenon doesn't add anything to it than saying that victims of abuse often love and protect their abusors and that's just human nature.

However, I have serious problems with a US Republican telling people that if they are abused they can just leave their relationships while shaping tax and welfare laws to punish those who aren't married and reward those who are.

From:

Where I looked up Helsinki Syndrome, what it said was simply that it's a misnomer -- not a separate disorder at all.

One of the reasons it's important to have a name for things like this (and have full explanations) is specifically so idiots like that senator can be educated about it in the first place. You can't even tell them what it is, let alone begin to explain how it works, if there are no words for it so you can find out in the first place. Just telling them "oh, it's human nature" (it's actually mammalian nature as other species do it as well) will not even begin helping them understand or accept it.

I agree that the guy is a stupid jerk that needs a clue-by-four to the head, I'm not denying that. I'm not going to waste energy flipping out over a specific situation I have no personal power to alter, however -- whenever possible, I prefer to focus my energy where it will have a chance of improving things.

From:

The most dangerous time for a domestic violence victim is after she leaves her abuser. Then he's most likely to kill her, because if he can't have her, then no one can. So I imagine that many times, the woman doesn't leave, or she keeps going back, because being beaten is better than being dead.

From:

conuly

Exactly. What's she going to do, get a restraining order? I'm sure he'll care so much about that when he's busy, y'know, killing her.

From:

marveen.livejournal.com

Didn't that Dixie Chicks song* have a line in it about how "Earl walked right through that restraining order just like it wasn't there"?

(I've seen the video and heard the song ONCE. It was controversial, remember?)

*"Goodbye, Earl" Lyrics HERE (http://www.lyricsfreak.com/d/dixie-chicks/40999.html), and the line I was thinking of was "But Earl walked right through that restraining order/
And put her in intensive care".

From:

dkmnow.livejournal.com

When I first read about Seligman's experiments in learned helplessness, I was thunderstruck for days afterwards. Then, for weeks, I could talk about nothing else.

Years later, I went through a phase of reading just about everything Alice Miller had ever written. Then one day, on Star Trek: TNG, I noticed a passing reference to Stockholm Syndrome. I had never heard the term, so I looked it up on the web.

Boom.

While I realized that SS was intdended to apply only to hostage realated situations, I couldn't avoid the relevance to traditional Western pedagogy. The parent-child dynamics that are as common as dirt and regarded as both "normal" and "moral" by most may be more "subtle" than those described in the SS literature, but to my mind, they were shockingly unmistakable.

Look at it this way: there is no "hostage" so utterly dependent upon winning the esteem of his/her "captor" that the child is upon the parent. In the child's visceral perception, the possibility of withdrawal of parental love is tantamount to a death-threat! And a children who are constantly exposed to such danger, whether real or imagined, will increasingly resort to even bizarre extremes of behavior in a desperate attempt to offset the fear they must endure.

The insidiousness of these dynamics in the average Western family in no way diminishes the damage that is done - in fact, by rendering it "undetectable" by most standards, the hope for healing is all but demolished. And when a person has been raised under such a construct, so long as they have no other intelligible context for comparison, it is a clockwork certainty that they will seek out relationships that echo the authoritarian regime of their upbringing.

Worse yet, these facts go unrecognized by the general public. Despite poignant descriptions of work such as that of Seligman, or Milgram (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment), for god's sake, people routinely go through college and into social services (or whatever) without ever having the slightest grasp of the power and scope of such dynamics. It's like the information is just too personally threatening to us to be permitted to register in our awareness.

Despite my life-long fascination with psychology, I went through the first thirty years of my life without having the first inkling of how relevant these things really are to all of us.

Now, I find the widespread ignorance regarding these matters to be even more terrifying than the psychosocial dynamics themselves.

But I do understand why that ingnorance persists.

Hmm...having rambled myself out on what most here likely consider obvious anyway, I s'pose I should go have a look at that article now, eh?

From:

One of the highschools I went to had a policy that if you wore a wallet chain to school, you were suspended and a board would meet to discuss how long the suspension should last and if it should be turned into an expulsion.

Oddly enough, the same punishment was given for comitting rape on school grounds.

From:

conuly

I'm hoping that rape was more likely to end in expulsion?

From: