The following list of reasons why people with Dependent Personality Disorders enable has been excerpted from Psych Central. Do we agree with all their assessment and clinical observation based hypothetical assertions entirely? No.
The article features common traits of most adult children raised by toxic families — especially when drug or alcohol abuse issues tend to dominate the culture of caregivers who were allowed to have access to drink or to use illegal, legal or prescription drugs that alter the mind and emotions and were allowed to have physical access to caring for under-aged offspring.
We here at FMD firmly believe there are more trauma bonded people walking around with severe to extreme C-PTSD issues that anyone in the medical or mental health community are likely to expect.
Family scapegoats, black sheep, and ostracized offspring of all ages ranging from birth to senior years deal with the most appalling social forms of daily abuse any neurotypical person can possibly imagine. People who are dealing with pervasive abuse who lie to protect the image of their abuser(s) end up being medically misdiagnosed with something like depression when what they truly need is to end social enmeshment with people who are abusive.
Meanwhile, suicide rates among sane, rational, and feeling helpless people (like Chris Cornell, Robin Williams, and young adults like Curt Cobain) keep climbing as the wrong medical prescriptions are doled out like candy on Halloween by doctors and Nurse Practitioners who are Cluster B – prone, themselves.
Why?
Because the more egocentric and desensitized a person is to traumatic events, the less likely they are to listen to another human with a desire or intent to understand. It’s how they are nurtured and trained to respond to trauma in their own mind, leaving them functionally uninterested in connecting with other neurotypical or emotionally perceptive, kind-natured, and persistently emotionally sentient humans.
Here’s their summarized report of his/her/their findings as they clinically relate to the diagnosis of Dependent Personality types:
- Over-identifying with the abuser: Some individuals who have endured long-term abuse often find themselves harboring conflicting emotions. There are times when the abused individual may hate the abuser one minute and the next minute make statements or do things that make the relationship appear better than it actually is. For example, a child who is being emotionally abused might make statements such as “I hate my uncle for what he has done to me,” and later make a different statement such as “Uncle Tim and I always joke around and go to the movies on Saturdays.” These two statements and the different wording often perplexes outsiders. Other abused individuals might make statements such as “Uncle Tim and I always dress alike because we enjoy it,” “Uncle Tim and I are very much alike because we like the same foods,” or “Uncle Tim and I cried when we watched Titanic together for the first time.” [SEE: Reverse Projection]
- Feeling indebted to the abuser: Some abused individuals may develop a sense of gratitude for something that the abusive individual may have done for them. For example, if an adolescent female was once homeless and placed in multiple foster care homes but the abusive individual took them in and treated them well before the abuse, the abused individual may feel he or she owes the abuser something. I have been told by severely abused adolescents that the abuser “loved me or he would not have helped me.” [SEE: Indentured Servitude]
- Feeling that “he or she needs me”: Some abused individuals develop an emotional bond to the abuser that makes them feel they sometimes owe the abuser something. For example, individuals who have been sexually, emotionally, or physically abused may find themselves feeling sorry for the emotional or psychological challenges of the abuser and develop a sense of empathy or compassion for the abuser. This can lead to the abused individual feeling indebted to the person and dedicated to “helping them get better.” This kind of behavior can typically be found in romantic relationships in which the abused individuals become so emotionally protective over the abuser that they will endure the abuse in order to please the abuser. [SEE: Martyr Complex]
- Explaining almost everything away: A very typical behavior of some abused individuals is to make excuses for the abuse. The abuser doesn’t hurt them because they are bad but because “I deserved it. I wasn’t nice that day” or because “he was jealous, I would be too.” This is often a telltale sign that the abused individual is bonding or bonded to the abuser. [SEE: Blaming the Victim]
- Protecting the abuser: Most of us would run away from someone who is abusing us. We don’t want to experience pain and we don’t want to feel the shame of being abused. But sometimes because the abuser is often mentally or emotionally disturbed and is the product of a dysfunctional environment, the abused individual can develop such a bond that they feel the need to protect the abuser. Sometimes the abused individual might stand up for the abuser and go against people who truly care. A teenage girl who has been dating her abusive boyfriend will most likely go against her mother when her mother attempts to highlight negative traits and behaviors in the boyfriend. [SEE: Stockholm Syndrome]
- Allowing the abuse to continue to “please” the abuser: Some individuals, primarily those who are being sexually abused and manipulated, will permit the abuse to continue to “keep problems down” or “please him/her.” The victim becomes so overwhelmed by a failure to protect or stand up for themselves that they give in. Or the individual is fearful of walking away and remains in the situation for however long they can. During my training as a clinician 8 years ago, a child said to me “he wanted something good from me and I gave it to him because he deserved it. Dad always goes to work for us and is a hard worker.” [SEE: Enabling Henchmen]
- Wearing multiple “hats”: Depending on how emotionally or psychologically unstable the abuser is, some abused individuals will play multiple roles in the life of the abuser. For example, a child who has been physically and verbally abused by a substance-abusing parent with 5 other young children might begin to play the role of: “caregiver” to the younger children, “teacher” to the kids who struggle with homework, “surrogate parent,” “babysitter,” “therapist” to the abuser, etc. Playing multiple roles often results in a lack of identity and feeling overwhelmed. Many children lose their childhood prematurely and end up developing into depressed, anxious, and suicidal adults. [SEE: People Pleaser]
- Covering negative emotions in the presence of the abuser: If you are sad and the abuser is happy, you cover your sadness. If you are happy and the abuser is depressed, you cover your elation. If you are feeling hopeless and suicidal but the abuser is walking around the house singing and playing music, you will most likely cover your emotions and go along to get along. Many of the abused and neglected children and adolescents that I have seen often fall into this category. One 17-year-old female, who was fearful to return to her emotionally abusive environment, reported to me during our final session “I was in the middle of crying about the loss of my friend but as soon as I heard Gram coming up the stairs singing, I wiped my tears and put on a smile. When do I ever get to feel what I want to feel?” [SEE: Repressing Emotion]
- Desiring love and affection despite being hurt: Most individuals who are the victims of abuse desire love and affection, sometimes only the love and affection of the abuser. It’s almost as if the person desires the love and affection of the abuser so much that they will do anything to achieve it. One previous client reported that she would kill herself if her boyfriend of 4 years told her to do it. Think of suicide bombers. What is the motivation behind their suicide? The motivation is often religious dedication or to possibly be accepted by those who support the behaviors of suicide bombers. [SEE: Brainwashing]
With their thoughts heard and clinical treatment observations expressed, the Psych Central folks have presented self-help researchers and clinicians a great deal to consider in their bulleted list. Here are our thoughts about how and why people enable… presented in no particular order.
First and foremost, understand this…
Narcissistic Abuse recovery is possible when Abuse Enablers choose to self-educate.
Time heals nothing without education — and abusers love nothing more than secretly abusing preferred scapegoat targets and getting away with blaming or somehow further scapegoating and punishing them for it. Anyone who says, “GIVE IT TIME…” is hoping that an abuse victim’s PTSD will simply *poof* go away, be forgotten, or will heal like magic.
Second…
The article published by the (more than likely well-meaning) author display how many “authority figures” tend to hear their dialog with abuse victims — typically people who are seeking emotional support, sage guidance, and legal advice from them as trusted officials who are supposed to offer other human beings a level of emphatic compassion.
Needless to say, if the person a victim confides in is clueless, undereducated about how to help pervasively traumatized victims of Cluster B people, and or are themselves prone to vertical thinking, the consequences of having a conversation with them can be devastating to an already traumatized person. Which, of course, prompts us to issue the following kind-hearted but incredibly serious “abuse counseling” warning.
Third…
In many cases, once the spell of Love Fraud predators and gaslighting bullies is broken, people tend to stop choosing to actively enable quite readily. Helping them understand what gaslighting is, that Narcissistic Abuse was enacted against them as an attention-seeking / control gaining tactic by Machiavellian social predators, and that the grass is only greener on the side of the fence where you water it is the key to helping abuse victims to have the confidence and faith to advocate for themselves.
Having Stockholm Syndrome causes many abuse victims to strive to protect and enable abusers in order to self-soothe their own abandonment issues.
Fourth…
The academic themed psychology news article was written from the perspective of a therapist who has, like all humans interested in forensic psychology strive to do, come to see patterns in people treated for abuse related issues. Most psychologists and mental health experts are just now starting to realize that the advice they have given for generations to victims of Cluster B personality types not only is wrong… it’s downright ABUSIVE.
Fifth…
The more one listens to the logical premises of people who strive to enable Abusers, the more one realizes how dangerous of a habit engaging in the use of flawed logic actually IS, noting that Magical Thinking and Cognitive Dissonance couples with a scorching case of REVERSE PROJECTION is likely to get a Cluster B person’s preferred scapegoats, targets, or victims KILLED.
Lastly but no less more or less important for any abuse victim or STEM professional to understand…
In the aforementioned list of patterns, many types of co-dependent or errant psychological posturing are discussed. The examples are broad reaching in aim, so we hope if you found this post that you will take a few hours to look around our website and to mindfully self-reflect while reading material in order to help rid your mind of faulty abuse enabling lines of bad NLP code abusive family members and/or toxic romance partners are likely to strive to pump into your head.
Here’s our THERAPY INSIGHT RAPID WAKE UP CALL plan…
Whether you are a licensed professional, layperson who is trying to help, an abuse victim, or you are simply trying how to better understand yourself…
Please keep in mind when it comes to navigating abuse issues, it takes one person to abuse and a targeted victim to react. Anyone who tries to convince you trauma bonding is love and enabling Abusers is being in any way loving to yourself of them is a Machiavellian person who is either deliberately malicious or they themselves have been seriously socially misguided.
Psych Central shares, “Individuals who have bonded to their abuser often exhibit certain emotional and behavioral signs that are important for us to recognize.”
Understanding that Cluster B people gaslight their offspring into believing enabling Abusers is the only way to:
- self-promote,
- to avoid being abandoned,
- to avoid the suffering of having affection or care to be withheld from an Abuser or talionic thinker
… is crucial to grasp the gist of purely on a social and emotional, intellectual level.
If a child or adult child of a toxic family develops fully blown Stockholm Syndrome, expect them to see enabling trauma bonding and social abuse of targeted or socially neglected victims as moral behavior.
The sicker they are (meaning the Abuse Enablers), the more they will misperceive the attitudes, actions, and words of truly kind and honest people — perceiving them as angry, misfits, or a threat to the status quo.
Wielding gaslighting claims to promote toxic shame in victim psychology while seeking to psychologically manipulate and emotionally to decimate in order to control, expect the hoovering Flying Monkeys to do or say whatever they think it is going to take to get a targeted mark to see them in a positive light while they work their unique form of psychic vampire, mumbo-jumbo, word salad based, gaslighting spins on the meaning of words like “love” and “good” people.
Children and adult children of toxic families where things like sexual abuse, physical abuse, financial abuse, psychological abuse, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, or spiritual abuse of targeted victims is actively praised, functionally enabled, and condoned tend to make the next generation of offspring copy Cluster B behavior patterns due to nurture of psychological, neurological, and sociological form.
[If someone is continually victimizing or re-traumatizing a target, when the target’s health fails and moral compass goes awry, it tends to cause stress illnesses like cancer, high blood pressure, magnesium deficiency, adrenal fatigue, and pervasive but contextually specific social anxiety.]
Co-Narcissists engage in the Narcissistic Cycle of Abuse because it makes them feel comfortable as vertical thinkers than the healthcare community has any earthly idea, but we digress from the reason for sharing this post.
But the points they bring up illustrate the radical discrepancy between what abuse victims try to share and how their words are heard by people who are not truly familiar with how to actually listen with the intent to understand the speaker.
Therapists, health care providers, school guidance counselors, law enforcement officials, and religious thinkers who are themselves vertical thinkers cannot wait to tell other people that abuse victims are masochistic, have low self-esteem, or to gaslight and claim they do not love themselves. Projecting their beliefs about a target onto their victim in a condescending manner makes them look foolish in the eyes of anyone who is well-educated, not Cluster B, and is not struggling with anything like having an addiction-prone, unresolved or covert personality disorder.
Many toxic therapists and medical or health care providers and or counselors have a tendency to promote dangerously false stereotypes by charting their experiences talking to abuse victims with inherent, mildly Narcopathic and typically projecting massive amounts of academia-spoon fed bias.
If you are the victim of a Cluster B person or toxic family unit, understanding the difference between trauma bonding and love is essential to help wake up to gaslighting realities. In order to save yourself and your health, ending all forms of relationship with Cluster B people and their socially aggressive Flying Monkeys is crucial.
Dependent Personality Disorder causes the formation of co-dependent tendencies in humans. The core dysfunction is attachment coupled with a massive push-pull driven anxiety response produced in the weaker social predator seeking the stronger Cluster B personality type’s protection.
For more information about how to overcome any propensity to enable taught to YOU during early childhood years, follow facebook.com/adultchildrenoftoxicparents.
Parents who are actively enabling abuse children who have Cluster B issues are encouraged to stop and to consider following advice proffered on facebook.com/discardpileparents.
