This topic is perhaps my raison d'être, having witnessed severe cases of child abuse both as a teacher and a nurse. Even in less severe instances, the damage to victims and society is incalculable. I first read about your experiences with this in one of your articles, and I commend you for your openness in discussing these issues. Awareness can lead to early detection and prevention, potentially saving children from ongoing harm. The well-being of countless children and our society depends on our willingness to confront these painful realities. Thank you.
Yes, I agree. It is important to see those signs early. There are many times that the child is still in the world, before they are confined completely. Times that there could have been help for them, but they are ignored, or the signs aren't recognized, or they are forgotten in the mix of things, falling through the cracks. The number of times that kids are moved to new places so the abuse can continue is amazing.
Exactly. The abusers just move. I first encountered this while teaching. I reported an egregious assault on a three-year-old girl who used to cry every morning until I arrived. She had makeup all over her face in an attempt to cover up enormous bruises and a few lacerations. Her older brother was in 2nd grade, and I knew him as well since I was a rotating teacher. I asked him what happened, and he told me his sister put her toys in the toilet, so their father started punching her! After work, I reported the incident to CPS. The next day, the principal and the assistant principal bawled me out, saying the parents had moved both kids to another school. I doubt I've ever been angrier. I felt they should have confronted the parents and called the police. Instead, all they cared about was lost revenue. I was heading off to college after taking this summer job, so I left. There were other outrageous things going on that I was expected to turn a blind eye to. Of course, once I went into nursing, this and far worse became common. There have to be better laws about the abuse of children, especially when presented with visible evidence!
Of course, it's somehow your fault that they ran like cowards. Note sarcasm.
That tends to me the mentality that allows this to keep happening. There was one kid that had been sold to pay his mother's drug debts, which was the situation he was rescued from, but before that was the case, many authorities had been called by neighbors, teachers, and if I recall correctly, a woman that was alarmed by something she saw in a grocery store. If I am remembering the right situation, she followed the mother and son home because she wanted to report the mother, and needed to know where she lived in order to do so, but I don't recall what she saw that prompted this.
When the authorities investigated, they basically told her to mind her business. Essentially, she was treated like she was what is called a "Karen" today, and nothing was done. Soon after, the mother sold the son, and he wasn't rescued for something like fifteen years.
No one wanted to get involved. The outcome was a really bad one, and, like many of these kids, the damage was overwhelming. A lot of these people that are rescued are dangerous to themselves and others. They have no concept of acceptable behavior, and they do not understand how to manage their distress. They have been taught violence, pain, lack of accountability, and many are filled with extreme rage that can be triggered on a dime.
Yes, the outcomes of these cases are devastating—the damage is irreversible. Often, the victims end up in state hospitals or in and out of the penal system. I follow quite a few sociopaths on Quora, and it's so easy to separate the wannabes from the real deal. Sometimes the abuse is almost invisible to the outside world. For example, one guy was "gifted" to his mother's pedophile boyfriend, who happened to be wealthy. The mother was so greedy that she wouldn't allow the son to move in with his father and lose the child support payments, as well as risk the displeasure of her boyfriend. The guy turned out as adjusted as could be possible owing to high intelligence, but he's severely damaged nonetheless. These invisible things go on all the time. So, to tell someone who witnessed something as visible as it is outrageous to "mind your own business" is to tell them to be an accessory to the crime! At least, that's how I see it.
Without significant intervention through aftercare, the outcomes tend to be terrible. The type of aftercare that these people require is very specialized, and it takes very little to destroy any progress already made. All manner of neurological and mental damage is on display in them, as well as severe addiction issues. It is a very tenuous road that requires very careful treading.
I was kind of speechless for a while after reading this post... on one level it's not entirely surprising - everyone knows that horrific abuse cases happen from time to time. But some of the insights you've included here from survivors, especially Toby, are quite shocking. The idea that those who've been abused for longer are actually better off, because they've learnt to 'cope', is really haunting me. The fact that the human brain has the capacity to adapt, to the point that it can 'cope' with horrific torture and abuse, is really devastating. I can only imagine the fight these kids have to live anything close to a normal life after they escape.
And what you said about the prevalence of this kind of abuse is also shocking, I think most people manage to live with the knowledge that things like this happen to innocent kids, only by convincing themselves that it's exceptionally rare. But I'm sure you're right when you say it's not as rare as people think.
You've probably seen it, but if not, The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez on Netflix is another very good but harrowing documentary about a similar child abuse case.
I’m debating whether or not to read this series. It’s mainly because I have mental health issues of my own.
I am however glad you’re writing about this because people who go through this sort of thing don’t tend to talk about it in polite company. People are generally under the impression that these sorts of things don’t happen in their own social group.
Abuse is something that happens to distant strangers. It’s very unreal when it’s close to you.
I had a classmate in elementary school who would often be absent, and being kids we didn’t really questioned it. One day it was announced that she was going to be moving so we all said our goodbyes.
I remember, later in middle school, over FaceBook her telling me that the reason she was absent all the time was because her Mom was making her watch her younger siblings while she was at work, and that the reason she was moving away was because CPS became involved and that she moved in with a relative.
I remember being dumbfounded that this was a thing parents could do. It wasn’t even a possibility in my mind.
While it’s not as bad as literal torture, I do think it highlights how often we take our own experiences for granted.
If this sort of thing distresses you, don't read this series. It won't get better. The level of human darkness reaches depths that are hard to fathom, and leaves people struggling for answers. Those answers are uncomfortably close to the questioner, and it can make the world feel very unsafe. That is particularly troublesome if you have mental health issues.
Some very sadistic weak people in this world. I can understand a lot of criminal acts but that leaves me with no idea why. I can understand killing someone for money or revenge. I can understand stealing because you need food or money. I just don't understand what you could possibly gain from hurting, tormenting or torturing pretty much anyone or anything? It can't be for power because you are going after the weakest and most vulnerable. Obviously no monetary gain or revenge. What causes someone to be so delusional and Wtf are these people trying to get from doing that?
There is a lot involved in the psychology, some of which I have gleaned from being around these kids. Control is a huge part of it. Another is power. They feel a lot of glee in being in total control over another. What is really unfortunate, is that humans rarely resist this temptation when it is presented to them. A good example is what happened at Gitmo where they were torturing the prisoners.
Out of all the guards, only one person stood up, and they were new on the job, which is what gave them the outside perspective. All the other guards were either silent, or enthusiastic participants, and if I recall correctly, most, if not all, were involved. It has been awhile since I have looked into that situation, so my memory might be a bit incorrect.
What gets me about it, is the sense of justification that those that do it seem to have, and they always seem shocked when the person they are torturing dies. Even then, they still aren't interested in facing up to what they did. Instead, they just lie. In the police body cam footage from when Shanda Vander Ark is being questioned, she states that he was "on a hunger strike" and that he had fallen out of bed, to explain his injuries. She knew that she had cameras all throughout the house, but thought she would lie about his condition, blame him for his own death, and think that she would get away with it.
I don't see how they can feel power. Me putting a bug in a jar isn't power. Putting a kid in a closet and beating him isnt power. Me taking a grown man and locking him up might be a little power but it's still pretty much nothing. Having 50 guys that will run through walls for you at the blink of an eye is a more accurate power trip. Attacking something or someone that can't protect themselves or fight back is just weak.
I agree, but there is a disconnect that I can understand you not grasping. To have power over another is a rare occurrence, and when it is given, and the circumstances are right, it is an undeniable drug.
I completely understand and agree with your notions of believing that attacking someone unable to protect themselves is weak. It tells you so much about that individual and what kind of person they are. I have always found those that go after children or the elderly to be of weak constitution. Untrustworthy, and deserving of disdain.
However, the weak cannot prey on the strong, but that doesn't remove their desire for that emotional payoff of control, power, and sadism. On top of that, they have an innate understanding that they are uncapable of inflicting their desires on someone that might be able to defend themselves, so that relegates them to children, the elderly, or those that society has stripped of their status of human. You can find many examples of this in history.
As soon as a group of people are thought of as evil and irredeemable, they become acceptable targets for this sort of thinking. It is closer than you think. Once you see the way someone thinks, when it comes to how they perceive other humans around them, you can see how they give themselves permission to treat others however they deem them worthy of being treated.
It is a dangerous mentality, and those that have it think that they are the normal ones. They know fundamentally that they are not, because when they embark on these journeys of madness, they hide what they do, but the mentality is still something that is present. You can see it in some people, if you're looking for it.
It feels like power to the abusers. They are on the top in the power gradient between themselves and the abused, and they clearly love that feeling. I expect in many or most of these cases it starts with less severe forms of punishment for the child, stuff that's still not okay but is kind of in the gray area like slaps, prohibiting dinner, or being grounded to one's room. I suppose that after a while the abuser develops a taste for it and it turns into a slippery slope kind of situation.
Also, there can be other things tied to it - if they convince themselves the child embodies something they've seen as problematic and overgrown elsewhere, they are curbing down the problem by niping the helpless child in bud. Gods help, if some kid is seen as burden. And there is this whole distancing yourself from despised thing by being cruel to that despised thing (what better way to ensure you don't end up in the same place,d o not belong to the sameplace). Pursuit of strength can inspire purging of what seems like weakness. The way some studies on homophobic mentality uncovered that while anger and fear were heightened upon exposure, disgust quite often actually wasn't. Apparently defense mechanism wass being utilized. Idea "I can keep gayness from touching me by destroying it and proving it took no hold in me and... What do you mean, it wasn't trying to take any hold? I clearly perceived it was trying to get its claws in and undermine ground I walk on! It is threat, insidious infectious threat!!!". Not to say it boils down to this alone, things ain't that simple, people don't all have just one or even few exactly same reasons for everything, but this element seems liek it could play a big part. Projection and splitting are bitches.
I suggest also looking up changelings - children suspected of being little monsters swapped with real goodie children by fairies.
Hmm... Have you ever been dealing with pests? The same person can be very protective of wildlife, even berating their peers for mistreating it, but turn vicious on what is considered pest and not experience any cognitive dissonance. Vicious as in gleeful torturous killing over pragmatic effective killing. Attitude that might change later upon reflection. Or confrontation with some outright criticism.
Thank you for talking about this Athena, far too many people ignore how common abuse, even extreme abuse is. I'm unfortunately well acquainted with human darkness. I was abused quite horrifically as a child. Developing a dissociative disorder is what kept me sane and what saved me physically was my mother. My mother was extremely sick throughout most of my childhood and was in the hospital frequently. However, she was also a nurse and could see the signs. She got me therapy multiple times, but while the doctors knew i was being abused, they couldn't figure out who was doing it. My father was an infinitely cruel man, but he was also very capable of masquerading as a loving father. He was also smart enough not to leave obvious physical marks. The other abusers were held to the same standards for those of us who would be missed. The undocumented kids, they didn't last. Eventually my mother was well enough that she was able to start seeing through the cracks in my father's facade. Then, when my friend was abused and I saw it, I came to my mother and told her what I could remember. I had never told to save myself, but I was willing to do it for someone else. It took over a decade of therapy to reach a place where I can say I'm reasonably okay.
It is very unfortunate that you had to go through that.
This is a topic that isn't covered nearly enough. I think that people would rather not think about it, but it is something that if it is more in the forethought of the mind, there is a much better chance for help for the victims.
Agreed, I think people don't like acknowledging these things. My theory is it makes them feel unsafe or challenges their worldview. I definitely agree that if people considered abuse and the signs more often, a lot more victims could be helped or even saved.
I am always amazed at the way that people open up to someone like Athena or myself. Had a kid tell me after he over shared terribly that he just liked taking to me
I have personally known many target children. It is a vastly unknown subject, and this series is to bring attention to the darkness in humanity that is all too common and too well hidden, or ignored. People tend to see these things as "rare", when the reality is, it isn't. They also think that the abusers are psychopathic, or something along those lines. They aren't. They are opportunistic, and most often neurotypical. It takes very little to get someone to the place where they will treat another in this manner.
Significant possibility of very antisocial behavior if they survived it. This sort of treatment creates very dangerous outcomes, not only in psychopaths, but also neurotypicals. Intensive aftercare is required to stave off those results. A total retraining of how to interact with people, with several rules in place for everyone that they come into contact with during aftercare have to adhere to prevent their treatment from derailing.
Interesting, so psychopathy itself is not a prevalent factor in behaviour but upbringing and environment is? Which begs the question, is environment wholly responsible for bad things that happen? Or are some people just off their chain? Surely even a high functioning psychopath knows that torturing kids is no beuno.
Is torturing kids on the hare checklist?
I guess my question is two fold, have you chose to wrote about it because you know it will raise eyebrows, and as such does this articulate affective emotion? Or have you written about because you like to Google tortured kids?
1. Yes, behavior is a huge factor, though there are likely things that will affect a person's behavior. There are very emotionally dysregulated children that appear to be that way from something having happened to them in the womb. When it comes to psychopathy, however, environment is pretty much the make or break when it comes to whether they join the minority ranks of antisocial.
2. No, why would it be? I don't write about the Hare checklist all that often, and this has nothing to do with it.
Hi Athena, I am curious about the feelings of sympathy you have expressed in this entry towards these horribly abused target children. I assume from all that you have described about yourself, that you are expressing your intellectual understanding of the cruelty, as a dispassionate expression of what you know to be right and wrong—and not the physiological reaction that a neuro-normative person might have from a deeply felt sense of empathy and despair.
After reading your posts, I became interested in the distinction between a psychopath who understands the difference between right and wrong, and chooses to avoid behaving in “wrong” ways—compared to those who choose to behave in however they desire, regardless of what they know to be right and wrong. I came to the conclusion that what distinguishes the two is not a trait you consider a defining characteristic of psychopathy, but instead a trait that is distributed throughout the continuum that makes up human neurodiversity. In other words, within the psychopathic community there are people who follow the rules of society in order to survive and others who are not compelled to do so—and the difference between those two psychopaths is due to the neurodiversity of non-psychopathic traits within the psychopathic community—traits that are specifically related to what is considered “evil.”
Since I have taken to heart your explanation that evil behavior (which I define as a deliberate intent to seriously harms another human being) is not a defining feature of psychopathy, as popular culture would have one believe—I push back whenever someone impulsively calls an evil person a psychopath. For instance, I consider Trump and those enabling him (who know exactly what they are doing) as evil. Trump has severely damaged countless people’s lives quite deliberately, by targeting them, bullying them and spreading endless lies about them to his fervent supporters. Because of that, some people call him a psychopath—but I explain when I can that it’s incorrect to call him a psychopath since his evil behavior is directly linked to his malignant narcissism not to an innate inability to experience shame, guilt and fear. I learned from you that a real psychopath is the opposite of a pathetically needy narcissist.
All that was the build-up to a question I’ve been wanting to ask you for some time. How would you describe Trump’s personality disorder and do you have any thoughts about the fact that millions of people out there, many of whom would reject you because of your neurodiversity, openly embrace and adore a man as objectively evil as Trump.
The explanation that I have come up with after years of pondering this question is that humans evolved to create whatever reality they need to survive, even if that reality is quite obviously not aligned with objective truth.
I do not address politics on my page, ever. I have made this abundantly clear.
There is a reason that I wrote this a couple of weeks ago:
"...what these outlets are doing is telling you what to think, and doing so using emotional manipulation and narrative control. If they all tell you the same thing is true, and you hear it everywhere you look and listen, you are more apt to believe it. If you are told repeatedly that something is not true everywhere you look and listen, you are likely to believe that as well.
The rule with the news tends to be this.
If they all agree that it’s true, it isn’t.
If they all agree that it isn’t true, it probably is.
Most people have very little time or interest to actually track down reasonable information. They want this to be done for them, and that is why they will choose to believe what they are told without question.
I get it. I don’t like reading studies, and I don’t want to be bothered with having to do extra work, I have a lot going on, but source material and biased slants matter. They are everywhere. I know a bunch of people are thinking, “Yeah, but my side is the right side, and it’s the other side that’s doing this.”
Nope and wrong.
They all do it, and they do it with each other, even when they seem to oppose one another. There is a narrative that must be built, and a certain level of emotional investment is required on both sides to keep that narrative going. I am going to use a pretty inflammatory example. I am using it because it will absolutely make many people have an emotional response."
Athena, In consideration of your work and your posts, I believe I learned alot today, about my own self but also other people.
I tried to write it down, but without success. I can see a little but not where it goes.
Please continue with your work. I'm sure many others take great benefit of your presentations. Face it: There is no other like yours!!! -smile- Best wishes always.
Thank you for this difficult post.
You really are something.
This topic is perhaps my raison d'être, having witnessed severe cases of child abuse both as a teacher and a nurse. Even in less severe instances, the damage to victims and society is incalculable. I first read about your experiences with this in one of your articles, and I commend you for your openness in discussing these issues. Awareness can lead to early detection and prevention, potentially saving children from ongoing harm. The well-being of countless children and our society depends on our willingness to confront these painful realities. Thank you.
Yes, I agree. It is important to see those signs early. There are many times that the child is still in the world, before they are confined completely. Times that there could have been help for them, but they are ignored, or the signs aren't recognized, or they are forgotten in the mix of things, falling through the cracks. The number of times that kids are moved to new places so the abuse can continue is amazing.
Exactly. The abusers just move. I first encountered this while teaching. I reported an egregious assault on a three-year-old girl who used to cry every morning until I arrived. She had makeup all over her face in an attempt to cover up enormous bruises and a few lacerations. Her older brother was in 2nd grade, and I knew him as well since I was a rotating teacher. I asked him what happened, and he told me his sister put her toys in the toilet, so their father started punching her! After work, I reported the incident to CPS. The next day, the principal and the assistant principal bawled me out, saying the parents had moved both kids to another school. I doubt I've ever been angrier. I felt they should have confronted the parents and called the police. Instead, all they cared about was lost revenue. I was heading off to college after taking this summer job, so I left. There were other outrageous things going on that I was expected to turn a blind eye to. Of course, once I went into nursing, this and far worse became common. There have to be better laws about the abuse of children, especially when presented with visible evidence!
Of course, it's somehow your fault that they ran like cowards. Note sarcasm.
That tends to me the mentality that allows this to keep happening. There was one kid that had been sold to pay his mother's drug debts, which was the situation he was rescued from, but before that was the case, many authorities had been called by neighbors, teachers, and if I recall correctly, a woman that was alarmed by something she saw in a grocery store. If I am remembering the right situation, she followed the mother and son home because she wanted to report the mother, and needed to know where she lived in order to do so, but I don't recall what she saw that prompted this.
When the authorities investigated, they basically told her to mind her business. Essentially, she was treated like she was what is called a "Karen" today, and nothing was done. Soon after, the mother sold the son, and he wasn't rescued for something like fifteen years.
No one wanted to get involved. The outcome was a really bad one, and, like many of these kids, the damage was overwhelming. A lot of these people that are rescued are dangerous to themselves and others. They have no concept of acceptable behavior, and they do not understand how to manage their distress. They have been taught violence, pain, lack of accountability, and many are filled with extreme rage that can be triggered on a dime.
Yes, the outcomes of these cases are devastating—the damage is irreversible. Often, the victims end up in state hospitals or in and out of the penal system. I follow quite a few sociopaths on Quora, and it's so easy to separate the wannabes from the real deal. Sometimes the abuse is almost invisible to the outside world. For example, one guy was "gifted" to his mother's pedophile boyfriend, who happened to be wealthy. The mother was so greedy that she wouldn't allow the son to move in with his father and lose the child support payments, as well as risk the displeasure of her boyfriend. The guy turned out as adjusted as could be possible owing to high intelligence, but he's severely damaged nonetheless. These invisible things go on all the time. So, to tell someone who witnessed something as visible as it is outrageous to "mind your own business" is to tell them to be an accessory to the crime! At least, that's how I see it.
I agree, there is culpability there.
Without significant intervention through aftercare, the outcomes tend to be terrible. The type of aftercare that these people require is very specialized, and it takes very little to destroy any progress already made. All manner of neurological and mental damage is on display in them, as well as severe addiction issues. It is a very tenuous road that requires very careful treading.
I was kind of speechless for a while after reading this post... on one level it's not entirely surprising - everyone knows that horrific abuse cases happen from time to time. But some of the insights you've included here from survivors, especially Toby, are quite shocking. The idea that those who've been abused for longer are actually better off, because they've learnt to 'cope', is really haunting me. The fact that the human brain has the capacity to adapt, to the point that it can 'cope' with horrific torture and abuse, is really devastating. I can only imagine the fight these kids have to live anything close to a normal life after they escape.
And what you said about the prevalence of this kind of abuse is also shocking, I think most people manage to live with the knowledge that things like this happen to innocent kids, only by convincing themselves that it's exceptionally rare. But I'm sure you're right when you say it's not as rare as people think.
You've probably seen it, but if not, The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez on Netflix is another very good but harrowing documentary about a similar child abuse case.
Thank you for the suggestion. I will look it up
I’m debating whether or not to read this series. It’s mainly because I have mental health issues of my own.
I am however glad you’re writing about this because people who go through this sort of thing don’t tend to talk about it in polite company. People are generally under the impression that these sorts of things don’t happen in their own social group.
Abuse is something that happens to distant strangers. It’s very unreal when it’s close to you.
I had a classmate in elementary school who would often be absent, and being kids we didn’t really questioned it. One day it was announced that she was going to be moving so we all said our goodbyes.
I remember, later in middle school, over FaceBook her telling me that the reason she was absent all the time was because her Mom was making her watch her younger siblings while she was at work, and that the reason she was moving away was because CPS became involved and that she moved in with a relative.
I remember being dumbfounded that this was a thing parents could do. It wasn’t even a possibility in my mind.
While it’s not as bad as literal torture, I do think it highlights how often we take our own experiences for granted.
If this sort of thing distresses you, don't read this series. It won't get better. The level of human darkness reaches depths that are hard to fathom, and leaves people struggling for answers. Those answers are uncomfortably close to the questioner, and it can make the world feel very unsafe. That is particularly troublesome if you have mental health issues.
Some very sadistic weak people in this world. I can understand a lot of criminal acts but that leaves me with no idea why. I can understand killing someone for money or revenge. I can understand stealing because you need food or money. I just don't understand what you could possibly gain from hurting, tormenting or torturing pretty much anyone or anything? It can't be for power because you are going after the weakest and most vulnerable. Obviously no monetary gain or revenge. What causes someone to be so delusional and Wtf are these people trying to get from doing that?
There is a lot involved in the psychology, some of which I have gleaned from being around these kids. Control is a huge part of it. Another is power. They feel a lot of glee in being in total control over another. What is really unfortunate, is that humans rarely resist this temptation when it is presented to them. A good example is what happened at Gitmo where they were torturing the prisoners.
Out of all the guards, only one person stood up, and they were new on the job, which is what gave them the outside perspective. All the other guards were either silent, or enthusiastic participants, and if I recall correctly, most, if not all, were involved. It has been awhile since I have looked into that situation, so my memory might be a bit incorrect.
What gets me about it, is the sense of justification that those that do it seem to have, and they always seem shocked when the person they are torturing dies. Even then, they still aren't interested in facing up to what they did. Instead, they just lie. In the police body cam footage from when Shanda Vander Ark is being questioned, she states that he was "on a hunger strike" and that he had fallen out of bed, to explain his injuries. She knew that she had cameras all throughout the house, but thought she would lie about his condition, blame him for his own death, and think that she would get away with it.
The hubris is unreal
I don't see how they can feel power. Me putting a bug in a jar isn't power. Putting a kid in a closet and beating him isnt power. Me taking a grown man and locking him up might be a little power but it's still pretty much nothing. Having 50 guys that will run through walls for you at the blink of an eye is a more accurate power trip. Attacking something or someone that can't protect themselves or fight back is just weak.
I agree, but there is a disconnect that I can understand you not grasping. To have power over another is a rare occurrence, and when it is given, and the circumstances are right, it is an undeniable drug.
I completely understand and agree with your notions of believing that attacking someone unable to protect themselves is weak. It tells you so much about that individual and what kind of person they are. I have always found those that go after children or the elderly to be of weak constitution. Untrustworthy, and deserving of disdain.
However, the weak cannot prey on the strong, but that doesn't remove their desire for that emotional payoff of control, power, and sadism. On top of that, they have an innate understanding that they are uncapable of inflicting their desires on someone that might be able to defend themselves, so that relegates them to children, the elderly, or those that society has stripped of their status of human. You can find many examples of this in history.
As soon as a group of people are thought of as evil and irredeemable, they become acceptable targets for this sort of thinking. It is closer than you think. Once you see the way someone thinks, when it comes to how they perceive other humans around them, you can see how they give themselves permission to treat others however they deem them worthy of being treated.
It is a dangerous mentality, and those that have it think that they are the normal ones. They know fundamentally that they are not, because when they embark on these journeys of madness, they hide what they do, but the mentality is still something that is present. You can see it in some people, if you're looking for it.
It feels like power to the abusers. They are on the top in the power gradient between themselves and the abused, and they clearly love that feeling. I expect in many or most of these cases it starts with less severe forms of punishment for the child, stuff that's still not okay but is kind of in the gray area like slaps, prohibiting dinner, or being grounded to one's room. I suppose that after a while the abuser develops a taste for it and it turns into a slippery slope kind of situation.
Yes, I agree with that assessment
Also, there can be other things tied to it - if they convince themselves the child embodies something they've seen as problematic and overgrown elsewhere, they are curbing down the problem by niping the helpless child in bud. Gods help, if some kid is seen as burden. And there is this whole distancing yourself from despised thing by being cruel to that despised thing (what better way to ensure you don't end up in the same place,d o not belong to the sameplace). Pursuit of strength can inspire purging of what seems like weakness. The way some studies on homophobic mentality uncovered that while anger and fear were heightened upon exposure, disgust quite often actually wasn't. Apparently defense mechanism wass being utilized. Idea "I can keep gayness from touching me by destroying it and proving it took no hold in me and... What do you mean, it wasn't trying to take any hold? I clearly perceived it was trying to get its claws in and undermine ground I walk on! It is threat, insidious infectious threat!!!". Not to say it boils down to this alone, things ain't that simple, people don't all have just one or even few exactly same reasons for everything, but this element seems liek it could play a big part. Projection and splitting are bitches.
I suggest also looking up changelings - children suspected of being little monsters swapped with real goodie children by fairies.
Hmm... Have you ever been dealing with pests? The same person can be very protective of wildlife, even berating their peers for mistreating it, but turn vicious on what is considered pest and not experience any cognitive dissonance. Vicious as in gleeful torturous killing over pragmatic effective killing. Attitude that might change later upon reflection. Or confrontation with some outright criticism.
The changeling phenomena always reminded me of imposter syndrome.
Thank you for talking about this Athena, far too many people ignore how common abuse, even extreme abuse is. I'm unfortunately well acquainted with human darkness. I was abused quite horrifically as a child. Developing a dissociative disorder is what kept me sane and what saved me physically was my mother. My mother was extremely sick throughout most of my childhood and was in the hospital frequently. However, she was also a nurse and could see the signs. She got me therapy multiple times, but while the doctors knew i was being abused, they couldn't figure out who was doing it. My father was an infinitely cruel man, but he was also very capable of masquerading as a loving father. He was also smart enough not to leave obvious physical marks. The other abusers were held to the same standards for those of us who would be missed. The undocumented kids, they didn't last. Eventually my mother was well enough that she was able to start seeing through the cracks in my father's facade. Then, when my friend was abused and I saw it, I came to my mother and told her what I could remember. I had never told to save myself, but I was willing to do it for someone else. It took over a decade of therapy to reach a place where I can say I'm reasonably okay.
It is very unfortunate that you had to go through that.
This is a topic that isn't covered nearly enough. I think that people would rather not think about it, but it is something that if it is more in the forethought of the mind, there is a much better chance for help for the victims.
Thank you.
Agreed, I think people don't like acknowledging these things. My theory is it makes them feel unsafe or challenges their worldview. I definitely agree that if people considered abuse and the signs more often, a lot more victims could be helped or even saved.
Indeed true
I am always amazed at the way that people open up to someone like Athena or myself. Had a kid tell me after he over shared terribly that he just liked taking to me
Yes, it is really strange.
Yes, i appreciate your post as i do all of them. May i inquire why this subject interests you?
I have personally known many target children. It is a vastly unknown subject, and this series is to bring attention to the darkness in humanity that is all too common and too well hidden, or ignored. People tend to see these things as "rare", when the reality is, it isn't. They also think that the abusers are psychopathic, or something along those lines. They aren't. They are opportunistic, and most often neurotypical. It takes very little to get someone to the place where they will treat another in this manner.
How would this affect a psychopathic child?
Significant possibility of very antisocial behavior if they survived it. This sort of treatment creates very dangerous outcomes, not only in psychopaths, but also neurotypicals. Intensive aftercare is required to stave off those results. A total retraining of how to interact with people, with several rules in place for everyone that they come into contact with during aftercare have to adhere to prevent their treatment from derailing.
Interesting, so psychopathy itself is not a prevalent factor in behaviour but upbringing and environment is? Which begs the question, is environment wholly responsible for bad things that happen? Or are some people just off their chain? Surely even a high functioning psychopath knows that torturing kids is no beuno.
Is torturing kids on the hare checklist?
I guess my question is two fold, have you chose to wrote about it because you know it will raise eyebrows, and as such does this articulate affective emotion? Or have you written about because you like to Google tortured kids?
1. Yes, behavior is a huge factor, though there are likely things that will affect a person's behavior. There are very emotionally dysregulated children that appear to be that way from something having happened to them in the womb. When it comes to psychopathy, however, environment is pretty much the make or break when it comes to whether they join the minority ranks of antisocial.
2. No, why would it be? I don't write about the Hare checklist all that often, and this has nothing to do with it.
3. Neither.
Hi Athena, I am curious about the feelings of sympathy you have expressed in this entry towards these horribly abused target children. I assume from all that you have described about yourself, that you are expressing your intellectual understanding of the cruelty, as a dispassionate expression of what you know to be right and wrong—and not the physiological reaction that a neuro-normative person might have from a deeply felt sense of empathy and despair.
After reading your posts, I became interested in the distinction between a psychopath who understands the difference between right and wrong, and chooses to avoid behaving in “wrong” ways—compared to those who choose to behave in however they desire, regardless of what they know to be right and wrong. I came to the conclusion that what distinguishes the two is not a trait you consider a defining characteristic of psychopathy, but instead a trait that is distributed throughout the continuum that makes up human neurodiversity. In other words, within the psychopathic community there are people who follow the rules of society in order to survive and others who are not compelled to do so—and the difference between those two psychopaths is due to the neurodiversity of non-psychopathic traits within the psychopathic community—traits that are specifically related to what is considered “evil.”
Since I have taken to heart your explanation that evil behavior (which I define as a deliberate intent to seriously harms another human being) is not a defining feature of psychopathy, as popular culture would have one believe—I push back whenever someone impulsively calls an evil person a psychopath. For instance, I consider Trump and those enabling him (who know exactly what they are doing) as evil. Trump has severely damaged countless people’s lives quite deliberately, by targeting them, bullying them and spreading endless lies about them to his fervent supporters. Because of that, some people call him a psychopath—but I explain when I can that it’s incorrect to call him a psychopath since his evil behavior is directly linked to his malignant narcissism not to an innate inability to experience shame, guilt and fear. I learned from you that a real psychopath is the opposite of a pathetically needy narcissist.
All that was the build-up to a question I’ve been wanting to ask you for some time. How would you describe Trump’s personality disorder and do you have any thoughts about the fact that millions of people out there, many of whom would reject you because of your neurodiversity, openly embrace and adore a man as objectively evil as Trump.
The explanation that I have come up with after years of pondering this question is that humans evolved to create whatever reality they need to survive, even if that reality is quite obviously not aligned with objective truth.
I do not address politics on my page, ever. I have made this abundantly clear.
There is a reason that I wrote this a couple of weeks ago:
"...what these outlets are doing is telling you what to think, and doing so using emotional manipulation and narrative control. If they all tell you the same thing is true, and you hear it everywhere you look and listen, you are more apt to believe it. If you are told repeatedly that something is not true everywhere you look and listen, you are likely to believe that as well.
The rule with the news tends to be this.
If they all agree that it’s true, it isn’t.
If they all agree that it isn’t true, it probably is.
Most people have very little time or interest to actually track down reasonable information. They want this to be done for them, and that is why they will choose to believe what they are told without question.
I get it. I don’t like reading studies, and I don’t want to be bothered with having to do extra work, I have a lot going on, but source material and biased slants matter. They are everywhere. I know a bunch of people are thinking, “Yeah, but my side is the right side, and it’s the other side that’s doing this.”
Nope and wrong.
They all do it, and they do it with each other, even when they seem to oppose one another. There is a narrative that must be built, and a certain level of emotional investment is required on both sides to keep that narrative going. I am going to use a pretty inflammatory example. I am using it because it will absolutely make many people have an emotional response."
Athena, In consideration of your work and your posts, I believe I learned alot today, about my own self but also other people.
I tried to write it down, but without success. I can see a little but not where it goes.
Please continue with your work. I'm sure many others take great benefit of your presentations. Face it: There is no other like yours!!! -smile- Best wishes always.
Thank you, Tim
Ok, I understand.
hey, Joanne. I also push on that: Evil = Psychopath and it gets into some great conversations.
Best wishes!!