No one can second guess your decisions. It’s not helpful. We make judgment calls, and hindsight is 20/20. It’s easy to quarterback the game on Monday, etc.
That applies for the survivor too.
Other people’s judgments about rationality can increase risk. Think about the term safety instead and honor the person at risk.
You can say to her, Wow, that scares me for you. But you’re normalizing, not persuading. You don’t know if that scary thing was actually the most safe thing. We never know. So no judgment.
The process of escaping normally requires a dozen or more attempts and careful planning.
Just because the escape doesn’t happen one time, doesn’t mean it wasn’t priceless practical and psychological rehearsal for next time.
This is not generally a question of intelligence though abusers often prefer us to think it is: We’re exploited because we’re dumb. We’re lucky for what we get. We’re lucky there are “smart” people in our lives to do what we’re too dumb to do. Etc.
It’s bullshit that abusers say to people they hurt. The better concept for examining the apparent “irrationality” of what we do to survive starts with Judith Herman’s work on complex trauma.
Hope and fear play heavily in to this, I would say. It’s really easy to believe that the best thing to do is to stay, if you honestly think they’ll chase you and kill you if you leave. I can totally understand this, though I also do believe long-term it’s obviously better to get out. However… humans have a tendency to think more in the benefit of the short term than the long.
I would also think there’s probably hope in that these people KNOW how to behave to make their victims feel like it will get better. “sure all this bad stuff just happened, but I’ll be better, i promise. You’re a forgiving type of person, right?”. A lot of these people who end up the victims are the types who believe in second chances… who really want to believe the person they’re with has the capability of being the person they need in their life.
It’s sad, but completely understandable imo, why situations like this occur. The best you can do, is, as @hello_friends mentioned, be understanding and helpful when you can and as impartial as possible so they feel like they have a safe place to confide. It’s fucking hard, but a situation isn’t about how the person trying to help feels - it’s about hopefully getting the abused out of a shitty situation when they’re ready.
I’d love to see numbers on that. Not that I’m doubting you. I’m just used to some fairly odd things being attributed to INTJ.
I’m sure the subconscious systemizing helps. I think growing up in an emotionally abusive environment (physically too but nowhere near to what @grimloki described) is a bigger part of it for me though. And I’m only equipped to spot and avoid. Not to deal with.
It’s like I’ve got a big old pile of Easy™ buttons attached to me. I suppose both the ability to spot and the inability to defend also apply to … those without empathy. I’m very careful.
(I don’t have any advice but I do wish all of us the best. And offer hugs. ^_^)
I’d actually never considered the possibility until I heard the claim. It seems ridiculous at first, but there’s also the link where you can construct responses that would be natural to most people, by learning what passes for an appropriate emotional response. In my case the emotions are there, but the response would normally be very subdued and might seem odd if I didn’t “fake it” sometimes. For a sociopath, the responses are often an attempt to manipulate others, but INTJs like to be genuine. An INTJ can spot another faker, and sees that it’s not for genuine reasons. Or that’s the idea, at least, for a spherical INTJ in a vacuum. It makes some sense to me.
I thought it was an interesting idea that went along with the OP, i.e. that some people are particularly vulnerable to sociopaths and some much less so, based on elements like personality type rather than more obvious ones like intelligence.
On the other hand, I can sometimes be tricked into buying stuff by typical salespeople, even though they set off my creep sensor and I know what they’re doing. This seems to be more of an exploitation of the rules of politeness though - you feel that you have to be rude just in order to get out of the conversation without doing what they want, but they’re not quite bad enough to disengage the autistic control mechanism and punch them or run away.
Oh boy! That reminds me of this one stalker I received on a social media site. They “defensively” created fake, slanderous and hateful accounts in my name, created social posts about us, said they were going to move into our home, and then, years after we left that online ecosystem, still write blog entries about us to “clear the record”. Psychopath indeed. I’m glad it’s kept to online stuff so I can tune it out, but I’m pretty sure one drunk night, that person started damaging our property after they said they were going to move in to be with us. I had no proof it was them, so the cops didn’t do anything.
Hey, it’s @peregrinus_bis’ topic, so if they feel it’s off topic, they have a right to call people out. You guys can always take your disagreement to a new thread or you can take it to PMs, too.
You know what. I didn’t do anything wrong here. I didn’t call out anyone, simply pointed out that @peregrinus_bis can flag people. I don’t think you’re being fair to me. I’d appreciate it if you’d maybe re-read what I said and realize that I never said anything negative about either you or @grimloki. I ONCE AGAIN simply pointed out the option that @peregrinus_bis for dealing with what he’s unhappy about in his thread.
But sorry I had an opinion and some advice for someone who was clearly annoyed.
Don’t play that, please. I’m not responsible for your reaction, and I have asked kindly for you to explain it to me in PM. If you would like to defend yourself, I don;'t understand that. I’m not attacking you, just seeking an explanation. Please PM
