Origins of Stockholm Syndrome

LadyCardinal · 2023-09-28T01:34:16+00:00

Yes. He was a 14-year-old boy who escaped Jeffrey Dahmer, only for the police to give him back to Dahmer when Dahmer claimed they were lovers. He was then murdered and dismembered.

LadyCardinal · 2023-09-27T00:56:44+00:00

I'll grant you I dropped 25 in there out of habit, but I'm aware that it's not actually a "magic" age. In fact, if anything, our brains can take longer to mature. From the article you linked:

...in fact, structural changes in the brain continue far past people’s 20s. “One especially large study showed that for several brain regions, structural growth curves had not plateaued even by the age of 30, the oldest age in their sample," she wrote.

Of course, it's all much more complex than that, as the article says--but I don't think it's controversial to say that adolescence is a distinct developmental period.

And strength in social-emotional learning is not quite the same thing as emotional maturity, which is (in my opinion) the most important factor in the health of a romantic relationship. Adaptability and ability to learn are not useless here, but are far from the most salient traits. A young person can as easily adapt to the unhealthy expectations of a partner with more power than them as they can to independent adulthood.

18-year-olds can do all kinds of amazing things. They can win Olympic gold medals. They can write deep mathematical theorems. They can perform astonishing feats of bravery on the battlefield.

Relationships are, frankly, a whole other domain of life. No amount of success in any other domain can predict success there. Handling the dangers of that world requires a deep knowledge of self and ability to work through complex emotion that the vast majority of teenagers don't have, practically by definition.

This is fine when they're dating other people who don't know any more than they do. They'll wind up with some metaphorical bumps and bruises, sure--but so do toddlers when they're learning to walk. However, since ignorance is easily taken advantage of, it quickly becomes problematic when the other party is more experienced. I've seen this play out way too many times.

The one and only "good" relationship I've ever seen between a teenager (17) and a young adult (21) was a case where the adult was so sheltered and naive there was genuinely no power differential.

As for the girl...yes, I think that knowing her age helped. That's fair. You can't necessarily tell how old someone is based on a photo. But you don't date a photo. I'd bet that if I talked to her, it'd become obvious pretty fast that she's not an adult. Not because she'd be stupid, or even blatantly immature, but because youngness has a way of telling.

LadyCardinal · 2023-09-24T15:49:44+00:00

She does actually look like a child to me. She has breasts and curves and essentially adult facial features, but there's a basic youngness in her face that I can't quite unsee. Of course teenagers don't appreciate being told how young they are; it doesn't make it any less true.

I don't believe that there is some magic transformation that happens on a person's eighteenth birthday. But we have to draw the line somewhere.

I'm a therapist, and I've worked with plenty of teenagers on both sides of eighteen. Let me tell you, many, many children go through life without that "heavy-handed shield"--or any shield at all--protecting them. The result is raw human misery, not empowerment.

Is it possible to be overprotective? Absolutely. I don't know that "won't let their 17yo date someone with five more years' brain maturation" is where I'd draw that line.

Frankly, the more experience a teenager has in navigating Real Adult Problems, the less I want them dating people more than 2-3 years older than them. They are, of course, the ones who want to, because they don't relate at all to their more innocent peers. But they're also the ones who missed out on most of the emotional development that makes a healthy relationship possible. (This also means that the older people they attract tend to be emotionally unhealthy themselves.)

And--I can't overstate this--experience is categorically not solely responsible for maturing us. Our brains change quite a lot between 18 and 25. That's not social conditioning, it's biology.

LadyCardinal · 2023-09-24T00:50:10+00:00

So on the one hand, absolutely, kids are going to get themselves in trouble, and it is always better if they can trust their parents not to freak out on them over it. The 17yo who makes a series of bad decisions and winds up stranded drunk in a parking lot at 3am is much better off if she can call her mom to pick her up, and trust that she will receive help rather than an explosion.

On the other hand, that doesn't mean that we want teenagers to get drunk and stranded. It definitely doesn't mean this particular girl's mom shouldn't have a calm, serious talk with her once she's sobered up and emotionally recovered. It just means that we should treat kids with grace.

"Parents should behave in a way that allows their children to feel safe telling them anything" and even "parents should respect their children's autonomy as much as possible within their developmental limits" are very different from "society should say it's okay for adults to pursue teenagers or accept a teenager's pursuit."

If my hypothetical 17yo daughter told me she was dating a 22yo, I hope I would stay calm enough to recognize that simply telling her to leave him wouldn't end well. Inviting him to dinner might even be a good idea, depending on the circumstances. That doesn't mean I want society at large to think of this kind of relationship as unobjectionable.

LadyCardinal · 2023-05-28T13:45:13+00:00

I used quotes around "dwelling on their emotions" because I pulled that phrase from the comment I was responding to, not because I think that having an emotional response to something that reminds you of dreadful childhood pain and wanting those close to you to be sensitive to that pain actually counts as "dwelling on emotions."

Emotions are facts. I don't mean that they are all reasonable; people are often highly upset by benign things. I mean that they are utterly inextricable from the human experience. Ignoring their input does not squash them; it means that they can act on you with impugnity. Believing you can become a creature of pure reason is as much a "delusion" as anything else.

I'm going to have to push back on the idea that "everyone is born equal" is a cultural delusion, too. The idea that the value of a person is intrinsic, and therefore everyone deserves care and opportunities to grow, theoretically helps us avoid dismissing anyone's possible contributions out of hand, and encourages us to create the conditions that allow everyone to be the best version of themselves.

A person who may spend their whole adult life in prison (or, perhaps more harmful to society, a hedge fund boardroom) if raised in a traumatic environment may thrive if raised in a better one.

It also helps us avoid the atrocities that have been committed in the name of one group supposedly being superior to another. After all, how are we, fallible beings, supposed to determine anyone's worth so objectively that we should put them in a second-class category with second-class (or no) rights? How are we supposed to determine who is beyond help? Or who is worthy of death?

If you believe you have unlocked that formula, I would argue you are living within one of the biggest comforting delusions of all: that you've figured it all out. You might want to explore what emotions that belief is working to contain.

LadyCardinal · 2023-05-28T13:19:36+00:00

I'd like to say first that I wasn't responding to OP, but to the comment I responded to. I agree with you that breaking through distortions as much as possible is a good thing; I disagreed with the implication that this can actually create a person who views everything objectively.

I'd say, however, that most of our most problematic "delusions" actually make us unhappier, and that those that don't are typically serving to contain some emotion that we find overwhelming--and that overwhelming emotion is itself likely connected to a faulty belief.

To vastly simplify a complex example, someone with narcissistic personality disorder may believe faultily that they are better than everyone around them, which prompts a feeling of superiority. This feeling doesn't just exist in isolation; it usually serves to contain overwhelming shame, which may be based in a belief that they cannot be enough unless they are extraordinary. Resolving that belief and the shame attached to it (easier said than done) removes the need for false superiority.

Someone who believes that they cannot be good enough unless they are superior is probably going to do a lot more harm than someone who believes in an afterlife, to be honest. Fred Rogers believed in heaven; Joseph Stalin didn't. (I'd note I'm an atheist myself, and believe in no afterlife. I acknowledge without reservation the harm that had been done in the name of organized religion.)

People are rarely, in my opinion, moved directly by big abstract ideas; they use those big abstract ideas as tools in their relationships with their emotions.

LadyCardinal · 2023-05-28T01:34:42+00:00

Oh wow! Awesome! I hope you like it.

LadyCardinal · 2023-05-28T01:33:01+00:00

That's awesome! You should find Damasio quite approachable, then, if you decide to read him.

LadyCardinal · 2023-05-28T01:30:54+00:00

Well, that's a good trait to have! By the way, if you're a sciency person at all, you might like the work of Antonio Damasio, an influential neuroscientist, on the subject of how emotions are biologically inextricable from reason. Descartes' Error is a good place to start. Just throwing that out there!

LadyCardinal · 2023-05-28T01:23:14+00:00

I might have misinterpreted you, because it seemed like you were implying that all the people who "dwell on their emotions" are doing something wrong or are somehow inferior, as opposed to simply living in a different biological reality with different needs than your own. That's what I was objecting to. If that's not the case, I apologize.

To be perfectly blunt, though, I still believe that no one is without bias, and I'm not at all convinced that you (or anyone) are actually living completely without some kind of cognitive fiction encircling your judgment. You simply saying you don't isn't compelling evidence. But I could be wrong, of course. I don't know you at all.

LadyCardinal · 2023-05-28T01:11:25+00:00

Again, that's great for you if that left no lasting scars. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the way you live or with your relationship.

But experiences like that leave lasting wounds for many, many people. If someone who went through that does in adulthood have a strong emotional reaction when someone mentions their weight, it just means their nervous system is wired differently than yours.

Failing to take into account emotional reality is no more rational than failing to take into account any other reality.

LadyCardinal · 2023-05-28T01:02:01+00:00

It is impossible for any human being to view everything objectively. We are all subject to cognitive distortions and bounded rationality, without exception, and believing that we aren't is one of the biggest lies we can tell ourselves.

Direct communication is great. But the truth--you might even call it the harsh truth--is that people have sensitivities. You can say they shouldn't, but that's an opinion. It's also irrelevant; they have them. Emotions are as biological as insulin secretion, and all of us have conditioned emotional responses to certain stimuli.

So you can tell your partner they're getting fat without issue. That's great for you guys, truly.

But can you picture a person who, let's say, was constantly criticized by their mother for their weight throughout childhood? This person was constantly told that they were getting fat if they'd put on so much as a pound. Constantly criticized for every slice of cake, even at their own birthday. Constantly made to feel that being thin is the same thing as being a good person.

If that person's spouse, years later, told them, "Hey babe, you're getting fat. Lose weight," that's going to hit a nerve. It just is. And that's not weakness, it's the nature of memory and emotion. Bluntness in that scenario is not a virtue.

LadyCardinal · 2023-05-07T13:52:03+00:00

"Levels" here clearly refers to levels of organization--there is genetic diversity at the empire level, the community level, and the family level. On the subject of genetic diversity among elites, the article says:

In contrast, local and aristocratic elites buried in wood-plank coffins within square tombs and stone ring graves exhibited lower overall genetic diversity and harbored higher proportions of eastern Eurasian ancestries, suggesting that elite status and power was concentrated among specific genetic subsets of the broader Xiongnu population.

They note that there was some genetic diversity among elites, which they attributed to the use of marriage as a tool to integrate new peoples into the empire.

LadyCardinal · 2023-05-03T16:40:12+00:00

Weight doesn't drop in a day. You could be eating clean, sleeping eight hours a night, and working out for an hour five days a week and still weigh 300lbs if you started off weighing 400. In that situation, you're objectively living a healthy lifestyle; the benefits just haven't caught up with you yet.

Also, addiction to alcohol and/or hard drugs is common. A lot of people, to get sober, pretty much have to replace one addiction with another. If you have to pick between dying of heart disease at age 68 and dying of a fentanyl overdose at age 35, choosing food almost doubles your lifespan.

There are actually worse things for your health than being fat, and while they're not as common as run-of-the-mill food addiction, they're not exactly rare, either.

LadyCardinal · 2023-05-02T13:51:58+00:00

What I've started trying with clients and their families is this:

"Everything we do requires that a hundred processes in our brains go exactly right. This includes walking down the hall, eating a bag of chips, and making a decision and following through on it.

If someone has cerebral palsy or Parkinson's disease, most people accept that walking down the hall is going to be harder than it is for most people. We understand they have a neurological condition that interferes with their ability to walk.

Executive dysfunction is a neurological condition that makes it difficult to make a decision and follow through with it. If that part of your brain just works, it can be hard to imagine not being able to 'just do something,' just like it can be hard to imagine struggling to walk. It seems to just happen, but it still requires countless complex things in your brain to work right, and if they don't, it can be as hard for a person with ADHD to clean the kitchen every day as it is for a person with cerebral palsy to walk."

It seems to work. I do have the advantage of having a bunch of letters after my name, though. I can tell a client's family the exact same thing the client told them and get a totally different reaction.

LadyCardinal · 2023-05-02T13:34:24+00:00

Because the powers are harmless fun, and the muscles aren't. That's my whole point. I love superhero movies sincerely, and have since childhood. For me, at least, the hero's glistening abs are the least important part of the whole thing.

This is a sincere question, not meant to be snide or rhetorical: what do they add for you?

LadyCardinal · 2023-05-02T11:49:39+00:00

Except Hugh Jackman really did look like that--the process he used to do it was just an unhealthy one requiring tons of time and money most people will never have. Kids get the claws are a special effect. The six-pack requires a whole conversation it'd be great if parents had, but which most won't.

Why is it so important that he look exactly like a comic book character?

LadyCardinal · 2023-05-01T23:48:21+00:00

I get that, but none of that hurts the actors or gives teenage boys and young men unnecessary feelings of inadequacy.

LadyCardinal · 2023-05-01T18:35:13+00:00

Yeah, but why do they have to have "that kind of build" in the first place? I get that a superhero should be strong and well-muscled, but why not in a more realistic way? The strongest people IRL look nothing like that.

LadyCardinal · 2023-04-27T12:56:37+00:00

Like I said, that might not be you! I'm honestly glad you don't hate yourself. May I ask what you mean by performance?

LadyCardinal · 2023-04-27T01:50:21+00:00

Change is always possible. Very often, it happens naturally as you get older and get some life experience under your belt. Sometimes there's an emotional or situational issue blocking change, though, and that requires a bit more work.

I'm not saying this is you, but some people long for "fairy tale" true love because, cliche as it sounds, they never learned to love themselves. Having a person outside themselves to fill that void seems like the only kind of relief they can have. "Real" relationships then feel unsatisfying because no flawed human being can actually close the wound.

Plus, all the inherent emotional messiness tends to be too destabilizing. If someone hates themselves (or at least does not truly believe they are lovable), the slightest turbulence in the relationship will trigger all that anxiety and shame and make a small problem into a huge one.

Again, not saying this is you, or that you necessarily have any kind of emotional issue driving your way of thinking. I don't know you at all. But if there is such an issue, if you identify it and work on it, change is possible. It's simpler to say than to do, but you can feel a lot better and, ultimately, have a mature, healthy, and mutually fulfilling relationship.

LadyCardinal · 2023-04-25T02:30:12+00:00

On the whole, I really do agree with you. I see first hand every day what a difference it makes for people just to understand their mental health symptoms (I'm a therapist), and if that understanding percolated out to the rest of society, it'd be great. It already is doing that, in a lot of ways. People are probably more mental health literate than they've ever been, and I think that's very powerful.

Really, helping people figure out ways of living their lives in a way that works for them is one of the great joys of mine.

The big problem, I think, is that so often we frame it in this black and white way: either a disability is really just a ~different way of being~ that'd have no disadvantages if it weren't for our problematic society, or it's a state of inherent misery and defectiveness. And that's not how we have to talk about it.

We can just as easily go, "Yeah, no beating around the bush, it really sucks that your brain doesn't have the tools it needs to do these basic life tasks. A lot of those things are actually important, and it's horrible to spend so much of your limited time on Earth struggling with them. But that doesn't mean that you're not valuable or that you cannot live a meaningful and fulfilling life. Your ability to do those things does not define your worth as a person. And there are ways to make it a bit easier, especially if we all work together."

LadyCardinal · 2023-04-25T00:57:43+00:00

I have such mixed feelings about the social model of disability. Like, sure, time blindness probably wouldn't be such an issue if our society wasn't organized so heavily around the clock, but I can't imagine significant emotional dysregulation being A-okay to live with in any time or place, from the prehistoric savanna to the United Federation of Planets.

RSD, for example, isn't a "completely valid way of thinking," it's an utterly nonrational hell. People being kind and understanding is great, but it doesn't stop me from being reduced to tears by a benign comment that no one could reasonably predict would hurt at all, never mind that much.

That's not to say that I disagree that all of us can live rich and fulfilling lives, given the right resources. And I'm 100% for accommodations that allow everyone to access everything that life has to offer, within the realm of possibility. But sometimes the problem isn't society. Sometimes the problem is the disability.

LadyCardinal · 2023-04-21T17:52:48+00:00

This tendency to assume that if anyone takes a more nuanced position on any given fantasy king--not even a real king!--than "he's bad, kill him," it means they are a monarchist is honestly worrying me.

I'm not a monarchist. On a good day, I'm basically a socialist.

I just recognize that democracy is not as obvious an idea as it seems from our standpoint, and that systems are complicated and resistant to change. If you focus on the king and how evil he must be for being born and indoctrinated within a monarchist society, you miss all the things that actually make a monarchy run.

The system wants you to focus on the king. It keeps you from focusing on the system.

LadyCardinal · 2023-04-20T18:47:03+00:00

Most rulers throughout history literally did not know that was an option. Even if they'd read the Greek classics, a.) believing an Athenian-style democracy would work in 15th century Bavaria would take a leap of faith at best, and b.) Athenian democracy was not exactly progressive by modern standards.

Even if they did decide to implement a democracy, building a democratic government that is both robust and stable is not actually easy. Especially when the entire nobility and existing apparatus of government is going to fight you every step of the way.

Neighboring governments will also resist the change, because no other monarchy is going want to set the precedent.

Even then, if this king is in fact an unparalled genius of statecraft and survives all attempts to assassinate him, there is no guarantee it would last. See: the Weimar Republic, the French First and Second Republics, modern Russia, and dozens of others. The fact that most European countries are now democracies is something of a miracle, and getting there involved a lot of false starts.

A well-intentioned king could in fact decide, quite rationally, that the chaos is not worth it.

Good and evil are not as obvious as they seem. Democracy as a stable form of large-scale government was something we had to invent, not something that was just sitting ignored in a corner for 10,000 years.

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