You Should Have Known
You Should Have Known
There's something about the witching hour that brings out the trolls. Somewhere between 11pm and 3am, certain people start posting venom on social media. I’m not sure if its the alcohol speaking… but then again; ‘in vino veritas’.
You clueless idiots! How did you not see it?! How are you so gullible?! Get a fucking life you losers! I would never have fallen for it! Ya’ll should have known better!
This perspective is worth examining. People don’t realize that (in their likely misplaced rage) they are aiding the abuser. What does the abuser want? For the victims to be blamed for everything. For some, the most pressing question is... how could you be fooled? How could you not see? That certainly is an interesting rumination… but not the most important question. MORE important is HOW does the abuser do it?
How do they setup environments where they enact large scale abuse on people? What is their pathology? What the fuck is wrong with them?
You see, everyone is so busy blaming the abused and not spending nearly enough energy on examining the strategies of the abuser. Many times, these abusers are malignant narcissists and sometimes even sociopaths.
But somehow, those who were fooled by these sociopaths are the ones the commentators are focusing on…. AND that’s what the abuser wants. This reversal strategy is their Modus Operandi. “Always attack, never defend!"
This reversal is also known as DARVO.
The term was introduced by Jennifer J. Freyd, PhD a Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon.
DARVO refers to a reaction perpetrators of wrong doing, particularly sexual offenders, may display in response to being held accountable for their behavior. DARVO stands for "Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender." The perpetrator or offender may Deny the behavior, Attack the individual doing the confronting, and Reverse the roles of Victim and Offender such that the perpetrator assumes the victim role and turns the true victim -- or the whistle blower -- into an alleged offender. This occurs, for instance, when an actually guilty perpetrator assumes the role of "falsely accused" and attacks the accuser's credibility and blames the accuser of being the perpetrator of a false accusation.
Freyd, J.J. (1997) Violations of power, adaptive blindness, and betrayal trauma theory. Feminism & Psychology, 7, 22-32.
This reversal, which so many fall for, is an epidemic in our society.
Let me digress to something that occurred in NXIVM in March 2017. A JNESS intensive (retreat) was being held in the metropolis of Clifton Park, NY. (JNESS was the ‘women’s movement’ created by Keith Raniere). Men were invited to these intensives as well. My wife Bonnie Piesse had quit in January and I was still going through the motions of attending intensives, trying to figure out what was going on. This intensive was an 8 day training called JNESS 10. (There had been 9 prior to this) That is a LOT of thought reform. In my upcoming book I’ll detail a lot more about this and other events, but basically I would later discover this entire intensive was designed to inoculate Raniere against anyone pointing out his abuses. I was being mentored by one of the (now indicted) leaders of NXIVM and a DOS co-conspirator. The conclusion of the intensive’s argument, was that anyone who cries abuse… is actually the abuser.
WTF?
Shortly after this idea was accepted by the 80 odd people in the room, my two mentors nodded their heads solemnly and said to me:
‘And that’s the problem with Bonnie…her criticisms of the organization… are an act of abuse…..’
I went into controlled, measured, white-hot rage. It would be the beginning of my unraveling. From this point on I began heavily questioning the intent and actions of the now indicted-leaders and Keith Raniere.
Two months later it would all make sense.
This is what sociopaths do. They gather unknowing flying monkeys to do their dirty work. And that’s what the commentators do when they spend their energy on those that have been victimized and blown the whistle. It’s victim shaming, plain and simple. The focus is on the CONNED…. Not the ‘CONNER’.
The conned were supposed to know how sociopaths work (without the life experience of how they work). In other words, you should have known before you knew. The conned are actually the problem because of their ignorance… not the scheming sociopath.
All these young women who were fooled by him. They are the responsible ones! They should be shamed!
…. and so the gaslighting is complete.
©2020 Mark Vicente