What is, relationship Stockholm Syndrome?

And what does it mean to you?

"Stockholm Syndrome" was coined after some people were taken hostage (in Stockholm) and they ended up identifying with, relating to and defending their captors. Psychologist believe that this happens in any traumatic situation (kidnapping, cult groups, etc) where people are held against their will and totally controlled.

Logically it makes sense, that our minds, in order to cope with what is happening to us, search in vain to find some sense of safety and that the people who are harming us don't really want to harm us, and that they have a very good reason and cause to be doing what they are doing.

For example, if a captor who was holding us against our will, fed us a bag of Frito's and a couple sips of water-we would feel that they do care about our well being and that they care whether or not we starve. Of course in reality-giving someone a bag of junk food and just enough water to sustain life is malnourishing, cruel and torturous. But having been so deprived-a person captured would take this act as one of love, sustenance and mercy-and thus, would start to believe that the villains are "good."

In a psychologically abusive relationship-we end up doing the same thing. We are being deprived, we are being controlled, and while it seems that it is our will to be involved, the psychological abuser works so well to keep us where we are at with their subtle brainwashing, we don't seem to think that we really have a choice, or-like those afflicted with Stockholm Syndrome-we decide to CHOOSE to stay with our capture.

In some respects, this may also be a way that people take back their power and control. The mind, unable to deal with being held against it's will, creates reasons to suggest to itself that they aren't being held, they are choosing to and want to be in this situation.

That's what happens to us. We begin to scan this person for any signs of "good", of love for us, we make excuses for their cruelty (often helped along by them and their own excuses, which we fall for), and when they 'give' to us, we accept it and blow it way out of proportion in importance. I.E.-seeing a bag of Frito's and a cup of water as a full course steak and lobster dinner with wine.

It's part of why we stay. Just as a hostage-taker believes they are justified, with good reason and cause to be doing what they are doing-so do our abusers believe that how they treat us, is justified and with good reason. Whether its something we are doing or not doing, or something that happened in their lives to "make them" this way-we find rational sanity in the insane and inappropriate excuses made. We begin to identify with our abuser, we begin to believe that he really doesn't want to hurt us personally, and we begin to defend him-not only to ourselves, but to all others who may notice that he's not exactly being a nice guy to us. We take the little shreds of "mercy" and believe that he really is a good man underneath it all, he is just x, y and z. With our love, it could change. He's just mis-understood, that's all.

This happens especially to women who have been battered by men. The women who have been beaten up, show up to court and beg the judge to let her man go because "I love him."-that's relationship Stockholm Syndrome.

It happens with psychological abuse, too. Being with these men over a period of time is not unlike being in a cult. That's why when it ends, "de-programming" has to be done, and that's part of why we become obsessed in Googling, books, programs, etc-because we are desperately trying to undo the brainwashing and come to grips with sanity. To overcome the relationship Stockholm Syndrome that not only keeps us with him, believing in the good in him despite massive evidence to the contrary, and keeps us being abused.