Most people are familiar with the term fraud but many underestimate how draconian the criminal justice system can be.
Punishments for committing fraud range from low level community orders and fines to up to the equivalent of 150 per cent of your weekly income. In the most serious of fraud cases, culprits are likely to face lengthy prison sentences.
Different types of fraud carry different sentences. Continue reading “How is Fraud Punished in The UK?”
A sexually exploited child is often judged as if he or she is thinking from the logical part of his or her brain. It is assumed that the abuse happening to him or her is a result of ‘lifestyle choices.’
When confronted with dangerous situations, the logical part of the brain – that thinks, reasons and exercises choice – is NOT the part of the brain that takes control. The response to threat is not logical. In reality, fear activates a more primitive part of the brain responsible for ensuring survival and fear chemicals suppress the part of the brain that makes logical decisions.
The survival brain (or amygdala) is concerned with immediate survival, not long-term psychological impact. The brain will respond: ‘this won’t kill you, so freeze and endure it’. The more a person responds passively (enduring it), the more likely that this will become an automatic response when confronted with fear and sexual violence in the future.
The main survival drive is to create attachments to others. This can create a very complex situation when the abuser uses both fear and a relationship with the victim, which can make abusive relationships so complex and difficult to understand to people outside of the relationship.
When an abuser hurts the victim, although the victim may disclose the abuse to third parties (such as family members, social care and the police), the trauma bond means that the victim may also wish to receive comfort from the very person who abused them. If the abuser re-bonds with the victim, it is likely that the victim will return to the abuser and cut contact with the third party. Any contact the child has with the abuser (even a text or Facebook message) can re-bond the victim to the abuser. Whilst it can be painful and frustrating to witness this situation, the fact that the victim has disclosed at all is a massive breakthrough.
On this day of your life
Linda, I believe God wants you to know …
… that you cannot help another who will not help him- or herself.
In the end, all souls must walk their path — and the reason they are walking a particular path may not be clear to us…or even to them at the level of ordinary human consciousness. Do what you can to help others, of course. Show love and caring whenever and wherever you can. But do not get caught up in someone else’s “story” to the point where you start writing it.
Know what I mean?
remember feeling so bad about myself, that I just wanted somebody to say “Well done Tanya, that is great”. I craved positive feedback and when this did not come at home, I turned my focus of attention towards pleasing the teachers, and being my best self, academically, because no-one could destroy that, or take that away from me. I loved school. In fact I hated going home. School was my safe place, but I also saw it as a key to escape, so I ploughed everything I had, into it.
I had endured 7 years of sexual (emotional, and physical) abuse by the age of 15. I was a mess, when I moved in with my grandparents, at that age. I was struggling with the raw truth, of the traumatic abuse that no-body knew about, I was relieved to be safe, but the scars of being rejected and dumped, were wide open (and have never really healed). My grandparents were (and still are), emotionally unavailable and my emotional development and maturity was halted by living with them. We did not speak about how I was feeling, or any of the reasons why I was living with them and I learnt, how to be secretive about my whereabouts and mental stability. It was easy to hide my distress from them, because they were not tuned in to look for it.
Food became the first, accessible, undetected tool to fill the void I felt; the vast emptiness inside. I was always hungry as a child and this simply was no longer an issue at my grandparent’s house. Freshly made, home cooked food and plenty of it, saw me go from a gaunt looking underweight 15 year old, to a filled out, over eating 15 year old, in a few short months.
My core beliefs were faulty and damaged and I desperately wanted to escape from the thoughts, which constantly told me I was not good enough, I was not worthy, there was something inherently bad about me, and that nobody really cared. It found it easy to escape to the railway line, where I contemplated suicide (see my poem ‘Someone like me’) and to consume vast amounts of alcohol to numb (at 15 years old), without any questions being asked.
I quickly discovered that nothing physically hurt more, than the emotional turmoil in my own head. I tried to change how I was feeling, by replacing the emotional pain, with physical pain, but it did not work. I learnt that alcohol blocked the feelings and I began to think, that I needed to feel numb, for some relief and escape. Alcohol quickly became a coping mechanism. I believe alcohol sparked my addictive personality at the age of 15.
It was not long until hurting behaviour, changed and developed for me.
Some self-destructive behaviors are seemingly easy to explain: They feel good. Among these are the following:
Drug use. Initially, the use of drugs is simply to feel especially (although unreliably) good. Then, later on, it is also to avoid the misery of withdrawal. Drug abusers know full well the consequences of their drug use, but they feel driven against their better judgement to continue their drug habit because it is very difficult to stop. Alcoholics are similarly motivated.
Similar behaviors that seem at the moment pleasurable but are obviously destructive over the long run include: compulsive gambling, philandering, petty thievery, overeating, smoking cigarettes, and so on. Why some people seem to engage in pleasurable, but self-destructive, behaviors when others do not is not so easily explained. But, at least, the behaviors themselves can be seen to be pleasurable. It seems that for these individuals pleasures that are immediate outweigh suffering that will occur inevitably down the road. (Similar considerations motivate children who may prefer to misbehave now despite knowing they will be punished later on.)
Minimization – This tactic is a unique kind of denial coupled with rationalization. When using this maneuver, the aggressor is attempting to assert that his abusive behavior isn’t really as harmful or irresponsible as someone else may be claiming. It’s the aggressor’s attempt to make a molehill out of a mountain.
I’ve presented the principal tactics that covert-aggressives use to manipulate and control others. They are not always easy to recognize. Although all aggressive personalities tend to use these tactics, covert-aggressives generally use them slickly, subtly and adeptly. Anyone dealing with a covertly aggressive person will need to heighten gut-level sensitivity to the use of these tactics if they’re to avoid being taken in by them. Continue reading “Minimization “
Seduction – Covert-aggressive personalities are adept at charming, praising, flattering or overtly supporting others in order to get them to lower their defenses and surrender their trust and loyalty. Covert-aggressives are also particularly aware that people who are to some extent emotionally needy and dependent (and that includes most people who aren’t character-disordered) want approval, reassurance, and a sense of being valued and needed more than anything. Appearing to be attentive to these needs can be a manipulator’s ticket to incredible power over others. Shady “gurus” like Jim Jones and David Koresh seemed to have refined this tactic to an art. In the story of Al and Don, Al is the consummate seducer. He melts any resistance you might have to giving him your loyalty and confidence. He does this by giving you what he knows you need most. He knows you want to feel valued and important. So, he often tells you that you are. You don’t find out how unimportant you really are to him until you turn out to be in his way.
Projecting the blame (blaming others) – Aggressive personalities are always looking for a way to shift the blame for their aggressive behavior. Covert-aggressives are not only skilled at finding scapegoats, they’re expert at doing so in subtle, hard to detect ways. Continue reading “Seduction and Projection”
Playing the Victim Role – This tactic involves portraying oneself as an innocent victim of circumstances or someone else’s behavior in order to gain sympathy, evoke compassion and thereby get something from another. One thing that covert-aggressive personalities count on is the fact that less calloused and less hostile personalities usually can’t stand to see anyone suffering. Therefore, the tactic is simple. Convince your victim you’re suffering in some way, and they’ll try to relieve your distress.
In the story of Amanda and Jenny, Amanda was good at playing the victim role too. She had her mother believing that she (Amanda) was the victim of extremely unfair treatment and the target of unwarranted hostility. I remember Jenny telling me: “Sometimes I think Amanda’s wrong when she says her teacher hates her and I hate her. But what if that’s what she really believes? Can I afford to be so firm with her if she believes in her heart that I hate her?” I remember telling Jenny: “Whether Amanda has come to believe her own distortions is almost irrelevant. She manipulates you because you believe that she believes it and allow that supposed belief to serve as an excuse for her undisciplined aggression.”
Lying – It’s often hard to tell when a person is lying at the time he’s doing it. Fortunately, there are times when the truth will out because circumstances don’t bear out somebody’s story. But there are also times when you don’t know you’ve been deceived until it’s too late. One way to minimize the chances that someone will put one over on you is to remember that because aggressive personalities of all types will generally stop at nothing to get what they want, you can expect them to lie and cheat. Another thing to remember is that manipulators – covert-aggressive personalities that they are – are prone to lie in subtle, covert ways. Courts are well aware of the many ways that people lie, as they require that court oaths charge that testifiers tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Manipulators often lie by withholding a significant amount of the truth from you or by distorting the truth. They are adept at being vague when you ask them direct questions. This is an especially slick way of lying’ omission. Keep this in mind when dealing with a suspected wolf in sheep’s clothing. Always seek and obtain specific, confirmable information.
Covert Intimidation – Aggressors frequently threaten their victims to keep them anxious, apprehensive and in a one-down position. Covert-aggressives intimidate their victims by making veiled (subtle, indirect or implied) threats. Guilt-tripping and shaming are two of the covert-aggressive’s favourite weapons. Both are special intimidation tactics. Continue reading “Lying – Covert Intimidation”
