This is a paste-in from today's Wolf's Daily Howl
about an Ah Ha Moment about why most of us do something so utterly futile. . . .

I learned something as a result of a conversation at last night's circle.

It was a small circle (never a problem in my opinion, becasue
each person who attends gets that much more individual attention).

There was a gentleman in his early forties who is trying to
recover from having been financially and emotionally "taken"
by a woman he loved (loves!).

Hearing the history of their relationship and the things she'd
done before and after their relationship, I was pretty clear
that this woman either suffers from a personality disorder
or is actually sociopathic. She's a typical abuser. (Yes, we
hear more about guys acting this way, but that's only a result
of what we believe socio-culturally ----- not what actually IS.

The last contact he had with her was seven months ago.
Despite this and everything she did to him (she basically
left him financially destitute and emotionally crushed),
he worries about her, wishes he could get her help, and
spends lots of time trying to find the "good" in her.

So ----- here's where I made my breakthrough. It may
not seem like a huge insight, but a pile of small insights
eventually are just as useful as one big one:

I went home thinking about why victims who've been
abused by someone spend years following the abuse looking
for the "good" in the person who treated them like dirt.

Now, I'm not saying this is "conscious" motivation. It's likely
below the level of our rational thinking but. . . . it struck me
that the victim in endless pursuit of the "good" in the abuser
might be on their search so that they, the victim, can feel
less embarrassed about their choice in connecting with this
apparently awful person.

Remember, now. . . . . that real sociopaths come on to us
in sheep's clothing. They present themselves cloaked in the
disguise of being somebody wonderful. So. . . . believing what
we see. . . . we trust them. Having gotten us successfully
attached, they drop the guise and begin to run their game
with impunity. Now, hurt and confused, we wonder how
we could have been (and I'm going to use the terminology
I hear most often) ---- so STUPID!!!!!!!!

The thing is ----- we were CONNED!!!!!!!!!

"Con game" is short for "confidence game." The perpetrator
sets up a scenario and gains our confidence, or trust. We
innocently hand over the goods ---- and they're gone.

We feel dismayed by our mistaken perception. So. . . .
we keep looking and looking for the"good" we first "saw"
in the con. We feel as though, if we could just find some
remnants of the "good" they presented early on (to manipulate
us into their capture), then we can feel a little better about
ourselves and our judgement.

What we're missing is that finding "some good" in a sociopath
happens less often than discovering a fresh water spring in the Sahara.
But the victim insists on continuing to search because if they could only
just find some goodness, they could lessen some of the pain that's resulted from the injury the con/abuser inflicted.

And that's why the injured victim seems compelled to believe the abuser
can't really be all that bad.

Please let me add here, as I've tried to say before in other places, that a
discussion of "good" and "bad" in personality is not going to help us understand abuse. My framework is based on "healthy and functioning" or emotionally UNhealthy and dysfunctional."

Your thoughts?