stockholm syndrome and the abused wife

Today, my friend admitted to me that her husband used to hit her when they were married. I was not too surprised at the fact that he did... I suppose what took me off guard was the fact that she'd been reticent about it. She is a highly accomplished professional, with a wide range of experiences, great deal of exposure, a fair understanding of situations involving these dynamics... What I'm trying to put across is the fact that she is not just some dumb girl who ended up in an abusive relationship... as a matter of fact, there seems to be an inverse relationship between the extent of the reticence and the status (social/academic) of the woman. The more highly qualified the woman is, the less likely she is to admit to the existence of an abusive relationship, ironically. I suppose in part this is because the woman probably can't believe that she has actually ended up in such a predicament. My friend had fallen into the same trap/spiral as every other abused woman before her (and she won't be the last)! She was feeding his abuse by isolating herself; she kept trying to modify her behaviour to accomodate his all in a bid to avoid getting hit...she lost her self confidence and was always second guessing herself... she would put herself down and lift him up and we never understood why.... we all knew he was a loser, yet she always tried to make him bigger and better than he was. In retrospect, the signs were there. I just never thought that it could happen to her. It is actually heartbreaking that she suffered in silence. She literally suck with it. The only reason she found the strength to move was when she felt her children were in harm's way. To put it in her own words, she only walked away when she was ready to. And unfortunately that is the case with spousal abuse. You cannot achieve very much in terms of breaking the cycle until the person is truly ready to break the cycle and walk away. Well, all I can say is lucky for her, she had children to bail her out. Did it mean she had fallen in love with her abuser as it were? I don't know, but she almost felt guilty for being all she was. It was almost as though she had finally come to the conclusion that if she could only be less of herself, he would cease to be so abusive. The more she did that, the more empowered he became... like a said, a vicious cycle. Anyway, the Stockholm syndrome describes a psychological response of  a hostage to their captor. In brief, it is when the hostage become sympathetic to the captor and this is born out of a form of psychological torture in which the hostage is isolated and threatened with death and then shown little acts of kindness as well. It does not take very long for this to take hold. In my friend's case, I don't think she was threatened with death, but she was certainly pushed far enough. The isolation was borne out of everyone else's dislike for her spouse. She walked away. Will she be able to avoid such a situation again? Will she be able spot the flags from a distance and avoid getting into such a situation? I'd hope so. Me? I'll keep watching this space...

Mother kills her children...evil or delusional compassion

The first time I heard about a mother who had killed her own children and then committed suicide, I was really baffled. How could a mother do such a thing? I believe that her action, as abominable as it was, in her mind was an act of compassion. In her mind, she did not want to abandon her children. She felt that if she could not be there for them, she did not want to risk anyone maltreating them... or having them thrown into foster care. It seems a very unnatural act, but if you can remove any ethical/moral/emotional bias from your judgment, in using cold hard logic (as warped as it may be), you can see how in her own mind (delusional or not) she could do such a thing to her own children. After all, what gives her the right to take away the life of another even if she gave birth to him/her?