Andrew G Marshall

Help I think I’m suffering from Stockholm Syndrome!

The case of Jaycee Lee Dugard, the girl snatched at eleven and held prisoner for eighteen years, has captured the imagination of the world. We are intrigued by the complex relationship with her kidnapper, Philip Garrido, who is also the father of her two children. Especially as ‘she is very remorseful,’ says her step-father, ‘she feels really guilty for bonding with this man. There’s a real guilt trip here. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that she has fallen victim to Stockholm Syndrome - named after a bank siege in the capital city of Sweden in the nineteen seventies where kidnappers and hostages bonded to such an extent that afterwards one woman became engaged to a gunman, while another launched a legal fund to pay for the robbers’ defence.

Although we find these feelings of affection for kidnappers hard to comprehend, in a strange way, we are looking in a distorted mirror at something quite familiar. Maybe you have a friend, a sister or a daughter who seems brainwashed by a partner whose appeal you simply cannot understand. A man who puts her down in public, destroys her self-confidence yet she loves him. Instead of welcoming your help to leave him, she either changes the subject or gets angry. On the other hand, perhaps it’s your own partner who is so possessive that you feel like a prisoner in your own home? As a marital therapist, I see a remarkably large number of smart women have been trapped by and willingly stay with bad, dangerous or abusive men. I call these Stockholm Syndrome Relationships.

So how do ordinary women become hostages? When Michelle, twenty eight, first met Alex, in his late thirties, he seemed like the perfect man. “On our second date, he announced that he’d never met anybody like me, I was the love of his life and he was teasing me about what to call our children,” she remembers. Naturally, she was flattered and began to entertain similar feelings. “He followed it up with flowers, a teddy bear and a weekend in the Cotswolds.” Stockholm Syndrome Men don’t so much kidnap women but ambush their emotions. “I was on an incredible high,” explained Michelle, “it seemed almost too good to be true.” Indeed it was. While it is normal to fall quickly in love, most people hold back and don’t tell the other person how they feel at first. By contrast, Stockholm Syndrome men are not afraid of a quick commitment. They make unrealistic promises, have a whole future planned out after a handful of dates and some even move in during the first month. Alex’s grand gestures made Michelle feel like she was in a romantic movie, so she ignored behaviour that would normally have made her suspicious. “On our way to the Cotswolds, he kept blowing his horn and accusing the car ahead of being a creep. At the hotel, the room wasn’t quite ready and he made a terrible fuss. He was rude to the girl on reception but I didn’t like to say anything because he was being so generous to me.” Although Michelle recognised that Alex had a temper, and hated not getting his own way, she never thought his fury would be directed at her. After all, he had told her she was his Princess and nothing was too much trouble. What Michelle did not realise was that Alex had started the classic Stockholm Syndrome pattern used to confuse and entrap victims: fear and reward.

With Stockholm Syndrome men, there is always the threat of violence. Some go as far as hitting their partners, others throw things or get into fights with other men. Alex spent a night in a prison cell after another man in a night-club looked at Michelle in what he considered to be a ‘funny way’. The goal is to keep the woman on guard and therefore easily controlled. Ultimately, all Stockholm Syndrome men become emotionally abusive. “Because Mike really loved me and wanted the best for me,” explains Josie, thirty-two, “he would be honest about what he thought.” However, this included insults about her flabby arms, her small role of flesh round her stomach and her taste in clothes. Gradually the remarks got more personal and Josie became more self-conscious. “For some reason, you believe criticism but put compliments down to flattery,” says Josie, looking back on how Mike gradually destroyed her confidence. “He had been to a good university and enjoyed dropping names of obscure authors into the conversation and then explaining them, as if I was five years old.” Worse still, he started dissecting Josie’s behaviour in public and telling her she was stupid or knew nothing. So why didn’t Josie just leave him? “If he went too far, he’d follow it up by being really sweet: breakfast in bed, turning up at the office to take me out for an expensive lunch, jewellery. I felt that was the real him and if I tried harder it could be like that all the time.” Mike was exhibiting the second classic Stockholm Syndrome behaviour guaranteed to ‘hook’ their victim like a drug: alternating fix and withdrawal.

The bad behaviour in public begins to isolate the woman and - like the hostages in the bank and Jaycee in the secret garden - cut them off from the outside world. Certainly Josie decided it was too much trouble taking Mike on office outings and as she explains: “He always claimed we were happier, just the two of us.” Slowly Josie gave up all her outside interests - like horse riding - as Mike would insist on coming too and hanging around looking dour and taking all the pleasure from her hobby. He had an issue with her family too. After a call from her mother, Mike would launch into twenty questions, picking away at the conversation for criticism real or imagined. So Josie would only phone her family when he was not around: “He thought mum tried to monopolise my spare time, even if she just asked me arrive early to help at a family celebration, and that ultimately she didn’t understand the special nature of our love.” Mike had put in place another key ingredient for a Stockholm Syndrome Relationship: the enemy. At the original bank siege, which gave the syndrome its name, the enemy was the police who were ironically trying to rescue the hostages; while Natascha Kampusch from Austria was told her parents had refused to pay the ransom demand. The common foe intensifies the bond between captor and victim. Worse still, cut off from friends and familiy and no one to give them an objective perspective on what is ‘normal’, women trapped in Stockholm Syndrome Relationships put the problems down to their own behaviour. Indeed, Michelle felt Alex behaved badly because: “I didn’t do enough to make him feel safe, didn’t make enough sacrifices.” She even felt she was lucky to have someone who put up with her - as by this time, she felt inadequate and worthless and even passed on a possible promotion at work. “If a small voice inside told me anything else, he would ridicule me, tell me I was crazy. Nobody else would want me.” She was truly Alex’s prisoner.

So what drives these men? Although a few consciously set out to capture women, most genuinely think they are great guys. Through their eyes, they are very romantic and passionate (too bad, it can get out of hand and degenerate into violence or slanging matches) and their strong sense of entitlement is just an extreme version of our society’s self-centredness (I’m in a hurry, so it doesn’t matter if my poor parking holds up everybody else). The problem is that these men have an almost pathological inability to understand anybody else’s viewpoint or the impact of their behaviour. This makes them permanently right and everybody else permanently in the wrong.

What should you do if you are in a Stockholm Syndrome Relationship? You will probably have tried to leave but found it hard. As Josie explained: “The more sacrifices, the more heartache, the more I’d invested, the more I thought I should see this through.” However, after discovering Mike had been recording her phone calls, something snapped inside Josie and she finally walked out. A Stockholm Syndrome man will immediately panic. Mike bombarded her with phone calls and flowers. He turned up at her work reception and refused to leave until he could propose marriage. Alex used jealousy and threatened to return to an old girlfriend. He phoned all Michelle’s family and threatened suicide - hoping they would persuade her to call him. Often the women agree to ‘one more try’ but after a short honeymoon the men return to their old ways, only worse. They cross examine their partner for longer, make more of a fuss if she goes out without him and some even cut off the money supply. They will do anything in their power to prevent a second escape.

So how do you break free? Step one: become boring. Prepare to leave physically by leaving first emotionally. Talk less, share fewer feelings; stop arguing, defending and explaining. Stockholm Syndrome men get a buzz from the highs and lows of a roller-coaster relationship, instead think flat. You will have to take the blame - remember he’s never wrong - but use neutral terms like: ‘confused’ ‘depressed’ or ‘under stress’. Start contacting friends and family quietly and if you are worried about violence take legal advice. Step two: the break. Respond to notes, flowers and texts, politely but unemotionally. You need time away to get a true perspective, so don’t agree to meetings to ‘talk it through’ or listen to his ‘deal’. His goal is to make you feel guilty: ‘how much he’s done for you’ ‘you’re leading him on’ ‘not giving him a chance to fix the relationship’. He will probably seek professional help - this is how I met Michelle and Josie - but Stockholm Syndrome men cannot take responsibility for their own behaviour and therefore counselling is pointless. Step three: the follow up. As he’s the perfect man, you must be crazy, influenced by someone else or going through a phase. Don’t be tempted to soften the blow with words like ‘maybe’ or ‘someday’ or ‘in the future’. He will hear this as weakening and encourage him to increase the pressure. Instead, stay focused on your simple message: it’s over. If he phones, keep it short and sweet. Give no details of your new life, just pretend you have to go somewhere neutral like the supermarket. The good news is that he will give up and you will be free. The bad news is that he will probably take another woman hostage and the whole story starts all over again.

How to help your friend / family member

• The goal is contact not pressure. Running him down offers ammunition that you are trying to ruin a wonderful relationship.

• Forgive snappiness on the phone, she might have to endure a four hour lecture / post-mortem.

• Hold on loosely. Regular calls are less threatening to Stockholm Syndrome men. Random ones seem like checking up. So phone at the same time each week, even if it means just leaving a message on the machine. Monthly shopping visits together are a good idea too.

• Give information rather than ask questions. For example, the news that her brother just passed his driving test, reminds her that there is a whole family waiting in the wings.

• Listen and be sympathetic but wait for her to ask for help.

How to spot if your date is a Stockholm Syndrome Man

• Give him the waitress test. Does he whine, complain, torment and generally treat her like dirt?

• What about his ex? Does he tell stories that about a mad, angry, stupid or ungrateful woman.

• Does he give reassurances that you didn’t ask for? For example, he never gets drunk or would never actually hit a woman.

• Is he proud of bad behaviour? For example, claiming to be ‘butt kicker’ at work or doing ‘crazy’ things like hanging outside a girl’s apartment all night?

• What about his friends? Stockholm Syndrome Men have only acquaintances or a handful of friends who are just like him.