Sunday, June 29, 2008
Case# 31 Are They A Predator? Do The Checklist!
The below are excerpts from HOW TO SPOT A DANGEROUS MAN; A must-read book - Sandra Brown, MA. We can't stress enough how valuable reading this book, even AFTER the relationship is. Sandra offers many services to victims HERE. She "gets it" where many counselors simply do not.
So see how the cyberpath/ predator you know stacks up:
excerpts from HOW TO SPOT A DANGEROUS MAN:
The other type of emotionally unavailable man is unavailable due to his relationship (or relationships) with another woman (or women). These guys are never really committed to a woman. They don’t see any relationship as necessarily permanent, including marriage - even if they give lip service to being “deeply committed” to the woman they are with at the moment.
In truth, however, they don’t truly value their intimate relationships or take them seriously, because they are merely “playing,” even though engagement or marriage hardly seems like something to “play” at. They don’t take their relationships seriously because on some level - even if subconciously - they know they can find someone else who will get involved with them if their current affair ends. What else would cause someone to repeatedly play his future like a crapshoot without really fearing the outcome?
…It is probably because women keep attempting to get close to him that causes him to keep moving from partner to partner or to keep adding partners. He is uninterested in experiencing or is unable to experience deep feelings of connection with anyone.
…What is dangerous about emotionally unavailable men is that they are not authentically emotionally responsive. They are emotionally avoidant.
…Some of these men may have a sexual addiction that fuels their pursuit of rapidly revolving, superficial relationships. Perhaps his sexual addiction takes the form of chronic and compulsive pornography use, a pattern that will diminish a man’s normal human responsiveness.
… be aware that [this type of man] will come across to you as a devoted father and husband or as an upstanding citizen of his community. Never discount the possibility that your emotionally unavailable man may have multiple hidden lives (always the case if he’s engaging in clandestine extramarital affairs) as well as being an emotional predator. For example: emotional unavailability, plus life he keeps hidden from you, his wife or his girlfriend, plus the keen sixth sense of an emotional predator, plus a sexual addiction - help these pathological men thrive at attracting serial superficial relationships.
If he is a sexual addict as well he will have a hidden life of endless porn watching, masturbation, voyeurism, and even using prostitutes. Many times these men will cover their perversions with heavy involvement in community politics, their church or synagogue or doing volunteer work. And they will make sure this cover is very visible so no one suspects.
Sexually addicted predators will not stop at you, they will go after your friends as well. They think nothing of telling your friend that you mean nothing to them and that you are possibly “imagining” the relationship. They will tell their wives the same things about you or any other woman they know insisting “she’s jealous of us and is obsessed with me.” They are masterful jugglers of time and people.
…a woman’s availability itself is a deciding factor… “any port in a storm” will provide adequate distraction from the reality of his life.
In addition to finding women who are available, these men have to locate women who are willing to violate their own emotional, sexual and ethical standards… So his challenge is to find women who, with encouragement will deny their values and boundaries and partake.
Womanizers also look for women who will believe their stories about their home life. Very few of them tell women how happy they are at home, how wonderful their wife is, and how they just really want to have extramarital sex with no strings attached. No, that usually isn’t the story line. The story line goes: “No one has ever really loved me, and certainly not my wife. She nags… doesn’t appreciate me… hates sex…”
Women take this hook too often. …they will be able to make him “finally feel loved… listened to… appreciated.” His need is not “once and for all to be loved” as much as it is to get laid, be amused and be distracted.
A womanizer may be highly verbal about his relationships. He may share personal information in such a way that women mistake his sharing for emotional intimacy… He knows well enough that women are empathic to tales of empty and sad relationships…
Such men are successful when they find women who are unhappy in their own relationships.
An interesting point is that almost every woman who told us her story about getting involved with an emotionally unavailable man said it happened at a time when her self-esteem was low. [She] was coming out of a relationship situation that had damaged her self-esteem (such as being abused or even going through a divorce). Women accept far more during times of low self-esteem than they do when their self-esteem is sound. A belief that she doesn’t deserve a whole, satisfying and healthy relationship is a reflection of how low her self-esteem is. If a man gives a woman who suffers with low-self esteem a little attention… then too often she willingly falls [for him].
The emotional predator is as bad as it gets. He qualifies as the pinnacle of poisonous and pathological… He could, in fact, be called the “emotional psychic.” That’s because it’s his ability to intuit and sense a woman’s emotional vulnerabilities that places her at risk. Webster’s defines predatory as “having a disposition to injure or exploit others for one’s own gain; it defines predator as “one that preys, destroys or devours.” That’s a good summation of this man. Who but the most pathological among us would set out to exploit, prey on, destroy or devour?
He will hone in on your vulnerabilities and read you. If he likes what he reads, he will follow up by luring you into his scary and dangerous life.
Predators have a natural ability for reading women who are lonely, bored, needy by nature, emotionally wounded or vulnerable. The predator also has his antennae up for women who… have unfulfilled needs in their lives. …he figures out how he can squeeze into the vacant space in your life and what you need to hear in order to allow this to happen.
…[they] “sense” which woman will make the best target for them. They don’t know why they have this gift or how they acquired it. …they have been working women over since childhood. A predator’s intuitive sixth sense is untaught. …an adult’s skills can’t compete with his abilities to scam, con and conquer.
…emotional predators also fall into the mentally-ill category, usually under the diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder. Most also have hidden lives. When you couple a predator’s natural instincts with a lifetime of skills honed by successfully conning, exploiting and injuring women, you have a man who is nothing short of extraordinarily smooth and capable of horrific dangerousness.
Predators’ motives vary. But you can be sure a predator wants something from you. That is the entire reason for the relationship. …There is something in you that he wants. Maybe “all” he wants is your utter adoration or for you to exalt his ego. …Maybe wants what you can provide to help establish his image so he will marry you (’good family man’). Or maybe …he’s most interested in the pursuit and conquest of a woman… If he is a sexual predator, you are a target, whether it be for consensual sex or rape - depending on whichever way it plays out or whatever mood he is in.
A predator does not “need” the relationship. Early on… the predator is deliberately romantic. Predators are shifting chameleons who can be all things to all women. Predators are smooth as silk. …predators are listeners who will give up very little information until they are sure it will align with your history. …His selection is based on his need and your vulnerability. He knows it’s a matter of matching need with need. The more he knows about your needs, the better he can meet them.
He has a nose for vulnerability, so women who have unmet needs “smell” especially good to him. He seeks women who need men who can “sense and know” them on almost a spiritual level. Since he is good at this, he will appear to know you well - and quickly.
They like women who had absent fathers, angry mothers or neglectful and abusive husbands. Knowing that many women are trained to believe that people are basically good at heart, predators will present themselves as men of honor and virtue…. But because he is a chameleon, he will listen closely to see if you also need a mentor, an adviser on some topic, a spiritual leader, or a male friend.
During counseling sessions I’ve had with men who are emotional predators, some have verbalized their targets.
One said, “I look for naive women. I like a certain vulnerability to her - that she trusts humanity without asking for proof. Maybe she’s been hurt a lot so there’s a “woundedness” to her. That vulnerability makes them believe you, because they need to believe you.”
Another said, “I like [ ] women who have been pounded down by men and those with childhoods that weren’t so good. They are particularly easy.”
It is important to understand that each predator has developed his own unique style. He has a “type” or two of women he prefers because with those types he has mastered the approach, the dating, and the ‘end.’ He doesn’t have to think very hard if he just uses the profile he’s had success with. One predator may prefer recently divorced or divorcing women because he succeeds at playing that angle with them. … these guys can show a woman they definitely “get it.” They show you all the attention that the jerks you’ve been with haven’t. They say all the right lines that the men in your past could never verbalize. They are brilliant and insightful about what you need. They seem to know exactly every pain you have suffered.
With more skill than a carnival psychic, the emotional predator can hone in on your every need, sympathize with you in such a way so that you believe you’ve met your long lost soulmate and sweep you off your feet… He’s… more insightful than a therapist. He “knows” you the way no one else ever has.
This guy moves FAST. He’s got to - before you figure out what his M.O. is. Every woman should be suspect of the relationships that seem to be traveling in the fast lane on the super-highway of emotional intimacy. A predator needs to keep you so euphoric with compliments and lover’s talk that you aren’t listening, or paying attention. He is dripping with sincerity and clinging to every word you say. A predator wants to consummate the relationship with you right away, because time is against him.
To move the relationship along and be indispensable to you, he must act helpful, comforting and generous. Since he is working against the clock, he must find out what you need and then meet that need.
While listening to you and observing you, he will glean a lot of information about your hobbies, interests, spiritual beliefs and value systems. He is the original identity thief. He uncovers and uses for his own purposes everything he can about what makes you - YOU. He will find you amazing, beautiful, bright and talented - like no one he has EVER met before. He will align how he portrays himself with your needs and also your interests until you feel like you are looking at your twin.
Finally, another way predators succeed with women is by preying on their compassion. Once a woman is in the grip of a predator, anything can happen.
[Once a woman sees their stories] for the crock they are and bust them for their fake opinions with them, they will try and turn the table and make it seem it was the woman who had emotional problems!
written by Sandra L. Brown, M.A., Director of The Dangerous Relationship Institute and author ‘How to Spot a Dangerous Man’ and ‘Counseling Victims of Violence.’ Her new book 'Women Who Love Psychopaths' is out now! The Institute is involved in helping women achieve relational harm reduction. Visit our sites at http://www.HowToSpotADangerousMan.com
or
http://www.saferelationships.com for advice and resources on changing your patterns of selection. Change your choices, change your life.
Labels: checklist, predator, safe relationships, sandra brown, sociopath
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Case# 30 Seduced Online -- Then DISAPPEARED!
Our daughter was seduced by a man in cyberspace and then she disappeared...By ANGELA CARLESS
The news that one of Princess Beatrice's teachers, Richard Findley, is facing jail on charges of grooming a girl of 12 on the internet underlines the growing menace of online sexual predators. The family of missing 15-year-old schoolgirl Samantha Osborn know this only too well.
Samantha disappeared five months ago after becoming involved with a man she met on the web. Her mother Gill, 40, a retail manager who lives with her husband Bob, 44, in Buckingham, tells their heartwrenching story.
The pain of not knowing what has happened to my beloved daughter is like an open wound which has become more agonising every day since she disappeared. There has been no word from Samantha nor a single sighting of her since she left our home on the afternoon of April 3.Do you know where Samantha Osborn is? Please call Missing People in confidence on Freefone 0500 700 700 -- Click here for website
It's hard to explain just how much we have suffered in the past few months. While I try not to fear the worst, I feel incredibly guilty that her father and I were not able to protect her from the dangers of the internet. We blame ourselves that we did not supervise her computer use more intently.
Yet, like millions of other parents, we felt it was all fairly innocuous when she signed up for her own web page on the social networking site Bebo which, like MySpace and Facebook, is so much a part of modern teenage life. Many of her school friends are also members and frankly, we thought that chatting to pals online in her bedroom was safer than hanging out with them on the streets.
Both Samantha, 15, and her brother Jack, 13, attend a selective grammar school and they each needed a computer to do their homework. Although I know parents are advised that computers with internet access should be in a communal area of the home, it just wasn't feasible to line up their computers in the sitting room.
Besides, we trusted our children. They've always been sensible and well-behaved and there was no reason to believe either of them would be lured away by a stranger they met online.
Yet, with hindsight, the warning signs were there just after Christmas, when we noticed Samantha was spending more time on the internet. She said she was chatting to friends about homework, but we noticed her attitude began to change. She became secretive, sullen and unco-operative.
I thought she was just going through a stroppy teenage phase. She was still doing well at school and I saw no reason to stop her going out with her friends on Saturdays.
There's not much for youngsters in the small market town of Buckingham where we live, so they would catch the bus into Milton Keynes, 15 miles away, where they liked to browse the clothes shops and go to the cinema, returning home by about 6.30pm.
After one such trip in January, Samantha came home with a bag full of goodies. "Paul bought them for me," she said, showing me her new cuddly toys, makeup and hairbands.
"Who's Paul?" I asked. "A boy from school," she replied and I thought nothing of it.
But the next two Saturdays, the same thing happened and the gifts became more extravagant, so I questioned her more closely about this lad.
Samantha insisted he was 16 and had inherited some money from a relative. But she admitted he wasn't at school with her and she'd met him online after he had sent a message to her Bebo page.
He'd been coming to Milton Keynes to meet her. Alarm bells started to ring. I wasn't happy, but the more I questioned Samantha, the angrier she became.
"He's my boyfriend and I love him!" she insisted. Her hostile reaction was very out of character.
She then began getting calls on her mobile which went on for hours and often left her upset and tearful.
She admitted it was Paul who, alarmingly, would be talking about harming himself over something he thought she had said or done. I told her to hang up and not to speak to him because he was playing mind games.
I was deeply disturbed by what she was telling me - and terrified of the things she wasn't. Desperate for advice, I contacted Parentline and the Samaritans. I was advised to keep a close eye on her, not to over-react and set firm guidelines about when she should be home.
So that's what we did, but Samantha continued to behave oddly. She lost interest in everything except chatting online and on her mobile. If we said anything to her, she'd go into a sulk.
We still hoped it was a temporary phase, but when her school broke up for half-term on Friday, February 9, Samantha announced she was going on holiday to Wales - to stay with Paul. We were horrified. It was a ridiculous, wildly inappropriate suggestion.
Samantha glared at me, shaking with rage. "I've got to go!" she screamed. I repeated that we knew nothing about him and that she was too young to get involved like this.
Tears and tantrums followed and although Samantha gave us an address where she said she'd be staying, we told her quite categorically "No".
Eventually, she agreed not to go. She said she'd go to Milton Keynes with her friends instead, as usual. She'd never lied to me before, so I agreed she could have her Saturday outing.
But the next day, Samantha left the house early, having packed a bag of clothes and her half-term homework. I found out she wasn't with her pals only when I rang her mobile that afternoon and asked her if she'd like a lift home.
"No, I'm in Wales," she replied. I tried to keep calm and told her to come straight home, but she refused, saying she planned to stay for the week.
Worried sick, I rang the police and Samantha was recorded as missing when it emerged the South Wales address she'd given us did not exist.
I was beside myself with worry. She was contacted by the police on her mobile and after a tense few days, she reported to a police station in Bristol with the internet boyfriend in tow.
She'd been staying with him at the home he shares with his father in Bristol. It emerged he was not 16 as she'd claimed, but a 20-year-old unemployed man who had first messaged Samantha on Bebo just after she turned 15.
Samantha insisted she was well, but wanted to stay with Paul and made hurtful allegations against that we were unfit parents, which delayed her return home for several more days.
We wanted to go to Bristol to pick her up, but the police advised us to keep away and that they'd bring her home.
We were mortified. All we wanted was our daughter back, but we had no idea how to deal with this seismic change in her. We barely recognised the defiant stranger who eventually returned to us of her own volition after a week.
Dirty and unkempt, she looked as if she hadn't washed for days. When I tried to wrap my arms around her and tell her how happy I was to see her, she pushed me away. She was so agitated, I was desperately concerned she may have taken drugs. Even more so that she may have been sexually active.
When I gently tried to question her about what had happened, she turned on me. Though she was happy to see her brother, she refused to talk to me or her father.
In tears I rang the Samaritans and Parentline again, but no one seemed able to help. Bob and I didn't know which way to turn. I've never felt so utterly impotent.
We prayed that with patience and understanding, we would get our sweetnatured daughter back. To be fair, over the next few weeks, flashes of our lovely girl did reappear. She went to school and stopped spending so much time on the internet. But every break-time she was seen talking intensely on her mobile and when she came home, she was straight on the phone.
We knew she was talking to Paul. Bob spoke to him on two occasions, each time asking him to leave our daughter alone because we considered the relationship inappropriate.
We pleaded with Samantha to forget about him. She had a wonderful group of friends and a hard-won place at an excellent school. But she remained infatuated. It was as if she'd been brainwashed.
Eventually, on that fateful Tuesday afternoon in the Easter holidays, when Bob, who works for an engineering firm, and I were both at home, we heard Samantha stomp downstairs and out of the front door at 4pm.
We'd had words again about her obsession with Paul and we thought she'd gone to cool off. But when she hadn't returned an hour later, I began to feel uneasy. I tried to call her mobile, but found she'd left it behind.
Nothing had gone from her bedroom - no clothes, no washbag, nothing of note. Yet as I stood by the window looking out for her, I felt a sense of foreboding.
Scared she'd taken off again, I rang the police. Despite her previous behaviour, Samantha had always kept in touch. But this time, there was no word. Though I sat up all night, the next day dawned and she still wasn't home.
Bob and I were desperately worried, and while it seemed likely she would head for Paul's house in Bristol, the police found no trace of her there. He denied seeing her or having any contact with her since before she went missing.
We gritted our teeth, certain that she'd make contact. But several days passed and with still no word from Samantha, we felt as if our lives were in limbo.
As the days became a week and she still wasn't back, the police came to take away her toothbrush in a plastic bag in order to obtain a DNA sample.
After two weeks, she officially became a missing person and hospitals and mortuaries were put on alert.
I was numb with shock and cried constantly. It was hard to understand how she could vanish so completely. And if she wasn't with Paul, where was she?
Had she met someone else online? Had she been abducted by a stranger? She hadn't contacted any family or friends. Though her cash card was in her purse, she didn't withdraw a penny.
It was heart-wrenching to see how badly it affected Jack, who sent desperate messages to Samantha's e-mail address. "Are you alive?" he'd ask poignantly. But there was never a reply.
Soon, a month had passed and it was my 40th birthday. Previously, Samantha had fretted about being away on a school trip that day. As it turned out, I spent my birthday tearfully watching the door, convinced that any minute my beloved child would come bounding in. Devastatingly, it didn't happen.
After that, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't remember what day it was and I didn't eat, quickly losing two stone.
We travelled to places around the country where we knew Samantha had internet contacts and put up posters with her face on pleading for information. The Missing People organisation put out a massive publicity campaign about her.
We fought back tears as we were interviewed on radio and TV, warning other parents of the dangers of internet grooming, but still no one came forward with any news about Samantha.
Because of messages she'd written by e-mail, we were certain our daughter had set out to Bristol - and I began trawling the websites she'd used, searching for more clues.
I found e-mail conversations which proved how Samantha had been wooed by her boyfriend with flattering talk and a series of film clips using her pictures.
I was stunned as her face popped up over and over again, interspersed with messages which declared undying love for her. "I can't live without you" and "I will never leave you, ever" they proclaimed, as cheesy romantic songs played in the background. It was stomach-churning.
I could see by the dates the pictures of Samantha were posted that it started in January. Suddenly, I understood why she had changed. As I made contact with other young girls online who'd had similar experiences, I realised how dangerous these social networking websites can be.
A man of 20 grooming a schoolgirl is every bit as dangerous as a 40-year-old, if not more so, because the girls are flattered by the attention of a young man they instinctively see as a possible boyfriend and not an abuser.
Anyone can join these sites and influence young minds. I am shocked by the lack of policing - so many young girls, some just 13 and 14, post provocative pictures of themselves and even display their phone numbers. It is surely a sexual predator's paradise.
If only I'd known all this before, I would have insisted on Samantha's computer being in the front room despite her protests. Now, all I can do is pray that she is out there somewhere reading all the messages that we and her friends have posted for her. Every day, I write something on a web page or forum, begging her to come home, saying we love her no matter what.
Each day without her is like an eternity. With a younger child, you can keep them in and watch over them. You can't keep a teenager with you all the time, but their loss is every bit as painful.
While we still feel Samantha set out for Bristol when she left, with no confirmed sightings since, she could be anywhere.
Paul still insists he's not seen her, so we don't know if something terrible happened to her on the way to see him, or if she was groomed by someone else.
But whatever has happened, the fact is that our nightmare all started with internet grooming. If she hadn't first been seduced in a chatroom by Paul, she would still be with us.
Our beautiful girl may never come home, but by telling our story I hope that other parents will take note of the dangers their children face every time they log onto a social networking site.
Please watch over them - or they may disappear, like Samantha did.
SOURCE
Labels: bebo, disappearance, predator, samantha osborn, seduced online
Monday, June 02, 2008
Case# 29 Beware the Rage of a Cyberpath When You Catch Them!
BE CAREFUL!!ONCE YOU EXPOSE THEM YOU WILL MOST CERTAINLY BE SUBJECT TO THEIR NARCISSISTIC RAGE. THE CYBERPATH MAY/ WILL DO THE FOLLOWING:
- smear you to everyone they can
- harrass you by phone or email or website postings (be sure to BLOCK their emails and instant messages or DO NOT REPLY - just save them. If they threaten you or your family, go immediately to the authorities.)
- minimize, whitewash or twist the truth about what happened between you to their friends, family, spouse, partners, co-workers, anyone who will listen (and accuse you of doing it; not them!)
- do everything they can to make YOU look like the sick, mentally ill or not credible person
- use their friends/ spouses in denial, other predators to help them discredit and smear you or harm you physical and psychologically.
- They may post on boards you belong to or hack a website if you have one. They may hack your computer, your email and alter or delete files.
- hire an attorney and give the attorney selective and or altered information to sue you for defamation and/or slander. (REMEMBER: the TRUTH is a 100% defense to this. 'Stay the course'! And to accuse someone of slander when it's truth can be actionable by law. If you allow a bully cyberpath to silence you, they will NOT leave you alone -- they will just push for more & more & more silence & concession for you)
- go to law enforcement, again with selective or altered information, to have you charged with cyberstalking or cyber-harrassment or worse. (again, stay strong - don't go out of control - and stay the course)
We can assure you that some of the cyberpaths profiled here come to this site NUMEROUS times a day and even fewer send us vaguely threatening email demanding to know who exposed them (we have YET to have to do this... and doubt we ever will; which is why we ask you to sign a release binding you to tell only the truth and provide proof)
They threaten to sue EOPC, click the "report this blog" button a number of times and even pretend to be other people or send their friends (or use proxies) to this site to try to covertly get information from us. The people running this site are adults, some who know quite a bit about the law and crime investigation. We are not all in the same country, either. Nor are we stupid.
They also threaten lawsuits, etc. They need to read EFF.org and some of our articles on this issue. We take great pains to verify information. We get a legal release from all our victims and we won't take down something because of intimidation. UNLESS WE HAVE VERIFIABLE INFORMATION ITS FALSE.
To the Victims - exercise caution. And expect to find yourself under attack. Be sure to tell everyone close to you what you are doing. And we support and congratulate you for telling the truth and embracing reality. Do not respond to your cyberpath - but certainly tell the truth when asked and wherever you can. Get therapy to deal with the stress of the aftermath. Anyone who believes the cyberpath is not your problem.
To the Cyberpaths - "Lie to everyone you can, if you must - but the truth remains - HERE! We know it, you know it and you can twist in the winds of your 'conveniently rewritten; realities but a lie is a lie. Be sure to read legal definitions before you accuse someone of slander or defamation and don't be surprised when it backfires on you."
The narcissistically injured on the other hand, cannot rest until he has blotted out a vaguely experienced offender who dared to oppose him, to disagree with him, or to outshine him.For good examples of a couple of our Predators doing just the above and their victims trying to fight back, visit these sites:
It can never find rest because it can never wipe out the evidence that has contradicted its conviction it is unique and perfect. This archaic rage goes on and on and on.
-Group Helplessness and Rage Ernest S. Wolf, MD
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VERBAL ATTACKS OF THE SOCIOPATH
CROSS POSTED WITH PERMISSION FROM EOPC
Labels: attacks, lies, narcissistic rage, smear campaign, twisting the truth
