Blind to Betrayal: Why We Fool Ourselves We Aren't Being Fooled (6 page)

AG: But I'm still trying to figure out, Jacques, when you say that the guards were cruel to prisoners sometimes. . . . Were those the same guards that you laughed and joked with at other times?

Jacques explained that he felt compassion for the guards.

JS: Some, they, they used to get lonely too, sometimes needed to talk to somebody. Stand there with rifles, cold all day, get lonely, nobody to talk to.

AG: It sounds like that was really unusual behavior for a prisoner.

JS: Yeah.

JF: Do you think that it helped you survive? Keep alive? That you were friendly with them?

JS: Well, you know, there is, in friendly communication, the passage of time. Of course, it's helpful.

JF: When you were friendly with them, were you just pretending to be friendly, or did you actually feel friendly?

JS: In a situation like that you cannot really pretend, because if you pretended, he says get the fuck away and kicks you in the ass and walks away.

JF: They can tell if you're pretending?

JS: Yes. If you
feel
friendly, then you act it out.

Although Sandulescu survived his imprisonment and slavery by befriending his captors, ultimately he did escape with their help. His book stands as testimony, not only to the power of the human spirit, but also to the overwhelming importance of human relationships in survival. Jacques knew with one part of his brain that these guards were cruel and sadistic. Yet his attachment to them, the attachment that eventually led to his survival, did not “know” of their sadism. Eventually, Sandulescu told his story in
Donbas
. The telling became a crucial step in his healing, as we discuss in chapter 11.

Jaycee Lee Dugard

When Jaycee Lee Dugard was eleven years old, she was kidnapped at a school bus stop in South Lake Tahoe.
^12.
Jaycee was within sight of her home when the kidnapping occurred, and there were witnesses to the crime. Despite this, Jaycee was not rescued for eighteen years. In those eighteen years, Jaycee was held captive by Phillip Craig Garrido and forced to bear two of his children. Finally, in 2009, Jaycee was freed from her ordeal. Her children were eleven and fifteen years old when she was finally reunited with her own parents. This case has drawn a great deal of media attention from the very beginning.

When Jaycee was first rescued, she surprised the world by describing her relationship with her captor as “almost like a marriage.” She seemed to be defending her abuser, and it appeared she had developed a bond with him. While at first this might seem odd, it is completely consistent with what we know about betrayal blindness. In order for Jaycee to survive her ordeal, she had to attach to Garrido and his wife.

Reporter Clara Moskowitz wrote about the Dugard case in 2009, shortly after Jaycee's rescue. The question on the public's mind at that time was why Dugard would defend her tormenter. In an article about the Dugard case, Moskowitz explained the application of betrayal trauma theory to Dugard's behavior:

Bonding with a kidnapper is not just a mental coping skill, but a physical survival strategy. Since Dugard's life was at the mercy of the Garridos, and she depended on them for food and shelter, it was in her best interest to bond to protect herself from further abuse.
^13.

As Moskowitz understood, someone who is kidnapped as a child might make an unconscious decision not to fully see the abuse and to bond with the person providing food and shelter. The victim might respond by putting it out of her mind and acting as if it's not happening. It's more important to protect the relationship. Responding or fighting back may only cause the abuser to become even more abusive or to stop taking care of the victim in a way that's needed for survival. In other words, if you're in a situation where you're completely empowered to say no, you generally will. But if your captor is your only source of support, you're going to be really stuck if you alienate that person.

Stockholm syndrome is rare, whereas betrayal blindness events and reactions are, unfortunately, fairly common. What is also fairly common is institutional collusion in the betrayal. In the case of Dugard, a whole other side of the story has come to light, one involving institutional betrayal. It turns out that there were numerous missed opportunities to rescue Dugard during her eighteen-year ordeal. These missed opportunities included failures of law enforcement to act on tips. Yet most disturbingly, it has become apparent that the state of California also failed to properly supervise the perpetrator Garrido, who was already known before the kidnapping to be a sex offender.

In an extraordinary statement issued to the press on November 4, 2009, by David R. Shaw, the inspector general of California, titled “Corrections Failed to Properly Supervise Parolee Philip Garrido,” the errors were made public. It is as though he is admitting to betrayal blindness:

Corrections failed to properly supervise parolee Phillip Garrido and missed opportunities to discover his victims according to a report released today by California Inspector General David R. Shaw. Garrido was arrested along with his wife in August for the 1991 kidnapping and sexual assault of then 11-year-old Jaycee Dugard. During the course of the following 18 years, Garrido reportedly sexually assaulted Jaycee––fathering two children––while holding her captive on the grounds of his residence in Antioch, California. For the last 10 years, Corrections' parole division supervised Garrido. . . .

The department missed potential opportunities to discover the existence of Garrido's three victims, by failing to investigate clearly visible utility wires running from Garrido's house toward the concealed compound at the rear of his property; talk to neighbors and local public safety agencies; and act on GPS and other information clearly showing Garrido had violated his parole terms.
^14.

Once again, we can see that betrayal blindness can lead to not seeing what is there.

Notes

1.
G. Sheehy,
Hillary's Choice
(New York: Random House, 1999).

2.
A. Jarecki et al.,
Capturing the Friedmans
(United States: HBO Video, 2003).

3.
S. Pinker,
The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature
(New York: Viking, 2007).

4.
S. O'Rinn, V. Lishak, R. T. Muller, and C. C. Classen, “Betrayal and Its Associations with Memory Disturbances among Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse” (under review).

5.
A. Jarecki et al.,
Capturing the Friedmans
(United States: HBO Video, 2003).

6.
S. J. Schulhofer,
Unwanted Sex: The Culture of Intimidation and the Failure of Law
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998).

7.
H. Jung, “Eugene Probation Officer Pleads Guilty to Sex Assault of Woman He Supervised,”
Oregonian
, April 28, 2011,
http://www.oregonlive.com
.

8.
United States Attorney's Office, District of Oregon, “Former United States Probation Officer Sentenced to 10 Years,” press release, 2011,
http://www.justice.gov/usao/or/PressReleases/2011/20110718_Walker.html
.

9.
N. de Fabrique, S. J. Romano, G. M. Vecchi, and V. B. Van Hasselt, “Understanding Stockholm Syndrome,”
FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin 76
(7) (2007): 10–16.

10.
N. de Fabrique, V. Van Hasselt, G. Vecchi, and S. Romano, “Common Variables Associated with the Development of Stockholm Syndrome: Some Case Examples,”
Victims & Offenders
2 (2007): 91–98.

11.
J. Sandulescu,
Donbas: A True Story of an Escape across Russia
(Lincoln, NE: Iuniverse.com, 2000).

12.
Office of the Inspector General, “The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's Supervision of Parolee Philip Garrido,” 2009, retrieved July 13, 2011,
http://www.oig.ca.gov/media/reports/BOI/Special%20Report%20on%20CDCRs%20Supervision%20of%20Parolee%20Phillip%20Garrido.pdf
.

13.
C. Moskowitz, “Bonding with a Captor: Why Jaycee Dugard Didn't Flee,” August 31, 2009,
http://www.livescience.com/7862-bonding-captor-jaycee-dugard-flee.html
.

14.
Office of the Inspector General, “The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's Supervision of Parolee Philip Garrido,” 2009, retrieved July 13, 2011,
http://www.oig.ca.gov/media/press_releases/2009/Corrections%20Failed%20to%20Properly%20Supervise%20Parolee%20Phillip%20Garrido.pdf
.

4

Blind Adherence

As we saw with examples such as California's failure to monitor Phillip Craig Garrido in chapter 3, betrayal and betrayal blindness operate in a larger context beyond interpersonal relationships. Anita Hill has described her sexual harassment by Clarence Thomas at a time when she had little power and needed to stay in his good graces.
^1.
A similar dynamic occurs when a secretary puts up with a boss who asks him to do personal and degrading chores not in his job description. These are examples of blindness to institutional betrayal.

Blindness is also a standard response to oppression in society. As you remember from the examples of Kevin Nakamura and Frank Wu in chapter 2, victims of oppression can be motivated to remain blind. This blindness to oppression may play a role in the continued audience for Holocaust deniers and denial by the victims of sexism and racism, even when that same sexism and racism can be demonstrated to be objectively present. Also, those who hold more power or are perceived to hold more power often play a role in motivating other people's betrayal blindness.

In 2003, when Colin Powell told the American public that Iraq held weapons of mass destruction, was betrayal blindness a factor in the collective willingness to believe what was not true?
^2.
Eileen Zurbriggen, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has used betrayal trauma theory to analyze the belief in lies such as this told by government officials, including U.S. presidents. Zurbriggen suggests that betrayal trauma theory predicts that citizens who are emotionally or financially dependent on the person lying will be most blind to signs of deception.
^3.

In situations of explicit mistreatment, perpetrators may manipulate their victims to remain silent and unaware. For instance, leaders who want blind adherence can engage in fearmongering. When citizens are afraid, they are more dependent on their leaders and thus more at risk of remaining blind to the leaders' lies and betrayals. Indeed, oppressors may encourage the ignorance of the oppressed in many ways. What follows are a number of examples of institutional betrayal and blindness to it.

Institutional Betrayal by Employers

One particularly common, but often subtle, type of institutional betrayal occurs in the context of employment in a large organization. If the employee is being betrayed by his or her employers and if the employee feels the employment is particularly necessary, the ingredients for betrayal blindness are present. For example, a large company may have structures in place that systematically oppress some employees, perhaps on the basis of gender or race. When the employees confront such injustices, they are at risk of losing their jobs; thus, they have an implicit reason not to see the injustice. This is all too common. Another way that employers can betray employees is by failing to protect them when they are vulnerable, such as when they fall ill or become pregnant. This is such a serious problem that the government has enacted the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to protect employees from just such betrayal.
^4.
However, FMLA lasts only for a short while, and it is insufficient in cases of prolonged illness. In those situations, employees are at great risk of losing their jobs. For instance, Tom worked as a manager at a large company. He fell ill with cancer and used his FMLA benefits. After the FMLA leave had run its course, Tom still had earned sick leave to use. While he was at home recovering from chemotherapy, his employer attempted to reorganize the company so that Tom's job would no longer exist. Although Tom or any individual who faces such a betrayal by his employer may no longer have a motivation to be blind to the betrayal, all of the surrounding coworkers may remain highly motivated not to see the injustice, for fear of losing their own employment. Thus, institutional betrayal and betrayal blindness flourish.

Cover-Up of Church Sexual Abuse

Perhaps the best-known example of institutional betrayal is the cover-up of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. This has been in the news for more than a decade and continues to surface. This child sexual abuse was clearly a betrayal of the individuals victimized by their priests. The cover-up is a betrayal of those individuals and of many others. The cover-up allowed the abuse to continue, creating a kind of shared betrayal blindness. The denials and the continued cover-up eventually caused a great deal of harm and distress.

In 2011, a new set of allegations and related cover-ups came to light in Ireland. The
New York Times
reported in July 2011 that “The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland was covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests as recently as 2009, long after it issued guidelines meant to protect children, and the Vatican tacitly encouraged the cover-up by ignoring the guidelines, according to a scathing report issued Wednesday by the Irish government.”
^5.

In one case, described in July 2011 by the
Independent
, an Irish newspaper, a north Cork woman was sexually abused in the Diocese of Cloyne.
^6.
According to the article, she “found her trust in her local cleric replaced by an unending nightmare of shame and betrayal.” The
Independent
went on to explain the betrayal:

The woman, who does not want her identity to be revealed, has since rebuilt her life despite the trauma of having been abused before she was even 14 years old. In an almost unbelievable breach of trust, she was abused by two Cloyne clerics for a period lasting several years.

“I was abused by two priests over a period of time starting from the late 1970s and running into the early 1980s,” she said.

The woman finally decided that she had done nothing wrong and that she would join other victims in pursuing the abusers through the justice process. Yet when she did join the effort to hold the perpetrators accountable, she found more betrayal:

It took years to find the courage to bring the abuse to light, only to find that the diocese was dragging its feet over numerous abuse complaints.

What has appalled the victims most is that those who should have been trying to protect them were apparently more focused on protecting the church from any whiff of controversy.

The worst hurt is over the fact that, had the diocese acted properly and immediately on the receipt of the first abuse allegations, at least one of the clerics involved would not have continued to be around children.

Research on Institutional Betrayal: Violations of Members' Trust Surrounding Incidents of Sexual Assault

In a recent survey study, Carly Smith and Jennifer Freyd have proposed that the harm of sexual assault may be made much worse by institutional failure to prevent sexual assault or to respond supportively when it occurs.
^7.
They examined the involvement of institutions (for example, universities, churches, fraternities, or sororities) in events surrounding experiences of sexual assault. In order to conduct this research, Smith and Freyd first had to find a way to measure institutional betrayal. They created the Institutional Betrayal Questionnaire (IBQ), which measures institutional betrayal both leading up to a sexual assault and following the assault. Using the IBQ and other measures, the researchers collected self-reports of unwanted sexual experiences, trauma symptoms, and experiences of institutional betrayal in a sample of 345 female college students.

Nearly half of the women (47 percent) reported at least one experience of sexual assault. More than a third of participants reported experiencing some form of institutional betrayal. Of the participants who reported institutional betrayal, nearly half reported still being members of the institution. Perhaps most strikingly, institutional betrayal predicted that trauma symptoms would occur, even after controlling for sexual assault. In other words, women who had reported experiencing institutional betrayal in the context of their unwanted sexual experience reported increased levels of anxiety, sexual trauma–specific symptoms, and problematic sexual functioning. It is clear that institutional betrayal is particularly toxic.

A startling example of institutional betrayal came to light in late 2011, in the case of assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky at Penn State University. Sandusky was convicted of forty-five counts of child sexual abuse that had taken place over a number of years. It became clear that university authorities had known about the abuse and had not reported it. In fact, the special investigative counsel report (known as the Freeh Report), released on July 12, 2012, states the following:

Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky's child victims by the most senior leaders at Penn State. The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized. Messrs. Spanier [former president of Penn State], Schultz [former Penn State vice president], Paterno [head football coach] and Curley [former athletic director)] never demonstrated, through actions or words, any concern for the safety and well-being of Sandusky's victims until after Sandusky's arrest.
^8.

When Joe Paterno was eventually fired for his role in the cover-up, many people reacted with anger—not at the child abuse but at the firing of Paterno. Even after Paterno's death and the conviction of Sandusky, there are those who support Paterno. One might wonder why people would flock to the side of someone who had colluded with a child molester. Paterno, by his blind eye, had created the context for Sandusky to repeat his acts of abuse on child after child. The initial cover-up of the abuse and the later protests from some people are examples of institutional and societal betrayal blindness.

The denial displayed by the protesters also makes sense from the perspective of avoiding a personal awareness of abuse that might be very close to home. Many at Penn State who were not directly involved in the Sandusky or Paterno case were themselves or have close family or friends who are victims or even perpetrators of abuse. By denying the abuse at Penn State, they help themselves remain blind. At the same time, the subsequent attention and outrage this case has inspired are a positive sign. Sexual abuse of this magnitude and its related cover-up are a common story, but rarely are charges filed, officials held accountable, or outrage expressed. The uproar at Penn State is much better than the alternative: silence.

Military Sexual Trauma and Betrayal Blindness

One context in which institutional betrayal has recently come to light is that of military sexual trauma.

Military sexual trauma has been occurring for a long time, probably for as long as there has been war. Yet the very high prevalence of military sexual trauma and the extensive damage it causes are relatively new topics in academic trauma research. Military sexual trauma is related to institutional betrayal because, historically, the military has been so unwilling to prevent, acknowledge, or respond appropriately to reports of military sexual trauma. This has led to a great deal of silence. As Dahr Jamail reported for
Al Jeezera English
in December 2010:

Billy Capshaw was 17 when he joined the Army in 1977. After being trained as a medic he was transferred to Baumholder, Germany. His roommate, Jeffrey Dahmer, by virtue of his seniority ensured that Capshaw had no formal assignment, no mail, and no pay. Having completely isolated the young medic, Dahmer regularly sexually assaulted, raped, and tortured him.

Dahmer went on to become the infamous serial killer and sex offender who murdered 17 boys and men before being beaten to death by an inmate at Columbia Correction Institution in 1994.

Capshaw reflects back, “At that young age I didn't know how to deal with it. My commander did not believe me. Nobody helped me, even though I begged and begged and begged.”

The debilitating lifelong struggle Capshaw has had to face is common among survivors of military sexual assault.

Dahr Jamail also noted,

Military sexual trauma (MST) survivor Susan Avila-Smith is director of the veteran's advocacy group Women Organizing Women. She has been serving female and scores of male clients in various stages of recovery from MST for 15 years and knows of its devastating effects up close.

“People cannot conceive how badly wounded these people are,” she told
Al Jazeera
. “Of the 3,000 I've worked with, only one is employed. Combat trauma is bad enough, but with MST it's not the enemy, it's our guys who are doing it. You're fighting your friends, your peers, people you've been told have your back. That betrayal, then the betrayal from the command is, they say, worse than the sexual assault itself.”
^9.