Community Chat

[skuggles]

then what are you arguing?

[Noel7]

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@skuggles wrote:

then what are you arguing?

@skuggles

I was replying to you.  I made a point, you disagreed,  you made a point, it’s possible.  They are both possible.  

[skuggles]

@Noel7 this is what happened: 

@Noel7 wrote:

@Mz iMac wrote:

@DiAnne

@DiAnne wrote:

It is amazing to me that the neighbors were not aware.  It looked like they lived in the middle of a housing development.  

Stories like this amazes me too.  What is so outstanding about this one is the number of people held captive & not a peep from the neighbors to the police.

What am I missing here??????

@Mz iMac

It’s called The Stockholm Syndrome.   People held captive come to rely on their captors for survival, even identify with them.  

We saw it with Elizabeth Smart and other girls taken, also the daughters held by their father in Germany.

I just watched a program with re-enactment and actual commentry from Elizabeth Smart where she denies Stockholm Syndrome in her case because she did not develop any feelings of affection or identification with her captors. She says she despised them and was afraid because of the threats.

I just found this on slate,"In her testimony this week, Smart said she never believed Mitchell's religious ramblings or had any sympathy with him. She asserted that she was simply too afraid to speak up or run off. She played along and remained obedient, she said, out of self-preservation: Mitchell repeatedly threatened to kill her and her family if she tried to escape and convinced her she would not succeed. She believed him, probably because of the severe nature of the abuse, the length of captivity, her isolation from outside influence, her age, her personality, and the fact that the threats came from the man who plucked her from her own bed in the dead of night. According to University of Miami psychologist Anthony Castro, since Smart remained silent out of fear rather than affection, and rejected Mitchell's incoherent prophecies, her case is not about Stockholm syndrome."

So it isn't always Stockholme Syndrome.

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You said you "we" saw Stockholm with the Elizabeth Smart case. I posted that she disputes it and that was corroberated by the psychologist in the Slate article. I am not disagreeing with you exactly, the facts are. I made no point about it being possible, neither did you. You said Stockholm Syndrome is what we were seeing here and in Smart's case. I was not looking for an argument just correcting the facts according to the actual victim, since I had just watched this most recent documentary. So Stockholm may have something to do with it, but you are just now making the point that it is a possibility. You hadn't made it earlier.  I hope that clears it up, and that you take no offense at my comments, because they were not meant to irritate you. Sorry if you took them the wrong way, or I wasn't clear.

[qualitygal]

Of the news reports (all kinds) that there are, I am amazed at the horrors that other people inflict upon other people.  It's like how did people treat their own children this way?  I just can't get a handle on these things.  I have difficulty now in watching the shows that are just as horrible as real life seems to be for some people.  

[nun ya]

Sickening.

It said their home was registered as a private school.

My question is...Is there no follow up to homeschooling in California?  I know some states require the child to meet with the superintendent with a portfolio and a licensed evaluator every year. 

[NicksmomESQ]

    This entire story is both sickening & bizarre!! You know the saying “if you see something say something?” I will never understand how someone didn’t notice something. IMO there had to be a person or two who noticed but just didn’t want to get involved. 

  How terribly tragic that 13 children were so horribly abused.These poor kids will require many years of physical & psychological care in order to become whole.Some of them may never.All of them will have to bear the painful memories for a lifetime!!

  I hope they start a fund for these kids.I would love to do my small part by contributing toward their well-being.Their disgusting parents should rot in jail for the rest of their miserable useless lives!!

[jackthebear]

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@DiAnne wrote:

It is amazing to me that the neighbors were not aware.  It looked like they lived in the middle of a housing development.  

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True but how many of us really know what is going on in our neighbor's houses.

Personally, I would be suspicious with that many people living in a house and not seeing them coming and going, but reportable????

[missy1]

None of it makes sense,  and don't seem real.  Between Disneyland trips they are chained up? Were the pictures they are showing on FB? They all have matching clothes and look clean/healthy. The dad has creepy fake hair.  And who are the adults that were chained up? The 17 year old breaks away, grabs a cell phone to call? She could of went to a neighbors house. Why were they $500,000 in debt?

[hayseed00]

When I was a kid growing up, we knew everyone in our neighborhood, and pretty much everything about them. It seems like we associated more with the neighbors then.  I know that isn't the case in the neighborhood I now live in for many reasons.  It just seems like life gets us so busy with work and daily running around I just don't seem to see my neighbors like in the "old days".

[Gramy24]

Grandparents?!  Where were they? Only heard one media reporter question this. Assuming there were none alive or didn't live in the area BUT still if they are indeed alive then for goodness sake did they NEVER have any contact wtih their grandchildren?!!!