This is so interesting and informative. It really shows that human connection is our first and foremost priority. The captors could have killed the hostages, but they actually treated them well. Those who were supposed to be protecting them didn’t care if they were killed by their own forces as long as their “strong” and “disciplined” image was maintained. I look around the world now and see so many examples of powerful people throwing vulnerable citizens under the bus to prove that they are tough. Thank you, Lovette (I’m a white, disabled woman in the UK).
Throwing down that label has always (okay, not always, but for about the last 15 of my 60+ years) struck me as presumptuous in that people who had not endured a trauma somehow had a clearer understanding of the very complicated ups and downs and struggles that someone else survived.
"No, your on-the-spot assessment is wrong and you only think that way because you are not detached enough to know better."
Detachment - or objectivity - asserts itself as the gold standard. Emotions and feelings get dismissed as errant. They are devalued as traps that lead us astray from the Truth and impair our judgment.
I know that you make the compelling case that, even by objective measures, the hostages were reasonable and insightful, the term has become increasingly troublesome to me for how it diminishes the understanding and wisdom inherent in lived experience and in our emotional experiences as being a path to understanding.
As a straight cis-het white guy, I am hard-wired to push down emotion into the pit of my torso as if tomorrow is always trash pick-up day and, by applying some extra pressure, my 20 gallon liner can always take in the next bit of emotional trash that's trying to surface...until one day it can't and then the emotions burst out and it is all steamy, soggy trash after all. I've spent too few years of my life accepting emotions and receiving them as honest and truthful and valuable. I am not proficient with them, by any means, but I know that I feel betrayed by a system of norms and expectations that has denied their richness for so long. I feel sad as I reflect on the harm I caused for others, mostly people I love, by devaluing emotions and feelings they have tried to share with me. And that I refused to share with them (outside of those crises when the trash liner failed).
The term "Stockholm Syndrome" strikes me - in only my more recent years - as invalidating the important sensory feedback of emotions and feelings in much the same way that I have been raised and conditioned to do so...while being held hostage (if I may be "on the nose" in connecting some dots) by the expectations for someone like myself.
Now that I know what was actually happening in that specific case, it all makes sense and you have me off, in search of the cover-up(s) that make it so culturally important to teach the likes of me that I am weak and flawed and unreasonable if I don't shove all the emotions tighter and tighter, deep down inside.
Jim, everything you shared here captures it so clearly and beautifully. You’re right: the misuse of “Stockholm Syndrome” isn’t just about misunderstanding trauma; it’s another way systems teach all of us (especially men, especially white men) that detachment is “strength” and feeling is “failure.”
You were held hostage too by patriarchy, white supremacy, all the same systems that pathologized survival, erased emotional wisdom, and punished connection.
What you described about that trash compactor metaphor? That’s survival inside systems designed to make you disappear from yourself.
I’m deeply glad you see it now. And thanks for engaging with it like this.
I had to write it as I prepare to write on a Swedish ongoing case. I don’t want people to claim this is new to Sweden. It’s always been about saving face and making survivors the problem. 🙏🏾
“Survival literacy.” “Survival is not irrational. Systems are.” Thanks, I needed that.
This is so interesting and informative. It really shows that human connection is our first and foremost priority. The captors could have killed the hostages, but they actually treated them well. Those who were supposed to be protecting them didn’t care if they were killed by their own forces as long as their “strong” and “disciplined” image was maintained. I look around the world now and see so many examples of powerful people throwing vulnerable citizens under the bus to prove that they are tough. Thank you, Lovette (I’m a white, disabled woman in the UK).
Interesting take to note that SS was an calculated empowering tactic rather than be twisted version meant to shame victims
Throwing down that label has always (okay, not always, but for about the last 15 of my 60+ years) struck me as presumptuous in that people who had not endured a trauma somehow had a clearer understanding of the very complicated ups and downs and struggles that someone else survived.
"No, your on-the-spot assessment is wrong and you only think that way because you are not detached enough to know better."
Detachment - or objectivity - asserts itself as the gold standard. Emotions and feelings get dismissed as errant. They are devalued as traps that lead us astray from the Truth and impair our judgment.
I know that you make the compelling case that, even by objective measures, the hostages were reasonable and insightful, the term has become increasingly troublesome to me for how it diminishes the understanding and wisdom inherent in lived experience and in our emotional experiences as being a path to understanding.
As a straight cis-het white guy, I am hard-wired to push down emotion into the pit of my torso as if tomorrow is always trash pick-up day and, by applying some extra pressure, my 20 gallon liner can always take in the next bit of emotional trash that's trying to surface...until one day it can't and then the emotions burst out and it is all steamy, soggy trash after all. I've spent too few years of my life accepting emotions and receiving them as honest and truthful and valuable. I am not proficient with them, by any means, but I know that I feel betrayed by a system of norms and expectations that has denied their richness for so long. I feel sad as I reflect on the harm I caused for others, mostly people I love, by devaluing emotions and feelings they have tried to share with me. And that I refused to share with them (outside of those crises when the trash liner failed).
The term "Stockholm Syndrome" strikes me - in only my more recent years - as invalidating the important sensory feedback of emotions and feelings in much the same way that I have been raised and conditioned to do so...while being held hostage (if I may be "on the nose" in connecting some dots) by the expectations for someone like myself.
Now that I know what was actually happening in that specific case, it all makes sense and you have me off, in search of the cover-up(s) that make it so culturally important to teach the likes of me that I am weak and flawed and unreasonable if I don't shove all the emotions tighter and tighter, deep down inside.
Jim, everything you shared here captures it so clearly and beautifully. You’re right: the misuse of “Stockholm Syndrome” isn’t just about misunderstanding trauma; it’s another way systems teach all of us (especially men, especially white men) that detachment is “strength” and feeling is “failure.”
You were held hostage too by patriarchy, white supremacy, all the same systems that pathologized survival, erased emotional wisdom, and punished connection.
What you described about that trash compactor metaphor? That’s survival inside systems designed to make you disappear from yourself.
I’m deeply glad you see it now. And thanks for engaging with it like this.
I had to write it as I prepare to write on a Swedish ongoing case. I don’t want people to claim this is new to Sweden. It’s always been about saving face and making survivors the problem. 🙏🏾