Stockholm Syndrome

Stop it. Do not feel safe with him. The Stockholm Syndrome is not your friend - J.R. Ward

On August 23rd 1973, two armed robbers entered a bank in Stockholm, Sweden, terrorised the people and held 5 people  (4 women and a man) hostage for five days.  At the end of the 5-days hostage situation, the captives appeared sympathetic towards their captors, which was shocking to the Police officers, considering the fact that these people were tortured, abused and threatened for days.
One of the female captives fell in love and got engaged to one of the criminals, and another acted as legal counsel to the criminals. Strange, right? They were said to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, a term reportedly coined by a Criminologist and Psychiatrist, Nils Bejerot. 

The term describes the feeling of empathy which captives or abused persons feel towards their abusers, to the point of identifying with them and trying to justify their abuse towards them.  It gets so bad that they defend their abusers and captors and see the abuse as an act of kindness. It might not make sense to the sane, but it is real. 

When I recently heard that over 100 of the abducted Chibok girls who have been in captivity for over 2 years, have refused to leave their Boko Haram captors, I just felt sad. Imagine being held by terrorists for 2 years, sleeping, waking with them, discussing, cleaning their wounds, away from the real world. You'd think they'd be excited to leave the Sambisa forest where they're being held and return to their families, but that's not the case. Some people would not understand how Stockholm Syndrome works, but it does work like magic.  In our minds, we're trying to save the girls, but the girls see us as their enemies, and the terrorists as the people that truly care for them. This also a failure on our part as a nation; you cannot leave a teenager with terrorists for so long and not expect some form of bonding, even their moral values have changed after spending all that time with the terrorists.

Courtesy:slideshare.com

The same thing happens in an abusive relationship; a woman whose husband beats black and blue recovers and runs back to him. You wonder is she's insane. My dear, it's Stockholm Syndrome at work, and it's a psychological/psychiatric issue that needs professional attention to free the abused from the abuser's grasp. When you see an abused woman going back to her abuser, don't be too quick to insult her and label her 'weak', it's beyond that. They actually feel no one can love them the way the abusers love them, having developed a dependency towards the abuser. 

There are so many psychiatric and psychological issues which people are battling with, but unfortunately in Nigeria, until someone goes stark raving mad we'd never take the mental health seriously and give such an issue the attention it deserves. People suffering from Stockholm syndrome need our empathy and patience, not insults.

Enjoy the rest of your week and stay positive always.

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