restraining orders | TALKING BACK to restraining orders

“Narcissistic sociopaths leave very few people with whom they form relationships—intact. I am speaking here about the sociopath who does not commit physically violent crimes but perpetrates psychological and emotional crimes that destroy the lives of others…. The [narcissistic sociopath] is without conscience of any kind. [He or she] is very clever at not getting caught. It is very rare that these individuals serve any time in jail or prison.”

—Linda Martinez-Lewi, Ph.D.

Restraining orders, requiring little or nothing in the way of concrete substantiation to obtain, are ripe for abuse by anyone with a flair for lying and a malicious will; but they are especially easy to exploit for sociopaths, being as they are uninhibited by the moral boundaries that constrain most people from engaging in outright deception—and particularly from engaging in outright deception of authorities. Narcissistic sociopaths, who lie adeptly and are always keen for a rapt audience, are unreluctant to commit criminal frauds on the police and courts provided that the risk of their being punished for it is marginal. In the abuse of restraining orders, that risk is zero.

Narcissists feed on attention. Married narcissists may stray to satisfy their appetite (the added thrills of “danger” and transgression only intensifying the reward). Narcissists are known to marry for convenience, specifically for financial security, social elevation, and material gain. So infidelity to their spouses—whether social, emotional, or carnal—is common. For an unmarried narcissist, “romance” always has gratification of his or her need to dominate and be desired (to own the other person) as its objective. S/he may even keep trophies of his or her conquests (and a restraining order may represent such a trophy to him or her).

Discovering the narcissist’s true nature is bad enough if you’ve sworn vows of fidelity to him or her before a clergyman or justice of the peace; it’s devastating if you’re simply cast off after your value as an ego-pump has been exhausted.

Narcissists make no apologies, and romantic entanglements based on deception seldom end cleanly, especially when the deceiver is unwilling to acknowledge his or her misconduct. Unsurprisingly, visitors and respondents to this blog are brought here regularly by complaints of restraining order abuse by narcissistic sociopaths.

Restraining orders are not only peerless tools for severing inconvenient relationships; obtaining them is a simple matter for those who lie without compunction and simultaneously gratifies narcissists’ cravings for vengeance and attention. Someone a narcissist has abused for sex or sexual interest can be punished for his or her perceived criticism of the narcissist (“How could you?”), and the narcissist can exploit the restraining order indefinitely to gain the attention and sympathy of others by representing his or her victim as a stalker. Years later, narcissists who’ve obtained fraudulent restraining orders can claim to be in danger from people they in fact targeted for abuse, exciting the concern and protective impulses of those around them and thereby receiving the special treatment they believe they’re entitled to and which their egos depend upon for sustenance.

As Dr. Martinez-Lewi (the author of this post’s epigraph) points out, narcissistic sociopaths are “often very bright intellectually and exceedingly quick in scouting out and discovering people whom they can dominate completely.” They’re exceptionally canny predators, in other words. The obvious irony is that narcissistic sociopaths who abuse the restraining order process by alleging fear and danger to put distance between themselves and their casualties do so against those they originally targeted for having dependably even temperaments and tolerance (that is, for being easily manipulated).

Narcissists’ being consummate charlatans allows them to facilely exploit the system to doubly victimize those they selected for abuse. And if that weren’t enough, they can thereby represent themselves as victims and bask in the attention their “victimhood” arouses.

Gaming strangers in uniforms and robes who are already poised to credit everything they say is a junket to the candy shop for narcissistic sociopaths, and their being awarded restraining orders presents them with gifts that keep on giving.

Some reject the notion that moderate feminists exist, a misapprehension that arises from labeling. I know many, though they don’t readily identify themselves as feminists. Their agenda isn’t the subjugation of men. “Equity feminists” is what philosopher and feminist scholar Christina Hoff Sommers calls them, a term she applies to women who promote (and justly expect) equal rights, representation, and recognition to distinguish them from “gender feminists,” her term for embittered female chauvinists. Ms. Sommers makes the distinction, because she believes feminism has since the eighties been coopted by influential extremists. And she’s right.

This post isn’t directed at them.

Its subject is the reform of restraining order legislation, and it’s a subject that should be of concern to the liberal feminist majority. Rampant abuse of restraining orders has now been allowed to persist for decades. The number of restraining orders issued is estimated at two to three million a year in the United States alone, and as many as 80% of these are said to be frivolous at best and at worst utterly fraudulent. Consider then the proportion of the voting constituency who have been abused and alienated by a process originally conceived by the state to appease feminist activists.

Take a second to do the math.

This number swells by two citizens a minute. One of these guys (or gals) may be a sociopathic creep. But at least one will be a normal, law-abiding Joe who will have had his faith in government permanently compromised and may feel very jaded toward any measure advocating social change on behalf of women, no matter how worthy.

Add to this the friends and family members of victims of restraining order abuse who’ve been lastingly affected, and the number may double, treble, or quadruple.

That restraining orders are routinely abused isn’t a secret. With tens of millions of them having been issued in the last 30 years, chances are you encounter people every day who’ve received one or who know someone who has. Two women I’ve corresponded with recently—one of them an anonymous critic of this blog—have brothers whose lives have been ruined by false allegations of violence made by women. And this fact was completely coincidental to the reason for their contacting me.

Moderate feminists take note: the crimped convictions of the influential minority that preserves this persecutory status quo are actively eroding the sympathy you rely on (and should be able to rely on). The solution is reform. The same activist zeal you apply to advancing worthy feminist aims must be brought to bear on ensuring that down the road there’s still going to be someone listening to you.

TALKING BACK to restraining orders

THEY’RE NOT JUST ABUSED BUT ABUSIVE

Tag restraining orders

Narcissistic Sociopaths and Restraining Orders: When the System Is Primed to Abet the Criminally Deviant

Restraining Orders Are Hurting You, Too (A Call to Moderate Feminists)