There are those of a personality disordered type* who have a special knack for holding their loved ones as psychological hostages. The hostage taking behaviour may range from dramatically stating, “I love you so much, there is no way I can live without you!” to actual suicidal gestures if they fear that their loved one will leave them. They may have committed atrocious behaviours toward the loved one, and quite possibly have left or threatened to leave at some point in order to usurp control over the loved one. So when the loved one has finally had enough and has gained enough perspective and self-efficacy to leave, the personality disordered person begins taking hostages. He or she dumps all responsibility for his or her emotional welfare onto the loved one, and demands that they accept it without question. There is no freedom to choose. The message is “If you follow through with your plans to leave, or if you stay gone and do not return to my self-imposed prison with me, I will die. And it will be your fault. You will be guilty of murder.”

This kind of hostage taking is abuse, of course, but there are many who do not recognise it as such. There are those who not only accept this unsolicited responsibility, but even consider it their duty to take on more. “I just want to help him/her. What else can I do to support him/her?” Never mind that the loved one no longer has a social life to speak of and only minimal contact with family due to the controlling behaviour of the personaility disordered individual. The loved one often begins to experience health problems, both mental and physical, but all is sacrificed for the sake of the personality disordered person.

There is another, more subtle way of emotional hostage taking, which on initial examination does not seem as nefarious as the suicidal gesture, but can still take a tremendous toll on the hostage’s self-worth, leaving deep emotional scars. Rather than use the overt shifting of emotional responsibility onto the loved one, or emotional hostage, the personality disordered individual draws in the hostage through flattery, grooming them to believe that they are a special, one-of-a-kind rescuer or soulmate. No one is their equal and they tell the hostage that they have been sent by God, or karma, or whatever psuedo-spiritual language they deem to be appealing to the hostage, who has now been placed on an impossibly high pedestal, one on which they did not ask to be placed. Soon, however, the hostage finds that it is their own responsibility to remain there. The personality disordered individual begins finding fault, and the hostage struggles to correct the faults. They desperately try to remain on the pedestal–which is an illusion based on lies–not realising that they did not agree to the rules of this cruel game in the first place. Eventually, the personality disordered individual casts them down, shaming the hostage for being such a disappointment and failure. The hostage is no longer needed and is discarded, but is held prisoner by their own confused and damaged emotions.

Both of these types of emotional abuse begin with placing an unbidden, unsolicited emotional burden on another person, then unfairly expecting them to carry it. If the person does not, they will be punished, either by applying a negative action (e.g. I will kill myself) or withdrawing a positive (e.g. You are no longer worthy of my love/admiration).

It is interesting to contrast this type of emotional imprisonment with the freedom that God offers through salvation. We are told that we are loved not because of special characteristics we carry, but despite wrongs we have done (Romans 3:23-24). Jesus offers rest (Matthew 11: 29), rather than the constant anguish of bearing the responsibility for someone else’s emotional burden. We are not responsible for living up to someone else’s impossible standards, whether that be to carry them emotionally or to meet ridiculous expectations in order to remain in their favour. When we come to God, we can come in to the light, and we gain perspective. God does not play mind games. As Christians, we know this and we can find comfort in this knowledge.

Usually.

The fact is that even short term relationships with such emotionally abusive people can be quite difficult to leave behind. Perhaps we so wanted to believe the illusions of love, or we came away so traumatised from such abuse and manipulation and being told that everything that was wrong was because of our own horrible behaviour, behaviour which no matter how hard we tried to change, nothing ever improved. Neuro-imaging tells us that these abusive behaviours have measurable effects on the brain and involve the very powerful reward centres in the limbic system. It can be quite difficult to move on, and at times it may feel like we are the ones who may be dying. Having been taken hostage, a part of our brain is now convinced that we will die if we let go, and that our very survival depends on this personality disordered abuser. This is ironic, because our survival actually depends on our getting away from the abuser.

Therefore, we must break free of the hostage situation. To do this we must learn to focus on the truth. The truth is that we were never responsible for the abuser’s life, the abuser was. Nor did we magically meet some arbitrary standard of perfection and then fall from grace. Both of these were lies created by the abuser to find acceptance outside of him or herself, and also outside of God. The personality disordered person has never truly learned to to cope with emotional pain. They are emotionally reactive and inflexible. In their mode of survival, others must be made responsible for regulating their emotions, as they are unable to do this for themselves. Whoever they choose to do this will become their hostage, and the only way to escape is to shine truth on their lies.

*Often individuals with features of borderline personality disorder and/or narcissistic personality disorder.