Chapter 2
Why We Do What We Do?

Could It Be Possible That Those Targeted by Abuse Endure the Same Psychological Abuse as the POW’s in the Korean War?

Before reading the snippet of Chapter 2, I want to share why I wrote it...

“Mastering Lasting Change” is very personal to me. It’s the story of my life, my pain, and my overcoming many, many obstacles. About 12 years ago, I wanted more out of my life. I was discontent, depressed, and felt my life was worthless. I wanted for myself to be alive again and enjoy life as I saw so many others did. I wanted to be free from chaos, trauma, and constant failures.

If we want to experience life at a greater level, you must make choices, better choices, you have to be committed, and you have to take responsibility for your life, right now. Your past is over. You may have experienced some of the most hideous things on the planet, but you can’t keep living there if you want to have a better future. Don’t get me wrong. I understand pain. I was raped 8 times and molested once. I was beaten severely by my husband repeatedly (causing 52 broken bones, stabbings, and in a coma once – over a 17 year period). I know pain. But I had to make a choice of living in that pain or having the life I wanted. You can’t have both.

Chapter 2: The Psychological Abuse “Played” Against Me

As a victim of emotional and psychological and physical abuse, I was unable to take a stand for myself and my children.

The psychological abuse that my husband “played” against me caused me to do things I would never do. It caused me to turn against my entire belief system.

Once married: I committed fraud, watched things that I’d never watch, it caused me to be someone who I wasn’t, it caused me to act in ways I would never act.

Prior to my marriage, I had strong morals, I was honorable, and I lived with strong ethics. Every decision was to an extremely high standard… and then I got married.

Then, I helped him by lying to “confirm” something he said or did, I stood before a lawyer and lied for him, I protected his fraudulent actions, I did things that I knew were wrong but couldn’t help it.

I was unable to break free from those unethical standards. I became a person who I didn’t even know – or like. I was his prisoner of war.

The Parallels of The Korean War and My Abuse

It wasn’t until I studied the Korean War did I understand why I did what I did and how to stop doing those horrible things.

During the Korean War more POW’s turned their backs on The United States and eventually their own family.

Why? They were targets of some interesting psychological attacks. Let’s be clear, it wasn’t torture, it wasn’t violence, it wasn’t anything physical – they were tortured with kindness.

Tortured with Kindness?

How can kindness cause someone to turn their back on rock-solid beliefs? United States Soldiers are taught to have extremely strong values and identity.

They are United States Soldiers! Their entire belief system is built on who they are as soldiers, what they believe as soldiers, and they are trained to die for those beliefs.

If that so, then how did so many of our POW’s trade allegiances?

A Psychological Technique to Gain Control

It was the Chinese Communists who baffled the entire world – especially the POW’s family.

The Chinese Communists used a psychological technique to gain compliance from the POW’s without physically hurting them.

The Chinese Communists knew how to achieve greater results and accomplish their goal, which was to extract information from the U.S. Soldiers about the U.S. using psychological warfare rather than violence or torture.

And as a result, the POW’s turned their backs on everything they believed. And gave up confidential U.S. intelligence information and became communists themselves.

How’d they do it?

The Communists knew that if they could change the POW’s beliefs and values they could control the POW’s, and they’d have everything they need to win the war.

Once the Chinese Communists disempowered their beliefs and values, they would succeed at winning the war. And they did succeed at that.

Have You Been “Played” by Psychological Warfare?

Once you understand how you’ve been “played” through psychological warfare, you can see the whys and how’s of why you are in the current circumstance or a former circumstance – you can then begin to quickly change it.

The great thing about the Neuro-Scientific techniques it doesn’t take years to change. You can change instantly if you’re willing to invest a little time.

Let’s take a look at what the Chinese Communists did: They spent time studying and understanding the soldiers and U.S. ways. They saw what they did, how they did it, and then began to play it against them.

U.S. Soldiers were taught (if caught) to only give their name, rank and serial number, only. It wasn’t just taught, they were highly trained in this.

This was something that was repeated taught through hard-core training programs, and if caught by an enemy, they would only give out their name, rank and serial number. Period.

When the U.S. soldiers were captured by the Chinese Communists, they were greeted with a vigorous handshake, a pat on the back, and given American cigarettes. The enemy introduced themselves as friends of the U.S workers.

This display of friendship caught most Americans totally off-guard and they never recovered from the initial impression made by the Chinese . . . after the initial contact with the enemy, many of the U.S. Soldiers truly believed that the enemy was not just sincere and harmless but a true friend indeed.

They relaxed their years of hard-core training; their guard came down, and then permitted themselves to be lulled into a well-disguised trap of cooperating with the cunning enemy.

Then following the newly developed false friendship, the Chinese Communists used what appeared to be harmless-seeming conversations. The more they talked the more the soldiers questioned their beliefs.

The Chinese knew if they questioned their beliefs just once, they could begin to knock down all their beliefs and identity. Seems impossible right? Remember it was the kind acts of friendship, food, and cigarettes that made them question all their years of training.

Are You Seeing a Parallel? Does Your Abuse Sound Familiar to the Abuse of the POW’s?

Beginning to sound familiar with your significant other? Is he buying you gifts, promising not to do it again, promising to go to therapy, being kind and considerate?

Kindness will always break down a heavily guarded person. Of course that’s not to say every person who is kind is an enemy. We are only speaking of abusers and the Chinese Communists right now.

Once they U.S. soldiers were “ripe” the enemy would get them to say just one little negative thing about the U.S., then an hour or so later another negative thing.

Then get them to believe that Communists had significant positives. This would go on for hours until finally the soldier began questioning the U.S. and began to fall in love with the communists.

Once the Communists began to hear what they wanted, they began another technique – written questionnaires, followed by interviews.

This was considered to be the most devious and effective Chinese technique according to the US Army Report.

Because the U.S. has been calling this psychological warfare I’ve been using this term, but let’s now call this for what it is – manipulation, control, scheming, devious, calculating, and cunning.

There is no difference between that Chinese Communist and an abuser today.

The Manipulating, Controlling, Scheming, Calculating, Devious Abuser and YOU!

That same psychological warfare used on the soldiers is the same type of psychological manipulating, controlling, scheming, calculating, devious warfare used on abuse victims today.

Next the Chinese Communists had them begin to answer unseemingly-harmless written questionnaires.

These questionnaires began with questions like: what are some of the problems with the U.S.? In what ways is the U.S. not perfect? In their own handwriting they’d answer these questions. Then the questionnaires had questions about the social benefits of communism.

Now, in their own handwriting they had documentation on promoting communism and disdain for the U.S. So the question is why did the soldiers keep going against their beliefs and values?

The brain is a complex yet interesting machine. A brain is wired to “readjust” our beliefs when we make a sound statement.

When the soldier made that simple statement that the U.S. was not perfect, the brain began to apply those new beliefs to its new identity.

One small statement caused them to quickly shift their identity.

So much so, that when asked by the U.S. why they made the statements, in an instant, they would state that what they wrote was true!

They believed it beyond a shadow of a doubt and being a communist is the way to go. They became Pro-Communists and eventually denounced their own country.

As a founder of a domestic violence organization I’m asked repeatedly why victims stay in an abusive situation. And I have to say, it’s the same reason why our soldiers denounced their citizenship – because of some extreme psychological warfare that caused them to do and say what the enemies made them say.

Now That You See How You’ve Been Manipulated – You Can Have a Bright, NEW, Beautiful Future!

If you’re beginning to see how you’ve been manipulated and you’re ready to take a stand for your future, I have some good news, you can begin to see changes in a very short time…

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