The Road Most Traveled - My Journey With ‘People of the Lie’

By Bonnie Bull Ph.D

This book is about the shocking and powerfully tragic changes I have seen in this culture on my journey. The blatant discrimination I experienced early on is minor in comparison to the trends I see. A great deal of honor, the tenderness and humanity I witnessed throughout my life starting with my profound encounters with Fromm and Burdick have been lost. Using the narrative of my deeply personal, painful and costly life experiences I have written a book that hopefully vividly demonstrates the path we are on and offers a profound analysis and insight into the these trends. My dream is that the book will touch deeply some fellow travelers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543927177

Book preview

(1978)

Chapter One

Pacts with the Devil

There is no rest for a messenger ‘til the message is delivered.

Joseph Conrad – The Rescue

I told my father before he died that I wanted to die with my integrity and belief in God. Writing this book is honoring that commitment. I told my therapist when he asked how I emerged as who I am that I married Christ when I was seven. But this book is not really going to be focused on my childhood but instead on my adult journey. I worked at Union Station, a homeless shelter, for eight years where I taught anger management. Never in my life have I learned so much or witnessed such acts of heroism and humanity. I told the people each week did you improve the quality of life for one person today? If you did not, go back tomorrow and try again.

I am writing this book in hopes of improving the quality of least one person’s life and perhaps many lives. Evil does indeed win when good men do nothing. In some small way I hope this book lights the path a little for some fellow travelers. I am dedicating this book to the three heroes I have had in my life. The first one was Gary Cooper, who played in ‘High Noon’. At ten years old I kept sneaking in to see the movie again and again. What impacted me was this characters’ courage, his vision and most of all his commitment to his moral obligation to protect the town. All of my life I have wanted to meet a man with that kind of courage. I finally found him and married him and have been touched by the magnitude of his courage to face evil head on.

My second hero was Erich Fromm. When I was nineteen he came to San Francisco State to speak and after his talk twenty students were picked for their high records to sit personally with him. I was honored to be one of the twenty selected. I sat spellbound while he told us he thought man was basically good and had a choice about whether he wanted to indulge his evil. He said love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to human existence. He asked us all what we wanted to do with our lives. I told him his books had touched me deeply and I wanted to be a therapist and walk with people into the darkest parts of their pain. I left that day feeling deeply committed to following my dream.

The third hero was Scott Peck, M.D. His books spoke to me and lit my path over many dark crossings. The book that touched me the deepest was People of the Lie. It touched me so deeply that I have decided to write this book to illuminate his message as many years have passed since he shared his visions about evil in that work.

I grew to see that anger and evil are joined at the hip. All people feel anger. If they have been severely damaged they often are not in touch with the anger directly. Often what we see in our patients and the public is depression which I believe is anger turned in on the self. This can grow to such a proportion that suicide can occur. It is the things that people do with the anger that is what I believe to be true evil. Their unwillingness to own the deeds, actions, and life choices is what severely impacts others and destroys them. To me that is what Scott Peck is speaking about in his book. It is really about what people choose to do with their anger that is the critical issue. I was disappointed when they took ‘Passive Aggressive Personality’ out of the DSM because this is the main vehicle people use to express homicidal rage and get away with it. It truly is the perfect murder where the person is never tried or convicted or even recognized as a killer.

The most powerful examples of this was one of my first patients. Shirley was referred to me by my boss and he was on the verge of hospitalizing her. She was 210 pounds, had severe anxiety attacks, depression and agoraphobia. She was a religious woman who attended the Lutheran church every Sunday and touted what a good Christian she was.

I realized how angry she was but when I asked her if she was in touch with anger or anything in her life she said I don’t like the house I live in. And slowly she admitted she resented her husband for not providing enough for her and being away at work all the time. She had two small children and I sensed she resented caring for them. She was a very infantile narcissistic woman that was obsessed with surface and looks. She touted being a very good Christian women dedicated to Christ and the principles of the bible. She and her husband came in together for couple’s therapy and I also saw her alone for individual sessions. She wanted me to help her lose weight and gain more confidence and perhaps get a job. We slowly worked on her goals and she said she would like to teach school. I encouraged her to finish her education and see about getting a teaching credential which she eventually did.

I struggled with her obsession around wanting to be noticed by men and seen as attractive. She was a very plain woman with a matronly look. I helped her with her agoraphobia and her anxiety. Finally after she got the weight off and received her teaching credential she looked for work.

I felt deeply sorry for her husband and children because I felt they struggled with feeling abandoned by their mother. Her narcissism was so extreme that I felt she had a narcissistic personality disorder. The following description of the Narcissistic Personality Disorder is from DSM III as I felt it is more descriptive than the diagnosis listed in DSM-IV. The difference highlights the muting and antiseptic approach that has occurred in this profession and the discussion of that is a big part of this book.

"A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy of behavior), lack of empathy, and hypersensitivity to the evaluation of others, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts as indicated by at least five of the following:

Reacts to criticism with feelings of rage, shame, or humiliation (even if not expressed)

Is interpersonally exploitative, takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends

Has a grandiose sense of self-importance, e.g. exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be noticed as special without appropriate achievement

Believes that his or her problems are unique and can be understood only by other special people.

Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.

Has a sense of entitlement: unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment, e.g. assumes that he or she does not have to wait in line when others must do so.

Requires constant attention and admiration, e.g. keeps fishing for compliments.

Lack of empathy; inability to recognize and experience how others feel, e.g. annoyance or surprise when a friend who is seriously ill cancels a date.

Is preoccupied with feelings of envy."

The horror came for me when this patient started having an affair with the neighbor, who was also married. She stopped being home when the little ones would come home from school. I told her I felt it would be very damaging to her children and to her marriage and the neighbor’s marriage. I felt a wanton destructiveness from her when she said well he told me I was attractive. I said is that the god you kneel in front of at this point, that anyone who tells you that you are attractive you then ignore all your Christian ethics. She said with a taunting manner in her voice that I could not reveal this to her husband as it was stated to me in our individual session.

I was shocked at her lack of care for other people. She said now that I had helped her lose the weight she craved any attention she could get. I sensed her shadow was slowly enveloping her. The children began to do poorly in school and act out because they sensed that their mother had abandoned them. I spent many hours trying to reason with her I asked her why not get a divorce if she wanted to have affairs. She said she wanted the money and security marriage brought to her. Soon the pool man was being seduced and the house painter was also being seduced. She became an addict to getting any attention from any man. She was like the heroin addicts I have treated; she had to keep upping the dosage to get the high. I worked at Patton State Hospital and treated people who killed their relatives. I found them to be often more honest with their evil deeds. What they did they openly admitted to and there was a strange honesty to them.

Here this woman Shirley was always talking about what a devout Christian she was. I consulted with many colleagues about the situation and they felt I was in a difficult situation. The husband John was completely unaware of what was going on when he was gone on business trips. He could not understand why the children were struggling. This is definitely a case of what my hero Erich Fromm called ‘Malignant Narcissism’ as discussed by Scott Peck.

Malignant Narcissism is characterized by an unsubmitted will. All adults who are mentally healthy submit themselves one way or another to something higher than themselves, be it God or truth or love or some other ideal. They do what God wants them to do rather than what they would desire. Thy will, not mine, be done," the God-submitted person says. They believe in what is true rather than what they would like to be true. Unlike Bobby’s parents, what their beloved needs becomes more important to them than their own gratification.

In summary, to a greater or lesser degree, all mentally healthy individuals submit themselves to the demands of their own conscience. Not so the evil, however. In the conflict between their guilt and their will it is the guilt that most go and the will that must win.

The reader will be struck by the extraordinary willfulness of evil people. They are men and women of obviously strong will, determined to have their own way. There is a remarkable power in the manner in which they attempt to control others." (People of the Lie, Scott Peck, Page 78)

I felt deep sadness for the husband, John, and the two small children. I tried to convince her to do something different to help her children. I really did not sense a functioning conscience. I believe the higher the anger is the less the conscience is functioning in a person.

This couple had the classic co-dependent situation. One person is often the bully or abuser and the other enabler plays the corresponding role. The following characteristics are a compilation I developed from the more elaborate discussions Dr. Theodore Ruben presents in his book, The Angry Book. Here are eight provocative characteristics of the abuser and associated counter-transference:

Obliviousness

Jealousy

Entitlement

Blame

Sadism

Lying

Control

Superficial Contriteness

Here are seven characteristics of the abused who receives the bullying behavior-co-dependent or enabler.

Innocence

Guilt

Hopefulness

Conditional Threats

Helpfulness

Masochism

Addictions

These do not have sexual roles-it can be a man and woman, two men or two women, but it fits into the bully style and relationships with bullying people.

Here I felt Shirley was the abuser and a bully and she displayed a bad temper often with her family. The husband was the enabler, a more passive man who I felt often felt helpless when she would bully and throw intense scenes until she got her way.

The years went by and I was impressed with the fact that Shirley got a good teaching job and had lost all the weight and kept it off. But I felt deeply disturbed by her apparent disregard for how her insatiable need for male attention had driven her to do things that seemed so immoral and harmful to others.

I was baffled by what Shirley was getting from me at this point. She had attained the goals she stated she wanted of career and weight loss. But I saw how much pleasure she got out of sitting with her husband and going on about what a good mother she was because she was home when the girls got home from school. I sensed her obvious excitement in the risky game she was playing with all of the sneaking and lying about her whereabouts and what she was doing. She would always say to her husband I wasn’t home when you called because I was at a church meeting that night or at a teachers meeting. I always wondered if the grandparents who watched the children at night when she was out with a man felt the deception.

I tried to impress on her that the youngest child was especially being damaged by her behavior. She was constantly running away from school and I felt both girls were feeling the instability in the home. She was addicted to the rush of sneaking out and getting the attention from men. She started sleeping with several of the husbands of wives she knew from church. John kept asking why she seemed disinterested in him, much less interested in a sexual relationship with him. He had to travel with his work as he was an auditor and needed to do some traveling. I can’t explain how the situation tortured me over the years. I watched Shirley mocking me and John and gaining much pleasure from our pain. That kind of sadism is an addiction in itself. She would throw in my face that I could not understand her thrill because I had always gotten attention from men. She rationalized her evil by saying that she had never gotten this kind of attention and it was very important to receive it. I tried to explain to her that getting pleasure if it deeply damaged others was evil no matter how you rationalized it.

One session she appeared with the pool man and asked if he could sit in on her session. I agreed as I thought I could gain more information on her insatiable appetite for sexual attention. He stated she had approached him one day and invited him into the home and wanted to get to know him. That soon led to a sexual relationship. I often felt her parents had sent her a bad message. She had a club foot and they focused a lot on her and gratifying her every wish when she was a child. She was an only child for the first seven years which I felt further added to the deep sense of entitlement I always saw in her.

I confronted her that her constantly stating what a good Christian she was did not fit with her behavior. She would tell me that she was just getting her needs met and giving love. This is the kind of person Scott Peck describes in his book People of the Lie. On the surface these people espouse great morality and goodness while the behavior is destructive and immoral. Not admitting the sins is the real issue with people like this. Just like AA meetings, the person must be willing to admit what they are, an alcoholic, before any healing can occur. The most important part of getting over any addiction begins with admitting that there is a problem. Shirley rationalized her behavior and twisted it into that she was doing good by all the loving she was giving to these people, meanwhile the deception was destroying the family.

One night I came out of a session and there was her husband John sitting in an obviously enraged state. I knew immediately that he had discovered the situation. He started screaming at me that I had kept the secret from him. He had come home unexpectedly from a trip and found Shirley in their bed with the neighbor. I felt sick inside about the whole situation. I felt guilt and remorse that four years had gone by and I could not reveal her dark secret to this man. I tried to help him with the immediate pain and anger he felt. I said how deeply sorry I was that ethically I could not reveal the secret. He said he wanted a divorce and he could not go on with what he had learned and seen. It was a painful journey and both children chose to live with their father. I saw Shirley for a number of more years but I struggled with her apparent indifference to the damage. I offered to get her husband a therapist for himself but he refused. She complimented me for freeing her up to live the life she desired. I cringed at the thought that I had been part of the dark malevolent deeds she had committed. She eventually left therapy and later I heard she continued her wild carnival ride with other people. I feel she is a classic example of what Peck writes about in his book People of the Lie. She seemed focused only on herself and acquiring attention from any man that would give it to her. I really did not sense there was any care or concern for her children or the damage she had done to her ex-husband. I felt I had been part of a dirty destructive plot. She made me question my own belief system about people looking at their deeds and deciding to do the right thing. All she ever focused on throughout our treatment was surface and what she could do to alter her surface so she could obtain more money, attention and control.

It took me back to a man I had known many years ago when I was a graduate student who said he felt trapped within his conservative and religious backgrounds. He was one of the schools top students and I got to know him pretty well. He was in graduate school at the very end of acquiring his PhD in Psychology. I knew him over a number of years and he enjoyed talking to me. He said I gave him many insights and revelations into his psyche. He told me that he was finally able to have sexual relations with little boys. I remember the revulsion I felt when he told me this and was giving me credit for it. I said to him how do you fit this in with your deep commitment to being a Lutheran and spouting all the teachings of the bible. I told this man that he had made a pact with the devil and that he was behaving in an evil and immoral fashion. He said he was finally getting to do what he had always dreamed of doing. I said to him what if I go and tell the school about what you have been doing. He mocked me and said no one would believe me because he was their top student.

I guess there is big part of me that believes evil does have an expiration date. I told this man that I believed his evil deeds would somewhere in his life come back for him. He, like Shirley, was only focused on narcissistic fulfillment. A number of years later I heard Shirley had died from cancer rather suddenly. I always will wonder what part her psychological state played in her disease or her death.

There is a great deal of evidence that points to the mind impacting the body. I feel this woman still had a conscience left deep within her. Remember All mentally healthy individuals submit themselves to the demands of their own conscience, not so the evil. However, in the conflict between their guilt and their will it is the guilt that must go and the will that must win. (Peck) I feel her ovarian cancer was caused by a deep sense of guilt about the damage she did to her family. I find it interesting the area of the body where the cancer appeared. Glasser address this in the following quote:

"I believe that all symptoms, painful, frightening, crazy, disabling, possibly even the symptoms of a disease like arthritis, is your brain’s way of warning you that the behaviors you are presently choosing are not satisfying your basic needs. Your brain has evolved to help you survive. If you disregard that warning and do nothing to increase your need satisfaction, you are stuck with your unhappiness. From that unhappiness, your symptoms begin and often escalate." (Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health, Glasser, Page 109).

Peck believed that a new type of personality disorder should be created to cover what he described as evil:

Consistent destructive, scapegoating behavior, which may often be quite subtle,

Excessive, albeit usually convert, intolerance to criticism to other forms of narcissist injury.

Pronounced concern with a public image and self-image of respectability, contributing to stability of life-style but also to pretentiousness and denial of hateful feelings or vengeful motives.

Intellectual deviousness, with an increased likelihood of a mild schizophreniclike disturbance of thinking at times of stress." (Page 129 from ‘People of the Lie’)

I find it disappointing but not surprising that almost 30 years later that some form of this has not been created in the DSM as a personality disorder. I find people have trouble looking at their own evil let alone looking clearly at evil within others. Instead I believe we have come to worship and reward people with anger that has turned into evil and these people have sociopathic and narcissist traits. Here are some of these traits that often appear in people who have outstanding ability to charm and seduce others. On the surface they appear quite normal and so it is difficult to recognize how deviant and disturbed they really are. Here are some of the signs of a skilled sociopath.

Manipulative and Cunning

These people do not recognize the right of others they are only interested in self-serving behaviors. They often appear to be quite charming, but underneath they are very hostile and domineering. They humiliate and control the people around them and this is often done in a very subtle way.

Glibness and Superficially Charming

These people are very articulate and convincing with their language. They often exude a lot of self-confidence. They intrigue other people and are very persuasive and the often have the ability to verbally or emotionally destroy other people.

Pathological Lying

These people are able to lie with great ease and often it is impossible for others to detect that they are lying. These are the kind of people that can often pass a lie detector test.

Very Elevated and Grandiose Sense of Self

These people have a deep sense of entitlement. They seem to crave a lot of attention and adulation. They must be seen as the center of attention and will go to almost any length to be viewed that way.

Shallow Emotions

These people are great actors and actresses. They often exhibit what appears to be warmth or compassion but it is not real. They are often completely unmoved and emotionally cold when confronted with situations that would upset a normal person. Since they are not real or authentic their promises cannot be trusted or taken seriously.

Incapacity for Love

They really are unable to experience real love for another human being. They are not even really able to receive love from another human being. They spend their life living on the surface in a sort of one dimensional world. It often appears that very little touches them. An example of this would be a recent story where a man in Los Angeles was lying on the curb who had been stabbed. Many people passed this man and ignored him. When they were questioned they said they thought it was just a bum lying there so nobody called for assistance and they stated they didn’t want to get involved. What I found so ironic about this story was that the man’s son was a doctor and if he had been there he could have saved his father’s life. Instead the man died by bleeding on the curb because nobody wanted to get involved. I call these people sociopaths.

Extreme Callousness and Definite Lack of Empathy or Compassion

This hits to the very center of our emerging callous and godless culture. These people utilize their skills to exploit others and gain power and control. If you are unable and unwilling to empathize with the pain of another you are truly unable to love another human being.

Lack of Control Over Impulses and Anger

These people believe they are all powerful, all knowing, and entitled to the gratification of all of their wishes. They have no concern for how their behavior impacts others.

A Deep Need for Constant Stimulation

These people live on the edge of life. Their outbursts of anger and often physical abuse of others are often very stimulating and exciting to them. Hitler said he was the pipeline to God. To varying degrees these kinds of people feel that they have this kind of power and control over others as though they have god like qualities.

Irresponsible and Unreliable

These people do not question their own behavior they do not take responsibility for the damage they do to others. They are often oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause to the people around them. They constantly blame others for any of their mistakes or errors in their own lives.

Lacking in Realistic Views of Life

These people often are able to maneuver themselves into positions of power over other people. A post doc at Caltech told me one day in the hallway that I needed to keep my voice down or I would disturb the professor Steven Quake. He told me I didn’t realize what an extremely powerful man Dr. Quake was and that I had to be very careful about my behavior in his lab. I suddenly realized that this man Dr. Quake was a very refined sociopath who had gained great power and control over his students. When I went into the lab I saw a group of students cowering when they were doing their work. I felt they had endowed this professor with extreme powers. I found this to be very disturbing. I experienced this man, Dr. Quake, as being a very dishonest man who was exploiting the students to gain rewards for himself. I also being an expert in the area of intelligence can state that this man was not of very superior intelligence. I tested IQ’s for 15 years and I taught theory of intelligence at a local university so I have some knowledge in this area. What I did experience in this man was an extreme drive to dominate, control, and humiliate his students. It is very important to realize when a sociopathic personality is put into a position where he has a lot of power over other people’s lives he can become very destructive. It is really the responsibility of the different institutions to make sure appropriate boundaries and governors are put on these kinds of leaders. I always look at the broad picture. How is this situation in an institution where a leader is given that unchecked power any different than what happened in Germany which led to the rise of Adolf Hitler?

The traits of the narcissistic personality disorder and the antisocial personality disorder and even some of the traits of the borderline personality disorder are all often woven into the fabric of one person. As Glaser has stated in his books we all are technically listed in the new DSM V that will be coming out. The people that are most refined with dealing with their sociopathic parts often get very successful. However if you dig under the surface or get them very agitated you will see a lot of other personality disorders appearing. Glaser feels that choice is a central part of all of these diagnoses. He feels that people who try to control and take power over others destroy their relationships. However, I feel that often people who are in positions of power in institutions, companies, and families have learned how to use their ability to dominate and control as a way of creating intimidation in others. The truth is after studying anger for almost 40 years I have learned it is a very dangerous tool when governors are not put on that emotion. Unfortunately, people often want to fuse and attach themselves to a militant sociopath because it gives them a false sense of security and they can often live vicariously through that person. We will be looking at these issues more closely throughout this book.

Chapter Two

I Don’t Think I Can Make It

Into my practice came a very disturbed man who showed great courage and morality as time went along in his treatment journey. His name was Tim. He came into see me and he said he had an overpowering addiction and he felt great shame about it. He told me he wanted to rape and kill his mother and he did not care in what order that occurred. I was shocked and asked him why. He stated he hated her and felt controlled and oppressed by her and she looked down on him and made fun of him.

He said the addiction he had was that he had to go out each night to West Los Angeles and get a prostitute. He stated that he felt that if he did not do that something terrible would happen to him. I thought about George in Scott Peck’s book People of the Lie. He said that he was tortured and tormented by these obsessional thoughts that he had on a nightly basis. I really could feel how he was struggling with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). He told me he was burning all the inheritance his father had left him. He felt trapped, and the more I listened I felt he had a lot of OCD type behavior in his life. For example, he had to constantly wash his hands, sometimes ten or twelve times a day. He truly believed that if he did not pay for a prostitute each night something terrifying was going to happen to him. When I asked him for an example of something terrifying that was going to happen to him he said he thought he was going to be killed in a car accident. He admitted to me that part of his routine with a prostitute was being abusive

Reviews for The Road Most Traveled - My Journey With ‘People of the Lie’

[gmtc711 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read The Road Most Traveled, My Journey with People of the Lie, and was deeply touched. I have had issues my whole life and Dr. Bull's book really helped calm me down. Thank you. Edward