In 1973, a bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden led to a strange phenomenon. Hostages, held for six days in a vault, emerged not with hatred toward their captors, but with empathy. The victim refused to testify against the criminals, even raising money for their defence. Psychologists were baffled. How could someone defend the very person who held them captive?
They called it Stockholm Syndrome – a survival mechanism was, under extreme psychological stress, victims of abuse or captivity bond with their abuser. It happens gradually: the captor exerts total control, isolates the victim, and intersperses fear with small acts of “kindness.” These crumbs of humanity are perceived as gifts from God. Over time, the victim’s sense of reality warps. Their self-worth erodes. They begin to defend their cage. Sometimes, they even love it.
I’ve seen this up close. In my own mother.
When I was very young – three and a half years old – I remember my mother as a powerful woman. We lived with my father and a loving extended family. She was radiant, confident, even dominant. She tried to reshape life according to what she believed was best, often attempting to control my father to achieve her vision.
But that version of her didn’t last.
When we moved in with my stepfather, something changed. Slowly, my mother disappeared. She became like a little mouse – timid, silent, obedient. Not because she was weak, but because the environment demanded her submission to survive. Just like those hostages in Sweden, she started to interpret not being hurt as love. A birthday gift became a divine act of grace. A night without screaming became proof of devotion.
She stopped thinking about escape.
Any time someone suggested she leave, or try a new life, her eyes would glaze over. It’s as if their words had no home inside her. She would look at the rest of the world with suspicion and see him as the only one who “cared.” Even his cruelty was reframed: “He’s just strong,” “He’s protecting me,” “He’s had a hard life.” And meanwhile, all the negativity she couldn’t direct at him got projected outward – toward others, toward us, toward herself.
She seemed to forget how to dream, how to grow, how to educate herself. When I asked her once, as a child, “Why do people eat food?” – a question of curiosity, of life – her answer was:
“If you don’t eat, you’ll die.”
No talk of nutrition. No wonder. No sunlight, no energy, no life force. Just survival. Just avoidance of death.
That answer told me everything about her mindset.
There was no longer a reason to live – only a fear of dying.
She became like the circus elephant tied by a rope. As a baby, it couldn’t break free, so it learned not to try. Years later, though now powerful enough to escape, it remained still – held by nothing more than memory and illusion.
Even her stories changed.
At gatherings and holidays, she would tell stories that made the stepfather look good. Tales carefully crafted – or distorted – so that others would admire him, or at least not judge her for staying. These stories were her way of coping, of explaining to herself why she hadn’t left. Of convincing herself, maybe, that love still lived in that house.
But those stories were not for truth.
They were for survival.
And we, her children, lived in that same survival too.
Breaking the Rope
Stockholm Syndrome isn’t just about bank robbers or locked vaults. It lives in homes, in relationships, in families. It happens in silence, in isolation, in dependency.
And perhaps most dangerously – it hides behind kindness.
But there’s a quiet revolution that begins when we see the rope for what it is. When we remember our strength. When we stop interpreting survival as love.
My mother was not weak. She adapted. She survived.
But I still grieve the woman she could have become.
And I still carry the echoes of the house where fear wore a kind face.
When Faith is Absent, Fear Reigns
This kind of soul-bonding to the captor only happens when belief is gone – when a person no longer trusts in the goodness of God, of nature, or of the greater intelligence that holds life together. Without that inner light, fear takes the throne. The cancer cell becomes a saviour. Survival becomes the only prayer. But one who carries real faith – would never hand their soul over to darkness just to keep the body alive. They would choose truth. They would choose freedom. And above all, they would choose their children.
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