1st

3rd

Buwahahahahahahaaaaaaa!

Re TJ statement

This stuck out to me
“Documented Fact: There was no affair. Neither Tony nor Doug has ever used the category ‘spiritual wife’ or ‘spiritual marriage'”

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2011/09/06/there-are-two-marriages/ True, doesn’t use the term “spiritual marriage” as quoted, but talks instead about a “sacramental marriage” which I think to most people is the same thing. To claim this as fact is disingenuous at best

That’s a manifesto not a statement.

@ dee:

Business is business.

Wonder if they believe Julie or the diagnosed NPD? Wonder if either contacted her? Hmm. They don’t say. They just imply her story, her experience, her abuse ….is a distraction to their important conference on “Why Christian”. Very inconvenient. Yes. Why. Christian?

Also, the announcement does not necessarily mean Tony and Doug wont profit off the gate as originally intended. Would come in handy for some child support..

Oh – so RHE wanted to make sure you had the link to Tony’s scathing statement (I guess she didn’t see it posted already)? Well, I guess it’s pretty clear for her, then, huh?

My suggestion is to stay out of divorce commentary. It doesn’t advance any Christian cause and makes any legitimate concerns of abuse less cause-worthy.

I couldn’t find a place to leave Tony a comment. So I went 2 posts down on his blog and posted this:

https://diagnosingemergent.wordpress.com/

I said: “Wish I could leave this under your scathing 12 page attack in Julie.” My comment is in moderation, which I have no doubt it will ever see the light of the day.

Julie Anne wrote:

Oh – so RHE wanted to make sure you had the link to Tony’s scathing statement (I guess she didn’t see it posted already)? Well, I guess it’s pretty clear for her, then, huh?

Maybe she wants us to help her analyze it properly. 🙂

Someone needs to e mail RHE this: https://diagnosingemergent.wordpress.com/

Patrice wrote:

But it makes sense that he now has an additional diagnosis of Acute Stress Disorder because it’s not so easy for him to keep up appearances these days, and that is hard on anyone but super-wounding to the NPD ego, which Tony knows very well, if he has been paying any attention in therapy.

🙂 Touche.
Considering that pathological lying is a common trait of those with NPD (of which Tony has been diagnosed), I would take everything from him with a grain of salt.

@ Patrice:
I feel for those kids, given that this is all spilling out on the internet. God knows what they’ve seen, how they feel, and what others (including other kids) are saying to them.

The sense of voyeurism … magnified for me personally. And yes, TJ is deliberately cagey about J’s diagnosis as well as his own.

I don’t want a ringside seat to this, believe me. So painful, and so unnecessary and wrong.

“social media claims regarding the first marriage of a member of The JoPa Group”

How many times do we have to repeat the fact that we don’t care that he got divorced? Or that he got divorced and remarried? No one cares!

We care about allegations that he ABUSED his first wife. ABUSE is the issue we care about. And we care about it more every. single. #@$!#$%@. time. any one of you supposed leaders open your mouth and say “circumstances around the divorce” instead of “accusations of abuse.”

I read through it, and so many things just seemed to…line up with Julie’s account. Cops decided there was no injury? She clams Jones used his chaplaincy to get police on his side. Julie owes him child support? She already made that clear, and the circumstances leading up to it. I don’t know her, but I’m familiar enough with the way abusers cover up their tracks to hear a lot of things that ring true from my own experiences. If she is actually a liar, why is TJ and company reacting in such a “shut up this woman so we can lift up the voices of women” way?

And I can do without the barely concealed rage and “look how we just can’t have nice things” from RHE and NBW. I can %$#&-ing do without it.

Am I off-base here? Anyone read TJ’s thing and change their mind?

@ Mother:

First I just want to say that whenever I see a comment from “Mother” I think of someone I miss every day and who taught me to stand up for myself and think logically and rigorously. She would say pretty much what you did about this.

FWIW, this looks like a media campaign to change the subject and give people an excuse to move on to the next thing. Hard to see how RHE salvages her victim’s advocate reputation. What’s with JoPa transferring production to their team? Sounds to me like SGM’s role at T4g. Eyewash.

Lydia wrote:

There is a great need to make it about “the divorce” and not the abuse of power/position for most involved with Tony. I skimmed it and he seems to rely on police reports quite heavily which makes sense as he was (is?) the police chaplain.

Remember the “code of Blue” — cops will always close ranks and stick together against Civilians, and Tony made sure he’d be on the “Cop” side of the divide.

XianJaneway wrote:

Narcissists do that *all the time*

Yes. It’s called illeism, and it’s been linked with narcissism.

@ Patrice:
I suspect his attorney wrote a lot of it, or at least vetted it before it was posted.

numo wrote:

at least vetted it before it was posted.

If his attorney’s smart, he did. In my experience, NPDs are not great at filtering themselves when they go on a self-righteous self-defense spin. If they don’t have someone who can get away with editing them, they will expose themselves fairly quickly.

Dave wrote:

Re TJ statement
This stuck out to me
“Documented Fact: There was no affair. Neither Tony nor Doug has ever used the category ‘spiritual wife’ or ‘spiritual marriage’”

oh, Snap! I was having fun with the “spiritual wife” thing. How about “spiritual adultery”?
I just watched a TV show about the Mormon Manson, Ervil Lebaron. He’d tell other men’s wives they were committing “spiritual adultery” by living with their husbands, since they actually belonged to him!

@ XianAtty:
Yes. It raises many questions.

I’ve had an uneasy feeling about this for days now. While i do believe that Julie was abused, I am deeply uncomfortable at this point regarding what has bern said by all parties (including RHE and NBW) and would rather not be involved.

@ XianJaneway:
I don’t know anything about Axes but here is a link to the specific diagnosis code he gave, which is bad enough. http://behavenet.com/node/21653

Elizabeth Lee wrote:

Gosh, Tony’s statement says “Julie was served with divorce papers on August 29, 2008.” He then goes on to say that he had a lunch date with the new woman on Sept. 3rd. However, the case number that he helpfully included says that the divorce was filed September 9, 2008. AND, the case number that he listed for the restraining order he claims to have obtained on September 3rd isn’t working for me.
Tony’s statement also lists blogs started by Julie, so I tried to look at them. One of the websites he listed exists, but is private. The other one has no posts. Julie can’t be using blogs to publicly smear him if they are not public.
In my experience, narcissists lie.

To be fair, we don’t know how long the one blog has been private or if she deleted posts on the other one. So to me personally, this really doesn’t mean much. Well unless someone does know and wants to correct me.

Julie Anne wrote:

Oh – so RHE wanted to make sure you had the link to Tony’s scathing statement (I guess she didn’t see it posted already)? Well, I guess it’s pretty clear for her, then, huh?

As in she just announced her alliegance, HARD?

numo wrote:

I’ve had an uneasy feeling about this for days now.

Still?

…yeah, me too.

Probably posted before, but just in case

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2015/01/on-responding-to-abuse-allegations.html

Knowing that he has a serious personality disorder, should we trust this guy? No.

It is clear that this was an acrimonious split, and that both parties suffered. Neither will come out smelling of roses. Both, it appears to me, have dragged the children into it, unforgivably.

However. What Tony has omitted from his account is the abuse he subjected Julie to, including, most notably, his attempts and those of others to admit her to a mental hospital.

Rachel Held Evans will not come out of this smelling sweetly either. How wonderful it would have been if she had withdrawn with dignity. She didn’t have to take sides, or say a single thing. Yes, she may have lost some money and the buzz of a conference, but she would have gained in integrity and in reputation. Instead, her response has been high-handed, cold and unfeeling. Shame on her.

XianAtty wrote:

I can’t speak to the other issues, but Tony’s description of the litigation more closely aligns with the trial court docket & the appellate order. OTOH, some of Julie’s claims are directly refuted, particularly about why Tony’s child support payments got lowered.

That which is legally filed is about law and therefore inevitably an incomplete picture of the situation, yes?

For eg, Julie has also written that Tony slipped on support initially, which included mortgage payments, and that caused the house to go into foreclosure. It is quite possible that fighting the correction of a math snafu was Julie’s forlorn attempt to partially correct this imbalance. We don’t know, though. It’s he said/she said.

Moreover, while the court found it legal to require the poor parent-with-kids to pay that money back to the flush parent-with-job, it certainly wasn’t ethical.

There are four things we do know about the Julie/Tony fiasco:
1. Divorce is the terrible fruit of a disintegrated marriage. No one goes through the process rosy. No one comes out the other end undamaged.
2. Tony has a diagnosis of NPD
3. There has been a concerted attempt to attach to Julie a label more suited to Tony. And it was framed in the most demeaning way possible: “batsh*t crazy”.
4. The Emergent community has been roped into repeated attempts to shut Julie down.

#3 and #4 are typical actions of someone with NPD (#2).

These four items need to be kept in focus or else we will go down one rabbit hole after another. And as HUG points out, rabbit holes have the effect of confusing what’s up/down, leaving us in troubled confusion, causing us to walk away. And that serves the purposes of #2, #3, and #4.

Patrice wrote:

2. Tony has a diagnosis of NPD

I sometimes cannot believe how naïve I am. I honestly thought that an official NPD diagnosis would be enough to give most folks pause in this situation.

Do people realize how hard an official diagnosis is to get in the first place? I realize most people are not that familiar with NPD and how they operate.

If someone is going to have a ministry or public persona that purports to speak for the abused, I would suggest they get educated on NPD and other personality disorders, first.

Also, the constant appeal to the “police found nothing” is at best irrelevant. It could mean there was nothing to find, or it could mean that Tony was a good at hiding what was really going on.

Lydia wrote:

I sometimes cannot believe how naïve I am. I honestly thought that an official NPD diagnosis would be enough to give most folks pause in this situation.

Yeah. People (Christians especially) have a hard time believing that contempt and disregard can live under cover of charm and intelligence and the right words. (Until they’ve lived with it, that is.)

It is distressing that it is a particular problem for US Christians, given that we hold to Christ, and believe his work was the only thing that could free us from our own evil.

Being able to take people at their words is necessary for a healthy community, of course. When people say the correct words, say them in a cool/reasonable manner and without the usual non-verbal signals that set off alarms, we tend to simply believe them. This is our vulnerability to evil. It’s our Achilles heel. It is a human problem and we see the results everywhere these days.

So here is where discernment comes in. It is not easy and it takes time! I hope, as we all read through the docs, we keep this in mind.

Patrice wrote:

Two initial thoughts. First, having the kids every other weekend, Tuesday nights, 3 weeks in summer and alternating holidays does not add up to 35-40% of child care.

I saw that as well. It doesn’t add up.

Dee wrote:

Prediction: he will release something that says he was thrown out of the house an couldn’t stay with his children.

Or that he thought he would get custody, but the courts awarded custody to her instead.

She refutes that claiming that he didn’t want any part of the kids, but in his document he’s already said she’s lying about that, so now he makes it a he said/she said thing. And in a he said/she said battle, an NPD can be super charming.

Again, I don’t know what really happened in Julie/Tony’s case, but I’m seeing this kind of stuff in action right now in a relationship very close to me. An NPD can really lay it on thick to the point you start questioning how you ever thought this person could be anything but a saint, all the while using everyone in the situation as pawns for his own ends (including, and especially, the children).

Patrice wrote:

Lydia wrote:

I sometimes cannot believe how naïve I am. I honestly thought that an official NPD diagnosis would be enough to give most folks pause in this situation.

Yeah. People (Christians especially) have a hard time believing that contempt and disregard can live under cover of charm and intelligence and the right words. (Until they’ve lived with it, that is.)

“For Satan himself
can transform himself
to appear as an Angel of Light.”

“…can deceive even the very Elect.”

Jeff S wrote:

An NPD can really lay it on thick to the point you start questioning how you ever thought this person could be anything but a saint,

That is why I decided to focus on the care of the undisputed victims in this mess- the children.

Jeff S wrote:

Regardless of what the truth is behind the contentions relationship between ex’s, this is not a man I’d partner with for anything.

I agree.

Dee wrote:

Neither BPD nor NPD are curable.

Aren’t there treatments for making BPD more tolerable? Or am I confusing that with another PD?

Anyway, we don’t know what Julie was diagnoses with. A lot of Axis I is treatable, and some of Axis II is as well. And as I said, it’s entirely conceivable that whatever she was diagnosed with was a result of her marriage. I imagine that I would have at least been diagnoses with depression at the time of my divorce.

Anyway, I agree with focusing on the children- when I went through my own divorce, I remember this one clear thought that kept me in focus: “I have choices, and she has choices, but my son has no choice”. But a good NPD can twist the meaning of “welfare of the children” all around.

The person close to me who is wrestling with this is fighting for custody, even though her ex charged her money to watch his own kids soon after their divorce (how is that for using your children?). Now he has the audacity to claim they would be better off living with him full time. Oh, and that if that happens that she should not only paid child support, but whatever amount above that the court would see fit to grant him above that. So now she has to consume her life with proving she’s a great parent rather than just doing the great work of parenting (fighting court battles is exhausting and expensive).

Dee wrote:

Patrice wrote:
The second point is that one doesn’t “get over” NPD by taking an antidepressant and seeing a therapist, when not on the road, for a few years. If he truly understood what NPD means, he would not write such a statement.
I am so sorry for the pain that you experienced in your divorce. Sometimes, I feel like crying when I read stories like yours.
Neither BPD nor NPD are curable. Once again, I focus on the children. Someone who is selfless and really cares about others would not leave his beloved children in the care of a crazy person. But, then again, do those with NPD give a hoot how anybody else is feeling?

Dee, in the case of NPD, the father likely leaves, regardless of how violent the mother is. However, I’ve seen *healthy* fathers try to get custody of their children, and the BPD mother is able to successfully, falsely, accuse the father of abuse.

Christine Lawson, in the book, “Understanding the Borderline Mother” says that the emotions that a person with BPD displays are so intense, that an average observer takes for *granted* that the BPD is telling the truth! How could someone lie about that kind of pain??

In reality, they’re not “lying” per se, for a variety of reasons. Like someone with Alzheimer’s, who forgets where they parked their car, and is SURE it was stolen, a person with often BPD honestly believes the things they’re saying. Their emotions are *true* many times. The technical term is “confabulation,” where the disordered person tries to make sense of what they’re seeing through their distorted perceptions. 🙁

However, sometimes people with BPD do intentionally lie. Lawson also says that, since the BPD’s greatest fear is “abandonment,” that a person w/ BPD feels no moral qualm about lying to prevent abandonment—just as your or I would feel no moral qualm about stealing if we were starving.

Spouses who are married to such a convincing, conniving liar, are often advised to take very special measures to document what *really* happened. Fathers have been counseled to hide digital recorders in their pockets—and one father I know from the support group was assaulted by the mother while he was holding a baby. Before he presented that evidence, the judge was convinced *he* was the abuser. 🙁

Dee said, “His family is in serious pain and whether he likes it or not, he once loved Julie enough to make three children with her. Guess she wasn’t so crazy during that time. BPD doesn’t just suddenly appear. So, was he making babies with a BPD or didn’t he care? There are questions.”

I have agreed with everything you said here. Primarily, if you thought someone was crazy and evil, why in heavens name would you leave your children to languish in that kind of hell?

But this one little thing I want to point out to help people understand NPD’s better. “…he once loved Julie enough to make three children with her.” NPDs do NOT love anyone. Anyone. If indeed this man has NPD, he never loved his first wife, nor his second wife nor any other person in between. Children included. NPDs are not capable of loving any person.

Other people, wife, children, friends, parishoners are used, never loved. Ever.

NPDs can enjoy the pleasure of sex which obviously leads to the children thing. It isn’t love that creates children of NPD. It is having a long term agenda which makes an NPDer want to get married. It’s not love. It’s selfishness that makes an NPDer parent. A child is there for the NPDers purpose. (Wow, look how good and responsible I look because I’m a parent, is one example.)

So as if I haven’t beaten this horse well past its death enough- an NPDer is INCAPABLE of love or even having the foggiest what it feels like. They only know what it LOOKS like. And they do their darned best to display it. But only for their own causes.

Ps. I am loving the autocorrect on here, Ladies. This post would be all sorts of wonky without it.

@ lydia:

Thanks, I will pass this along.

I still stand behind Wartburg’s criticism of Rachel Held Evans. She STILL maintained a double standard regarding her criticism of Mahaney and SGM/TGC, verses how she treated Julie, Tony, and the Emergent crowd. Regardless of what happened in the Tony/Julie saga, RHE now knows EXACTLY how TGC was deceived. Narcissists (and Borderlines!) are master manipulators. RHE now knows exactly how the rest of the TGC crowd feels!!!

dee wrote:

However, such a report causes me to hunker down. Tony Jones has serious family issues as well as serious psych issues of his own. To hold this man up as a role model for Emergents shows the lame nature of the movement.

Is anyone actually holding up as a role model for Emergents anytime recently though? Even by using his company as a conference organizer, is that actually holding him up as a role model? Is being his friend, if RHE even is, actually making him appear to be some sort of role model for Emergents? I’ve never read anything by RHE that puts TJ on such a pedestal. How is this thing going to be put to rest, since I don’t think we will ever get “all” of the answers in this situation?

dee wrote:

Jeff S wrote:
Aren’t there treatments for making BPD more tolerable?
Yes- and it takes a whole bunch of work.

However, there are still no *cures* for BPD.

And the children still have to grow up with a disordered sense of self. “Do I like red, or do I only like red because my mother told me to? Am I a Christian? Am I a Republican? Do I really like romance novels? Do I really like skirts?”

Both BPD and NPD parents see their children as extensions of themselves. As such, these children have no opinions, no options, and no thoughts that are not filtered through the ideas of their parents. They are shamed for anything that breaks out of the mold.

Does this ring a bell for anyone? Cough-Gothard-cough?

Since NPDs are often charismatic and attractive, and make RIDICULOUS, UNBELIEVABLE promises, people follow them. Gothard Christianized an unbelievable version of NPD “magical thinking” and therefore an entire generation grew up as if they were raised by a narcissist. 🙁

@ Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD Couple:

Well, the children who were raised swimming in curriculum written by a possible NPD who had no children, but had the sure fired way to run a family 🙁 Insanity.

dee wrote:

Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD Couple wrote:
Let me repeat: this situation is hell. It’s a “special” hell, because the layers upon layers of deception, distortion, confabulation, and pain are hard for anyone on the outside to cut through.
We agree on this for sure!
However, I do know of a couple of people, including a close relative, who were diagnosed with BPD and were found, after further workup, to have underlying physical disorders that mimicked BPD: mini seizures with optical auras for one and the other migraines with auditory auras. This was diagnosed after couple of good MDs decided something seemed off and ordered a sleep study and EEGs
Treatment was instituted and BPD is no longer on the table. Now it is depression due to being misdiagnosed for years.
Diagnosing people during a traumatic situation-like a hostile divorce- can be fraught with peril. Add to the mix that one party is a beloved police chaplain and the possibilities of confusion are limitless.
In the end, it is the children who must be the center of focus. It is my opinion that Tony Jones needs to step away from the limelight and take care of business. However, if he is truly NPD, he will not be able to do that.
Let’s see what happens. I still support Julie because she does not have the famous name and the groupies that travel together. She doesn’t have a husband whose wife gets kudos for her *amazing* pictures. She is left alone and needs others to stand with her. I am a big supporter of the underdog. At least I can give voice to her concerns and our readers can send her some funds to let her know she is cared about.
All-Please pray for those children.

Amen!! Ok, we can agree on that. Absolutely. I agree that about giving her a voice, & totally agree w/ your statement that other conditions (treatable ones!) can mimic BPD. Thanks Dee.

Jeff S wrote:

Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD Couple wrote:
However, Tony having NPD does not exclude Julie from having BPD. Both could actually be telling the truth.
Has there been a claim that Julie has BPD? This is the part I’m confused on, so if I’ve missed it that would help me out a lot.
The only thing I’m presently aware of is that Tony said she was diagnosed with something Axis I and something II, after claiming he had Axis I NPD which doesn’t exist (making me fear he doesn’t really understand the classifications of Axis I and Axis II). So I’m not going to speculate on what Julie’s diagnosis is. It could have been as bad as BPD or as simple as Depression/Anxiety cause by being married to an NPD.

Tony claimed that she was court-ordered to undergo Dialectical Behavior Therapy. I pointed out that DBT was developed for the treatment of BPD and that Tony claimed Julie was diagnosed w/ an Axis II disorder. BPD is an Axis II disorder.

ar wrote:

The conference that set up the proxy recruitment is no longer associated with Jones. So perhaps the internet should collectively see to its own mental health by no longer participating in this mess.

Internet aside, I’m realizing that I’m gonna need to withdraw…

@ Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD Couple:
Who has been diagnosed with BPD in this situation? I am confused.

Dee, you said further up that “BPD doesn’t suddenly appear.”

That’s another fun part of this “special hell.” To the unwitting spouse, it actually *does*. 🙁

BPD involves a cycle of “idealization and devaluation.” In English, that means that the BPD sees a new love as wonderful/perfect/the man of my dreams/my prince, but then a mental switch flips, and the person becomes scum/horrible/not worth my time/dropped. It’s a horrible extreme version of “black and white thinking”.

The support group had a joke that “You knew you had a BPD mom if you had a stepfather for each of the major world’s religions.” 😛

However, a NPD/BPD couple has an extraordinary stability, because they play off of each other’s primary weaknesses! According to Lachkar, they can stay locked in dysfunction for *years*.

It was maddening, because every 3-6 months, my parents would threaten divorce, but then my mom would go into, “I don’t want to lose him/let’s stroke his ego” mode, and my dad would go into, “I don’t want to look like a rotten husband/father” mode. Despite physical abuse, rotten finances, and thrown objects around the house, everyone would pretend NOTHING HAPPENED.

If a NPD/BPD couple *does* divorce, they stay locked in court battles for years, as the BPD can seek *retalliation* in the legal realm, or reputational realm. The BPD will begin a smear campaign to everyone you know—with their intense, “How can they fake that?” emotion–and beg for anyone who will listen to help.

My mother said that my father didn’t pay the mortgage on the house, and begged me for money so she wouldn’t be evicted. What I didn’t know–until long after I gave her money—was that she begged my church, my aunts and uncles, and all my friends for money too. Which they all gave her! The worst part was that my dad *did* pay the mortgage!!!

May wrote:

Rachel Held Evans will not come out of this smelling sweetly either. How wonderful it would have been if she had withdrawn with dignity. She didn’t have to take sides, or say a single thing. Yes, she may have lost some money and the buzz of a conference, but she would have gained in integrity and in reputation. Instead, her response has been high-handed, cold and unfeeling. Shame on her.

Exactly. It is a missed opportunity for a redemptive outcome where at least some good could be realized.

I am seriously confused. I have witnessed the effects of living with a NPD over a period of time. It can change a persons personality in ways one could not imagine for that person. It can actually produce a disorder.

And it can take years of being completely free of it for any semblence of normal to return. The worst of it is that the non NPD person is held to a higher standard.

dee wrote:

At least I can give voice to her concerns and our readers can send her some funds to let her know she is cared about.

This. I, along with everyone else, see this as an ugly situation with innocent children suffering in the middle and not knowing the whole story. But what I do know is that, seeing what she is up against, I still have no qualms about having contributed funds to her in order for her voice to heard given the overwhelming opposition she has faced fromToJo and company.

One further thought to contemplate: if she is as mentally unstable as ToJo makes her out to be, why, after the unending evaluations and hearings, has the court system granted her sole legal custody rather than joint custody or him having sole custody? Something to consider before buying everything ToJo’s selling.

JeffT wrote:

dee wrote:
At least I can give voice to her concerns and our readers can send her some funds to let her know she is cared about.

This. I, along with everyone else, see this as an ugly situation with innocent children suffering in the middle and not knowing the whole story. But what I do know is that, seeing what she is up against, I still have no qualms about having contributed funds to her in order for her voice to heard given the overwhelming opposition she has faced fromToJo and company.
One further thought to contemplate: if she is as mentally unstable as ToJo makes her out to be, why, after the unending evaluations and hearings, has the court system granted her sole legal custody rather than joint custody or him having sole custody? Something to consider before buying everything ToJo’s selling.

Every child of a BPD has asked that same question. 99% of the time, the BPD can behave in front of CPD workers, evaluators, etc. Go to BPDfamily.com, and spend some time around those boards, and you’ll see a variety of stories about how and why the courts give BPD parents custody.

In my case, I wasn’t hit, but my siblings and my father were. I was the “all good” child. My mother convinced police over and over again that my siblings were the ones causing the trouble, and would hold “I never hit ++this++ child” up as evidence that the other abused kids were at fault.

I confess, she convinced me of this too. 🙁 “If you’d just stop yelling at mom she wouldn’t hit you!!” I was totally wrong.

FWIW, within a day or so, I plan to add three new pages or posts to my Diagnosing Emergent site that went live on Monday.

First, a concise timeline to may help clear up discrepancies over dates. (For instance, the dates I have are that divorce papers were served to Julie on August 29, 2008, and the first entries in the official court register were posted on September 9, 2008.)

Second, a page that will index the items Tony Jones has listed in the statement he posted yesterday, and respond in a separate sub-page for each item. Still thinking about the format for them, but sub-pages will probably include:

* Tony’s allegation.

* A summary of his presentation and items of evidence.

* Information I’ve found that includes verifiable/sourced facts.

* Allegation-specific analysis, interpretations, opinions, and questions drawn from crowd-sourcing — even items that conflict with or contradict what I think I’ve figured out. (I’ll certainly be absorbing comment threads here at TWW, and appreciate the give-and-take of the discussion here.)

* Links so readers can check out primary and secondary sources themselves.

Third, a Site Notes and Updates post or page. Since this is a big project and I’m building the site in layers, it seems easier to put notes on what is being added all in one place. My process goes slow. I am trying to sift through the flood of details just as others are, and make sense of it as best I can, in plugging away at it as what time allows. So, instead of commenting on relevant blog posts online, I’ll mostly be putting time into collating what I have, fact-checking, and posting. This page will chart the progress for those who are checking back.

Many in our spiritual abuse survivor communities are aware my articles and case studies on various situations. I think we need research/resource places like these as we continue to learn to discern as a community, not just individuals. That’s why choose to invest much of my free time in projects like this. Hopefully, shining the light on our own Christian cultures will bring more integrity to our corporate witness in the long run, as we become better Bereans at critical thinking, and more cautious about who we commend as our leaders and role models — without losing either our compassion toward any and all parties who are hurting, or our conscience for moral/ethical issues of right and wrong.

Okay, client projects are calling my name … as is coffee, I suspect.

Thanks for your prayers that I’d have time to work on this, discernment, and wisdom.

https://diagnosingemergent.wordpress.com/

@ lydia:

Ha! We posted the same comment at the same time. Great minds who have seen NPD/BPD/OSPD up close.

@ JeffT:
Amen, and amen. I completely agree.

Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD Couple wrote:

Gram even knows the lingo

Because I’ve seen it, tried to work with a diagnosed NPD/BPD couple on practical matters and tried to make sense of a relative with OCPD and its own special kind of ordered chaos (unless you’ve seen it, “ordered chaos” makes so sense.) I had to find out what in the world is going on in both of those situations as well as another narcissistic one that is undiagnosed. Nothing made sense, so I talked to a psychologist who specializes in conflict and did some research. Didn’t solve either of the issues, but at least I had some understanding about the origin of the craziness.

@ brad/futuristguy:

Brad, thanks for all your work on this. It’s impossible to get any kind of picture of the whole story without the efforts of yourself and others.

Law Prof wrote:

Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD Couple wrote:

However, Tony having NPD does not exclude Julie from having BPD. Both could actually be telling the truth. And both could be lying through their teeth. And the two are not mutually exclusive in all scenarios.

Of course one does not exclude the other, however, BPD sufferers are not typically diabolical sorts who coldly manipulate whomever and whatever to destroy the lives of others, they are not typically calculating liars. People with NPD are..

I’ve not heard this. What’s your source? Lawson, Lachkar, Kreuger, and others all documented extensive cases where BPD sufferers manipulated, calculated, and lied. They did it believing that it was morally justified, that it was the “necessary” thing to do in the circumstances, or that they had no other choice. Their motives were different, their underlying pathologies were different, but they did what they had to do.

Narcissists, on the other hand, are the cold, cruel type you describe. But “cold and cruel” are not the only motives for calculated, manipulative lying. 🙁

Julie Anne wrote:

Oh – so RHE wanted to make sure you had the link to Tony’s scathing statement (I guess she didn’t see it posted already)? Well, I guess it’s pretty clear for her, then, huh?

May wrote:

Rachel Held Evans will not come out of this smelling sweetly either. How wonderful it would have been if she had withdrawn with dignity.

To me, RHE didn’t need to withdraw from the conference at all. What they ended up doing in removing JoPa from involvement was enough for me. But it was the completely graceless way RHE handled it that really bothers me. First trying to completely dismiss the issue saying she had already investigated it with no statement as to what is was that led her to dismiss the issues raised and then the following radio silence along with stamping out any comments on her blog that raised any questions about it.

Finally, her last email that simply linked to ToJo’s reply to the allegations with nary even a comment that it is another side of the story to be considered in all this, sure looks like a parting pot-shot.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

Nancy wrote:
The very popular game of hurling diagnoses has been played by Tony and Julie, but nobody has accused RHE of being diagnosable in any way. She seems to have walked into this with eyes wide open. More and more I think people should take a step back, and take in a deep breath, and question where RHE is headed in her thinking.
RHE used to be one of my favorite bloggers.
Just like Bill Cosby used to be my favorite comedian.
And I’ll probably bow out of this thread for a while before I start having flashbacks about my probable NPD/Sociopath/master manipulator widdle bwudder. (Not formally diagnosed, of course.)
If I come back with an ALL CAPS rant about how I wish I was Tony or my brother because NPDs and Sociopaths are Winners instead of Losers and Why Couldn’t I Be One; cursing God for not making me an NPD/Sociopath instead of a Loser; or ranting about Tony & Cee Jay & my brother gloating as they sit at God’s right hand while Julie & Deb & Dee & I burn in Hell for them because they were able to lie their way out of the Last Judgment in the ultimate gaslighting blame-shift — you’ll know I’ve finally lost it.
P.S. Has Brad/Futurist Guy tackled this mess? He’s usually pretty good at analyzing a confusing “WHICH WAY IS UP?” situation and figuring out what’s really going on.

Sorry, HUG.
Me too. 🙁

I prayed for days about sharing this publicly, under names you all know, & felt God specifically leading me not to. (Gasp! Continuationist! Run for the hills!) But now I’m triggered and shaky too, and keep refreshing the page every 5 minutes. 🙁 I’m sorry you went through it too. <3

Gram3 wrote:

Those behaviors which are adaptive in the disordered relationship shape the normal person’s behavior and even thinking in such a way that their other relationships become disordered. They call the phenomenon “fleas.” Yet another way that one disordered person spreads chaos into relationships beyond that one and how the person close to a NPD/BPD/OCPD can appear to be “crazy” to someone who is unaware of the behavior of the disordered person

And thus ended my marriage… my MIL is not diagnosed with a PD but has one, I would win any bet on that. My husband’s ‘fleas’ made our marriage impossible, him having no idea of what it takes to have a healthy relationship, nor was he able to learn.

@ Gram3:
JeffT wrote:

The fact is that we just don’t know enough to choose either side, and I’m not sure that’s even the thing to do at this point. The only thing I do know is that people should not be silenced by others that happen to have some power and influence to do so.

There is the fact that Tony Jones was much better connected, had a public platform, was a minor “Christian” celebrity who used those connections and platform for his own personal gain and against Julie and his own kids. He was believed and is still believed by other minor celebs. Whereas Julie had no such platform or following and was not only NOT heard and believed but was badgered, coerced to be committed and silenced. An uneven scenario if I ever saw one.

Would Tony Jones, the NPD, send some emissaries to blogs to post “reasonable” scenarios to cast doubt. I wonder.

Maybe it is my age but I have lived long enough to see radical changes in people I know well who have lived with an NPD. One of them is the wife of a current mega church pastor.

We tend to have lots of compassion for how people deal with grief in crazy ways but not so much for how they deal with living with the evil of an NPD. (Usually it takes years for them to even realize there is a name for the roller coaster of evil they are on!)

I can tell you this, I would lie like a dog to protect my kids from such evil people if it came to that. To me, it is comparable to lying about hiding Jews. Does that make me BPD?

All this talk of NPD and BPD is very timely and topical for me in my personal life. I came out of my youth a very codependent person which has made me a magnet for these types. I wonder in a way if my evangelical upbringing was a factor in my codependency. All that worrying about witnessing to save people from hell. Now that I am aware and have made changes my life is better but still lonely and difficult at times.

I agree with everything Anonymous Child has said. As a therapist who has worked briefly with Axis II clients, I’ve seen first hand the dysfunction of couples who insist on repeatedly hitting the mutually self-destruct button.

No one has enough information to suggest he is the bad guy and she is the victim. It could be that is the case, but we. don’t. know. People with NPD can cause a lot of damage. So can people with BPD. So can the two together. Sorting out the facts second hand on the Internet when you are being handed information by two people who might/ might not have Axis II diagnoses is utterly impossible. One doesn’t want to ignore a victim, but one shouldn’t get sucked into public dramas either.

Julie is best served by the support of a therapist, and a few close friends. It does her no good to have thousands of strangers taking sides in a situation they have no hope of understanding. Both parties here have unforgivably attempted to destroy the other in public in front of their children. That right there is unhealthy in the extreme. Don’t help them do it.

@ M. Joy:

Please see my reply to Gram3.

A conference put on by JoPA or any of the people mentioned in this story is the last place on earth I would want to be.

But having said that, I am glad people of different persuasions are putting on their own conferences. Criticizing the conferences put on by others has really limited potential to help people. But putting on your own conference advances the ideas that one cares about.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

P.S. Has Brad/Futurist Guy tackled this mess? He’s usually pretty good at analyzing a confusing “WHICH WAY IS UP?” situation and figuring out what’s really going on.

Yes, Brad has been very busy working on it: https://diagnosingemergent.wordpress.com/

He will be adding to it as he gets more documentation.

HUG:

I had the same thought that you had, and I don’t even know the participants that well.

I thought, why in the world is RHE so aggressively defending this Tony guy, claiming she did an investigation, making sure to put Tony’s defense out there, and then a thought came to me.

But you expressed it.

I could be a million miles off (and it is terribly unfair that I had the thought or expressed it), but the thought came to me, just as it did you.

Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD Couple wrote:

Law Prof wrote:
Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD Couple wrote:
However, Tony having NPD does not exclude Julie from having BPD. Both could actually be telling the truth. And both could be lying through their teeth. And the two are not mutually exclusive in all scenarios.
Of course one does not exclude the other, however, BPD sufferers are not typically diabolical sorts who coldly manipulate whomever and whatever to destroy the lives of others, they are not typically calculating liars. People with NPD are..
I’ve not heard this. What’s your source? Lawson, Lachkar, Kreuger, and others all documented extensive cases where BPD sufferers manipulated, calculated, and lied. They did it believing that it was morally justified, that it was the “necessary” thing to do in the circumstances, or that they had no other choice. Their motives were different, their underlying pathologies were different, but they did what they had to do.
Narcissists, on the other hand, are the cold, cruel type you describe. But “cold and cruel” are not the only motives for calculated, manipulative lying.

I didn’t say it never happened, I said it was not typical, while with NPD not only is it typical, it is the very halmark of the condition. And I am correct.

What is my source? Every major source on DSM-IV behaviors.

OK, perhaps I read it wrong and was being a little unfair. It just seemed a teeny bit patronising to say, why attend this conference when you could just get together with a bunch of girl friends for a weekend with some wine. As if that would be the same thing. It’s not the same as attending a conference with (hopefully) carefully selected, experienced, though-provoking and challenging speakers.

It isn’t the same…as in perhaps that type of small, close gathering of women friends is *gasp* better than a dime-a-dozen conference. Why is so much weight/emphasis/respect given to conferences? I’d like to think a small gathering of my thought provoking and challenging girlfriends would be more edifying than some random/expensive conference..

@ Lydia:
Lydia, I concur. I did time facilitating such conferences as well, with Women of Faith/Thomas Nelson…

While the DSM has been praised for standardizing psychiatric diagnostic categories and criteria, it has also generated controversy and criticism. Critics, including the National Institute of Mental Health, argue that the DSM represents an unscientific and subjective system.

The DSM brings in over $5mil annually for the APA last I heard. Long story short, unless you’ve lived it directly..don’t dismiss what is being said here because the DSM says otherwise.@ Law Prof:

@ Beth:
Amen to everything you’ve said.

Lydia:

I think that you and I should put on a conference.

What topics would we cover?

What would we call it?

Whoops, that should be, “manipulations FROM the BPD to get YOU to return to the relationship.”

Funny thing: BPD & NPD are disorders that take place primarily in relationships. Without another person on the receiving end, I don’t know if there would be the same disorder. 🙁

@ Anonymous:

Call it ” A Ship Named Dialogue” – The only conference fees are for the Caribbean Cruise we all pick to go on together (and yes-there will be dancing).

The only agenda will be to have fun, get to know one another, and listen/share each others stories.

Whose in 🙂 ?

Gram3:

Our pastor must get permission from the church to participate in matters outside the church in a professional capacity. He does this because he believes it is the right thing to do.

We have not settled on the compensation thing yet – for conferences or books etc.

We want him to get some of the fruit of his labor, but being the pastor is really what has given him any platform, so some of the compensation would go to the church. We haven’t settled on it yet, but we are working on a policy to divide that up.

A tougher one is the music minister. He writes a lot of worship music. None of it has earned a lot of money yet, but it could. We have to work on that, as well.

I don’t want to hijack this post, but any ideas you guys have and any articles that you could send me to would be appreciated.

Our pastor is so humble, but is highly thought of in church planting circles. He did not follow the typical SBC path – start in small rural church, move to larger church etc. He and his wife started the church with 4 other couples, and he has pastored the church faithfully for 22 years. His pay was “at risk” in the beginning. We received a very small salary supplement for 2 years from the SBC’s NAMB, but it was much smaller than the numbers one sees now.

Anytime the pastor has a gig that produces any fee, he clears it with the church and he reports how much he will be paid. So far, the money is not significant, but we need to plan in the event it does become significant at some point.

Doubtful:

You have no idea how much fun that sounds.

I love to dance, though I am not that good.

Lydia and I could probably banter for a good 2 hours without help from anyone else.

Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD couple wrote:

@ Sara:
It’s okay, Deebs & XianAtty, among others, know who I am, & know I’m no emmisary of Tony’s.

I didn’t say you were! And neither am I by the way.

@ Anonymous:

Just as a heads up, there's an Open Discussion section here (link is under the site's banner), and it might be a good place to start that discussion since it's open by default. Just a thought; absolutely no criticism implied, as threads get derailed here on a pretty consistent basis. 🙂

@ Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD couple:
I never thought that, and am very glad that you’re contributing to this discussion.

Dee wrote:

Patrice wrote:
Two initial thoughts. First, having the kids every other weekend, Tuesday nights, 3 weeks in summer and alternating holidays does not add up to 35-40% of child care.
I saw that as well. It doesn’t add up.

I think this is the calculation:

Every other weekend (26 weekends) x 2 days per = 52 days
Tuesday nights = 52 nights
3 weeks in summer = 21 days
Alternating holidays = ?? 2, 3, 4 more days?

52 + 52 + 21 = 125
125 > 33% x 365
Add in a couple or few more days for alternating holidays and that’s pretty much the 35-40% he claims. If you don’t count the Tuesday nights as a “day” then it’s a much lower number. But I’m an attorney, not an accountant!

dee wrote:

BPD doesn’t just suddenly appear. So, was he making babies with a BPD or didn’t he care? There are questions.

Has Julie been formally diagnosed with BPD?

I have a hard time believing that two people, one with NPD and one with BPD, would stay married long enough to have 3 kids. Maybe a 2-month fling but longer…!? A person with the one disorder desperately needs exactly what the other can’t give, and it would show up tout de suite.

People with Complex PTSD are often recommended Dialectical Behavioral Therapy at some point in their healing process, because they have a hard time staying in the here/now, having found it so unsafe. DBT for ComPTSD has a slightly different focus than for BPD.

Also people with ComPTSD are sometimes confused with BPD. Early on in PTSD research, a proposal was made that they are the same. It was later debunked but the idea still hangs around in some places. And yah, some people with ComPTSD also have BPD. And people with BPD usually have some trauma in their pasts. But essentially, one disorder is damage given by others and the other disorder is a structural flaw.

One thing I intensely dislike about the BPD diagnosis—it is almost always women who land up with it. It seems to me to be tied to the “hysterical woman” thang. For that reason, I tend to think it should be dumped and a more suitable framing be given.

Also, I’m fairly certain that if Julie had been given a firm BPD diagnosis, Tony would’ve told everyone by now. Here is he is, hanging out for all to see with his NPD diagnosis and he does nothing with the very thing that would most demean his ex? I suspect Tony doesn’t tell what diagnosis Julie was given because it doesn’t exculpate him.

Of course I don’t know for sure. I’m just talking likelihoods.

Jeff S wrote:

She refutes that claiming that he didn’t want any part of the kids, but in his document he’s already said she’s lying about that, so now he makes it a he said/she said thing. And in a he said/she said battle, an NPD can be super charming.

This part of it is *not* a he said/she said thing: The parties negotiated the initial custody and support agreement between them and the court took that and signed it as the Judgment. The guardian ad litem (appointed to advocate for best interests of children) investigated and made a report. The trial was cancelled. While the court technically “awarded” or “granted” custody to Julie, that is because the judge just accepted the parties’ agreement.

This part is my opinion: Reaching an agreement to avoid putting the kids through a trial is often a part of protecting the kids. That the judge accepted the parties’ agreement and turned it into an order is not uncommon at all. It’s highly unlikely that the judge would have accepted the parties’ agreement if the guardian ad litem thought either of the parents presented a danger to the children.

Jeff S wrote:

With a real NPD, the only things that will ever “heal” them are going to be a complete change of direction initiated by the Holy Spirit (which I believe can and does happen, but you don’t trust it happened just because someone says it did) or the complete loss of everything so that the narcissist is forced to look outside of himself for help and change.

So, my question – has anyone ever seen a “healed narcissist” ?

Whether or not Jones sends out emissaries or not, there is still the issue of RHE’s response and whether that was/is appropriate. There is evidence from the NP thread that Julie was smeared with accusations of being crazy that were willingly spread by people associated with Jones. That evidence is the apologies written by at least a couple of people on that thread. They believed what they had heard and spread the word.

Neither of those two things have any direct relationship to either Tony or Julie’s views of the circumstances of their divorce. I have not seen a response from RHE to the spread of victim-blaming gossip by Jones’ associates. That is inconsistent, IMO, with taking a stance of victim-advocate which she has taken in the past.

Those are two things which Tony’s emissaries, if there are any here, cannot address because they are both relevant and undisputed, AFAIK.

Dee wrote:

For me, the issue boils down to the children.

Yes, I agree Tony has some serious issues and may not be an appropriate person to be in a position of leadership and also about the children. Thanks also for your kind comments.

On the other hand, he’s not the one going public with detailed accusations about the other parent of his children. I understand and almost always support the need for an abuse victim to be heard and acknowledged (and in relevant cases to make sure the abuser is removed from any position where he/she can abuse anyone else and that entities take proper accountability) but sometimes the welfare of the children supersede even the victim’s needs. The courts take alienation of parental affection, where one parent trashes the other parent to the children to try to make the children turn against that other parent, very seriously. I’m not saying that’s what’s happening here because I don’t know. Just saying it’s a factor to consider.

Haitch wrote:

So, my question – has anyone ever seen a “healed narcissist” ?

In his book “The Judas Syndrome”, George Simon does seem to indicate that he met a very few cases where a narcissistic type person was changed (and said it was very rare) by getting to the very, very end of things (no hope left). Now he doesn’t specifically identify them as NPDs, so I don’t know for sure, and this is on the heels of him recounting a story where he called out a “repentant” person in jail even when most people thought the repentance was real, but in the end Simon was vindicated because the guy returned to his old ways once he was not able to secure early release.

If I recall correctly (and it’s been a while since I’ve read the book), Simon also indicates he has turned narcissistic people away who came to him seeking help and would not even try to treat them until they basically reached rock bottom.

Finally, my therapist used to be a guy they sent wife abusers to by court order. He told me that of all the men he counseled, he could count on one hand the number that he would consider “reformed”, and even then he still wouldn’t trust them enough to recommend any kind of reconciliation with their victims. He also told me that those who could quote scripture were the worst of the bunch. Go figure.

XianAtty wrote:

52 + 52 + 21 = 125
125 > 33% x 365
Add in a couple or few more days for alternating holidays and that’s pretty much the 35-40% he claims.

Or it can be counted this way—

In any given span of 14 days, Tony has 1 of 10 weekdays and 2 of 4 weekend days. That is 3 of 14 days or 22% for more than 3/4 of the year. Summers are 10 weeks; 3 weeks of that is 30%. Holidays are few but evenly distributed, so 50% of ~10 days.

I remember going through this during my divorce because it felt so terrible and yet people kept giving it a positive spin for easier swallowing. I had to trust to my understanding of my ex’s flaws in order to be ok with what I actually saw. I am simply very very grateful that I was correct on that.

Numbers can be made to say different things. They are funny that way.

Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD couple wrote:

Thanks @ Melissa:
I don’t doubt he’s read a lot of DSM related stuff…but…so have I. And I just simply hadn’t seen what he was talking about. BPDs manipulate like crazy. I watched my mother lie to a police officer about a car wreck, when telling the truth would have served her much better.
The manipulative suicide attempts are the *worst* part of dealing with a BPD. My mother attempted suicide 3 times, & threatened it countless more, if we didn’t come back into relationship with her. In fact, manipulations to get a BPD to return to the relationship are so common, the support group calls them “Hoovers,” because it’s how they suck you back in.

I’ve read a fair bit in recent years, but by no means an expert (and by the way, I thought the state of the art was now DSM-5 anyway, but I’m no psychologist, so talking beyond my skill set a bit). As for personal experience, I have been close to some people–some of whom I’ve related experiences with here–who in my opinion might well fit the criteria for NPD (two pastors with whom I served as elder) or BPD (a close in-law who had a profound effect on my spouse such that she suffers from the effects thereof decades later). So I do have some personal experience, albeit granted, not as close as yours, ACNBC.

In response to Melissa, I don’t doubt the DSM categories are subjective, of course they are, what else could they be, this is not something that anyone (as yet) can put in a test tube and measure with scientific precision (and for that matter, who’s to say the hard sciences are all that hard?)

But my general understanding, based on reading, is that grand scheme manipulation and cold calculated lies accompanied by a win-at-all-costs mindset, are central to NPD, they define it, whereas one who suffers from BPD is not defined by any of the above. Of course they can and do lie to serve self, we all do at times, there has likely been only one fully honest person in the history of the world.

@ Peace From The Fringes:

Sorry you feel that way. This forum is all about Christian Trends, one of which is abuse that is covered up by so-called ‘Christian’ leaders. Victims of abuse are blamed, shamed and silenced so that there voices are not heard. That is exactly what has been alleged here. This forum exists so that those voices are not silenced and we are all left to listen and try and see that those voices get a fair hearing. Why pick this issue to drop out? What’s the difference between this one and other instances discussed here where ‘ministers’ have abused and silenced others?

Discussing these things is always ugly, but silence, for whatever reason, only serves the cause of abusers.

Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD Couple wrote:

I do want to point out that Tony claims Julie was court-ordered to undergo Dialectical Behavior Therapy. DBT was developed by Marsha Linehan, specifically to treat Borderline Personality disorder. IF what Tony says is true (and he’s an NPD, so he may lie) then what we’re actually seeing is a Narcissistic/Borderline Couple, and their horrific “dance” played out for the entire church to see.

I’m so sorry for what you experienced. I can’t even imagine having to deal with that particular hell.

Interesting you used the word dance because I wanted to say that, sometimes, in the most difficult litigation, it takes two to “tango.” It seems pretty clear that they had and have a toxic relationship.

Some have commented here that NPD and BPD are incurable. Can you shed some light on that? More specifically, is it possible that someone could have the NPD diagnosis Tony admitted to and get help that actually helps?

I’d like to point out that no one has said Julie has BPD. so there’s a lot of speculation going on as to how his NOD and her BPD could interact, but that’s way cart-before-the-horse.

I’m cynically assuming he would have outed her diagnosis if the name/number of it helped his narrative, rather than resorted to implying something by mentioning only axis 1/axis 2.

Gram3 wrote:

Because I’ve seen it, tried to work with a diagnosed NPD/BPD couple on practical matters and tried to make sense of a relative with OCPD and its own special kind of ordered chaos (unless you’ve seen it, “ordered chaos” makes so sense.) I had to find out what in the world is going on in both of those situations as well as another narcissistic one that is undiagnosed. Nothing made sense, so I talked to a psychologist who specializes in conflict and did some research. Didn’t solve either of the issues, but at least I had some understanding about the origin of the craziness.

Gram3, were there any resources that you found that you can particularly recommend if one wants to bone up on NPD/BPD/OCPD? I have to say OCPD is a new one to me…

Regarding the statement about two personality disorders getting “together”. There is a book, can’t remember the name…..that talks about why certain people gravitate towards certain personality types. It is used in therapy and counseling for spouses who have found themselves on the receiving end of emotionally manipulative and abusive relationships. To summarize what I remember. Our own pathologies have will gravitate towards aspects of other unhealthy personalities. For example, there are some studies that show that women who are drawn to the nursing profession end up being married to alcoholics at a greater rate than the general population. There is some NEED you have to feel good about yourself through helping others(therefore…become a nurse) that also draws you towards someone who needs CONSTANT attention(alcoholic). Obviously I am not saying all, or even many, nurses have this, they just found an interesting correlation.

The tragedy is that two people with significant disorders(often different) will find themselves drawn together and bring kids into that scrum.

@ Banannie:

I don’t think anyone here has speculated that Julie has BPD. I, too, would expect that Jones would have been straightforward about any mental conditions she had if it benefited him, the only one diagnosed NPD. That he didn’t point to a specific diagnosis makes me believe that hers was more likely depression or PTSD resulting from his disorder. NPD’s generally don’t pass up an opportunity to make themselves look as good as possible and their opponents as bad as they possibly can.

XianAtty wrote:

Interesting you used the word dance because I wanted to say that, sometimes, in the most difficult litigation, it takes two to “tango.” It seems pretty clear that they had and have a toxic relationship.

My type example of synergistic toxic relationship (from a Seventies-vintage book on Transactional Analysis) was called “Bitch-and-Nag married to Drunk-and-Proud-of-It”. In this example, his drinking gives her Righteous Reason to bitch & nag, and her bitching & nagging gives him a Rationalized Reason to keep on drinking. “And they live unhappily ever after.”

(Fictional example of this in pop culture: Sanford & Son‘s supporting/background characters of Aunt Esther & Uncle Woody.)

Regarding Tony’s diagnosed NPD and Julie’s possible BPD, is there precedent that being “the speshul project” of an NPD might cause BPD? NPD’s covert abuse under cover of Angel of Light is often called “crazy-making”; could it induce or supercharge BPD?

NEED FOR CLARIFICATION:

I know NPD = Narcissistic Personality Disorder
and BPD = Bordeline Personality Disorder;
but what are HPD, OCPD, and NOD?
(Other than possible Microsoft Jargon or American/Russian Government Agencies)

HPD = Histrionic Personality Disorder
OCPD = Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder

Don’t know about NOD.

Patrice wrote:

The second point is that one doesn’t “get over” NPD by taking an antidepressant and seeing a therapist, when not on the road, for a few years. If he truly understood what NPD means, he would not write such a statement.

Exactly.

A personality disorder is a very serious condition to have. It can’t be “cured” by taking medication, and sometimes not even with therapy. For many (if not most) people with PDs, it is a lifelong condition that, at best, can be managed, but not cured, with quality therapy and a strong personal commitment.

NPD is especially difficult for anyone in a position of Christian leadership. I would personally go so far as to say that someone with NPD is not suited for Christian leadership, given the direct negative overlap of NPD symptoms with the biblical requirements for Christian leaders (humility, empathy, self-sacrifice, etc.).

Jeff S wrote:

HPD = Histrionic Personality Disorder
OCPD = Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder

OK. I know “OCPD” as “OCD”. However, when it comes to HPD…

When helping me through damage from my long-ago breakup with my only girlfriend, my writing partner (the burned-out preacher and counselor) suggested she might have been a “quiet histrionic”, an HPD who did NOT show the usual HPD Drama Queen behavior. And that this was a common pattern in women whose parents divorced before they hit puberty; he had apparently seen this pattern many times.

Has anyone heard of the idea of “quiet histrionic”? I know HPDs normally exhibit Drama Queen behavior, but are there HPDs which do not while retaining the other characteristics?

Mr.H wrote:

NPD is especially difficult for anyone in a position of Christian leadership. I would personally go so far as to say that someone with NPD is not suited for Christian leadership, given the direct negative overlap of NPD symptoms with the biblical requirements for Christian leaders (humility, empathy, self-sacrifice, etc.).

Problem is, NPDs flock to POWER and PRESTIGE and anywhere where they can Exalt Their Thrones Above That of the Most High and crush the Other. Like iron filings to a magnet.

Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD couple wrote:

Funny thing: BPD & NPD are disorders that take place primarily in relationships. Without another person on the receiving end, I don’t know if there would be the same disorder.

“You need only one person for suicide, two for homicide, but at least three for blackmail.”
— G.K.Chesterton, one of the Father Brown Mysteries

Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD Couple wrote:

IF what Tony says is true (and he’s an NPD, so he may lie) then what we’re actually seeing is a Narcissistic/Borderline Couple, and their horrific “dance” played out for the entire church to see.
There’s so much information I could share about this, because through THAT lens, the interactions we’re seeing make so much more sense…Let me repeat: this situation is hell. It’s a “special” hell, because the layers upon layers of deception, distortion, confabulation, and pain are hard for anyone on the outside to cut through.

I am so sorry to hear about your hellish experiences re: NPD/BPD parents. I have a family member who was diagnosed with BPD, so I can understand a little bit about how difficult that must be.

I agree with you…seeing this play out online between Jones and his ex-wife is terribly sad. If the information that they have shared is true, then they obviously have some severe mental health issues that they are struggling with. I pray that they receive quality, professional care, and that their children do as well.

I wonder if RHE, NBW and others like them are making the mistake of thinking of NPD in terms of the colloquial use of the term “narcissism.” As in: Tony can be self centered, self-absorbed, proud, arrogant, a jerk, etc. But without realizing the profound significance of a clinical diagnosis of full blown NPD and how much more that entails than simply being thin-skinned and self-absorbed and sometimes a jerk to people who challenge him on the internet (and maybe kinda hard to be married to).

Even if they initially made that mistake I would hope they are following along on some of the threads here or at SCCL and as a result doing a little more digging, to re-evaluate how dismissive they have been of Julie and in light of the admitted full blown NPD diagnosis just how inadequate it is to simply send Dee a link to Tony’s slickly crafted counterstrike and declare they will have nothing further to say. But I am no longer optimistic that they will care to look any further. Couldn’t jeopardize the platform that leads to those speaking fees (which is where the real money is for most of the blogger/authors in the X’ian semi-celeb world), I guess. Or maybe just flat can’t be bothered or don’t want to know.

If Julie had been married to a Piper, Driscoll, Mahaney, Mohler, Ken Ham or the like I think they’d have reacted a lot different to the story and have a much greater interest in delving into the implications of the accused one’s NPD, making sure Julie’s voice was heard, and calling into question Christians who might partner with the accused.

Dave A A wrote:

I was acquainted with a chaplain who transitioned into a gourmet. He was emergent long before these emergent guys emerged. His restaurant was his baby. Like his kid, so to speak.

Didn’t St Thomas Aquinas write something about “Gluttony of Delicacy”? Where the Gluttony expresses itself not in volume eaten but in “delicacy” of only certain special foods, certain special types of preparation/presentation, and what’s NOT eaten?

Patrice wrote:

But Rachel’s and Nadia’s crankiness makes me feel that it was done out of reluctant pragmatism, because of social pressure, not out of principle.

That’s it exactly

Adam Borsay wrote:

For example, there are some studies that show that women who are drawn to the nursing profession end up being married to alcoholics at a greater rate than the general population. There is some NEED you have to feel good about yourself through helping others(therefore…become a nurse) that also draws you towards someone who needs CONSTANT attention(alcoholic). Obviously I am not saying all, or even many, nurses have this, they just found an interesting correlation.

Hellooooo,,faascinating stuff for a child of a Nurse married to an alcoholic. Who knew?

Melissa wrote:

I can’t shake the nagging feeling, observation, that positions of influence in Christian circles/churches (pastors etc) attract individuals with (more than likely undiagnosed) NPD. Why is this so?! Do any of you have a reference to articles/research on this subject?

I have read that personality disorders (especially ASPD and NPD) can be found at above-average rates among leaders, for obvious reasons. It could actually be considered a huge strength to have a PD in the corporate world.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/14/why-some-psychopaths-make-great-ceos/]

So, I guess it makes (tragic) sense that with the increasing “corporatization” of the church, that pastors would begin to emulate CEOs to the extent that the incidence of personality disorders among pastors begins to rise much higher than that in the general population. (CEOs are 4x as likely to have ASPD than a non-CEO).

Law Prof wrote:

Do not believe a thing this guy says, do not trust his sources, do not trust the veracity of his documents, even if they are bona fide government documents. Are people so foolish as to believe that a person with NPD is not capable of manipulating family, friends, officials, governments, institutions and various authorities to make things look however he wants? That is not merely a potential with a person who has NPD, that is their typical modus operandi.

Surely an appellate court’s description of documents that have been publicly filed can be trusted to be accurate? Here, the appellate court stated that the parties entered into a negotiated agreement on custody, support and termination. That is also reflected on the trial court docket. The appellate court also stated that JM stated in her written submission to the trial court of her proposed findings of fact that she agreed that TJ’s support payments were misstated in that agreement due to an inexplicable typographical error. Do you disbelieve the appellate court’s description of JM’s filing?

@ Gram3:
Yeah– that’s me too!

Jeff S wrote:

Don’t know about NOD.

An affliction of people who want to get along even when they don’t understand what’s going on so they just “NOD”.

GDARFC
http://www.acronymfinder.com/

@ numo:
‘
You’re welcome. I’m trying not to go beyond what the documents say or to note when I’m adding opinion or a “based on my experience” comment. I’m also open to being corrected if there’s something I’ve missed or gotten wrong.

Also, I’m not an emissary of Tony’s. He’s actually blocked me on Twitter. 🙂

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

Gram3 wrote:

Men-only conferences pump up men emotionally…

Really?

Ever heard of a flick called Triumph of the Will?

@ dee:
I think historians disagree about the degree to which Wesley was neglectful of his wife or overly attentive toward other ladies… I may misremembering a bit without doing research. However, I remember a few other things about the Frugal Gourmet– before he became Frugal!

Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD Couple wrote:

Does this ring a bell for anyone? Cough-Gothard-cough?

“By the cover of Heaven’s gate
I. MANIPULATE.”
— Steve Taylor, “I Manipulate” (a song said to be about Gothard and similar MenaGAWD)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKlZ7U67Uio

dee wrote:

UPDATE

I have added this new email I just received from RHE to the above post.

“See also:
http://tonyj.net/blog/2015/01/27/statement-tony-jones-regarding-allegations-abuse/
I will not be speaking further about the situation. “

Wow…have a lot to catch up on…

Really…? Is that the best answer RHE has to offer? Why, then, did she even bother speaking further on SGM? Was it merely to exploit the situation?

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

There will come a time when men will go Mad

Great quote. I don’t know why everyone else is so crazy.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

Dave A A wrote:
I was acquainted with a chaplain who transitioned into a gourmet. He was emergent long before these emergent guys emerged. His restaurant was his baby. Like his kid, so to speak.
Didn’t St Thomas Aquinas write something about “Gluttony of Delicacy”? Where the Gluttony expresses itself not in volume eaten but in “delicacy” of only certain special foods, certain special types of preparation/presentation, and what’s NOT eaten?

I was thinking of something from Lewis, though I think not the same one Nancy describes. Can’t recall the quote.
The first catered meal, I recall Smith going on and on about the Greek olives he served us. Very entertaining!

dee wrote:

@ Dave A A:
I did not know that about Wesley!!!!! Also, are you discussing the Frugal Gourmet by an chance?

Wesley’s inclusive theology and calls to social service as a major part of being Christian is probably the main reason I’m nominally Methodist-leaning. But his personal life was a mess. In fact, his first trip to America ended because of his rather harsh treatment of a woman he admired, Sophy Hopkey (but never shared with her his feelings toward her) when she choose someone else. It ended badly with Wesley leaving America.

The second episode was his love of Grace Murray, from all accounts someone who admired him and would have been a good wife for him, but Wesley has a deal with his brother Charles that they would have veto power over each other’s marriage choice. Charles objected and went on to coerce Grace to break the engagement and marry another of Wesley’s preachers.

The dysfunctional marriage to Molly Vazeille was done in secret to avoid Charles’ interference.

Wesley had other bothersome practices such as casting lots to make important decisions, among others.

All-in-all, it’s never a good thing to exalt any human to larger-than-life status, best to focus on their deeds.

XianAtty wrote:

Law Prof wrote:
Do not believe a thing this guy says, do not trust his sources, do not trust the veracity of his documents, even if they are bona fide government documents. Are people so foolish as to believe that a person with NPD is not capable of manipulating family, friends, officials, governments, institutions and various authorities to make things look however he wants? That is not merely a potential with a person who has NPD, that is their typical modus operandi.
Surely an appellate court’s description of documents that have been publicly filed can be trusted to be accurate?

LOL, that’s a good one. How much appellate work have you done? I haven’t done a ton, but I have been up to the court of appeals in two states more than once. Garbage in-garbage out. Don’t kid a kidder.

Dave A A wrote:

I was thinking of something from Lewis, though I think not the same one Nancy describes. Can’t recall the quote.

If it’s the one I’m thinking of, it’s from one of the Screwtape Letters, about a “sweet old lady” whose gluttony of delicacy means she goes guano if everything she eats isn’t just so — “just ONE little teeny-weeny piece of toast, with only a little butter”. And that because she eats about as much as an anorexic, it isn’t REALLY gluttony. Though Screwtape observes that “her appetite runs her life”, just expressed in what she DOESN’T eat instead of what she does.

Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD, I’m SO sorry you lost your child and for the pain you suffered during and since that time. Heck, for all the time being a child of such damaged people, too.

My children’s father is NPD and I’d give anything to protect them from having had him as their father. I wish it weren’t so for them and I wish it weren’t so for you. I hope that someday or even now already, that you know that you are so much more than what that person made you feel. And you deserve so much more love and support than you got.

I wish you nothing but a bright future.

Stunned

Law Prof wrote:

LOL, that’s a good one. How much appellate work have you done? I haven’t done a ton, but I have been up to the court of appeals in two states more than once. Garbage in-garbage out. Don’t kid a kidder.

I’ve done a lot of appellate work actually. Those statements from the appellate court are based upon publicly filed documents, not on what the parties represented in their briefs.

Jeannette Altes wrote:

It has struck a blow to my trust of fellow Christians. In fact, it leaves me pretty much wanting to turn and walk away. It is not a safe place.

Anyone can call themselves Christian. Don’t blame Christians, or Christianity. That said, I would certainly walk away from the wacky world of celebrity Evangelical ‘churches’, where everyone is their own pope. Those are not safe places. But they are not Christianity.

AMEN!!!!
@ Law Prof:

Law Prof wrote:

Of course, you and I both know that court records of this type typically whitewash the underlying pathos and even though the records may technically state words to the effect of “both parties agreed upon”, that such is often the result of anything but what anyone outside the legal system would define as a legitimate agreement. I made up quite a number of settlement agreements while practicing–negotiated settlements was where most of my time was spent, certainly not the courthouse, and most attorneys have the same experience–and typically neither party feels that they really agreed to anything, they just gritted their teeth and accepted it because they had no other feasible options.

Sometimes that’s true, but the appellate decision here notes that, at the time of the parties’ agreement, Julie had counsel but Tony did not. (@futuristguy further documents that by noting that when he searched the trial court docket in 2010 Tony was listed as pro se) It’s much harder to believe Julie was bullied into or believed she had no other options under those circumstances.

@ Stunned: Wow, thank you so much. That was very tender & caring, & I pray you will be blessed & healed as well. <3

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD Couple wrote:
Does this ring a bell for anyone? Cough-Gothard-cough?
“By the cover of Heaven’s gate
I. MANIPULATE.”
— Steve Taylor, “I Manipulate” (a song said to be about Gothard and similar MenaGAWD)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKlZ7U67Uio

Point 1 of 2
Strictly, it’s From the cover of Heaven’s gate

Point 2 of 2
Nice to come across another Steve Taylor fan. I’ve always liked the dark, but thoughtful and honest, edge to his lyrics. Did a very good live show at the Cambridge Corn Exchange back in 1987! (Or maybe early 1988 – can’t remember, but it was during my second year there.)

Point 3 of 2
I didn’t know it was about Gothard specifically – c’est vrai?

@ Nick Bulbeck:
I’m a fan too!
Three Steve Taylor fans on a single thread…it may explode. 😉

@ dee:

No I can’t….having watched the torturous legal fight my parents went through to protect my niece.

My niece was in constant stress and danger. She watched a parent try to commit suicide, go into sudden and unprovoked rages ( a couple times with the police), and had her life put at risk with drunk driving and over all neglect. Add drug abuse…well, you get the picture.

The worst was the constant lies to my niece. Telling her things she wanted to be true, only to be let down in the end. The constant disappointment and lies to a young child were heartbreaking.

The best thing that ever happened is when my parents fought for permanent custody and able to reunite her with her Father & a loving step-mom. For the first time in her life, she had some sense of normalcy and care.

Reality seems to be something my sibling has not been in touch with for decades.

My only piece of advice is to disengage, because anything ( and I do mean anything) you say can & will be used against you.

A FB friend of mine has–and still is–dealing with a similar situation with an ex that has NPD. Her ex was a high school classmate of mine.

My FB friend wrote a blog for a time. I commented on it . . . and a day or so later, I received an email from her ex, saying that there are “two sides to every story” and describing the blog as a “well-written fiction” by someone who was bitter, angry, and unable to move on.

I had spoken to the ex exactly ONE TIME since high school, and all of a sudden, he’s worried about how he looks to me.

I wrote back saying that the problems between him and his ex wife were his, and please don’t email me again.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

I’m certain there’s a LOT of overlap.

I think you’re right. One author wrote an article for Psychology Today called “Why Predators Are Attracted to Careers in the Clergy” based off of the article “Which Professions Have The Most Psychopaths?” In it he says, “Unfortunately, the term psychopath is bandied about too much, making things murkier. There is a huge difference between a psychopath as defined by Robert Hare, a sociopath, someone with antisocial personality disorder, someone with conduct disorder, an aggressive narcissist, or someone with dissocial personality disorder. Unfortunately most people, even many clinicians, don’t differentiate, and we should. Too often these terms are lumped together, as in the above captioned article, and that can be confusing. There are distinctions between all these terms, and so rather than use this vague and overused term (psychopath), I will call these individuals predators, which encompasses all of the above noted disorders and pathologies.”

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/spycatcher/201404/why-predators-are-attracted-careers-in-the-clergy

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

In this example, his drinking gives her Righteous Reason to bitch & nag, and her bitching & nagging gives him a Rationalized Reason to keep on drinking.

Mr.H wrote:

NPD is especially difficult for anyone in a position of Christian leadership. I would personally go so far as to say that someone with NPD is not suited for Christian leadership,

Is anyone else asking themselves why so many men in a position of “Christian” leadership are prone to this problem. Because it seems to be an occupational hazard.

Beth wrote:

Julie is best served by the support of a therapist, and a few close friends. It does her no good to have thousands of strangers taking sides in a situation they have no hope of understanding. Both parties here have unforgivably attempted to destroy the other in public in front of their children. That right there is unhealthy in the extreme. Don’t help them do it.

Tony is a public figure who made this public years ago by recruiting his colleagues and followers to try and have her committed. People she did not even know, when they heard parts of her side…finally….said they were told she was crazy, believed it because of who said it and were writing to apologize to her. Years later. Tony would love for this to be “private” now. So would other minor celebs who have hooked on to the Christian market niche gravy train.

As a therapist are you not concerned he left his children with someone he claimed to many was actually mentally unstable?

I couldn’t read all this because it was restimulating a bunch of engrams (that’s for Headless Unicorn Guy). But seriously, I’ve had my nose in Kent Hovind’s legal history for the last few weeks and I see a lot of similarities between what’s going on here with Tony and with Hovind. (However, it should be noted that unlike Tony, Hovind does not have an official diagnosis of NPD.)

Hovind may be in jail, but he’s got a hardcore fan club and some of them are dialed right up to 11 (complete with shouting on videos). One guy spoke to Hovind for nearly three hours yesterday, which takes some money and some doing, since Hovind can only call people who have an account with the jail’s phone system.

His fan club will claim Hovind was convicted of a crime that doesn’t make sense (structuring or smurfing) and ignore the 12 counts of tax evasion. They’ll say that the judge said Hovind’s crime was “worse than rape,” when I’ve gotten hold of the complete sentencing transcript and that’s not in there *at all*. (For years, the only portion of the transcript available had been a chunk where Hovind and his supporters speak.) They claim to have eight affidavits saying the judge made the rape statement, but haven’t presented them. They claim one of the attorneys on the case was a child molester. And yes he was, but he filed exactly *two* of the 475 items on the Hovind docket and was not at the trial or the sentencing. They claim it’s about religious persecution because Kent Hovind was striking a blow against evolutionists. I’ve read all nine volumes of the trial transcript, and, as the judge says, the only person who brought up religion was Hovind and his attorney. And all of this comes straight from Kent Hovind’s mouth as he keeps making these phone calls to his devoted followers, who in turn record them and put them up on YouTube.

It’s like playing Whack-A-Mole. And the judge just put off Hovind’s trial on mail fraud until March 2. *sigh* I should probably keep track of any new arguments that come out in the next month.

As to *why* I’m doing this? It’s not about the creationism! It’s about the crazy Sovereign Citizen arguments Kent Hovind makes when he’s left to his own devices. Like pleading “subornation of false muster” (which means, lying about being at roll call). This is a favorite Sovereign Citizen plea. Kent tried it in 2006 and it didn’t work. He tried it in 2014 and it didn’t work. You’d think after eight years in prison he would have gotten it through his head that he needs to play within the system, but you’d be wrong. I don’t think Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis needs to worry about competition from Hovind any time soon!

I don’t envy those of you who have taken on the TJ big ball o’ crazy. Good luck with that.

Anonymous wrote:

Lydia:

I think that you and I should put on a conference.

What topics would we cover?

How to spot an anonymous lawyer in blog comments who is aligned with Al Mohler? (wink)

What would we call it?

Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD Couple wrote:

However, by contrast, I’ve seen Julie Anne Smith interact with her accusers online for the last couple of years. (CON, Milano, et al) and she never….well, she just didn’t act the way Julie McMahon did.

Anonymous Child, you’re too kind. But I must tell you that the reason I am able to ahem “interact” with my accusers is because I type out numerous “blanks” first before hitting SEND.

True story.

And I’ve been sued o.n.c.e. so you can be sure that is always on my mind as I type.

Julie Anne wrote:

However, I’m feeling uncomfortable with any kind of labeling of Julie, period.
When the public gets involved in your private life and your children also get pulled into it (which it has), you better believe you’re going to see a Mama Bear come out (as I did when Fred Butler wrongly accused my daughter). When I was a Crazy Mama bear, someone probably could have found something in the DSM whateveryoucallit to label me,

You and me both. One of the “Christian” narcissist I know targeted my children years ago in a similar way JD Hall targeted Braxton Caner. You better bet my mama bear came out. And I am sure there is a DSM to describe what it looked like.

@ Lydia:

I think what happened is Child of NPD/BPD posted a comment and some others made note of Jones’ mention of some diagnosis Julie got which he did not specify. Basically I think several things got conflated. My experience with NPD is that he would not have hesitated to mention it, so why didn’t he? Either he is being discreet on this one point (why would he pick this of all things), or he doesn’t have diagnostic evidence and is just blowing smoky hints, hoping that people speculate about it until it becomes a “fact.” ISTM that is essentially how he established the “guano-crazy” narrative that we now know was fabricated and propagated by others. NPD recruitment in action.

XianAtty wrote:

The courts take alienation of parental affection, where one parent trashes the other parent to the children to try to make the children turn against that other parent, very seriously. I’m not saying that’s what’s happening here because I don’t know. Just saying it’s a factor to consider.

A retired lawyer I know was teaching the government mandated divorce classes. He quit. Said he could not ethically continue because of what he was required to teach about parental alienation. he said they required to scare the daylights out of the custodial parent. he said it makes it impossible for a parent to protect their kids from an unsafe parent where the courts won’t intervene as he saw often in court. Parental Alienation is a great tool for a non diagnosed narcissistic parent. And the other parent cannot even give their kids strategies for dealing with them or it is alienation.

Lydia wrote:

Why do we hold the Non NPD person to a higher standard?

I think what happens is that the person who has the most power to make life better or worse for someone is generally the one who is believed. As a result, the NPD is the one who is believed because NPD’s will make life either good or miserable for someone depending on how that person responds to the NPD. The corollary to that in legal proceedings is that the party who is most willing to lie or do other unethical things is the one who is likely to get more of what they want.

On a somewhat related matter, the arguments that Xian Attorney makes are unpersuasive to me because of my personal experience with the legal system and having attorneys who wised me up and fast. To me s/he is too eager to get us to accept the record as being representative of the entire picture of what occurred. I can’t think of any settlement I’ve seen that represented what either party thought was totally just and correct.

The settlement certainly cannot tell us anything about *why* either party agreed to it, and any inference or implication from the settlement is not going to bear weight, IMO. To me, Xian Attorney wants us to accept the record as evidence that each party thought that the settlement was the optimal outcome for them. In reality it was probably a pragmatic decision made by both based on expected outcome and costs of pursuing the trial.

A little editorial here: Most people think that we have a system of justice. Not true. We have a system, in my understanding, with rules and procedures designed to get the best overall approximation of justice in the system as a whole, but that does not mean that any given instance will yield justice. Judges and juries are not God, so it’s probably the best we can do. The system can be gamed to some extent and the person who is most willing to game it may get more “justice.”

The suit filed by Chuck O’Neal against Julie Anne is an excellent example of this. CON and his supporters probably did not expect her to fight it. Many times things are agreed to in mediation or settled otherwise because to fight an issue just costs too much. Anyone who has been through mediation knows that the system is not concerned with justice as much as it is adherence to procedures and quick resolution.

Good attorneys advise their clients when it makes sense to fight and when it makes sense to settle. That is why I also reject Xian Attorney’s implication that the fact that Julie had an attorney and Jones represented himself means she got what she wanted. She may have received good advice regarding what she could reasonably expect a trial outcome to yield as well as how much it was likely to cost. Whether Jones had an attorney or not is not particularly crucial on this point.

Disclaimer: These are non-professional opinions based on my experience.

Patrice wrote:

I also vote for Lydia’s idea that dealing closely with an NPD for years will make anyone look crazy. In an earlier thread here,

I am no psychologist or lawyer but my time as a board member for a spouse abuse center first showed me this side of the world I never knew before. I spent a lot of time in actual advocacy because these women often had no one. Sadly, too many pastors would come and tell them to go home to their husbands.

But then the mega church world of celebrity Christianity showed me even more of the havoc narcissistic types wreck on folks around them. In the Name of Jesus, of course, because their ministry is so important. (And I believe these types are attracted to ministry because there is a protection for them there and they receive some supply simply by being on stages. Or if not attracted for the supply then developed traits from living in that entitlement world)

I did notice that some of the victims of NPD types would go through similar cycles like someone who grieves…denial, grief, anger, etc. Most did not have a label for the problem in their lives. But even if they got out, it cycled because they could never really escape the NPD because of child visitation/rearing issues. NPD types always use the children when convenient. So their lives became a constant vigil of looking over their shoulder, documenting everything, dealing with the child’s trauma…… because NPD’s are very clever, bold and steps ahead. These are people (victims) who live in prolonged trauma while trying to parent and working full time jobs often very low income if they are not professionals. And the habits that come from dealing with the chaos of living with an NPD is something they have to actually unlearn. And folks wonder why they might snap, be vindictive or sarcastic? I started seeing that as sort of a healthy thing after years of gaslighting.

Here is a great book that I came across in research that might help some understand this better:

http://www.amazon.com/Promise-Despise-Abuse-Marriage-Narcissistic/dp/0615406564

The best results of therapy I have seen dealing with this sort of prolonged trauma is EMDR. I wish more therapists would get trained but it is not as profitable as CBT because many victims get well faster.

Gram3 wrote:

To me, Xian Attorney wants us to accept the record as evidence that each party thought that the settlement was the optimal outcome for them. In reality it was probably a pragmatic decision made by both based on expected outcome and costs of pursuing the trial.

There is also the intimidation factor going on. The total discomfort of being in the same room and knowing you are going to look “unreasonable” because the NPD always looks “reasonable”. People do not understand what it means to “fight” an NPD.

Gram3 wrote:

That is why I also reject Xian Attorney’s implication that the fact that Julie had an attorney and Jones represented himself means she got what she wanted. She may have received good advice regarding what she could reasonably expect a trial outcome to yield as well as how much it was likely to cost. Whether Jones had an attorney or not is not particularly crucial on this point.

I thought the divorce was in 2009. Xtian attorney is quoting something from 2010, right? I got the impression she was not really represented early on. Perhaps she saw the light about representation when he tried to get his ministry colleagues to talk her into being committed?

Significant new info posted by Reuben Mills in the thread on SCCL Facebook page. He has copies of documents that seem to show TJs statement is full of spin and sleight of hand.

@ Lydia:

I don’t know the timeline of her representation. IIRC, upthread Xian Attorney implied that Julie’s representation when Tony was not represented means that she got what she wanted so what’s the complaint about the settlement? I don’t think that conclusion necessarily follows from the fact that she was represented.

Xian Attorney’s implication might seem plausible to someone who has not lived through a very unpleasant reality check delivered by a good attorney. I have, so I think it is certainly just as plausible that Julie’s attorney, who knew what she could reasonably expect, gave her good advice that she did not necessarily want to hear.

JeffT wrote:

Ms. Jones has problems regulating her emotions

Just like any normal person does under severe and/or prolonged conditions of stress and anxiety. BPD goes way beyond some vague problem of emotional regulation. Bi-polar is another thing entirely though they are often confused.

Lydia wrote:

Tony is a public figure who made this public years ago by recruiting his colleagues and followers to try and have her committed. People she did not even know, when they heard parts of her side…finally….said they were told she was crazy, believed it because of who said it and were writing to apologize to her. Years later. Tony would love for this to be “private” now. So would other minor celebs who have hooked on to the Christian market niche gravy train.
As a therapist are you not concerned he left his children with someone he claimed to many was actually mentally unstable?

I think custody issues can be very complicated, and there are many possible reasons for why their custody ended up the way it did. I am hardly going to hand him the parent of the year award though, lol.

I think the behavior each describes the other as doing is consistent with both having a personality disorder. The huge problem here is that neither has been a reliable source of info, so the possibilities for what actually happened are endless. Not to mention, victims of abuse can show Axis II type behaviors as a result of their abuse, and these behaviors can dissipate as they gain distance from the abuse. It can be very difficult for even a trained person to tease out what is PTSD and what is actual Axis II stuff.

This is a dysfunctional relationship that is consistent with two mutually shattered and destructive people. It is also consistent with abuse. There is no way any of us can tease out what is really going on.

One last thing before my blood boils over. There’s a Storify site for ToJo’s fans to tell their “Truth About Tony”

https://storify.com/TruthAboutTony

Here’s one from a fangirl:

“Message Received From Nadia Bolz-Weber, 01.28.15
I love your honesty…your devotion to your family… Emailed to lovefortony@gmail.com

byAvatar for TruthAboutTonyTruthAboutTony13 hours ago294 Views
Embed
“I love you, Tony. I love your honesty, your disarming wit, your devotion to your family, and your theological mind.”

And apparently the WhyChristian? conference is now going to be held in ToJo’s backyard – Colonial Church in Edina Minnesota

Lastly, got this link from an Amy Smith Tweet:

https://rlstollar.wordpress.com/2015/01/28/a-response-to-tony-joness-statement/

JeffT wrote:

There’s a Storify site for ToJo’s fans to tell their “Truth About Tony”

https://storify.com/TruthAboutTony

There’s one from Phyllis Tickle in there too. She says, Tony! because he spread the thinking of Rene Girard and Girard writes of scapegoating….

Sheesh

@ JeffT:

Thanks!

The RL Stollar blog is spectacular. Already linked, but will link it again because I think it is important.

https://rlstollar.wordpress.com/2015/01/28/a-response-to-tony-joness-statement/

To summarize; He has read the actual documents from the cases…illustrates some clear lies by TJ, and also clearly explains how even the act of TJ using his exponentially larger network to get out the story and control the narrative is part of the dynamics of abuse. AND, RHE and others are participating in giving TJ the ability to control, damage and attack Julie when she has no equal ability to respond. By the simple virtue of RHE tweeting out the link to TJ’s 12 page diatribe she has actively participated in institutional abuse.

Thanks for posting a link that works.
@dee
Yes, he was absolutely implying BPD. Even though he knew full well that the eval explicitly denies that she has BPD.

JeffT wrote:

“I love you, Tony. I love your honesty, your disarming wit, your devotion to your family, and your theological mind.”

“I love you, My Joker. I love your honesty, your disarming wit, your devotion to your family…”
— Harley Quinn

mirele wrote:

As to *why* I’m doing this? It’s not about the creationism! It’s about the crazy Sovereign Citizen arguments Kent Hovind makes when he’s left to his own devices. Like pleading “subornation of false muster” (which means, lying about being at roll call). This is a favorite Sovereign Citizen plea.

Judge Tim has commented before that when someone’s opening statement is reading a Sovereign Citizen Manifesto to the court, it’s not only going to be a LONG day, but it can only go downhill from there.

Hester wrote:

@ Jeff S.:
I *do* think Julie should not have been silenced or shamed. I do think it’s wrong to trust Tony with a position of power and trust. Beyond that, there’s not much about this specific situation we should be talking about.
Yup.

Not sure about that, so I’m going to push back a bit. If it were not for the specific facts of a particular case, we wouldn’t be discussing the broader issues of ignoring abuses within our tribe and why those issues are ignored, leaders behaving inconsistently with their previous platform, and people accepting and even promoting nonsense like “sacramental” marriages from a self-styled minister of the Gospel.

I think we need to be careful about these things, but Tony Jones would like nothing better than to have the big issues swept aside along with the personal ones. He wants it to be about a “messy” and “complicated” divorce that is a personal matter while ignoring that he took their personal business public when he recruited his friends to gaslight her. That in itself should be a scandal in the Emergent/Progressive community.

Adam Borsay wrote:

By the simple virtue of RHE tweeting out the link to TJ’s 12 page diatribe she has actively participated in institutional abuse.

Must be repeated!

@ dee: This is all very suspect in my opinion. I will try wading through the tome. I understand it is 12 pages long?

@ Adam Borsay:

Tony and his supporters don’t seem to understand abuse at all. They certainly don’t understand the power TJ, and his supporters by propping him up, are wielding against Julie and the children.

Like I said early on, Tony’s statement is a manifesto and he shows no concern for his children at all, only for his rightness a win.

Whoops replaced Law Prof in earlier comment. I meant this instead:

XianAtty wrote:

I don’t buy everything that Tony is selling but

@ Adam Borsay:

Thanks for the link.

From the article:

“Reflect back on what I said earlier about the release of his statement and keep the power differentials in mind. On the same day that he published it, who shared it and went to bat for him? Rachel Held Evans, with almost 60,000 Twitter followers. Jay Bakker, with over 16,000 followers. Jeff Chu, with over 6,000 followers. David Sessions, whose tweet was favorited by Zach Hoag (who previously “stood with SGM victims”), with 12,000 followers. Also keep in mind that Jones himself has over 14,000 followers as well as a nationally recognized blog and a respected speaking circuit as a pastor and progressive Christian thinker.

Now reflect on Julie McMahon. How many Twitter followers does she have? 167.

Where do McMahon’s statements receive a platform? In the comments sections of a few blogs. That’s it.”

@ Gram3:

Gram3, I posted my response before I saw the additional info.

You asked about my experience. In my experience, diagnosing personality disorders is a tricky business. It is also my experience that relationships with people with personality disorders never go well in the long run. It’s kind of inherent in the diagnosis.

I see this stuff as really complex, but if I try and convey that, it just ends up sounding like I’m trying to support Tony or trying to cast doubt on Julie. I don’t want to do either, so I think it’s best to just leave it at that. I hope all involved can eventually find some healing, especially those poor kids.

@ Beth:
It is pretty well impossible to discuss this without taking sdes -one of the painful realities of any public talk about the inner workings of these kinds of relationships. I wish all the best for Julie and her kids, but feel as you do in fact, a lot of the back and forth on various sites reminds me of high school cliques, and i am dismayed by it all.

@ adam borsay: Oh my! This sounds like a person I am dealing with. I was reading a description in Mayo Clinic online and the person I am dealing with is like a grownup version of a spoiled brat. If he were a child and my child I would give him a good swat on the behind. Avoidance? No way I can avoid him. In fact we are on a collision course.

@ Mark: I am kind of scared because everyone views this person as a very devious, manipulative person. But he is also a bully who is used to getting his way. He isn’t a preacher. I amy praying for my encounter with this person I would really like to avoid.

dee wrote:

I am trying to read storify and the we love Tony thing. i read 6 of them so far. None of them mention the welfare of his kids.

Do any of them gush “I WANT TO HAVE HIS CHILD!!!!!”?

@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
@ dee:

The Frugal Gourmet did indeed have a deli called the Chaplain’s Pantry. He was a university chaplain in Tacoma, Washington, before his books took off.

@ Julie Anne:

For some reason I had trouble opening that link I tweeted to you on my laptop, so here’s the appellate court decision as posted at legal research site justia.com

http://law.justia.com/cases/minnesota/court-of-appeals/2014/a13-482.html

Patrice wrote:

Is it unethical to change one’s mind? I ask that seriously, is that so, in law?
It is narrowly unethical to try to retrieve, through a mistake in calculation, some of the money that a wealthier father was ordered to pay for the children but did not, earlier. Is it more ethical, then, to leave the poorer mother with yet another burden for the sake of specific rectification?

Yes. In litigation, a party is bound by his or her admissions or statements of fact once they are presented to the court unless the court finds that the party has shown good cause for being relieved of that burden (such as if additional facts were discovered). Further, an appellant, as Julie was, cannot take a different position on appeal than she took before the trial court. In part, that’s because it’s not fair to the other party and wastes the court’s time to have the matter litigated under one set of facts and then be confronted with a party trying to assert a different set of facts that would have to be relitigated. That’s in part why the appellate court found that as a legal matter she had waived her right to make the new argument.

Also, Tony didn’t try to get the payments lowered through a miscalculation. The neutral referee found the error and brought it to the parties’ attention and gave them ample opportunity to explain it. It’s more ethical to hold a party to the factual and legal position they took with the advice of counsel. It’s not unethical in the legal sense or in the general sense to hold a party to a position to which she agreed. Otherwise, litigation would never end. While Julie and her attorney were not sanctioned by the court for the change in position, the well-established legal consequence is that Julie was found by the appellate court to have waived her position. Also, she was ordered to pay Tony’s court costs (but not his attorney’s fees).

Here is some of the appellate order:

The referee held a telephone conference and asked the parties to explain the potential discrepancy. At the conclusion of the hearing, the referee gave the parties the opportunity to address the issue in post-hearing submissions. In an affidavit, respondent [Tony] stated that he could not find any basis for his $1,834 monthly child-support obligation, and speculated that the figure may have been a clerical error caused by the production of multiple drafts of the decree. Appellant [Julie] submitted a letter and proposed findings to the district court. In the letter, appellant acknowledged that she could not offer any insight as to how the parties calculated respondent’s original child-support obligation, and agreed that it should have been set at the pro rata child support amount of $1,414 minus appellant’s share of dependent health care. Appellant’s proposed findings stated that the district court discovered a typographical error in the judgment and decree, which resulted in a decrease in respondent’s court-ordered child support, and the district court corrected the error retroactive to the date of the entry of the judgment and decree. … On appeal, appellant argues that the parties’ November 2009 judgment and decree correctly states respondent’s child-support obligation, and it is not a clerical error. Appellant contends that the parties’ child-support and spousal-maintenance obligations were bargained-for elements of the dissolution contract, and respondent agreed to pay a higher amount of child support. … After reviewing the record, we conclude that appellant waived her right to appeal
the district court’s retroactive correction of respondent’s child-support obligation because she failed to raise the issue before the district court. Here, appellant was put on notice by the referee at the telephone hearing that there was a potential discrepancy in the calculation of respondent’s child-support obligation. Both parties had the opportunity to file post-hearing submissions to the referee about the potential error. Appellant conceded in her proposed findings that respondent’s child-support obligation was a clerical error, and should be corrected retroactively to the date of the original judgment and decree. It is clear from the record that appellant waived the issue.

Gram3 wrote:

If it were not for the specific facts of a particular case, we wouldn’t be discussing the broader issues of ignoring abuses within our tribe and why those issues are ignored, leaders behaving inconsistently with their previous platform, and people accepting and even promoting nonsense like “sacramental” marriages from a self-styled minister of the Gospel.
I think we need to be careful about these things, but Tony Jones would like nothing better than to have the big issues swept aside along with the personal ones. He wants it to be about a “messy” and “complicated” divorce that is a personal matter while ignoring that he took their personal business public when he recruited his friends to gaslight her. That in itself should be a scandal in the Emergent/Progressive community.

I think this specific case has caused some good conversation and people are learning a lot about personality disorders and their relationship to faith; however, there’s not much we can do in this case once we’ve taken away TJ’s pwer
Mark wrote:

What some would term narcissistic personality disorder or borderline personality, I would term behaving badly. I can understand post traumatic stress of dealing with people behaving badly, but I can’t excuse people behaving badly even if it isdescribed in some psychological diagnosis manual. It needs to be called what it is rather than excused with some diagnosis.

Diagnosing these things is not excusing them. I’ve never read a thing that would even imply you should make allowances for an NPD because of a diagnosis. In fact, most recommendations about how to deal with an NPD is to stay away because they will destroy you.

@ Jeff S: while you’re absolutely correct about DBT being used for other dx besides BPD, it was developed by someone with BPD, and remains the only treatment consistently recommended for folks with BPD. Prettying every time I hear about someone doing DBT it raises the borderline question in my mind, however briefly.

So for him to say “axis II dx” AND mention the DBT referral really is an implication. And you can see it’s effectiveness by the discussion it sparked in this very comment thread.

True, it is not technically a false statement about Julie, but then I suspect his attorney made sure he didn’t make any provably false statements.

@ XianAtty:
I am willing to continue a discussion with you about ethics in/out of court after you explain why you retweeted support for Tony while also writing here that you have no skin in the game, don’t know the parties, etc. For the sake of ethics.

@ Patrice:
Ach, not Jeff S but XianAtty. I am sometimes mistake prone, but am fairly certain these misattributions are wordpress glitches in longer threads.

Banannie wrote:

while you’re absolutely correct about DBT being used for other dx besides BPD, it was developed by someone with BPD, and remains the only treatment consistently recommended for folks with BPD. Prettying every time I hear about someone doing DBT it raises the borderline question in my mind, however briefly.
So for him to say “axis II dx” AND mention the DBT referral really is an implication. And you can see it’s effectiveness by the discussion it sparked in this very comment thread.
True, it is not technically a false statement about Julie, but then I suspect his attorney made sure he didn’t make any provably false statements.

I don’t disagree. For me it was more a matter of surprise that everyone jumped on the BPD bandwagon and I originally didn’t pick up on the idea that BPD was implied at all because my only experience (or rather wife-of-a-friend experience) with DPT had nothing to do with BPD.

Gram3 wrote:

If it were not for the specific facts of a particular case, we wouldn’t be discussing the broader issues of ignoring abuses within our tribe and why those issues are ignored, leaders behaving inconsistently with their previous platform, and people accepting and even promoting nonsense like “sacramental” marriages from a self-styled minister of the Gospel.
I think we need to be careful about these things, but Tony Jones would like nothing better than to have the big issues swept aside along with the personal ones. He wants it to be about a “messy” and “complicated” divorce that is a personal matter while ignoring that he took their personal business public when he recruited his friends to gaslight her. That in itself should be a scandal in the Emergent/Progressive community.

I think the conversations about personality disorders have been helpful in a general sense. It’s been awakening to me to see how much people really don’t understand the basics of NPD (as in, how can all of these people supporting Tony post a link to a document in which he admits to being a narcissist and say “Ah ha! vindicated!”?). Someone above commented they didn’t think an NPD should be in a position of Christian leadership. I would go a step further and say that NPD is absolutely contrary to the notion of being a Christian. I do not believe a person can be an NPD and a Christian at the same time (but I do believe that a NPD can be transformed by the Holy Spirit, just like anyone else).

I think this conversation has also illuminate the very important point that we need to take allegations of abuse seriously, especially when we are in ministry and the accused are in positions of power and responsibility. Abusers can be very crafty and make allies of people who don’t even understand the evil they are supporting, and this is not a weakness of one particularly theology- it can happen to anyone, anywhere. Wherever there is power, there is an attraction to a narcissist.

Finally, it’s important that we create safe places for the powerless and weak and we do not allow the strong to shame them. Regardless of any diagnosis, a community using the type of language Tony’s did to shame Julie is not OK, and not representative of Christ.

However, while all of these things needed to be discussed and learned, I don’t believe that trying to figure out exactly what did or didn’t happen between Tony and Julie is helpful to them or us. It’s enough for us to know he’s not trustworthy and shouldn’t be in a position of power, and that she was unfairly silenced and shamed. We as a community cannot fix what is broken by figuring out what the diagnoses were or who did what to whom.

I believe in giving Julie a voice, and I believe in taking power away from Tony; however, I believe we can take these actions without trying to read between the lines of the statements they’ve made.

dee wrote:

Banannie wrote:
Yes, he was absolutely implying BPD. Even though he knew full well that the eval explicitly denies that she has BPD.
Now I’m really getting upset. This is NPD in action.

Yes, absolutely. 🙁

Jeff S wrote:

I don’t disagree. For me it was more a matter of surprise that everyone jumped on the BPD bandwagon and I originally didn’t pick up on the idea that BPD was implied at all because my only experience (or rather wife-of-a-friend experience) with DPT had nothing to do with BPD.

It bothered me quite a bit. TJ’s statement was very vague on that score but folks seemed to run with it as a supposed diagnosis because it fit something they were familiar with. I think TJ is pleased and that is exactly what he was hoping folks did with it. Another poster on Facebook went through her diagnosis which was mostly about being “over emotional”. But we all know that is a death knell in Christendom for a woman. Even a woman who has suffered an NPD. Go figure.

I have no doubt that lawyers vetted his statement which we now know was written a while back and shared as early as Oct 2014 (after nakedpastor thread?) was on TJ’s site (a finding by Brad/futurist guy). I hope I have all that right. Some think that it is the document RHE and others were referring to as “proof” that Tony was credible.

But Gram had it right. As an NPD if he had a diagnosis of BDP, we would know all about it front and center. But NPD’s use what they have at their disposal. So much chaos was created instead– which they also love because people off balance are easier to control.

I am struck by the fact that movement leaders and fellow travelers who made their name on “feminism” are now circling the wagons to protect a male NPD who left his legal wife for a “sacramental wife” leaving his kids with what he claimed was a mentally ill mother. The irony is chilling. There is a lesson there for all of us about getting caught up in movements and following leaders.

Banannie wrote:

@ Jeff S: while you’re absolutely correct about DBT being used for other dx besides BPD, it was developed by someone with BPD, and remains the only treatment consistently recommended for folks with BPD. Prettying every time I hear about someone doing DBT it raises the borderline question in my mind, however briefly.
So for him to say “axis II dx” AND mention the DBT referral really is an implication. And you can see it’s effectiveness by the discussion it sparked in this very comment thread.
True, it is not technically a false statement about Julie, but then I suspect his attorney made sure he didn’t make any provably false statements.

Thank you for saying so!!! And as someone who has experience w/ what happens when NPD and BPD get together, it would have been *irresponsible* to not point out the destructive possibilities of “what if BPD is involved here?”

Gram3 wrote:

So I think the discussion has been helpful in exposing some dynamics that occur in relationships and in churches and in churchy organizations

Absolutely! It is almost impossible for those who are NOT tied to an NPD to understand what DAILY life is like around them. I have always thought that deception is the worst evil because you really don’t know what you are dealing with or what you are supporting for such a long time. NPD’s are experts at deception.

Tony’s followers are determined to make this about their “private divorce”. But Tony made it a public issue when he spread the word she was mentally ill and enlisted his ministry colleagues and followers to help him get her committed. People she had never met were apologizing to her on nakedpastor for believing it back then! Nope. TJ is the one that made this a public issue.

Jeff S wrote:

dee wrote:
Mentioning about DBT is implying BPD.
Except DBT is used for more than just BPD.

True, but saying “DBT” plus “Axis II” is pretty much saying it, in a not-saying-it-way, for anyone who knows the language of this field.

@ Jeff S:

Your experience is an important part of the picture, and I want to make sure to emphasize that. You are in the perfect position to debunk Jones’ implication of BPD via a particular therapy, and that is what you did.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

every word was carefully chosen for a totally-Innocent, Plausibly-Deniable fallback position?

Common technique. “I didn’t say that! Where in the world did you get *that* idea!”

Rely on implication and fall back to parsing.

Lydia wrote:

Absolutely! It is almost impossible for those who are NOT tied to an NPD to understand what DAILY life is like around them. I have always thought that deception is the worst evil because you really don’t know what you are dealing with or what you are supporting for such a long time. NPD’s are experts at deception.

“For Satan himself
can transform himself
to appear as an Angel of Light.”

Mark wrote:

Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD Couple wrote:
Mark wrote:
What some would term narcissistic personality disorder or borderline personality, I would term behaving badly. I can understand post traumatic stress of dealing with people behaving badly, but I can’t excuse people behaving badly even if it isdescribed in some psychological diagnosis manual. It needs to be called what it is rather than excused with some diagnosis. I don’t believe in nouthetic counseling, but this is also some weird stuff.
That’s unfortunate. Some day you will come face to face w/ these people—they’re 2% of the population, so just do the math w/ your facebook friends!!–and you’ll be glad you have this specific, weird information.

I already am as of this writing, and am dreading it. This is beyond being bad behavior. So next week I will be dealing with this individual and am dreading it. I can’t avoid it because I am working with this person. I feat I am dealing with “Satan.” There is a very good description of NPD at the Mayo Clinic online. These people are not rational and leave a swath of destruction. I never knew it had a name.

I’m so sorry!!! Look up the book “Children of the Self-Absorbed” to help you. It was actually written by someone who had to deal w/ a NPD collegue, and then researched what it must be like to grow up w/ such a parent. It will at least give you some help as you deal w/ this person!!! 🙁

Lydia wrote:

@ Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD Couple:
How would it have been irresponsible not to explain BDP? You have lost me. There was simply an implication in a statement by Tony Jones the NPD.

Because, BPD/NPD marriages *do happen*. They happen enough that manuals, psych textbooks, and court guidelines are written just for them. If Tony was telling the truth (and even a broken clock is right twice a day!) then a BPD MAY have been coming on to THIS blog, creating a smear campaign against her ex, and getting money from MY FRIENDS.

Many people make false assumptions, like, “Oh gee, they could never stay together and produce kids!” as true, without realizing that the very nature of the disease ensures it will happen.

If Tony had documented evidence (which he claimed to have!) that Julie Mac had BPD, it would have been irresponsible not to discuss the possibility.

@ Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD Couple:

There was no evidence. At all. There was an “implication” there left for folks to draw just the conclusion you drew. Tony admitted he has a diagnosis of NPD. See, he cannot get around it now and knows it so he is “projecting” onto Julie implicating she is “just as bad as him”….. and you unwittingly helped that along.

I am very empathetic with your situation and realize you have lived through hell but you allowed an NPD to convince you of something by simple vague implication. This is why I won’t even talk to NPD’s. Never.believe.them. Always assume there is another agenda going on.

God bless you and I really do hope you find peace and comfort. You have done some hard work to deal with your childhood. I cannot even imagine.

Lydia wrote:

I am struck by the fact that movement leaders and fellow travelers who made their name on “feminism” are now circling the wagons to protect a male NPD who left his legal wife for a “sacramental wife”

Where have we seen that before? It reminds me of noble cause corruption, though I don’t know that is what is going on here.

Gram3 wrote:

Not sure what you mean by trying to figure out exactly what was going on between Tony and Julie.

I mean conjecture as to who hurt whom, who has what diagnosis (other than what has been clearly stated), and things of that nature. Using this situation as a springboard to talk about general things is profitable, but we have to be clear that, for example, if we are talking about BPD we are not talking about Julie. I don’t think that happened here, and I fear that if she came and read this thread, she would feel injured by a lot of what was written.

linda wrote:

I’m going to agree with our anonymous person that BOTH TJ and Julie seem mentally ill

This is the kind of statement that is causing me pause- I don’t think we can make these kinds of judgments at all. We just don’t know what is going on, and what “seems” to be the case to someone outside of the situation may not be true at all to someone very knowledgeable about it.

At the same time, saying we should just ignore the situation isn’t the right answer. You cannot ignore it when a trusted Christian leader like RHE who has called out abuser supporters in other tribes works with an NPD who is accused of abuse, shuts down conversations about it, and then points to a statement in which he admits to being a narcissist as justification that all is well.

I’m saying we need to talk about abuse without silencing those without power, and we need to hold Christian leaders accountable to not partnering with or supporting those who are not trustworthy.

When RHE pairs with Julie to put on a conference, then we can talk about whether she is trustworthy and psychologically fit to be in a position of power.

Patrice wrote:

@ XianAtty:
I am willing to continue a discussion with you about ethics in/out of court after you explain why you retweeted support for Tony while also writing here that you have no skin in the game, don’t know the parties, etc. For the sake of ethics.

A reply to this would be welcome.

Lydia wrote:

I have no doubt that lawyers vetted his statement which we now know was written a while back and shared as early as Oct 2014 (after nakedpastor thread?) was on TJ’s site (a finding by Brad/futurist guy). I hope I have all that right. Some think that it is the document RHE and others were referring to as “proof” that Tony was credible.

Where did this information come from? Are you saying that the statement that TJ put on his site a few days ago was written in October?

@ linda:
This comment is exactly what I was concerned about happening in this thread. So unfair to the victim of an NPD!

There is no BDP diagnosis for Julie. The NDP wanted people to believe there was one. It has worked.

JeffT wrote:

“Interesting discovery by @futuristguy. TJ’s statement was written last year but not made public ’til yesterday. “

Like a sniper in a hide — weapon Locked & Loaded, waiting and waiting and waiting until the target presents itself/nobody else is looking and it’s time to pull the trigger.

Lydia wrote:

If this person is your boss, start looking elsewhere. NPD’s are evil and much more clever than you or I will ever be.

For the same reason a lot of High Profile Netizens and Big Name Fans in a lot of fandoms are 50-somethings still in their Mommy’s Basement.

Because to a Drooling Fanboy (or NPD), his obsession (for an NPD, Exalting His Throne Above That of the Most High) IS his entire existence. He can spend 24/7/365 in self-promotion, grooming fanboys, building and maintaining His Brand and Narrative without letup. Because it IS his entire existence. 1000% of his being is dedicated to this, without breaks, without downtime, without letup. BECAUSE NOTHING ELSE EXISTS OR CAN EXIST EXCEPT HIMSELF AND HIS OBSESSION.

(Remember where NPD got its name — the Greek Myth of Narcissus, who wasted away and starved to death because he couldn’t tear himself away from admiring his reflection.)

“The constant, unsmiling concentration on Self which is the true Mark of Hell.”
— C.S.Lewis, preface to Screwtape Letters

And those who dare to oppose him have lives and jobs and other things in their lives. They cannot put 1000% of their being into opposing him 24/7/365, AND HE CAN. (200,000 Twitter followers vs 168, where Social Media = Reality.)

Gram3 wrote:

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

every word was carefully chosen for a totally-Innocent, Plausibly-Deniable fallback position?

Common technique. “I didn’t say that! Where in the world did you get *that* idea!”

Rely on implication and fall back to parsing.

It was a favorite of my brother’s. Helped along by our father, who literally could not tell the difference in voice tones. (I think I know where I got my Aspergers-like traits.) Widdle Bwuder used to get away with saying stuff in a tone of Utter Contempt, and Dad would take the words (neutral to complementary) at total face value.

And remember all those MenaGAWD (spotlight on Calvinistas) parsing their Reformed theology not only word-for-word but letter-by-letter?

Lydia wrote:

NPD’s are evil and much more clever than you or I will ever be.

I would like, if I may, to leave aside completely for the moment, any discussion of any specific person, whether or not they have ever been diagnosed with anything. I realise that feelings are running very high here and now regarding Mr Jones, Ms McMahon, RHE and what she is or is not saying, etc, etc. Thus, it may not be easy to detach the discussion from them. But I’d like to observe something about the condition of NPD in general.

It is a myth that everyone who suffers from a personality disorder is fiendishly clever. (It’s also not true that everyone on the autistic spectrum is a maths genius, nor that every blind person has preternaturally acute hearing.) Some are; some aren’t. Accordingly, it is a myth that anyone who is, or whom you suspect might be, NPD, is a Nazgûl Lord before whom all must flee or be destroyed. It is true that you can’t reason or negotiate with an NPD person as you might with someone else. I.e., you have to choose a different approach. That doesn’t mean you can’t deal with an NPD person, but it does mean that you have to deal with them in the right way.

A person with NPD has little or no conscience, and this means they can comfortably make up whatever lies they want to without feeling the internal discomfort that most people do when they lie. In other words, they appear calm and self-collected whilst lying, and that is why people believe them. Human beings are suckers for a confident outward façade.

The NPD person will insist that 2+2 = 5. Minutes later, they will laugh at that suggestion and insist that 2+2 = 4, and that they’ve obviously never believed any different. Normal people couldn’t do this, but the NPD person can because their sense of entitlement convinces them that the “truth” really is exactly what they need it to be at any given moment.

In the workplace, you rarely find the NPD person so dominant that they have 95% of people in their thrall and a few scapegoat victims. Often, everyone else is as fed up with them as you are; they just don’t know what to do about it. In that setting, it usually pays dividends both to document what the person says (because actually it won’t be that clever, it’ll be riddled with self-contradictions over time) and do so in such a way that it is witnessed and cannot subsequently be denied. The details may be easier said than done, of course… but the point is, it is possible.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

Lydia wrote:
NPD’s are evil and much more clever than you or I will ever be.
I would like, if I may, to leave aside completely for the moment, any discussion of any specific person, whether or not they have ever been diagnosed with anything. I realise that feelings are running very high here and now regarding Mr Jones, Ms McMahon, RHE and what she is or is not saying, etc, etc. Thus, it may not be easy to detach the discussion from them. But I’d like to observe something about the condition of NPD in general.
It is a myth that everyone who suffers from a personality disorder is fiendishly clever. (It’s also not true that everyone on the autistic spectrum is a maths genius, nor that every blind person has preternaturally acute hearing.) Some are; some aren’t. Accordingly, it is a myth that anyone who is, or whom you suspect might be, NPD, is a Nazgûl Lord before whom all must flee or be destroyed. It is true that you can’t reason or negotiate with an NPD person as you might with someone else. I.e., you have to choose a different approach. That doesn’t mean you can’t deal with an NPD person, but it does mean that you have to deal with them in the right way.
A person with NPD has little or no conscience, and this means they can comfortably make up whatever lies they want to without feeling the internal discomfort that most people do when they lie. In other words, they appear calm and self-collected whilst lying, and that is why people believe them. Human beings are suckers for a confident outward façade.
The NPD person will insist that 2+2 = 5. Minutes later, they will laugh at that suggestion and insist that 2+2 = 4, and that they’ve obviously never believed any different. Normal people couldn’t do this, but the NPD person can because their sense of entitlement convinces them that the “truth” really is exactly what they need it to be at any given moment.
In the workplace, you rarely find the NPD person so dominant that they have 95% of people in their thrall and a few scapegoat victims. Often, everyone else is as fed up with them as you are; they just don’t know what to do about it. In that setting, it usually pays dividends both to document what the person says (because actually it won’t be that clever, it’ll be riddled with self-contradictions over time) and do so in such a way that it is witnessed and cannot subsequently be denied. The details may be easier said than done, of course… but the point is, it is possible.

Thunderous Applause!

@XianJaneway wrote:

True, but saying “DBT” plus “Axis II” is pretty much saying it, in a not-saying-it-way, for anyone who knows the language of this field.

With total Plausible Deniability:
“WHEN DID *I* EVER SAY ‘SHE HAS BPD’? HUH? HUH? HUH? *YOU*RE PUTTING WORDS INTO MY MOUTH! LIAR! LIAR! PANTS ON FIRE!!!”

@ Headless Unicorn Guy:

I’m so very sorry you had those experiences as a child. No child should feel devalued or diminished by the people he or she trusts nor feel like there is no recourse when wronged. It is crushing to a soul to be dismissed and diminished.

Your point about the Calvinistas is true. Their theology is one of putting down people who are in Christ back down into the dust rather than lifting them up and calling them to imitate him. Jesus came down so that he could lift us up out of the dust we had fallen back into. To me it diminishes the work Jesus accomplished for us and the freedom he bought for us if we keep telling people who are in Christ that they are effectively worms. That doesn’t bring glory to God.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

It is a myth that everyone who suffers from a personality disorder is fiendishly clever.

If by clever you mean IQ, then that’s probably true. But if you mean clever in the sense of being willing and able to use every possible thing and person for ones’ own benefit, then I would say that NPDs are very clever. The problem for people without a PD is that the things that a PD will do would not enter the mind of a non-PD to do. Or if it did enter their mind it would be dismissed. As you say, they have no conscience, therefore they are able to build their manipulative strategy using a greater range of tools and materials than a non-PD would.

It makes me think of the incident with Solomon and the two women. One woman was willing to let the baby be killed rather than give it to the other woman. Sacrificing the baby is perfectly thinkable and reasonable *to her* so long as the other woman doesn’t “win.” The real mother, of course, was willing to give up her rights to the baby so that the baby would live. That is because to sacrifice the baby for her own interests was unthinkable. The fake “mother” looks like the diagnosed NPD I’ve seen up close. Thankfully Solomon understood this at least intuitively.

Beth wrote:

it was not my intention to come across like I was ignoring his diagnosis. If I did, then I wasn’t communicating well.

Perhaps any misunderstanding of intent or action is due to differences in the way people process complex matters. Hopefully we have all learned something from this thread that we can apply wisely and well.

Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD Couple wrote:

Worst case scenario: even if she *did* have BPD, she still should not have been treated the way RHE treated her, and bloggers were right to point out RHE’s hypocrisy. I just didn’t want the people I cared about to be manipulated.

Thank you, and I appreciate your personal insight. You obviously have done a lot of work in this area.

One question I have (maybe for Brad), was Tony Jones ever a pastor? I have heard a few people refer to him as such, but don’t know of this is true or not. He went to seminary, he has written books, be is a speaker, he has run conferences, and he is going to teach at a seminary (the scarriest thing of all to me). I don’t picture TJ as pastor/shepherd in any sense of the word.

Thanks to all upset with my comments!

You prove my points wonderfully!

Both partners in “the dance” will maneuver you into believing you can know who is right and who is wrong.

Simple facts: TJ has behaved publicly abysmally. He does indeed fit a distinct profile, one courts deal with daily often WITHOUT a dx. Julie also has behaved publically abysmally. She does indeed fit a distinct profile, one courts deal with on a daily basis often WITHOUT a dx. It is a classic routine.

Once again, sitting and opining how awful someone is on a blog (like is happening here to TJ, who I find despicable) CHANGES NOTHING. But if indeed he is NPD and if indeed she is BPD we are feeding both of their diseases by even discussing them.

Rather than trash talking them, SHUN THEM. Ignore them, let the courts sort it out, buy NOTHING that EITHER of them produces.

I’ve NEVER been a fan of RHE, so I have nothing to change in my attitude toward her. Never trusted her, never believed what she writes, don’t follow her blog or buy anything she produces.

There is such a huge difference between “the church” and “the Christian industry” it amazes me. Amazes me how many cannot tell the difference.

Just because two people, or three, are famous, does not mean they should be battling this out in the court of public opinion, which really counts for nought anyway.

All this discussion is like giving two alcoholics more booze.

dee wrote:

But, I then applied the advice that Barbara Dorris of SNAP gave me many years ago. She told me to always keep my eyes on the victims and that would help me as I wade through high waters.

Front and center! And the victims are not always sympathetic characters. They do lots of dumb things while navigating a hellish life.

linda wrote:

Ignore them

This is exactly what TJ wants you to do.

Bridget wrote:

One question I have (maybe for Brad), was Tony Jones ever a pastor? I have heard a few people refer to him as such, but don’t know of this is true or not. He went to seminary, he has written books, be is a speaker, he has run conferences, and he is going to teach at a seminary (the scarriest thing of all to me). I don’t picture TJ as pastor/shepherd in any sense of the word.

Good question … and I do have some stuff rattling around in my brain about that, but better to go back to the documentation and be accurate instead of approximate, given all the circumstances going on.

mirele wrote:

In this particular case, there was a conflict between Hovind’s co-defendant and his appointed counsel. Paul John Hansen was filing handwritten documents full of Sovereign Citizen crazy with the court, to the point that his attorney filed a motion with the court to define his role

“Handwritten documents” as in “kook rants a la Francis E Dec”?

brad/futuristguy wrote:

Or, to use a personal theological example, Progressives probably think I’m at least a conservative, if not a Fundamentalist, because of my beliefs and values about what constitutes moral/immoral behavior contradict theirs. Many Conservatives and Fundamentalists would be aghast at my beliefs and values and activism about social transformation issues. The surface symptoms of my practice come from an underlying paradoxical paradigm of faith that is not on the radar of any of those groups.

Didn’t Christ take fire from both sides?

“We played for you, yet you would not dance!
We cried for you, yet you would not mourn!”

Adam wrote,

Adam Borsay wrote:

Biggest chip in Julie’s corner is the simple FACT that Tony is diagnosed as and NPD. Knowing that it is a medically established FACT causes me to read EVERYTHING he writes through a completely different lens.

I’d agree with everything you said but I’d change it slightly. Instead of, “Knowing that it is a medically established FACT causes me to read EVERYTHING he writes through a completely different lens”, I’d change it to “Knowing that it is a medically established FACT causes me to NOT READ IT AT ALL since I know not one word of it can be counted on and it will only serve his purpose by giving him some chance to warp my thoughts toward the way he wants them warped.”

In my opinion (as if anyone was asking) there is not ONE word that comes out of an NPD’s mouth which is worth giving an ounce of credence to, or even consideration.

According to the experts, the best thing you can do with an NPDer is to put as much space between you and them. I think that includes their words.

I’m sorry some people have been taken in by this man. But what the heck are we doing reading and learning from 33 year old to begin with? Where the heck are the gray haired old ladies who need to be speaking wisdom to us instead of the kids who don’t know who they are yet?

Said the cranky old lady,
Stunned

Gram3 wrote:

@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
I’m so very sorry you had those experiences as a child. No child should feel devalued or diminished by the people he or she trusts nor feel like there is no recourse when wronged. It is crushing to a soul to be dismissed and diminished.

And I’ve seen worse.

My other writing partner, the self-educated son of a steelworker who’s into sword-and-sorcery and pro wrestling and who I’ve been collaborating with on with My Little Pony fanfics for the past couple years. One of the hottest raw writing talents I have ever come across.

And so devalued, dismissed, and diminished over the years that most of his time and energy is spent constantly apologizing to everyone he comes across that he exists. (He has never said directly what happened to him.) Like some sort of Woody Allen nebbish character, except IRL it isn’t that funny.

Law Prof wrote:

I made up quite a number of settlement agreements while practicing–negotiated settlements was where most of my time was spent, certainly not the courthouse, and most attorneys have the same experience–and typically neither party feels that they really agreed to anything, they just gritted their teeth and accepted it because they had no other feasible options.

I’ve been involved in numerous settlement agreements and my experiences were somewhat different. Both parties give up something to which they believe they are entitled, but do so to reach a settlement. Some of what is given up can be considered throw away issues. The party pretends they are important, but really are not important and are given up just to show they are being reasonable. The hallmark of a good settlement is when both parties truly believe they didn’t get all what they wanted.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

“Handwritten documents” as in “kook rants a la Francis E Dec”?

Yeah, except that Francis E Dec actually went to Brooklyn Law School and was licensed by the NY bar until he wad disbarred after his felony forgery convictions. Most SovCits don’t have this background.

@ brad/futuristguy: I once had a patient who came to the hospital from the drunk tank. (S)he had been there three days before the police realized (s)he was not clearing. Turned out to have a cerebellar lesion…oops.

Banannie wrote:

I once had a patient who came to the hospital from the drunk tank. (S)he had been there three days before the police realized (s)he was not clearing. Turned out to have a cerebellar lesion…oops.

That’s the thing I’ve had to realize. *Sometimes* — not always — there are alternative explanations for the a set of presenting circumstances.

I was negative-conditioned over about a five year period to fear verbal put-downs from my “pastor,” and he outright told me when I left the church that he’d be sure to give a full report about me to the elders of the next church I went to, and he did exactly that.

I was so skittish after I left his church (but still lived in the same relatively small town) that I eventually realized a few years later that every time I went out to shop (and there were only three small areas with stores) that I’d constantly be looking over my shoulder and around corners, fearful that I’d see him or members of his family.

Was I *acting* paranoid, or *was* I paranoid-schizophrenic?

brad/futuristguy wrote:

was negative-conditioned over about a five year period to fear verbal put-downs from my “pastor,” and he outright told me when I left the church that he’d be sure to give a full report about me to the elders of the next church I went to, and he did exactly that.

I was so skittish after I left his church (but still lived in the same relatively small town) that I eventually realized a few years later that every time I went out to shop (and there were only three small areas with stores) that I’d constantly be looking over my shoulder and around corners, fearful that I’d see him or members of his family.

Was I *acting* paranoid, or *was* I paranoid-schizophrenic?

Wow. Great example. I can relate to it from how the mega world operated.

@ Haitch:
That reminds me that I forgot yesterday to distinguish between ODC and OCPD. I was talking about OCPD, but they are frequently confused. I’ve never known anyone with OCD, though it must be terrible. It is interesting that some childhood OCD is triggered by an infection. That does not fit very well inside the nouthetic-only paradigm.

Nancy wrote:

You do not sound like somebody who has a personal axe to grind. You sound like somebody who lets himself be guided by the facts, or apparent facts at hand.

Thank you! I’m trying very hard to do that. And, just because some documents raise questions about the veracity of one party does not mean that the other party is 100% right or a saint.

Lydia wrote:

Parental Alienation is a great tool for a non diagnosed narcissistic parent. And the other parent cannot even give their kids strategies for dealing with them or it is alienation.

Yes, abusers can abuse a legal theory designed to protect the kids. I wasn’t trying to do an analysis of the costs and benefits of the use of the theory. I was just pointing out that the courts look at the possibility of parental alienation, which can be a good thing, but, as with everything, can also be abused.

brad/futuristguy wrote:

But this also runs the opposite way for those of us who blog about spiritual abuse situations. We need to be careful about how we speak of those we critique. Exclaiming that “he is a sociopath!” is stating a fact, while “he doesn’t seem to have a conscience” is expressing an opinion that can be supported by evidence. In a litigious world where such words may lead to a lawsuit — and also in a digital world where such words cannot necessarily ever be scrubbed — I try to be conscientious about how I phrase things. I do not wish to commit the crime of which I am accusing others.

Especially when a favorite tactic of NPDs and Sociopaths is to covertly provoke the other (using completely-innocent, plausibly-deniable words and actions) into snapping and doing something legally actionable. At which point, the NPD/Sociopath becomes the Poor Poor Innocent Victim and the other (who would have exposed him) the Big Bad Meanie. Master Manipulator.

A related tactic (though less sophisticated — more schoolyard bully than master manipulator) is camouflaging the abuse/provocation as humor. “Can’t You Take A Joke?”

Some (especially when young) do such covert provocation/manipulation not only as practice, but Just Because I Can. Punch the button and watch the monkey dance.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

A related tactic (though less sophisticated — more schoolyard bully than master manipulator) is camouflaging the abuse/provocation as humor. “Can’t You Take A Joke

Which makes me think of Mother Gothel in Tangled. An excellent portrayal of child abuse and breaking free.

Nancy wrote:

What we did not discuss was the issue of sacramental marriage.

I’m not sure what you mean by this- can you clarify?

Protestants only believe in two sacraments: baptism and communion. As far as I know, marriage as a sacrament is a Catholic idea.

Lydia wrote:

I thought the divorce was in 2009. Xtian attorney is quoting something from 2010, right? I got the impression she was not really represented early on. Perhaps she saw the light about representation when he tried to get his ministry colleagues to talk her into being committed?

No, you’ve confused a couple of different things I said, or I may not have said them clearly enough. The divorce papers were filed in 2008. After the papers were filed, the trial court docket reflects (but doesn’t contain copies of) evaluations and reports, including a report from the Guardian ad Litem (a neutral assigned by the court to advocate solely for the best interests of the kids), and other things that one would expect in a contested divorce. After that, in the fall of 2009, the parties signed a negotiated settlement agreement (called a “stipulation” on trial court docket). The trial was cancelled. According to the appellate court order, the trial court accepted the parties’ agreement and entered that agreement as the Final Judgment and Decree in November 2009. The appellate court order states that Tony *did not* have counsel, but Julie *did* have counsel, for the negotiation of that settlement agreement, which was in the fall of 2009.

My only reference to 2010 was to note that @futurist guy in his well-researched posting noted that he had accessed the trial court docket in 2010 and, at that time, it listed Tony has being “pro se,” meaning he was representing himself and did not have counsel, which in part corroborates what the appellate court order said about Tony not having counsel.

Gram3 wrote:

IIRC, upthread Xian Attorney implied that Julie’s representation when Tony was not represented means that she got what she wanted so what’s the complaint about the settlement? I don’t think that conclusion necessarily follows from the fact that she was represented.

No, this is not what I said or implied at all. Please see me other comments clarifying my point about the settlement agreement and the representation issue further.

A few bits of pertinent information:

Colonial Church in Edina MN is a Congregational church; I believe Tony grew up in that church. (In his writings, Tony has always been a strong proponent of Congregational polity.) He was ordained there and served as the youth/young adults minister for several years. As far as I know, there was no scandal of any kind; he left to become part of the newly forming Solomon’s Porch church.

So far as I know, nobody has written about how to decode a psych eval diagnosis. Having an axis I diagnosis is not anything worse than axis II or vice-versa. There are 5 axes, each describing a different aspect of the person’s psychological state and what might be related to it.

Axis I is the therapist’s impression of what the “presenting problem” is.
Axis II is any underlying serious condition/disorder that might cause or affect the axis I condition.
Axis III is any chronic or acute physical issue the patient has to deal with that might (or might not) be contributing to I or II.
Axis IV is any situation outside of the person that might be having an effect on behavior.
Axis V is Global Assessment of Functioning, a score given to reflect how the person’s problems might affect his/her ability to function in daily life.

*Everyone* who has a psych eval has an axis I and an axis II diagnosis. For Tony/his lawyer to state that Tony had an axis I and Julie had axis I and axis II diagnoses implies that “Julie’s was worse.” It’s disingenuous in what it leaves out.

Julie’s GAF was 70, so a borderline score, at the high end of the 61-70 range, indicating that a person has “mild symptoms in one area OR difficulty in one of the following: social, occupational, or school functioning. BUT, the person is generally functioning pretty well and has some meaningful interpersonal relationships.”(http://faculty.fortlewis.edu/burke_b/Abnormal/Abnormalmultiaxial.htm)

Hopefully this will help people make sense of the psych eval info in both Tony’s statement and in what R. Mills posted at SCCL. I think Mills calls the situation pretty well.

Julie does not have BPD. Let’s lay that conjecture to rest here and now.

@ Nancy:

I wasn’t asking you to go into great detail or debate. I really was unsure what you meant and thought it reasonable to ask for clarification since you brought up a topic.

I understand from your response that it was not.

Patrice wrote:

@ XianAtty:
I am willing to continue a discussion with you about ethics in/out of court after you explain why you retweeted support for Tony while also writing here that you have no skin in the game, don’t know the parties, etc. For the sake of ethics.

I didn’t tweet *my* support for Tony. I retweeted *some else’s* support for Tony because it contained a link to his written response to the accusations. First, a retweet doesn’t mean or even imply agreement with or support of anything in the tweet or the link. Second, I retweeted it because, as a lawyer, I believe it is ethical to read the positions of all parties to a dispute. Being aware of opposing positions doesn’t mean or imply support of them.

@ Lydia:

Joe, Another factor might be she is not as “public communicator” savvy as Tony. From what I can tell, she gave her evaluation to someone on the SCCL Facebook page who gave an overview of it. It basically boiled down to her being “over emotional” which is quite normal for someone who had been gas lighted for many years.

@XianJaneway wrote:

Unfortunately, this is not necessarily true. Many worship pastors have found this out the hard way. When we did some creations for church once, I found out the church owned them, claimed copyright for them, and refused to let me or a friend sell them to a church member. If we *did* sell them, the church claimed the right to *all* of the money.

Sorry to hear your bad experience. Yes, this is generally true. For a fun read (OK, fun for law nerds and maybe Gator fans), google the story of Gatorade, which was developed by a professor ((or group of them?) at Univ. of Florida and makes millions for UF. There was a big dispute about who owned the rights to what was developed while they worked for UF. Sometimes these things can and are agreed to or negotiated in an employment agreement.

ps Deb – Pls delete my earlier effort to respond to @XianJaneway that somehow combined responses to 2 different comments. Not sure what I did. It’s in moderation, and rightfully so. Sorry!

XianAtty wrote:

Julie has said in several places that the court “awarded” or “granted” her custody of the kids and gave Tony the minimum amount of visitation.

Is it possible for you to see how a non-attorney might say that? What should she have said that would satisfy you that she was not trying to mislead people?

You inferred that she was the one playing hardball because she was represented, as you said. There is nothing wrong with that because that is your experience. But the problem is that you took it a step further and presented your inference as an implication for us to draw. I presented an alternate inference. That is all. People can decide for themselves if her representation means that she got what she wanted so what’s the big deal. Why even mention that, and if you have no agenda but think this is a critical point, then qualify it appropriately.

Honestly it escapes me why this is an important point in the first place. We aren’t talking about the custody arrangements with the exception of the curious fact that he yielded custody (did I phrase that properly?) to Julie, a woman whom he characterized as guano-crazy.

Lydia wrote:

@ Joe2:
It might have something to do with this:
“there is another factor that could be playing into this situation that I was concerned about. Tony did not return a child from visitation very recently. He used this child in his video greeting to people as to why he was not at a conference. then took it down right away. This could be still going on and she has to be careful how she answers people. One of Tony’s charges is that she is hurting his ability to make a living. “

I think is is still ongoing and the child has not been returned. God, my statement makes the kid sound no different than a lawnmower. Haven’t seen any update, of all the people involved, the children are the ones I most care about and pray for.

@ XianAtty:

Just a note. Many of us are legal illiterates. I use the wrong legal terminology all the time. I recently downloaded a list of “terms” for child custody issues for a friend of mine. Both of us thought joint custody meant exact equal hours. DUH. So to make a huge deal of wrong terminology would have me declared guilty, too. I can see using “awarded” for an official mediation agreement. I would be that ignorant, too. I think you are nitpicking.

As far as legal representation– Julie related on nakedpastor that when Tony was trying to have her committed (by enlisting his ministry friends) for being “bat s***t” crazy she spoke with an intake nurse who told her what she needed was a good lawyer.

I think the charge of her being “unethical” was unnecessary. And I do hope you were forwarding tweets concerning the other side of the story, too.

JeffT wrote:

I think is is still ongoing and the child has not been returned. God, my statement makes the kid sound no different than a lawnmower. Haven’t seen any update, of all the people involved, the children are the ones I most care about and pray for.

Exactly.

Joe2 wrote:

Why do you think she hasn’t responded?

Maybe because she doesn’t want to feed the narrative that this is about a nasty, difficult divorce in which she has been made the defendant by Jones and his allies. Maybe she wants a little distance from the back-and-forth. She isn’t the topic of these threads except that she was denied a voice and slandered and silenced by a theologian and his friends until recently, so maybe that’s why. Those seem like reasonable possibilities to me, under the circumstances.

@ Jeff S:
My only point about RHE working with Tony is that it was that furor, and the fact that someone I respected stated that her investigation led her to conclude that Tony was not an abuser, that prompted me to look into the court records. There were two people who deserved credibility — Julie because she said she was abused and RHE because she has a history of advocacy for abuse victims. It made me curious about it. That’s all. Not trying to vindicate RHE or Tony or to vilify Julie.

Hey – 1st on Page Two!

Huzzah for me!

Gram3 wrote:

XianAtty wrote:
Julie has said in several places that the court “awarded” or “granted” her custody of the kids and gave Tony the minimum amount of visitation.
Is it possible for you to see how a non-attorney might say that? What should she have said that would satisfy you that she was not trying to mislead people?

I never said she was trying to mislead people. I said that people who were not lawyers and who had not seen the appellate court order or trial court docket would likely infer from her statement that the judge had actually heard evidence and made a decision in Julie’s favor. I said this raises questions. I didn’t say it answered them.

@ XianAtty:

You said she was unethical.

XianAtty wrote:

I never said she was trying to mislead people. I said that people who were not lawyers and who had not seen the appellate court order or trial court docket would likely infer from her statement that the judge had actually heard evidence and made a decision in Julie’s favor.

So you are holding Julie to a standard of legal terminology precision that you do not require of other non-attorneys. If the people reading her statement would not understand the legal insider language, what makes you think she did? How does that make any sense except that you are trying to create the impression (while of course not stating it outright) that she was trying to mislead people with the word she used.

Patrice wrote:

@ XianAtty:
You keep using a lot of words to repeat the same things about a small part of the picture. And in doing so, you ask us to take your expert word for it.
However, your words are not trustworthy because you deny what you insinuate, and because you wrote that you weren’t taking sides even while you retweeted support for Tony.
Whatever you are trying to do here doesn’t pass muster, so it is effort ill-spent in what I am sure is a busy life.

1. I’m not asking you to take my word for anything. I posted links to the appellate court order and @futuristguy has posted a link and instructions for accessing the trial court docket.

2. I’ve never said I have or am trying to describe the “big picture.” As I’ve said repeatedly, I’m referencing publicly available documents to see what facts can be obtained from them. I’ve also said that, IMO, these raise questions about some of what Julie has said. I have tried to draw a distinction between facts that are in those documents and the questions or implications that I draw from them. None of this means I completely disbelieve Julie or that I completely believe Tony. As I’ve also said, Tony has blocked me on Twitter.

3. That I want to read what both of them have to say, and to read whatever is publicly available in the court records, does not constitute support for Tony. Neither is it unethical.

4. All our lives are likely busy. You seemed to me to be demanding answers faster than I can provide them. I’m sorry if I misunderstood you.

I did not understand until reading through comments here and going back to TJ’s statement that he was diagnosed as a narcissist. He framed it as an affliction in his statement, which very cleverly makes him look like a victim. Julie’s reactions seem pretty normal for someone dealing with unreasonable. I am shocked at RHE.

That is to say: I believed Julie when I heard it from her stuff, but him admitting it in this way is very very clever. Good job lawyers and PR peeps.

Melody wrote:

I did not understand until reading through comments here and going back to TJ’s statement that he was diagnosed as a narcissist. He framed it as an affliction in his statement, which very cleverly makes him look like a victim. Julie’s reactions seem pretty normal for someone dealing with unreasonable. I am shocked at RHE.

Gram3 wrote:

XianAtty wrote:
I said this raises questions.
Why does this raise a question? If it didn’t raise a question about Julie misleading people with the terminology, then why raise the issue in the first place? It is a trivial matter, at best.

It’s not just that one point that raises a question. It’s the combination of facts that can be found in the appellate court order and trial court docket. If they don’t raise questions for you, you’re entitled to your opinion.

As to the settlement agreement, I don’t think it takes any special legal skills to comprehend that you agreed to the custody, visitation, and support payments rather than saying the court granted those things to you. OTOH, it’s entirely possible she didn’t. That’s why I’ve said it calls into question her account. I never said it proved anything.

Gram3 wrote:

XianAtty wrote:
I never said she was trying to mislead people. I said that people who were not lawyers and who had not seen the appellate court order or trial court docket would likely infer from her statement that the judge had actually heard evidence and made a decision in Julie’s favor.
So you are holding Julie to a standard of legal terminology precision that you do not require of other non-attorneys. If the people reading her statement would not understand the legal insider language, what makes you think she did? How does that make any sense except that you are trying to create the impression (while of course not stating it outright) that she was trying to mislead people with the word she used.

No. I’m not holding Julie to any standard of legal terminology. I don’t know what was in Julie’s head or heart when she made the statements she made. But many people have repeated what she said and drawn a false conclusion from it. I think it’s important to clarify it. And it raises a question about what she was trying to say. I’m not trying to prove anyone right or wrong here. I’m trying to get and share facts that might have a bearing on people’s understanding.

@ XianAtty:

Since you are disinterested, where have you posted your questions about Tony and Rachel?

People will judge for themselves what you were implying or not implying by even raising such a trivial point.

@ Nancy:

I do not think it is proper to imply a negative motive for a statement which may be ambiguous and which is really not germane to the larger issues. I hope I’m not held to that standard, because I make imprecise statements all the time with no intent to mislead nor to misdirect from the big issues. Xian Atty’s elevation of such a trivial matter to importance looks to me like misdirection, however.

@ dee:
Yes! We need a “don’t kill the messenger” -type emoji. 🙂

@ Patrice: I’m completely in agreement with your misgivings about Xtian Atty. Not least because, with the mildest questioning of motives, (s)he has become quite defensive and vaguely insulting.

Amen to that. @ Barb Orlowski:

JeffT wrote:

@ Anonymous Child of NPD/BPD Couple:
Thanks for the comment! I’m not denying the possibility that in all of this that she could have snowed the courts and the counselors, but the question remains, why would the court not grant joint custody rather than sole custody? It gives one pause before buying everything he’s saying.

Good question. While it’s technically true that the court “granted” custody, it is important to understand that there was no trial of the evidence and no “decision” of the court. Rather, as can be seen in the publicly available appellate court order and the trial court docket, Tony and Julie negotiated a settlement agreement (“stipulation”) for the custody, visitation, and support payments, etc. The trial was cancelled and the court signed the agreement and made it into the Final Judgment and Decree. This isn’t unusual. If you haven’t seen them, I’ve posted other comments here on this point more fully.

dee wrote:

mirele wrote:
Just My Personal Opinion and I May Be Totally Wrong
I think we need to make this into some sort of moniker! It made me laugh.

I’m in two minds about that. When I use “IMHO”, what I mean is, “Humble, shmumble – God agrees with me”.

And this one.

If I recall correctly, on a comment thread somewhere, I think I recall Julie elaborating re custody agreement thusly:

1) the custody eval recommended she have sole physical and sole legal. (And visitation plan)

2) Tony did not dispute this.

3) Julie suggested she have full physical and they have joint legal, because she didn’t think the kids should suddenly have a father with zero responsibility in their lives. (She has since questioned this wisdom of this decision.)

4) Tony did not dispute this either.

It is easy for me to see how a non-legal someone would view that as “being awarded custody”, since that was the recommendation and it only changed because she wanted it to (per her).

Also, unfortunately, I can’t remember where I read this bit of the story (maybe pieces it together from a few threads?), so you know, grain of salt.

Gram3 wrote:

. I hope I’m not held to that standard, because I make imprecise statements all the time with no intent to mislead nor to misdirect from the big issues.

Some imprecise statements, when they re-enact some things that some of us have endured, cut to the bone. I try not to make imprecise statements because I consider that a form of carelessness which is not acceptable. You do what you think best.

@ Gram3:

Thank you. I should have quit reading this thread after the first few comments, but I misjudged the intensity of my own feelings in this sort of thing. I appreciate your kind comment. Pax.

@ Gram3:
I’m not understanding why here are so many objections to XianAtty’s posts. I don’t think s/he has said anything untoward, really. I think people are jumping to conclusions far too quickly. (Not you, necessarily, just saying…)

It seems like any objectivity is taken by some commenters (all over the durned internet) as a sign of favoring one side over the other. Some of us don’t want to take sides, though we feel a great deal for the kids and for Julie. I don’t understand why that pov seems to be questioned by so many, but maybe we’re all misreading each other? I honestly don’t know.

A prayer for Julie M in my Bible reading tonight: 2 Chronicles 14:11 (NIV) <3

@ Gram3:
It makes a lot of sense, but i honestly do not think that is whst is happening here. I might well be wrong, but at the moment, that’s how I’m seeing it. If i had been in dituationd like the ones you desctibe, i wwould no doubt be feeling very much as you fo.do.

@ Gram3:
Maybe my not wanting to sake sides (while being sympathetic) has its roots in my own exposure to acrimonious “he said/she said” situations, no?

Honestly, i have seen people get angry at others (on current issue) for having a slightly different viewpoint. I think that is more about what the people in question have bern through than anything else, but it certainly does make for an intimidating atmosphere and difficult for people to hear each other. Which saddens me.

XianAtty wrote:

I am happy to provide Dee privately my full name and state bar association identification number so she can look me up if she has any doubts. I comment and tweet anonymously so that my views are not held against my clients. I try, though sometimes unsuccessfully, to say things in a way I would say them to folks in person over a cup of coffee. Maybe that means you wouldn’t actually enjoy having coffee with me. That’s OK too.
What in the world have I said about “religion” at all, let alone in a way that sounds like I’m trying to “arrogate authority” about it?

Your very nickname implies when you’re talking that you’re both a Christian and an attorney and you have an aura of authority. I’m not seeing that with the way you’ve been thwacking people around about terminology and not reading stuff. And, an ex-attorney myself, I don’t *care* about your name and state bar association number. In fact, I’m *super* unimpressed by people claiming their legal credentials.

I’ve seen some things in the appellate decision, in the trial docket and in the life of the ex-husband that have given me pause. It.is.my.decidedly.personal.opinion that I believe he is hiding income and depriving his children of their justly-due support. Also, the letter of the law says that the ex-wife has to pay him back for the overage in support, but, as we also know, he let their joint house go into foreclosure. As far as I know, he’s not had to pay for *that* and the ex-wife lives in a home bought for her by her late father.

Then there’s the beating of the ex-wife around the head and shoulders because she was represented by counsel and she didn’t come out of it very well. I don’t know about you, but I know that the quality and extent of counsel is often determined by the amount of money you can put up front. And when the husband goes around and cuts off the credit cards and other means of support, that’s going to limit one’s choices in litigation of *any* case.

Again, let me state, these.are.my.personal.opinions.

What I’m telling everyone here is just because you claim to call yourself “XianAtty” does not mean that your opinion is sacrosanct and that everyone should bow down to it. As you can see, I question it. And that’s all I have to say. Now I’m going back to Kent Hovind, who is much more straightforward. At least, in his delusions he will get on the jail phone (as he did today) and admit that he believes he did nothing wrong, when a jury of his peers found him guilty of 58 counts of tax evasion, structuring and obstructing the IRS back in 2006.

mirele wrote:

XianAtty wrote:
I am happy to provide Dee privately my full name and state bar association identification number so she can look me up if she has any doubts. I comment and tweet anonymously so that my views are not held against my clients. I try, though sometimes unsuccessfully, to say things in a way I would say them to folks in person over a cup of coffee.
Your very nickname implies when you’re talking that you’re both a Christian and an attorney and you have an aura of authority….And, an ex-attorney myself, I don’t *care* about your name and state bar association number. In fact, I’m *super* unimpressed by people claiming their legal credentials.

I’ve seen some things in the appellate decision, in the trial docket and in the life of the ex-husband that have given me pause….I don’t know about you, but I know that the quality and extent of counsel is often determined by the amount of money you can put up front. And when the husband goes around and cuts off the credit cards and other means of support, that’s going to limit one’s choices in litigation of *any* case….

Having worked in family law for a short ‘tour of duty’ (paralegal) which I vowed to never do again and I haven’t, there are many family law cases where you can pull one court document out of the case to ‘support your side’ and there’s a lot more going on. This seems like one of those cases and I’m not persuaded by a family law case.

@ Gram3:
It’s not just that, or not so much that as it is:

1. The kids, who don’t need everyone in the US to be taking sides over their parents’ relationship, and who are THE most vulnerable parties, and who have enough to deal with as it is

2. The fact that all the side-taking in the world won’t change the dynamics of TJ and Julie’s relatioship, or their custody settlement, or anything else about it.

3. That there are issues in all of this (like the failure of perceived church leaders, how can we actually help people who are going through this kind of thing – kids especially) and more.

3. The kids. The kids. The kids.

Just a small clarification on my most recent: i have actually never been in the middle with people who were going through an acrimonious divorce, largely because i refused to take sides and made that very clear. I grew up with some kids who werd the pawns in the midfle of acrimonious divorces, though, which is one reason why i will not take sides.

It IS possible to be sympathetic without taking sides, as well as to attempt to maintain some degree of objectibity. Practically speaking, i am simply *not* comfortable raking over all the back and forth between TJ and Julie. It is their problem, and they are the only people who can even begin to attempt to sort it out. I don’t like tbthe way this has been playing out all over the internet, and their kids are going to be the ones who suffer for it (are already suffering for it).

Further, mass-Tweeting people with whom we disagree is a surefire way to shut down any dialogue that might have been possible if we had sat back and given careful consideration to what we might say instead of slinging a bunch of hashtags at them. Social media simply does not have any space for nuanced discussion, and barraging people with tweets
, FB comments and hasty emails is just not going to do anything to further dialogue.

At this point, it feels like some people who are trained in conflict mediation need to step in, get us all to take X amount of time to NOT discuss this stuff, and then come back afterwards for a discussion monitored by neutral parties.

Gram3 wrote:

@ XianAtty:
Since you are disinterested, where have you posted your questions about Tony and Rachel?
People will judge for themselves what you were implying or not implying by even raising such a trivial point.

Many, many other people are asking questions of Tony and Rachel and I don’t have anything new or different to add to that discussion. Sometimes it’s important that everything be said but sometimes it’s counter-productive for everyone to say everything.

I have no idea where you got the idea that I think this is trivial. The issue of abuse, whether it be sexual, spiritual, pyschological, or any other type, by leaders in the Christian community is very important. As I have said more times than I can count, I almost always believe claims of abuse. But between what Julie said about the litigation, and RHE’s response, I wondered what the court records showed. When I found the records I’ve discussed here, they raised the questions I’ve addressed, which I hadn’t seen anyone else addressing. I thought as a lawyer I had something to add, which I didn’t have in the case of Tony or Rachel. Others have thanked me for my posts. You obviously disagree, which is of course your right.

That absolutely makes sense to me. @ Barb Orlowski:

Gram3 wrote:

I take you at your word that you are a Christian. In the context of a situation involving very weighty legal and moral and theological issues do you choose to focus your very limited time on such trivial matters as the one you have raised?

She’s making very serious allegations. She has a right to be taken seriously, which I do. However, if there are court records that call into question her veracity, that’s not trivial.

1. The appellate court found Julie’s recanting of her earlier admission to the trial court so legally inappropriate that it held that she had waived or forfeited her right to complain about the lowering of the child support payments.

2. The trial court docket appears to me to reflect a pretty standard contested divorce case, not the scorched earth or Rambo-type litigation she has claimed. Brad @futuristguy says she says Tony filed 35 motions against her. I don’t find that many at the trial court docket and the appellate court docket. Granted, it appears that Tony’s requests for a restraining order are in a separate non-public docket(s), which mean there are more motions there. Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that there are 35 motions in the whole litigation unless one counts motions filed by both parties. Also, a “motion” can be as non-threatening as a simple request to change the date of a hearing or deposition. Also, it appears that, in Minnesota, a response to a motion is also called a “motion.” In my state they are just called responses.

3. The appellate court order and the trial docket reflect that Tony’s child support payments were lowered in significant part because of a typo in the original settlement agreement (drafted by Julie’s attorney since Tony did not have one at the time) and not because he manipulated his financials.

BTW, Julie tweeted me that she has read my tweets and comments over the past few days and says I have left a lot out. I asked her to correct whatever I had gotten wrong. She tweeted me back and said that I just “don’t get it.” I asked her twice more for any corrections to anything I’ve said and I have not heard back from her. Of course, she’s not obligated to respond, but I did ask for and am open to hearing any correction of anything I’ve said.

dee wrote:

@ XianAtty:
Thankfully, i was able to raise my three kids to adulthood and not have to contend with a contentious divorce. I do know what I would do if I thought my kids were going to be cared for by a mentally unstable person. I would fight tooth and nail to get those kids to safety-whatever it took. I desperately love my children.
My guess is that I would come off looking nutty but my kids and anyone else who knew me would know that they were my always my first concern above my own image, welfare, comfort, paramour, etc. Put me down as a *bats**** crazy woman. I would still fight through all the name calling, whatever.

I completely agree with that and I hope I would have the fortitude to do the same thing. It’s entirely possible that that is Julie’s situation.

Michaela wrote:

I am not persuaded by one court document in a case like this to take the ex-husband’s side. One court document is a dime a dozen in a high-conflict family law case.

Again, I’m not taking sides. I said the one appellate court order, combined with the trial court docket raise questions. That’s not at all “taking sides.”

@ XianAtty:

1. So what. I personally witnessed a judge throw a hissy fit worthy of Judge Tim all over a young attorney for bringing a suit into his courtroom (my paraphrase from memory) because he pursued the case in *spite* of having in his possession documents which proved his case false. Result: summary judgment plus attorney’s fees and the kid probably had to buy some new pants and he probably thanked God he wasn’t escorted by the bailiff. As an attorney you know how rare that is.

2. Really? You took your precious time to count motions in a contested divorce? Why? To prove what, exactly, since you do not have exhaustive knowledge?

3. Interesting claim. How do you have such intimate knowledge of Tony’s revenue streams. We should have learned something from Driscoll. Let’s see what a forensic accountant might find.

Why should Julie respond to you? I wouldn’t either.

Gram3 wrote:

That seems a little convenient to me. Are you saying that at the other Tony-advocate sites there is *nothing* you can add from your disinterested viewpoint as a Christian Attorney? Really? Nothing like the way Tony “suggested” Julie’s “diagnosis” for example? Nothing?

I’m not qualified to comment on any of the mental health issues. It’s not a litigation issue. I have read all of Anonymous Child’s comments here and I agree with her characterization of how he presented that issue. She said it with more authority than I ever could because she’s lived it. I have neither personal experience nor professional experience in that area.

@ Jeannette Altes:

It made me think of PR damage control. Bad facts need to be acknowledged first, if possible to get in front of the narrative. Mention bad facts obliquely if possible and certainly matter-of-factly, as if they are of no consequence, while counter-narratives or other issues are raised to deflect attention and re-direct it in the desired direction. Repeat, with modifications as necessary, until the overall narrative changes.

Gram3 wrote:

Recap for me the big points we would have missed without your comments here. Because, as I see it, the main thing you have provided is deflection from the main issues onto trivial matters … That brings me to my working inference to best explanation: deflection for Tony and/or Rachel toward Julie and misdirection of our attention to particulars of the obviously messy divorce.

I’m sorry you don’t find my comments helpful. Others have.

I don’t think it’s trivial that an appellate court (with a 3-judge panel voting unanimously) found that Julie had forfeited her right to complain about the reduction in child support payments going back to the date of the final judgment. Legally, that is very significant. If Julie had had a good reason to have told the trial court one thing and the appellate court something different she could have raised any such reasons. It appears from the appellate court order that she provided no explanation for agreeing to the entry of an order in the trial court reducing the child support and then taking an appeal, and incurring the legal fees, to have that same order overturned. And she continues to complain about it without acknowledging her role in having that order entered in the first place.

Gram3 wrote:

@ XianAtty:
1. So what. I personally witnessed a judge throw a hissy fit worthy of Judge Tim all over a young attorney for bringing a suit into his courtroom (my paraphrase from memory) because he pursued the case in *spite* of having in his possession documents which proved his case false. Result: summary judgment plus attorney’s fees and the kid probably had to buy some new pants and he probably thanked God he wasn’t escorted by the bailiff. As an attorney you know how rare that is.
2. Really? You took your precious time to count motions in a contested divorce? Why? To prove what, exactly, since you do not have exhaustive knowledge?
3. Interesting claim. How do you have such intimate knowledge of Tony’s revenue streams. We should have learned something from Driscoll. Let’s see what a forensic accountant might find.
Why should Julie respond to you? I wouldn’t either.

1. The point isn’t whether it’s rare. Unfortunately, it’s not as rare as it should be. The point is whether, in this case, the person making very serious charges has done something to call her credibility into question.

2. It looked like an easily verifiable or disprovable point so I counted. Sue me. I’m a #LawNerd.

3. I have no knowledge whatsoever, and have never claimed to have any knowledge, about Tony’s income stream. The appellate court order described why and exactly how much Tony’s support payments were being lowered, which had nothing to do with Tony’s income stream and everything to do with choices Julie made. Julie’s telling of the child support saga leaves that part out.

4. You say you wouldn’t respond to me, and yet, here you are, continuing to respond to me.

@ XianAtty:

Perhaps she got wind his income streams increased because he could afford trips to Italy with his sacramental wife or something like that? Or perhaps she just wanted him to pay more support. The other explanation is that you most likely have never been married to an NPD.

Maybe if you keep it up you can convince enough people it has been Julie all along and we can forget sacramental wives, his allowing his kids to stay with a women he declared was mentally ill and enlisting his ministry fans to help have her commited. And to ignore his NPD diagnosis.

Because as we all know asking the court to overturn something we formerly agreed with is unethical. She should be jailed!!!

Surely you can find something worse?

@ XianAtty:
I hope that you simply are a person who is focused on the integrity of the narrow. I hope that you are merely not great at stating your meanings/intentions transparently and wholly. I hope you are just feeling a little cranky, as we all do feel at times.

I wish you clarity and compassion, XianAtty.

XianAtty wrote:

4. You say you wouldn’t respond to me, and yet, here you are, continuing to respond to me.

Wasn’t me. Must have been someone else. I get their point, however, since you strain at legal gnats and swallow blue whales.

I never said anything about what stream of Christianity is yours. I don’t do Twitter, so I am unaware of the back and forth. Senator McCarthy is honored that you associated me with him, or so says my inner narcissist.

You say you are a Christian but you still decline to make a comment on the moral and religious issues. That strikes me as more than a little strange. I wonder if Jesus would be as laser-focused on legal procedures and parsing word usage and counting the number of motions filed. Or might Jesus be somewhat more concerned the moral and Christian issues this tragic spectacle has brought to our attention? What is your opinion on that question?

@ Jeff S:
Jeff, at this point, i just don’t feel that i have anything to add. I was, however, thinking along the lines of partisanship, of an attitude that is more or less “TThis party is 100% right, and the other party is 100% wrong.”

Beyond that, i think it is potentially harmful to keep rehashing this ad infintum. Those kids will see it all, and others who don’t have their best interests in mind will be able to see it, too, courtesy of The Wayback Machine, Google Cache etc. etc.

Agsin, there is *nothing* any of us can do to repair the damage that’s bern done, but none of us have to belarbor this to the death. I see a lot of comments here, but most of them are he said/she said and nothing to do with the welfare of their children.

We are collectively spinning our wheels, dighing ourselves deeper and deeper into a virtual snowdrift, instead of accomplishing anything constructive. Imo, anyway.

@ Lydia:
Lydia,somewhere earlier in this thread (I think?) that I can’t find again, you mentioned EMDR.

I too have seen it be very useful for processing trauma. Unfortunately, it seems to be primarily effective for simpler traumas. I don’t mean easy, since no such thing, but non-complex, non-chronic types.

I was given several sessions of EMDR a long time ago at Menninger and was very disappointed that it only made me worse. Later, I tracked down an EMDR specialist in my area. After hearing me out, she said she knew only one person in the state who might be possibly be able to use it for my treatment, but she doubted he’d be willing because my story was too complicated and long. I was grateful for her wisdom, and found a specialist in war PTSD, and she helped me tremendously.

I have an idea that if more unprocessed trauma bits appeared now in my life, EMDR might work quite nicely, since most of the misery has by now been processed via the excruciatingly slow route.

FWIW.

@ XianAtty:
Hey, a question for you: in addition to being a #LawNerd, are you also an INTJ or ISTJ personality type w/ the Meyers-Briggs?

I ask because people are deeply questioning why you’re looking in to all of these detailed legal arguments. However, certain personality types are just compelled to do that–to be super detailed & thorough and most of all **accurate**. I guess that’s why it doesn’t surprise me at all to see you doing this.

However, my husband is the same way, and early in our marriage, I found it offensive. I felt like I wasn’t being believed, & like I had to justify things that were completely inconsequential. We learned to strike a good balance, though. (He’s an INTJ, & I’m an ENFP.) Are you familiar w/these terms? 🙂

First: 600! THIS IS DOUBLE-SPARTA!

And as for XianAtty, on the net behind a pseudonym nobody knows who or what you really are. (For all you know, I really could be a unicorn.) Since XianAtty is gaslighting in defense of TJ, could he actually be TJ under a pseudonym playing his mind games on us? NPDs really like to WIN WIN WIN, and anything goes as long as they WIN.

@XianJaneway wrote:

@ XianAtty:
Hey, a question for you: in addition to being a #LawNerd, are you also an INTJ or ISTJ personality type w/ the Meyers-Briggs?

I’ve never taken the test but I’m familiar with the general concept. I like research. I also enjoy a good debate (and legal argument in court). If I do say so myself, I’ve been successful in both my writing and in-court work. I am detail-oriented, but I’m also good at seeing and developing big-picture themes from those details.

I looked into Julie’s claims because abuse by Christian leaders is a serious problem and Julie made serious claims about one. Then, RHE said her investigation showed the claims were unfounded. I had been critical of the SGM/TGC folks so I was prepared to raise questions to Tony too. I wanted and expected to believe Julie. I also wanted to believe RHE because I respected her victim advocacy.

A significant part of Julie’s story revolves around claims that Tony bullied and abused her through the litigation process and over the support payments. She made the details of what happened in the litigation significant by making claims about those details.

Since I hadn’t seen reference to litigation documents, and I was curious about what RHE had looked at, and since I’m a litigator, I thought I might be able to contribute to the conversation. I expected to find Tony had a high-powered, high-price attorney who litigated with a scorched earth approach.** Instead, I found what I’ve posted here. If some (not you!) want to kill the messenger, so be it.

I only provided more detail in response to those who misunderstood or twisted what I said. It’s just bizarre for people (again, not you!) to believe that I need to address every single thing that could possibly be said on this wide-ranging topic. I made comments. I wasn’t writing my own full-length blog post!

Some of the folks who thanked me for the research I have done have written fervently in support of Julie or who are investigating the emergent movement. Having done significant research themselves, they (I believe) realized that my providing documents and asking questions did not make me a Tony-bot.

I hope Tony and Julie and the kids get the help they clearly need. I don’t really have anything else to say.

@ @XianJaneway:

I am glad you brought up about personality types, because I think that right much friction happens at the intersection of personalities.

My bet is xianatty the litigator is ESTJ. My son the prosecutor is ESTJ. His dad the CRNA is ESTJ. IMO lots of surgeons (and orthopedists?) are ESTJ. I am ISTJ and a physician. I read somewhere that there are more ISTJ physicians percentage wise than there are ISTJ in the population. Don’t know if that is true, but I bet it is. It seems to me that people tend to really love both ISTJ and ESTJ when they see it in physicians-and really hate when they see it in lawyers. But we are cut from the same cloth. Specificity. Don’t get distracted. It is all about the facts. Don’t let your emotions distract from the job at hand. Mercy help us if the people in the OR who had my life in their hands were not like this. And from my close observations of how the lawyers in my family have been, mercy on us if the adversarial justice system did not have people like that. In fact, saying somebody did not have good counsel is a good reason to take another look at the case and perhaps re-try it, or so I see happening around here.

I hear people upset about xianatty focusing on things which those people consider details. Let me say, and this is not about xianatty but about details and specificity. The diagnosis that is missed is apt to be missed because some detail was under-estimated as to importance. We physicians get sued for that sort of thing. The dropped detail in court can be a serious matter. A very few times I have testified in court as an expert witness and you should hear the degree of detail and specificity they wanted from me.

However, by some genetic whatever, our family ended up with one ENFP. Person from another planet. I kid you not, I have a nagging feeling that they sent me home from the hospital with the wrong baby-there is that much difference. We all, that would be all, struggle with dealing with it on a personal and family level. The difference in many aspects of life is very hard to deal with and takes committed effort and much self-discipline. And, yes, I think I hear some of that same thing going on in this current conversation.

No amount of ranting and railing at each other will change anything, however, so why try. Why not just say that we all have our uses in a complex society and then just more on.