Stockholm Syndrome
The consequences and behaviours of abuse
Behind The Curtains
Abuse can come in many forms and in many situations. Sometimes abuse victims may forget or downplay the abuse they are suffering to try to minimise repercussions from their abusers or to protect their minds as they continue to be abused. For teenagers and adolescents abuse can have severely detrimental implications into adulthood. Trauma responses can become muted, people can dissociate or deny abuse is happening because they have been gaslit or manipulated into believing that they are overreacting or that their memory is somehow wrong.
Abuse can come in numerous forms such as physical, emotional, sexual, financial, isolation, coercive and controlling behaviour, digital and online abuse and gaslighting. In our society people tend not to report abuse to the authorities, especially when the abuse has a sexual component because it’s difficult to prove and convictions are rare.
Emotional abuse and gaslighting, online abuse and financial abuse can also be difficult to prove and when you watch your favourite singers on stage, or read books to escape, or watch your favourite movies/TV shows, it becomes a way to escape the harsh realities of real life, real pressures and the last thing you want is to know about the abuse that can happen at the hands of the people responsible for getting those singers/books and movies out to you.
However, abuse can and does happen, in all walks of life and this article is going to show a darker side to the world of celebrity. It’s going to talk about abuse from sexual abuse, to gaslighting, to online abuse, coercive control and manipulation and it may be a hard or difficult read so if it is, please don’t feel bad or don’t feel you can’t reach out to me or that you have to continue reading.
As a survivor of sexual assault on more than one occasion and a rape survivor, I want to look at this from a more psychological perspective because I have found that in my experience, I wanted to please my abusers and I couldn’t understand why. I hadn’t realised that this was a trauma response or that it was a survival mechanism until quite recently and it got me interested in how other survivors of abuse and abusive situations cope.
This article is based on my opinion but backed up by facts exposed in my last article about industry abuse and videos of Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson during highly stressful situations. It is completely my interpretation; however, I would like to point out that I have researched what I’m writing and will include links and the videos I’m using for this article at the bottom.
First of all, I am going to start off by exploring the effects of abuse at a young age because this is pertinent to this article and will make sense, once I explain my theories and where these insights I have come from and I hope you, dear reader, are okay to follow along and understand my approach and the reasoning behind my exposing this abuse in this way.
Young adults and children are very vulnerable to abuse, manipulation and coercive control. Teenagers, especially in their late teens, need to have the freedom to make mistakes, push boundaries and develop a sense of self that can only be discovered through exploration, experimentation and freedom to choose. They can develop a trauma bond with their abusers and will try to avoid upsetting those responsible for abuse, making them easy prey for abusers as their minds are still forming and their sense of self is still developing. The later teenage years are where we develop a strong sense of self and discover who we are as people through experimentation, exploration and moving onto either further education or jobs.
With the boys in One Direction, some fans believe that they were being observed and monitored by those involved in The X Factor, prior to auditioning for the show. Once they had passed the audition and the band was put together was when I believe the coercion and manipulation began. It was subtle at first- telling them they weren’t good enough to proceed as solo artists then putting them into a band together. This painted Simon Cowell as their saviour and opened them up to being manipulated and controlled by him, his recommended management label and his Syco record label executives.
As we have since learned from Katie Waisell and Rebecca Ferguson, who are two incredible, strong women who survived hell on earth at the hands of Cowell, Modest Management and others, those who went through the show had no choice but to sign with Modest management after they completed their run. We also learned that The X Factor owns everything they did on the show, in perpetuity and in every universe. What this means is that these videos can be released at any time, on any platform and former contestants cannot say a word about it and further are never allowed to say anything negative about Simon Cowell or their time on The X Factor. In fact, if you check what most people say post being on the show, it’s that they are thankful/grateful for the opportunity.
Modest Management- who were the company One Direction were signed with as well as Katie, Rebecca and many, many others - have been exposed on more than one occasion for their abusive practices and we as a fandom believe the boys were under highly restrictive, abusive contracts and we know that some of those involved in ensuring that those contracts were followed to the letter, are still involved in one way or another with the One Direction boys to this day. This is worrying especially to fans of Liam Payne since he over the last few months he’s had to cancel South American tour dates and has been hospitalised due to a severe kidney infection. He hasn’t been online since and there has been no world from anyone official regarding his well-being leaving fans extremely concerned about him.
Liam has spoken openly and frankly about how the abuse he suffered as a member of the band directly led him to becoming addicted to alcohol. He has stated in interviews that he was glad the band ended when it did because if it had continued it would, potentially, have killed him. Liam’s trauma was as he stated a direct response to being locked in hotel rooms from the age of seventeen and not being permitted to leave, at all. The only things in the room were minibars which then caused him to drink and ended up with him developing his addiction to alcohol.
Another facet of the abuse cycle that has consistently appeared around Liam is in the fact that his management encourage him to socialise with those who care so little about him that they continuously drink alcohol. They further encourage Liam to attend events including alcohol so soon after he has come out of rehab for his addiction.
How does this tie in with Stockholm Syndrome, you may be asking? Well here goes and please bear with me as I work through what Stockholm Syndrome is, the effects of it and why I believe that it still affects all of the members of One Direction.
Stockholm Syndrome is a coping mechanism that comes into force in a captive or abusive situation. It is often seen in victims of kidnapping or in those suffering prolonged periods of abuse and it’s when the victims begin to develop positive feelings to their captors and abusers.
Stockholm Syndrome is also known as a trauma bond and is a deep bond where the victim has a strong sense of loyalty to their abusers. It is a survival mechanism and a way for those being abused or held against their will to cope with extreme and terrifying situations.
There are seven stages of trauma bonding, and this is something that abusers use to their advantage in coercing their victims into adhering their regulations. I’m going to highlight the One Direction boys and how their time on X Factor could have created trauma bonds between them and Simon Cowell which could have opened them up to signing excessively restrictive or punishing contracts which were more severe than others signed post X Factor.
The first stage of trauma bonding is love bombing which if you take the boys thinking they were out of X Factor completely to then being taken to judges houses and then being love bombed by Simon Cowell to allow them to see him as their victor and their champion. This is where I believe that the initial abuse started and where all the boy’s fell victim to the manipulation of their choices and their careers.
The second stage of trauma bonding is getting the victims hooked and gaining their trust and this is what I believe happened during the boys’ time on the X Factor. They were praised and filmed their video diaries, given a taste of fame which got them engaged and hooked and they trusted in their mentor to ensure that they progressed through the show.
The next stage of trauma bonding is what I believe was happening behind the scenes to Louis especially, but to all the boys to an extent and this post X Factor and even during to some extent in that they devalued them individually and criticised them on their performances. Louis stands out especially during this stage because of how little he was allowed to sing both during The X Factor and for the first few studio albums. He was devalued and made to believe he was weaker than the rest vocally and the others wanted to succeed, so I believe that they potentially went along with what they were told to ensure that the boat wasn’t rocked.
The next stages of trauma bonding are what I strongly believed happened next and was gaslighting and resignation/ submission to the wills of management and the label. The boys, especially Louis and Harry, were gaslit into believing that their relationship was damaging the brand/band and costing them fans. I believe that during this stage is when the denials began, and the boys were further gaslit into believing that fans would no longer support them or buy their albums because of their close bond/relationship. We saw them submit to this will and stop interacting on stage and during interviews. On the rare occasion they did interact during interviews, their eyes would shoot off camera to their handlers and their faces would fall.
Stage six of trauma bonding is the loss of sense of self. We, as fans, saw this happen in real time and saw how Louis changed in front of our eyes to become more muted, less flamboyant and less openly happy. It was heart-breaking to see and as fans we felt helpless because there was nothing, we could do to help Louis or tell him how adored he is. Watching as he became more introverted and less fun was part of his growing up, but also was, in my opinion part of this stage of trauma bonding and that truly is devastating because he was perfect as he was. We all fell in love with the goofy, funny, wild boy on The X Factor and although now we are seeing him become much more comfortable in his own skin, trauma like this will leave its] mark.
The last stage of trauma bonding is emotional addiction and to me this is where the people pleasing aspect comes into play. Fawning, or people pleasing is a trauma response that develops when teens and young adults have difficult or dysfunctional relationships with care givers. This is a response to growing up in a shame-based environment and if what we believe is actually true, then both Harry and Louis would have suffered greatly in this situation. Management would have been the care givers in this situation and for Harry as the youngest member of One Direction, he would have been trained to act in a certain way to avoid being punished or mistreated. Harry and all the boys would become emotionally addicted to the praise they would have been given from their abusers at both the management company and the record label when they towed the line and sold the het narrative.
People pleasing, in these situations causes those being abused to forgo their own needs, wants and desires in order to please their abusers and this is something that I feel Harry still does to an extent. It is also something that is common in abuse victims and is a natural stress response to extremely stressful or upsetting situations. Those who people please will also ignore or not understand their own feelings because they are so used to downplaying them to please their abusers that when their own emotions wash over them, they feel foreign, or the person feels that they need to apologise for them because they are not used to expressing their own emotions that it causes them discomfort or even distress.
We have witnessed this with Harry in a small clip where he expresses that he’s tired and is told that management don’t care, and he instantly apologises. This shows that his needs come second to their requirements and that he will people please or push himself to his limits to make sure that he makes his abusers happy. We, as fans have seen this time and again where Harry is exhausted, ill or working when he looks distressed, unhappy or even at times disassociates in public. This is extremely distressing to witness and we as fans feel helpless because the only thing, we can do is make noise on twitter, but we can’t really help his management working him to the ground.
When Harry was stunting a few years ago he would often have this vacant look in his eyes or this extremely sad, down turned expression and fans noticed and pointed it out repeatedly. There was one occasion that sticks out vividly in my mind where Harry was led by a very firm hand on his wrist to a waiting car and his eyes were completely devoid of anything. He looked far from comfortable and then there was nothing. It was as though he had just shut down completely and he was pretty much dragged to the car. Dissociating is a very common response to overwhelming, stressful situations and even more recently, we have witnessed Louis dissociating while on barricade with fans. His eyes roll and he goes vacant as he struggles to get away from the fans before he moves away from the barricade. This is extremely worrying and not at all okay because it shows that fans can and do, on occasion make Louis feel uncomfortable by not respecting his boundaries or his personal space. Again, these are completely my interpretations that come from videos that have been posted online of both Harry and Louis, however it is okay if you don’t agree with my interpretations. In fact, I’d love to hear other interpretations, so if you disagree please contact me because I’d love nothing more than to be wrong.
When examining the music industry there is a long history of abuse that’s hidden just under the surface and many artists, as a result of the abuse, long hours and poor standards of care that their teams and labels offer, can develop addiction issues, anxiety, depression or can even lead to suicides. When is enough, enough? We can see artists struggling before our eyes but what will it take before the general public accepts that the glitz and glamour of the music industry is just a front for a deeply abusive, horrifying industry that sells artists like cattle from label to label and fails to protect their artists from physical, emotional or sexual abuse?
What we need to do is make as much noise as we can, report abuse when we suspect it to the police and ask for it to be investigated and never ever stop fighting for justice. We can be their voices, their advocates because they cannot advocate for themselves and seeing this abuse happen over and over again means it’s time for us and the general public to be better and do better. Let’s keep fighting against the corruption we know is happening. Let’s show our love to the survivors and make labels and management companies realise that we aren’t going anywhere, and they need to start treating all artists more fairly and with respect for who they are as people.
Thanks for reading.
Sources
https://www.victimsupport.org.uk/crime-info/types-crime/domestic-abuse/
https://www.charliehealth.com/post/the-people-pleasing-response-to-trauma
https://zenithbh.com/how-does-teenage-trauma-affect-adulthood/amp/
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