They're After Us? A Classic Case Of Folie à Deux

[Yithian]

This has to be read in its entirety to appreciate the roller-coaster of a childhood these children must have endured. One likes to believe that one would have twigged so much sooner that they did, but then one must consider how implicitly and deeply one trusts one's parents as a child.

Pauline Dakin's childhood in Canada in the 1970s was full of secrets, disruption and unpleasant surprises. She wasn't allowed to talk about her family life with anyone - and it wasn't until she was 23 that she discovered why.

There was always something unusual about Pauline Dakin's family.

"My brother and I would say, 'What do you think is wrong with our family? Why are we so weird?' But that was the mystery that just didn't get answered."

Pauline's parents, Warren and Ruth, had separated when she was five, the summer before she started school. Warren, a successful businessman, was a heavy drinker who could become violent and a point came when Ruth just couldn't take it any more.

When Pauline was seven, Ruth took the children on a holiday to Winnipeg, more than 1,000 miles (1,600km) from their home in Vancouver. But when they arrived Ruth told them they were never going back.

"There was no opportunity to say goodbye, it was just this abrupt, severing of relationships," Pauline says.​

Long & Thoroughly Bonkers Tale:
http://www.bbc.com/news/stories-42951788

 

[ramonmercado]

This has to be read in its entirety to appreciate the roller-coaster of a childhood these children must have endured. One likes to believe that one would have twigged so much sooner that they did, but then one must consider how implicitly and deeply one trusts one's parents as a child.

Pauline Dakin's childhood in Canada in the 1970s was full of secrets, disruption and unpleasant surprises. She wasn't allowed to talk about her family life with anyone - and it wasn't until she was 23 that she discovered why.

There was always something unusual about Pauline Dakin's family.

"My brother and I would say, 'What do you think is wrong with our family? Why are we so weird?' But that was the mystery that just didn't get answered."

Pauline's parents, Warren and Ruth, had separated when she was five, the summer before she started school. Warren, a successful businessman, was a heavy drinker who could become violent and a point came when Ruth just couldn't take it any more.

When Pauline was seven, Ruth took the children on a holiday to Winnipeg, more than 1,000 miles (1,600km) from their home in Vancouver. But when they arrived Ruth told them they were never going back.

"There was no opportunity to say goodbye, it was just this abrupt, severing of relationships," Pauline says.​

Long & Thoroughly Bonkers Tale:
http://www.bbc.com/news/stories-42951788

Whoa! Strange, intriguing story.

 

[CuriousIdent]

Just been reading this one, myself.

It's kinda nuts. But I can think of a more specific reason why Stan might have created this delusion.

Certainly in the beginning I would have thought it had something to do with finding a way into the life of a woman who worked for him, but who was very much married to somebody else.

Throughout the entirety of this he has placed himself as Ruth's savior. The man who is creating this facade of effectively dedicating his entire life to keeping her safe. Multiple house moves to follow her, to keep her safe.

She trusts him so absolutely, because why would he go to all this trouble if it wasn't real? You know.

Did Stan know he was making it up to start with, or did he also believe in this world he had made up? Hard to say.

But it's all very definitely messed up.

 

[GNC]

This is the sort of story Jon Ronson used to investigate (probably still does). I think CuriousIdent is spot on when he says Stan was made to feel like the powerful protector, but I suppose we'll never know if he believed it himself. My guess is that if he didn't at first, living with it for years meant he would have afterwards until he died.

 

[RyoHazuki]

Regardless of how deep the trust in one's parent/s runs, I can't understand how an otherwise intelligent person would continue to happily swallow such a huge amount of fabrication until their late twenties - not to the point of breaking off adult relationships and uprooting themselves. Every single piece of material 'evidence' came through one non-familial person, and half of it seems to have been verbal testimony at that. That's far more baffling to me than Stan's mental state.

 

[CuriousIdent]

Regardless of how deep the trust in one's parent/s runs, I can't understand how an otherwise intelligent person would continue to happily swallow such a huge amount of fabrication until their late twenties - not to the point of breaking off adult relationships and uprooting themselves. Every single piece of material 'evidence' came through one non-familial person, and half of it seems to have been verbal testimony at that. That's far more baffling to me than Stan's mental state.

I think it is important though that Pauline only had any of this revealed to her as an adult, in her early 20s. It was a well-crafted and rehearsed story by Stan, by then. Developed over years, and which had already been used to manipulate the movements of Ruth and her family's lives over many years.

This being revealed to Pauline suddenly explained so much of the things she had experienced as a child. Directly. Because it was the ruse which caused these events to occur.

The multiple house moves at very short notice. The clearing of a whole larder of food which 'had gone bad' - which the ruse explained as having being poisoned by a third party breaking into the house, and there was no way of knowing what they had and hadn't tampered with.

At this point Pauline wasn't living at home (she was living with a partner elsewhere) and wasn't having daily contact with her mother or Stan. But the one thing which was true was that her estranged father HAD been working with people with connections to organised crime.

That was actually true. That's what made this the more credible.

So, as it explained so much of her past experiences through childhood, for the next few years Pauline believed it. It matched. To a point.

But that did only last a few years before Pauline started to see cracks in the story. Which was why she started to test Stan.

Faking a break in, and then having Stan claiming that he and his people knew that there were known mafia connected guys who had been casing her house and neighbourhood before the break in? That's what finally broke the deception for her. She knew without question, then.

 

[RyoHazuki]

I can see that, and Stan did seem to put a lot of effort into the 'details'. I guess it's just how different people's minds work, and maybe he knew enough about her to know what approach to take.

Fwiw, I don't think there was anything especially sinister in his original motives; someone who coldly exercised that level of deception would normally seek out multiple victims for purely material gain and/or a sense of power. I suspect he just wanted to be with the mother, and failed to notice how deep a hole he was digging until it was too late.

 

[CuriousIdent]

I can see that, and Stan did seem to put a lot of effort into the 'details'. I guess it's just how different people's minds work, and maybe he knew enough about her to know what approach to take.

Fwiw, I don't think there was anything especially sinister in his original motives; someone who coldly exercised that level of deception would normally seek out multiple victims for purely material gain and/or a sense of power. I suspect he just wanted to be with the mother, and failed to notice how deep a hole he was digging until it was too late.

Agreed. He might even have justified it to himself by acknowledging that Ruth's husband was an alcoholic. Was involved in the edges of organised crime.

In a fashion he may have felt that he was doing her a favour by getting her away from him.

But it is quite the deception.

I also think that you make a fair point about Stan, at that point. He had been a defacto father figure in Pauline's life for much of her childhood. On the periphery, certainly. But for long enough to have gotten to know how she reacted to situations in her life, and tailor his lie to cover any questions she had.