Roadmap: Slow-burn crazy-making behaviours

by Lionel and Bronwyn Windsor

In this paper, we are reflecting on our personal experience with a small handful of people who have exhibited a pattern of behaviours we have labelled “Slow-burn crazy-making behaviours”. The paper is designed to help you recognise and appropriately respond to the behaviours.

This is a roadmap for the paper. Follow the links below to go to any section.

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Introduction: Slow-burn crazy-making behaviours: recognising and responding.

Part A: Recognising the pattern of behaviours. In the first part of the paper, we will describe how to recognise the SBCMB pattern of behaviours. We’ll move from the general to the specific. We will describe:

• How these behaviours fit into the Bible’s teaching on sin and the gospel
• General indications that a person may be exhibiting SBCMB:
  • Strange inconsistencies in the person’s relating and speaking
  • Crazy-making: Increasing confusion among people in the person’s sphere of influence (including reports of “gaslighting”)
  • People in the person’s sphere of influence identifying their experiences as “abuse”
• Some broad underlying patterns of SBCMB:
  • Defining morality in terms of themselves
  • Redefining personal/relational reality to suit their view of themselves
• Some specific features of SBCMB:
  • Fraught relationships with peers
  • Excessive reactions to praise and sympathy
  • Initial (selective) love-bombing
  • Making themselves the greatest victim
  • Resisting and transgressing personal boundaries
  • Using words persuasively but untruthfully
  • Creating a relational climate that revolves around themselves
  • Self-affirming reactions to criticism
  • Energetically co-opting others to affirm themselves
  • Expressing feelings of betrayal when serious action is taken
  • What if this describes me?
  • Summary: a consistent pattern
• The effect of SBCMB on others

Part B: Responding to SBCMB. In the second part of the paper, we will provide some principles in responding to the SBCMB pattern of behaviours. We want to share what we have discovered through our own experiences, so you can better care for all people involved, whether they exhibit SBCMB or have been hurt by it. We hope this will help you both to avoid potential problems, and—if you have suffered from past experiences—to move towards greater understanding and recovery for yourself and for others. The key principles we identify are:

• Pray
• Be careful of your own wellbeing
• Allow the Bible to define love, not the person exhibiting SBCMB
• Realise that normal social rules may not apply
• Be very clear on your personal boundaries
• Be very clear on the truth—don’t let them define reality
• Recognise illegitimate guilt—don’t let them define morality
• Don’t be afraid of disengaging
• If you believe there is actually abuse, take further action

Part C: If you have an accountability or potential endorsement role for a person in Christian leadership who may be exhibiting SBCMB. This final part of the paper is more specific in its application, but still critical for those who are in a situation where they are being used by a person exhibiting SBCMB to provide “accountability” or endorsement for them. We will address the following:

• If you have a true accountability role
• If you find yourself in a quasi-accountability role
• If you hear many people criticising the person
• If you need to say something publicly

Resources to help. Because we’re not personally able to respond to queries you may have about this paper, we have provided further links for you to follow up.

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Copyright © 2021 Lionel and Bronwyn Windsor Note well: Because of time and energy constraints, we’re not personally able to respond to any queries or comments about this paper. So please realise in advance that if you send us a message about this paper, you are unlikely to receive any response from us. To read the whole paper: Slow-burn crazy-making behaviours

Online: a roadmap for the entire paper

Download the entire PDF

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