Putting a stop to Stockholm Syndrome...

Lately there have been a number of kidnapping cases in which the victims were held captive for years. Perhaps the most intriguing question these cases bring to light is why didn't they just leave? I couldn't help but think the same naive question as I read A Child Called "It" today, the tale of a severely abused boy who suffered at the hands of his own mother. But it's such a stupid question, I thought, as I realized how strong a hold people have over each other in small, day-to-day situations. It's such a common, yet subtle, thing that we don't even notice that we are under similar conditions of Stockholm Syndrome everyday.

I thought about the movie The Devil Wears Prada, that I watched the other night. Although slightly overexaggerated, how many of us remain in jobs where we know we are being used and manipulated? I know I have- several times. Why don't we just leave? Why don't we stand up for ourselves? We have our friends backing us, our husbands or wives, but still we stay. I thought about the movie Erin Brockovich, that I watched last night. Even though the residents knew they had been purposely misled about being poisoned by the local electric company, some remained afraid to take legal action. They were scared to stand up and accuse their offenders. The audio book I am currently listening to, Lucky, is a story about a young girl's rape. In it, she talks of two separate chances she had to get away from her attacker, but she didn't. Instead, she stayed and told him what he wanted to hear, in hopes that he would allow her to leave. In A Child Called "It", though he has several chances to tell someone or to run away, he doesn't. He stays. He keeps his mother's secret. Why? Is it the theory of learned helplessness- the idea that a dog who is given a lever that stops an electric shock from occurring is more likely to recover quickly than a dog whose lever has no effect on the shock's duration? When we have no control over the source of negativity, we give up, we become depressed. Even when our lever begins to work, we don't even try. We continue to say what others want to hear in order to gain favor. We don't leave; we don't run away. We voluntarily remain under the grip of negativity.

I think it's an important thing to check in periodically and make sure that all of the relationships in our lives are positive. Relationships with people, with work, with ourselves. Because what you may think of as a strong relationship may just be one tied by the binds of learned helplessness.


So, one thing I am trying to work on lately is architecture photography. I had never tried it before but have seen some really rad photos that bring boring buildings to life with light, angles, and pattern. So, here is one of my early attempts. I shot this in Orlando before the Ben Folds concert last week!