The Gift of Fear - Gavin De Becker

[JoannaK]

The Gift of Fear Author: Gavin De Becker Publisher: Dell (May 11, 1998) Paperback: 432 pages ISBN-10: 0440226198 ISBN-13: 978-0440226192

Book Description
de Becker runs a consulting company that attempts to predict and prevent violence against individuals.  In this book, he shares his insights on enhancing personal safety. He believes that violence is part of the human condition and that America is increasingly a violent place - for example, homicide is now the leading cause of death for women in the workplace.

A date won't take "no" for an answer. The new nanny gives a mother an uneasy feeling. A stranger in a deserted parking lot offers unsolicited help. The threat of violence surrounds us every day. But we can protect ourselves, by learning to trust—and act on—our gut instincts.

Here he writes how he learned to sense and move away from dangerous situations. According to him, it is possible to develop survival skills based on intuition that can protect us from people unable to control their violent instincts. De Becker argues that the tendency of TV news programs to air stories of unusual disasters as immediate dangers interferes with our ability to discriminate between real and manufactured fear. A practical if pedestrian guide to enhancing the safety of yourself and your loved ones.

People raised in families with personality disordered members often never developed or lose their self-protective instincts. The Gift of Fear provides critical information and strategies for fostering in adulthood this life-saving awareness that may have been underdeveloped in childhood.

About the Author
de Becker 200-member consulting firm advises government agencies, universities, police departments, corporations, and media figures on the assessment of threats and hazards.  Mr. de Becker is the designer of the MOSAIC threat assessment systems used to screen threats to Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, members of Congress, and senior officials of the CIA. Along with the U.S. Marshals Service, he co-designed the MOSAIC system used for assessing threats to Federal Judges and prosecutors.  MOSAIC systems are sometimes used by police departments for assessment of spousal abuse cases.

de Becker is a Senior Fellow at the UCLA School of Public Affairs and, a Senior Advisor to the Rand Corporation on public safety and justice matters. He was twice appointed to the President’s Advisory Board at the U.S. Department of Justice, and he served two terms on the Governor’s Advisory Board at the California Department of Mental Health.  Having suffered an abusive childhood himself, de Becker has a special empathy for victims and an acute awareness of the signs of criminal intent.

[Kattgirl]

    I just love Gavin DeBecker's book The Gift of Fear.  I believe it should be required reading for all  nons!  The book discusses how to deal with stalkers and potential attackers, and delves into the nature of fear and our instincts and intuition and how we can tap into them to survive.

    He talks about how potential attackers or stalkers try to get past our boundaries.  One term he uses that I think is great: loan sharking.  This refers to a person giving you something or doing something for you to manipulate you into being indebted to them.  It seems on the surface that the person is being kind to you, but they are setting you up emotionally, in order to weaken your defenses.  This is what BPD's do, with their "gifts with strings attached."

    I just love the loan shark terminology - it is spot on.  Think about it: loan sharks get to you (or you seek them out) when you are desperate, they offer something that seems too good to be true, but then the repayment is a b#tch.  "Sharks" also implies the lack of consciousness, the predatory nature, of a BPD.

    Thoughts?  Comments?  Anyone read the book?

[love2007]

I am currently reading/skimming the book on my lunch hours. A co-worker brought it in and has left it in the break room. Judging from the bookmarks now in it, at least 3 of us are enjoying it. The book is incredible, and I think teenaged girls should read it asap!

love the book!

[Pagancat]

I haven't read the book, but I think this is spot on. My SIL used to give me junk I didn't want and then mention multiple times what she had given me.  It was never anything good.  Once it was a broken cement garden statue.  Once it was a wooden shoe rack.  I would say, no thanks, I really don't want/need that and then she would bring it over to the house and I'd be stuck with it.  I had that damn shoe rack for a couple years before I finally hauled it out to the curb on garbage day!   

It made me think of another habit of my NPD/BPD SIL which is kind of the flip side of the coin of "loan sharking" where I or my husband have done some huge kind of favor for her, and she immediately has to give some little gift or gesture that is completely worthless or below the value of the favor done for her to kind of "make us even" so she doesn't have to feel guilty about what we do for her when she does nothing for us.

I spent a whole day helping her to clean out her kitchen, which was incredible filthy and full of garbage. She's a hoarder and clean up involved a tremendous amount of work like carrying broken chairs out to the road for garbage pickup, etc.  So as I'm working, she hands me this little tiny box of hard candy (the kind of thing you might get next to your place setting at a shower or wedding as a favor) with a few pieces of old candy in it and tells me it's for "helping her" clean up.  (I did most of the work. I was stupid then!) I was doing it out of the goodness of my heart, I didn't expect a gift or anything, but she managed to make me feel really crappy by giving me this incredibly small gesture of what she thought my help was worth!  Lunch would have been nice, since she never offered to feed me or anything all day, which is sacrilege according to my mother and the way I was raised.    Maybe the old candy was lunch? 

Another time, we were picking her up to take her to the hospital for surgery for a relatively common but pretty major surgery.  We had already been to the doctor with her multiple times, held her hand through the process, made plans for her to stay with us after the surgery if she needed help, etc., everything you would want a family member to do for you when you're facing something like that.  We go to pick her up to take her in for surgery, and she hands us a dusty old basket with two dirty old mugs in it that used to belong to Hubby's family and that SIL insisted on taking from the estate and keeping after Hubby's Mom died. The basket was filthy, and there was actually a big dead spider in one of the mugs!  She gave it to my hubby and told him she knew he always like those glasses and she wanted him to have it.  I threw it in the garbage when we got home. No verbal thank you at all for our help or support after she was recovered from her surgery. I guess the dead spider was assumed to be enough thanks on her part.

[Kattgirl]

    As an enmeshed non, I was a victim of continuous loan sharking for several years, I'm ashamed to say!  I could probably write a book on the subject.

    My momster did not give shabby gifts, though.  They were, as gifts go, "good" ones.  It's just that the terms were intolerable.  The price was my soul.

[stellaris]

The gift of fear is awesome.  I've gotten copies for just about every woman who's important in my life.

[methinkso]

Have not read it but wish I had years ago. My evilsis is a 'loan sharker' and toyed with boundaries in a very sick way.

Instilled her drama and maniupulations (tried, at least) into my husband's employer ~ tried to make trouble there. Has 'proven' to me for decades there would be NOTHING in my life she did not ingratiate herself into, including my therapist, friends and my employer (and my H's hobby related associates) and even military duty. Did I leave anything out? Like my trash bins? Oh yeah, she snooped there too. Oh, yeah, almost forgot the 'biggie'. My cancer Dr's (long story). And of course there were the weekends she'd stalk me and DH at lounges ~ drive terminally ill Dad through the parking lot(s) then call me and berate me. Making Dad believe I was the 'bar whore' that she was ~ one of Dad's only complaints about her.

I think I am going to order a copy. Thanks for the referral, Kattgirl.

[mint-cc]

I've never heard of the book until this thread but both my mom and FMIL are like this.  I will look into the library about this book.

Prior to NC, (mainly in HS)my mom would "borrow" money from me all the time and I never saw it again.  And I could never ask for it back; I could and did a few times but it was fighting an uphill battle and the reward was not worth messing with all her crap.  However, borrow a few bucks from her and she wanted 3 times as much back.  Things like that.

FMIL is worse than my mom.  She sold her house for many many reasons other than what I'm about to say but she likes to bring up that she sold her house for my FI as manipulation.  The place we live now?  She thinks she owns it and tells us all the time "I got you that house!"  Uh, no you didn't.  FMIL loaned FI a few thousand dollars for school a few years ago; he's paid it back and a lot of 'some' rather than 'then some' and she says he still owes her.  Borrowing $5000 to pay her back $10,000 with a 30% interest loan?  GMAB.  According to her, we owe her over $200,000 for raising FI.  She did not physically do this, but who hands their kid a statement with how much they owe them for raising them?  JMHO, but you don't raise kids to reap some financial reward.  She usually brings this up when FI wants to do something she doesn't want him to do.

I hate debt but I would rather be in debt the rest of my life than to have to borrow anything, especially money (which doesn't work out anyways because she doesn't have any), from her.  You are forever indebted to her and it's just not worth it.

[blackandwhite]

Kattgirl and all,

Oh yes. Great topic.

I read The Gift of Fear and the loansharking section (as well as many others) just lit up all the bulbs in my brain. My mother is the Queen of Loansharking. There are so, so many examples of this, I don't even know where to begin. But one good one is that at one point she bought a house as an investment and begged me to move in, with some roommates, when I was a young adult. Aware of the potential issues, I had a very detailed conversation with her about boundaries, how I would be paying rent and would expect privacy, a businesslike arrangement, etc. She immediately started filling the house with cast off furniture she didn't want so that she had an excuse to buy new furniture for herself--I didn't ask for or expect the place to be furnished. Then she furnished one bedroom, next to mine, with particular lavish attention and announced that she planned to use it as a "crash pad" for when she needed another place to stay. Not sure why she would need another place to stay, as she lived alone. I insisted that we fill that room with a roommate. Mightily peeved, she sent in a handyman and required reports from him on my activities. Then she paid somebody to spy on me, in the guise of doing some yard work. I know this for a fact because I knew there wasn't any need for the yard work and I confronted this person, who confessed. Then, when I was traveling, she rented out my room, with all my personal belongings in it, without my permission. When I asked, horrified, how she thought that was okay (still paying rent all this time, by the by), she said that since I'd been so unwelcoming, she needed to make up the rent to afford the mortgage. Try to parse that logically if you dare.

All of this based on the "favor" she did me by allowing me to be a tenant in this house.

B&W

[Scarlett2008]

I really enjoyed that book, and reading the comments makes me want to read it again, as I read it about 10 years ago. What I've learned from this book is to follow my gut feeling. Unfortunately for me, it took me a long time to put into practice. Having being raised by a uBPDm, I was trained to disregard my feelings completely. I was so confused it's like my "internal compass" was broken. Thank God I'm recovered now and I recommend this book very much.

[LOAnnie]

Me too, would like to re-read it.  I remember several points it made being eye-openers for me; I must have read it when it first came out, quite a while ago now.  I remember that part about learning to trust my instincts; if someone made me feel uncomfortable, there was an actual reason for that, that I wasn't crazy.  Very good point about the "loan sharking" tendencies of a lot of BPDs, too.  Mine does that, or used to.  Still tries!

-LOAnnie 

[Metta]

Very helpful book.

I think I'd like it more if he talked a bit less about celebrity stalking, though.

All in all, I highly recommend it.

[At Bay]

I want to read this book because the topic struck home about having a gut feeling that can save us and we may not know what we're feeling. Young women should definitely read it. I felt uneasy with a new boyfriend once although we had worked together, but he went to Korea in the Army for 2 yrs and wrote to me occasionally. Back home, he asked me to dinner. Everything was congenial, but he did the strangest thing when he was leaving by kissing me when I didn't expect it. In a week or so, he called and said he was outside the evening class I normally attended at a college. How did he know which classroom? I was sick and had skipped class, but he said he wanted to come by my apartment then. My head turned to the exact spot in my living room where he'd grabbed me that first date! Fear or something made me avoid him and the next time I told him I was seeing someone. I think this book would help me understand what happened and I sure want to read about the loan shark I think I'm married to.

[havana]

discriminate between real and manufactured fear.

I haven't read the book but I'm a big believer in that there is a lot more fear out there than there is things to be afraid of.

[At Bay]

Maybe our subconscious tries to help us distinguish between anxiety disorders and things that don't make sense.

[LOAnnie]

I think there's a happy medium between the extremes of abject naivety/childlike trust at one end and paranoia at the other. 

There is healthy, self-protective rationality and skepticism.  Its the ability to objectively evaluate a person or situation without sliding into cynicism/prejudice/blanket suspicion or puppy-like adulation automatically.   

Its being open-minded about a person or situation but having the ability to look past the surface appearance and see the person or situation objectively, using facts and feelings and asking questions instead of just accepting or rejecting something or someone at face value. 

I do believe in gut feelings, myself, and I think a person's gut feelings (or intuition, or whatever you want to call it) is a valid tool to use along with the intellect to evaluate a person or a situation. 

I think "The Gift Of Fear" helps a person understand how to utilize that tool quite effectively, in a rational way.

-LOAnnie

discriminate between real and manufactured fear.

I haven't read the book but I'm a big believer in that there is a lot more fear out there than there is things to be afraid of.

[justhere]

I bought the book last week but I didn't get through the first page. I just can't deal with any of this kind of stuff lately and I really censor my tv shows too. I used to watch CSI and and cold case etc but now I feel like I'm just overloaded with murder, abuse or crime altogether. That's not entertaining to me at all and just makes me feel worse and triggers all kind of old memories. Even some posts on this board are very hard for me to read and I think I have to take my time with this.  I don't want to feel scared anymore.  Hopefully I'll be able to read it one day because I'm sure it has some good advice.

justhere

[blackandwhite]

Even some posts on this board are very hard for me to read and I think I have to take my time with this.  I don't want to feel scared anymore.  Hopefully I'll be able to read it one day because I'm sure it has some good advice.

justhere

Listening to yourself, taking care of yourself, are actually the key messages of the book, and you're doing that! It's really smart. I also went through a time of limiting my exposure to things that would trigger strong responses. I think it helps with healing. Just wanted to let you know that your approach makes a lot of sense to me, from personal experience.  xoxox

B&W

[justhere]

I was pleased to even get the book as there has been little choice in my local book store so I ordered it but was surprised by my strong reaction and that I couldn't continue reading. Thank you blackandwhite your post helped me to feel better about this because I wasn't expecting a 'trigger' from a book that was supposed to help with my healing.  I've just put it aside for now and will try again in a couple of months or so. 

justhere

[LOAnnie]

I know what you mean; I could not get through "Understanding the Borderline Mother" at one go.  I found parts of it very triggering and upsetting.  But I think in my case the upset was due to finally allowing myself to see and accept the truth: that my life-trajectory had been badly skewed way off of "normal" by the abuse I'd had to endure as a young person (not my fault) and the unproductive, maladaptive way I chose to handle the damage done to me, (definitely my fault).  Reading that book, I began to experience the long-repressed anger and grief I'd been storing and denying, and it scared the crap out of me.

So, yes, sometimes the healing process hurts.  But the good news is that you have the option to delay parts of it, stop altogether, and/or go through it at your own pace; you have the control, now.

-LOAnnie

[clean slate]

I read "The Gift of Fear" upon the recommendation of my therapist, and I'm so glad I did.  As hard as it was to get through the chapters that applied to my specific situation (spousal abuse), I learned so much.  He lists 30 pre-incident indicators for abuse and potentially murder.  My stbxh displayed 18 to me.  Holy cow!  My eyes were opened to a lot of other things in the book, too, and I'm glad I read it.

[Kelley]

I read the book several years ago. One thing that I took away from it was a new found respect for my own reactions, instincts, and intuitions about people.

Having a BP mother and (significantly older) sister, I had been taught to reject my own reactions and feelings, because they usually triggered a BP rage.

As an adult engaged in the healing process, I found it really helpful to have instincts, intuitions about situations and people framed in a manner that forced me to take them seriously.

In the book, it is explained that our brains take in enormous amounts of sensory information... .we see, hear, smell, and feel many different things without them even registering. This is because our brain also sorts out what is relevant.

When we experience fear, it is because a number of things we have seen, heard, or otherwise perceived have become relevant in their cumulative effect.

Instead of making all of the things we have seen come into awareness, the brain creates the emotion of fear because we are in danger and don't have time to sift through facts. It is time to act.

[CalicoSilver]

Good book - especially for those who may have never been exposed to situations where a threat is lurking in the shadows. Thought it even more relevant because its conclusions are supported by real-life examples. I'd definitely recommend it for anyone whose interested in protecting themselves and their loved ones.

[Ngonz]

I am new to realizing that both my parents are extremely screwed up.  My mother has BPD, and my dad is NPD.  I always said that I am a poor judge of character and tend to 'gravitate toward' the more shady, dangerous people--unknowingly.  And then have to tell those people to get lost once I find out who/what they really are.  I do think I have a damaged intuition, or fear 'radar'.  What an interesting thing to find out.

Oh, and about the 'strings attached'---boy, can I relate to that!  Even in high school, I didn't want my folks to buy me clothes or anything else that wasn't necessary for my survival because I would hear about it for the rest of my life. 

[jessienbp]

I've had a deep respect and affection for this book ever since it literally saved my life or prevented me being raped.

--I did not stick around to find out which, as I did listen to my intuition -- and it was only that; there was no overt threat, just a "funny feeling" of the sort Becker tells one to respect. I had recently read the book, and I did respect the funny feeling this guy gave me, even though he had already passed me and was getting farther ahead of me and I definitely felt sort of stupid turning 180 degrees and hastening away back the way I had come instead of continuing on homewards. I immediately stopped feeling stupid, though, after I had turned around and he did too and ran after me and grabbed at me and knocked me over. (Becker notes that women are killed and injured constantly because they feel embarrassed to act on their instincts and "make a fuss" when a fuss turns out to be exactly what is needed for them to be safe. So though I felt embarrassed, I also mentally said, "Forget that feeling for the moment; I will worry about it later if I turn out to be wrong."

Anyway, since I was already fleeing in the right direction -- towards people and safety -- he only succeeded in knocking me farther the "right" way -- the way I needed to go -- and momentum and adrenaline had me back to my feet in a catlike bounce I'm sure I would not be capable of if I were not in flight mode. Ditto w/ how I levitated over a busy street and raced up to the guard booth of a condo complex and pounded on the door until the guard let me in, and asked him to call the police. (Though by then I think I was already safe; i think the guy ran off when I started shouting my head off. I didn't look back to see, though. I did remember to shout "Fire! instead of "Help!", as people will come running to see a fire but head away from someone yelling "Help." Since the guy was unarmed, I didn't feel I was putting people in danger, just scaring him off with their gathering numbers and attention. I think Becker mentions that, although I may have picked it up in a high-school self-defense class.)

This all happened in Marina del Rey, which is one of the posher neighborhoods of West LA and does not have much of a record at all -- probably barely any -- of totally random stranger assaults on sober women bicycling on bike paths alongside well-trafficked streets.

But this sort of thing does happen. I have avoided far more such situations by foreseeing them and avoiding them altogether, well in advance; this was the only one in my life where things developed so fast and unexpectedly, I was pursued, grabbed, knocked over, and had to run yelling like a banshee; but once would have been far more than enough. I escaped because I had the gift, not of constant fear, not of living in fear; but of knowing that fear in some situations is the correct response and should be allowed to trigger the escape-and-evade response it does, and that response should be allowed to take charge of one's behavior, because the limbic system is infinitely faster and smarter than the forebrain when it comes to survival imperatives. (It actually cuts the forebrain out of the response loop, or tries to and will if one hasn't had the misfortune to have been conditioned to suppress it, because there is no time to ponder in some situations; threat recognition has to immediately trigger adrenaline release has to stop all nonessential body functions and send one's blood to the major muscles and away from the vulnerable life-supporting organs and the loop has to be hindbrain straight to muscles to get one moving, faster than it takes to loop all the way up through the executive functions, which take conscious reflection, which takes so bloody long you are likely to be dead by the time you decide to approve the flight order; and can then reconsider your mistake at infinity's leisure.)

Our emotions have been keeping us alive since before we were amphibians. We've only had conscious thought for about 100,000 years, and may well be the only earth animal that fully has it at all; so clearly it is not necessary for survival; but it can definitely interfere with it; which is why the body tries to cut it out of the loop altogether when real threat registers (which practically never happens on the level of conscious thought; it is a vague unease of the sort that we are only here because our ancestors didn't --and for much much longer couldn't -- decide it was just paranoia, and ignore it.)

Becker doesn't say "Live in fear." He says, "You need not live in nearly as much pointless fear if you exercise high situational awareness and know what sort of fear is in fact often indicative of an imminent threat (a feeling of vague but real unease when out and about, say; or when alone with a man who gives you the willies) vs. what is just keeping your life constricted (phobias, say)." Being afraid to fly will just constrict one's life. Being afraid to run when one's nerves are screaming "Something is *wrong*; don't try to figure out what you're perceiving, just get away now and find other people who will help or scare off danger if needed, and analyze later," can save one's life; and sometimes more than one's life, as there are things worse than a quick death.

It's not paranoia, it's listening to the wisdom of the subconscious and not impeding the bodily survival response it will trigger when survival may be at stake.

Or so I learned, and lived.

[oceanheart]

Mr. de Becker is an expert in threat assessment [he designed the threat assessment system used by Supreme Court Judges, Congresspersons, and CIA officials] and a private-security specialist, and also had personal experience in a violent environment when he was growing up.
 
The quick and dirty synopsis of the book is: trust your gut. Sounds simplistic, but de Becker shows how many people unwisely discount their intuition when something's wrong - whether through denial, rationalization, or social rules. He tells the harrowing, terrifying story of a young woman whose gut feelings helped her escape becoming the second murder victim of a serial rapist - even though denying her initial gut feelings are what put her in the dangerous situation to begin with:
 

... .listening to one small survival signal saved her life, just as failing to follow so many others had put her at risk in the first place.

This goes along with the we talk about here on bpdfamily.com a lot. I know in my own personal situations, I have come to regret ignoring them, especially recently when I was assaulted in my own home by someone I did not know very well, after having ignored many many red flags. I'm okay and it's been a good learning experience, but I wish I had instead read this book before this happened, rather than after... .But I am definitely much the wiser now, and this book was very informative (although the end part drags a bit).
 
Chapter 4: "Survival Signals" is very helpful, as it lays out manipulative strategies people who are trying to get your guard down use, usually for criminal purposes:
 

• Forced Teaming: an effective way to establish premature trust because a we're-in-the-same-boat attitude is hard to rebuff without feeling rude.The detectable signal of forced teaming is the projection of a shared purpose or experience where none exists: "Both of us", "How are we going to handle this?"

• Charm and Niceness: Charm is almost always a directed instrument... .which has motive. To charm is to compel, to control by allure or attraction. Niceness does not equal goodness. Niceness is a decision, a strategy of social interaction; it is not a character trait.

• Too Many Details: every type of "con" relies upon distracting us from the obvious. The defense for too many details is simple: Bring the context into conscious thought (for example, "I have asked him to leave twice."

• The Unsolicited Promise: They are the very hollowest instruments of speech, showing nothing more than the speaker's desire to convince you of something. It's useful to ask yourself: "Why does this person need to convince me?"

• DISCOUNTING THE WORD NO: this is perhaps the most universally significant one of all: a man's* ignoring or discounting the concept of no. Declining to hear "no" is a signal that someone is either seeking control or refusing to relinquish it.

*Here de Becker is referring to rapes, the majority of which are inarguably committed by men on women. However, for all other situations he acknowledges both sexes as perpetrators - as we are well aware of here at bpdfamily.com that abuse/victimization crosses gender lines.

[beatricex]

Bought this book at the advice of someone on this board (thank you, really appreciate that) after describing that my brother has been displaying abnormal violent behavior.  He is basically making threats towards his wife and her adult children.  None are technically directed at me, but those threats made me wonder (fear?) that if I upset him, will he come after me?  Never really saw this side of my brother before and I was very confused all of a sudden.  It's like one day waking up and realizing that you didn't marry the person you thought you did, because they out of the blue started speaking differently.  I also previously really looked up to my brother, in my family, I always considered him a "rock" so to speak.   

The book explains how all of us are really capable of violence.  There is no pre-disposition in some cases, but certain factors, such as loss of status (a wife who threatens to leave, maybe in his case?) are good predictors that one might do something rash as he has nothing to lose, and something that may never have happened prior could come to be.  It is not outside the realm of possibility, in other words, when one is pushed into a corner.  When stripped of their dignity, they may act out whereas if they are allowed to be seen as "the Big Brother I always looked up to" (I actually said this, which is weird as it's exactly what the book recommends - to allow the person to save face), they will remain stable.

This has decreased both my fear and anxiety, as I am a very analytical thinker and the book breaks down all the elments very well.