The Wizard of Oz can be seen as an allegory of psychopathic seduction. The Scarecrow is already intelligent; he is the one among the group who figures out how to get out of bad situations. He’s awarded a brain by the Wizard, but that’s only an external symbol for what he already possesses. The idea here is that one has happiness and only needs to realize it, revealed through experience and the reservoir of self-sufficiency.
Is it childish to compare my personal encounter with a psychopath to a fairytale? Perhaps on some level it is, but in reality that’s what the psychopathic bond is: a fairytale, an illusion. I find it beneficial for the most part to remember the psychopath for what he was: a fictional character who took me on a mysterious journey to nowhere. In retrospect, it’s an even a bigger mystery to me how I could have possibly believed that a person who lacked all the qualities that make us human–a heart, empathy, the capacity to love, a conscience or moral compass–could help me find what I was missing in my life.
How can anyone who is so empty and deficient offer anything positive to anyone else? As the psychopathic fiction unfolds and the fairytale turns into a nightmare, we all realize that they can’t. Perhaps it took seeing the psychopath’s lack of humanity to make me more aware of my own humanity and of the qualities that I now value most in others.
In their quest to find “The Great Oz,” the characters of this allegory did not understand that they had found all the answers in their struggles and journey. They needed something “symbolic”; something that would give them “closure”. I would love to have something symbolic to represent what I have discovered on this dark journey: a medal, a diploma, or a degree. But what I took away from this negative experience was far more valuable than any symbol: a deeper understanding of who I am that no outside force can ever take away from me.
Evil was always the external force I had to battle on my journey with the psychopath. In the end, the best of me prevailed over the psychopath’s toxic influence. Now, there’s no turning back. Having contact with this evil force would be like going back into those woods: the talking evil trees who didn’t want to share their apples, the wicked witch that knew your weaknesses; if you were made of straw you would be burned to death. Why would I ever go back to a place of darkness and evil? Unlike Dorothy, I never had the ruby slippers to protect me. However, I had something greater on my side that took me home: I had courage, brains and the capacity to love. These human qualities were within me all along. Without them I could have never escaped the psychopath and made it on my own.
This is the way I want to remember the psychopath: through the allegorical journey of The Wizard of Oz. My relationship with him was nothing more than a fantasy or fairytale. In turn, he was nothing more than a character that represented evil forces to test my own character and strength. He was never “real” with me and he will never be “real” to anybody else. But you don’t have to take my word for it. You can always choose to stay in the dark woods or step out into the light and see the psychopath for what he truly is.
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