A less-talked-about wild and eerie aspect of the Colleen Stan case.

SpoilerCASE RELATED

This case has drawn a lot of strong reactions and many questions, for good reason. But while watching a documentary on the case after listening to the podcast episode, they showed one photo that Colleen's family took of her and Cameron while she was on one of the visits that he had granted to her during her captivity. It's one that shows them both smiling for the camera as she's leaning in with her arms wrapped around him.

Now it's one thing to try to act happy for the camera and do whatever the bare minimum is to not draw any major suspicions, but I have to say, aside from her maybe looking a bit more tired than he did, they really sold themselves as a happy couple quite well. Even I, despite knowing the dark and sinister story behind it felt a little sentimental just looking at it.

I had actually already seen the photo thru Google search prior to watching but didn't entirely believe it was her embracing him until I saw the docu. With him, it probably isn't all that surprising given how many perps like him know how to hide their dark side from the general public. But I kind of now understand why there were still a lot of people that doubted whether Colleen was actually coerced into her captivity at the hands of Cameron and why they may have felt the need to grant Janice immunity for her testimony. Especially with the fake love letters and how there wasn't a lot of awareness of how long-term abuse affected victims and the culture at the time about how to deal with it particularly as a woman in a relationship, a photo like that could really sway the public on an emotional level.

The photo: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTYyMjQ5NTI4OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNzA3MjIzMjE@._V1_.jpg

in Casefileby Mezzoforte48

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Tigerstyle72

4mo

Regardless of whether she looked happy in that’s picture which was probably due to years of brainwashing and great of the Company and her captor we should remember that he actually did all those horrible things to her. Smiling does not negate the horrors of her abuse.

Mezzoforte48

4mo

Well smiling itself doesn't always mean you 'look' happy. You can have an uncomfortable smile or be smiling but the rest of your body language demonstrating discomfort. My point was that her body language, not just her smiling made it appear like she was genuinely in a happy relationship with Cameron, even while knowing the reality of the abuses she went through behind closed doors. I'm sure being brainwashed and the threat of the Company for years had a lot to do with it, plus the fact that she was with her family at the time the photo was taken, but it's one thing to 'act' happy, and another to appear happy. We all know she wasn't actually happy to be with him, but whatever coping skills and defense mechanisms she developed during her years of abuse not only made her scared to disobey him, but made her really good at appearing happy to be with him in a convincing manner.

It may not matter at all in the grand scheme of the actual abuses she went through, but knowing how fear and stress can still project through many times even when somebody is trying their hardest to not 'look' scared and how looking scared can actually work to their detriment, her being able to do what she did despite being under the most unimaginable terror and ongoing threats is all the more remarkable.

Aggravating-You-1988

16d

Ya...blame the victim. Yuck. You work hard to justify yourself and go on narcissistically. All about you. I wonder if you'd prattle on about your ND this way if you'd been tortured for years.

Mezzoforte48

16d

Ya...blame the victim.

Please show me where I did that.

I was just making an observation about how 'happy' she looked, which makes the circumstances surrounding her ordeal even more eerie and creepy. And also demonstrating what some people are capable of when under immense fear and stress. Nothing more. Somehow you and many other people took me saying that her smiling and body language was very convincing (when looked at without context) as me victim blaming and negating her suffering.

I brought up my experiences as a ND because for many of us, it doesn't always matter how much we mentally and emotionally adapt to our environment or want to do that, not all of us can mask as well as she does and in fact, fear and stress actually has an adverse effect for many of us. As it does for a lot of people. We as humans are just as capable of fully rising to the occasion when faced with life-threatening circumstances as much as we are of crumbling under it.